I love spring anywhere, but if I could choose I would always greet it in a garden. ~Ruth Stout

Just bought this red Achillea

This has been a good year for daffodils and tulips.  The days have been cool, in the forties and fifties and we have below freezing temps every night.    In cold weather the tulips continue to look good for a long time. 

These were planted last fall.  They are a pretty shade of purple.  I've forgotten the name.

I believe this is Miranda and I've had this lovely double red tulip for over ten years.  I can hardly believe it has survived so long because tulips have a life expectancy of three declining years here.  I planted it in the vegetable garden and would love to move it to a more prominent place but I'm afraid to touch it.  

These  dwarf bearded iris almost go unnoticed among the larger, brighter spring flowers.  They are increasing quickly and I'll have a nice colony in a few years.

Parrot tulip Madonna.  This is the fourth year for this tulip and there is only one of the dozen originally planted still coming up.  The poor thing has lost almost all of the feathering on the petals.  It's still pretty.  Hoping to find more this fall. 

  

Parrot tulip Rococo beginning to open.  This is it's first year, it was planted last fall.  It looks very strange before it opens completely.   The crimped edges look like teeth in a big red mouth.  See how my imagination runs to the sinister;)

Here's a mess.  This is my pot ghetto of recently purchased plants now waiting for overnight frosts to cease before they can be planted.  Every night the plants are carried into the garage and every morning I carry them outside to get some light.  I do this every spring because plants in retail stores aren't well cared for.  Plants are healthier if they only have a brief stop over in retail.

This is Foxfire.  Today she brought her bunnie outside for a stroll in the pasture.  Fox is so careful with her stuffed bunny, she never tears it or pulls the stuffing.  In the photo, she is guarding a little stash of toys, Jolly Ball, bunny and a tennis ball. 

We walked along the edge of the creek and watched our neighbor to the southwest disk his field.

The dogs are taking a break in the shade while they watch the tractor. 

"The sun was warm but the wind was chill. You know how it is with an April day. When the sun is out and the wind is still, You're one month on in the middle of May. But if you so much as dare to speak, a cloud come over the sunlit arch, And wind comes off a frozen peak, And you're two months back in the middle of March." - Robert Frost

A couple weeks ago we had some lovely spring weather but like the poem says, a cold wind blew in chilly days and freezing nights. Visiting the garden centers, I found lots of frost kill to the  annuals and even perennials and shrubs have freeze damage.

Now Staring

False Rue Anemone brightens up shady places.

Goldfinch colors get brighter and brighter.

Pretty species tulips with lily shaped blooms.  

Lovely shade of pink.

 Very double yellow tulip almost like a yellow peony.

Coming Soon

Blue Bells

Lots of furry Allegro poppies self seeded where they will.

Brand New

Over the years I've bought dozens of bleeding hearts only to loose them to extremely dry summers or maybe they didn't like the location I chose.  This year one plant emerged so I added two more.  I love the graceful arching stems and the pretty pink hearts.

Woodland phlox keeping the bleeding hearts company.  These were my Dad's favorite flowers so I always want to keep them in the garden.

April is a rainbow month, Of sudden springtime showers. Bright with golden daffodils and lots of pretty flowers.

The goldfinches are changing from olive drab to sun kissed gold.  Another welcome sign of spring

I was sure I'd lost my tiny bloodroot, it usually blooms much earlier.  I was so glad to see the pretty leaves and pristine flowers suddenly appear in mid-April.  

The greigii tulips usually bloom much earlier too.  So much to love about these little tulips.  Pretty blooms, bold, striped leaves, dependable rebloom with some increase.  

The first soaking rain of the season followed by the first daffodils of 2015. What a welcome site after a long, long winter.  

Warming in the morning sunshine of the black barn roof.  

"It takes a real storm in the average person's life to make him realize how much worrying he has done over the squalls.” ― Bruce Barton

My sister and her family watched this F-4, 200 mph tornado cross the field directly behind their home. Thankfully her home was not damaged.



Fairdale, Illinois, the entire town leveled.  Two women killed.



I give credit to the weather forecasters in my area.  At times they were almost frantic following the paths of the tornadoes.  The obvious distress could be heard in their voices and no doubt inspired the residents to pay heed and  seek shelter.




The new radar equipment pinpoints rotation which allows minute by minute warnings.  Thank you weather forecasters and thank you first responders.

After her close brush with the tornado, my sister wasn't able to sleep so she collected anything she thought victims and first responders might need and drove to Rochelle were the tornado touched down first.  

There 's no song where others sing, More glorious than the rest. ~ Dora Shorter

 

     Friends keeping me company while I do some spring garden cleanup.  
Gold finches are year round residents but migrating red polls are seen very briefly in my area.

