The Porch Revisited

   For those of you who are following this nesting saga, today I simply offer the conclusion to a Spring! project you were left in the midst of...and for those of you who follow us, you know the reason for "Spring!" And for those who aren't familiar with the story behind "Spring!" - it's because "Spring!" is so ridiculously fantastic and embarrassingly beautiful!
   So back to the subject - the screened-in porch.

It began for us as this-

Then became this-

And today became this-

Now, of course, this is entirely staged. Pete humored me and we carried the dining room table from the house and temporarily placed it on the porch just for the purpose of taking these photos...

...but now Pete has plans to build an even larger table since the room is so accommodating.

Pete would not agree to photographing the food because "it is only a sandwich!"

So we did have lunch here today since the table was beckoning, and it was absolutely lovely- the wind blowing through the many trees which lend us so much natural shade, and a robin taking a dip in the bath....and it's Spring!

Life and Death in the Yard

   Spring! is about to burst like a piece of overripe fruit and I can barely contain myself. So many times a day I find myself in a different window just staring out. From a living room window I watch the quince buds on the vine still folded in upon themselves just waiting for enough warm invitation to open,

 and beside that, the wisteria crawling all over the quince, as well as the fence, but still too uncertain of even putting out buds. The window on the staircase looks out at the greening bamboo and the forthysia starting to yellow.
   The climbing roses are clinging seriously to the beautifully weathered fence and that relationship promises to be a lovely one.

   From the dining room window I study the two beds which are all but singing about what's happening under the warm sun. Two small stands of peonies have raised their shiny crimson stalks.

   This past Saturday we had to see to a sugar maple in the front yard that was mostly dead. I met Ed on one of my walks. He was cutting down a cedar. I asked if he knew of someone who could help us save as much of our tree as possible. He told me he was our man. And he was. He came by and taught us about