Most of you gardeners and wildlife lovers know all this but I always get excited and want to write about it each spring.

The season is changing and migration  has begun.  We all love nature and want to be closer to it and a part of it.  This is an exciting time for bird lovers and bird watchers but a stressful time for the birds. Birds have a long journey of sometimes  more than a thousand miles to make  through parts of the country they are unfamiliar with.  They face severe hardships including lack of food, physical exhaustion, and extremes in weather,  They must navigate man made obstructions like communication towers and windmills which kill millions of birds.  And they do all this using methods that we don't completely understand.  Scientists think birds navigate using the same routes every year by means of the stars and the earth's magnetic fields.  (A lot of research shows that animals can feel the earth's magnetic pulls and understand the relationship of stars to their location.  To me this is nothing short of a miracle which nature has in abundance and people will probably never feel but we keep desperately trying to understand.)

If you are a bird lover, a bird watcher, or a bird feeder like me, you have your feeders filled to the brim and maybe some thistle socks added to your usual millet and sunflower feeders. Every year birds on their way to Canada stop at my feeders to get their fill of food and renew their energy resources.  This is an opportunity for me to see birds I only see briefly once a year.  Indigo buntings, red polls, grosbeaks, pine siskins, sap suckers and others don't spend the summer here but they pass through my area.

I hang at least one thistle sock on branches near my windows hoping to get some great bird views and great photos through the glass.  Don't worry about the thistle seed sprouting in your flower gardens.  Nijer seed is sterilized to prevent sprouting and maintain the high prices charged by growers.  Keep your eyes peeled and your camera ready.  Migrating birds usually hang out at feeders for several days regaining their strength before continuing their journey.

Above is the most recent 'migrater' to arrive back in my area.  For the last several years vultures have nested in the loft of a ramshackle old barn on a corner of my property.  I'm happy to see them back this year.    It's exciting to see them hovering overhead, never moving a wing, just hanging motionless in the air.  The first year they lived here it was a little disconcerting to see them sitting on the barn roof watching me work in the garden.  Since, I've gotten used to having them around.  I especially enjoy watching them teaching their young to swoop and soar around the barns.  

For those who love poems as much as I do:

Under the Vulture-Tree

BY DAVID BOTTOMS

We have all seen them circling pastures,

have looked up from the mouth of a barn, a pine clearing,   

the fences of our own backyards, and have stood   

amazed by the one slow wing beat, the endless dihedral drift.

But I had never seen so many so close, hundreds,   

every limb of the dead oak feathered black,

and I cut the engine, let the river grab the jon boat   

and pull it toward the tree.

The black leaves shined, the pink fruit blossomed   

red, ugly as a human heart.

Then, as I passed under their dream, I saw for the first time   

its soft countenance, the raw fleshy jowls

wrinkled and generous, like the faces of the very old   

who have grown to empathize with everything.

And I drifted away from them, slow, on the pull of the river,   

reluctant, looking back at their roost,   

calling them what I'd never called them, what they are,

those dwarfed transfiguring angels,

who flock to the side of the poisoned fox, the mud turtle

crushed on the shoulder of the road,

who pray over the leaf-graves of the anonymous lost,

with mercy enough to consume us all and give us wings.

Then all is silent and the snow,

 Falls settling soft and slow

Winter isn't ready to give up her hold on northern Illinois.  She buried us in one of those heavy, wet snows that come mostly just before spring makes an appearance.  Too heavy to shovel snow; back breaking, heart attack snow.  Perfect snowball packing, snowman rolling snow.  

Snow that disappears in a few short days and leaves puddles and mud in it's wake.

But while it lasts, snow that dogs love.  

Snow that inspires races.

Snow that disappoints daffodils just emerging from a long sleep.  

Snow that looks perfect viewed through  kitchen windows.

Mud Time

Snow melts and mud replaces it.  The ground is frozen a few inches below the surface so there is no place for the water to go.  

Nasty, boot sucking slime.  Just another cycle we have to get through every March. 

 I love my Sloggers.  So easy to clean, just hose the mud off.  They are one bright red spot in an otherwise trying time.  

Wish they made Sloggers for dogs.  

Now I know how Mom felt when three kids and a big dog sloshed into the kitchen without removing our boots or even  wiping them on the mat.  I can still hear her complain, “Out, out, out.  Take off those boots.  I could grow potatoes on this kitchen floor.”  This must be payback, Mom.  

A spring by any name will not necessarily feel as sweet.

March 1st is the first day of spring.  Meteorological spring that is.  There are two first days of spring and I had to look up the exact definitions to get the idea clear in my mind. Meteorological seasons are split into four periods each three months long.  These conform to our Gregorian calendar.  Somehow this makes it easier for weather people and statisticians  to compare seasonal statistics and forecasts.  In some parts of the US, meteorological seasons may be accurate but the farther north one goes, the  more inaccurate they seem to be.  

The astronomical seasons are determined by the earth's elliptical orbit around the sun and the first day of spring begins on March 20 (the spring equinox) and runs to June 21. This is the more accurate definition of spring in the north because it is related to the changing orientation of sun which is what drives the warming of the earth. Friday we had the coldest day of the year 25-degrees below zero.  That doesn't sound like three days before spring.  

So tomorrow when all the TV weather forecasters are talking about the first day of spring, I will not pay much attention.  There is something dispiriting about nasty blizzards with a foot of snow which always come in March after the first day of meteorological spring.  I will know it's spring the same way people have known and celebrated for centuries.  Not by a calendar but by the spring equinox.  

This is the tunnel that leads to the bird feeders.

Cold feet.

Where am I and where is the back door?

  Toby serves as my resident groundhog.  If he goes outside and there is snow on the ground, he proclaims it isn't spring yet.  

Cold Comfort

It's cold here.  The foot of snow from weeks ago hasn't melted.  I don't usually pay any attention to wind chill numbers.  That's mostly hype the forecasters use to make winter weather sound more extreme and dramatic.   I have to admit, when they start talking about wind chills at 25 degrees below zero, you have to pay attention to that.  When we get a long running streak of weather like this, I start to blame my ancestors.  Why in the world didn't they settle in some nice coastal climate?

It's northern Illinois and it's winter and it could be worse. We just need to get through the rest of February and the first three weeks of March.

Here are scenes from around the farm.  Can you guess what the first picture is?

 Below the yard north of the house 

Below the pasture east of the house.

Actual temperatures below.  

A Poor Wayfaring Stranger

It was early morning a week before Thanksgiving.  I glanced at the indoor, outdoor thermometer beside the back door, 67 degrees inside 4 degrees outside.  I pushed open the door.  The dogs saw it before I did.  Something little and black streaking across the yard and into the barn.  The dogs were close behind but the barn door was partly closed and the dogs were too big.  It took me a few seconds to identify what I’d seen.  No squirrel, or rabbit, or possum or raccoon.  A kitten. 

What was a kitten doing more than a mile from the nearest house on a bitter cold November morning?  I searched the barn but the kitten was well hidden and wouldn’t come out.  I found the live trap and set it up in the barn bated with cat kibble.  An hour later the trap was sprung and a frightened kitten was inside.

I doubted if the kitten had walked across a mile or more of frozen corn stubble to get to my farm so the only explanation was that some good and kind animal lover had dumped her out of their car to die alone outside in the cold.   

You can’t just bring a stray cat into a house of healthy animals so we went to the vet.  Ear mites, fleas, skin problems, worms and malnutrition, but no upper respiratory.  The blood tests showed no FIP, FeLV or FIV (the dreaded alphabet diseases as my friend Judy calls them).   The kitten came home and lived on the porch, dosed with Revolution, until I was convinced she had no disease that could be transmitted to Toby or the dogs.

Because of the coming Thanksgiving holiday, I began to think of the kitten as a sort of  pilgrim. The dictionary says a pilgrim is a wayfarer, or a wanderer.  I know most of us think of pilgrims as part of a religious journey, and of course this does not qualify in that sense.  But in her plain little black and white coat, alone in a strange and hostile world,  I can't help but see the similarity.  Today, she is healthy and gaining weight.  A little like the Pilgrims we celebrate on Thanksgiving who came here seeking a better life, she made a hazardous journey and, at the end, found her new beginning.  

The Winter Gardener

I'm starved for something green and growing.  What does a person who loves the outdoors and gardening do in February in northern Illinois?  She gardens indoors of course.  I don't do it on a big scale.  My sister has orchids and huge old potted plants she overwinters on her sun porch.  I just have a few small plants that live on window sills and in the little greenhouse I found at Hobby Lobby.

Yesterday, I found a display of potted plants at a big box store.  Two little crotons came home with me zipped up inside my winter parka to keep them from freezing.

This will have to satisfy me until I can start some seeds in March.

 First Snowfall of 2015

Late August blooms

The weather has been hot and humid for the last few days interrupted by brief episodes of torrential rain.  The rain cools the air dramatically if only briefly.  Blooming in late August.  

 This goldenrod offers a little taste of the wild in my tame garden.  It self seeded here and I allowed it to stay.  Pollinating insects love this plant.  

Autumn Joy beginning to bloom.  I cut this plant back drastically in early July.

You can see the humidity in the air.    

These zinnias have bloomed forever.  Will try saving seeds for next year's garden

 A sunny section of the center garden

Topaz processed daylily photo

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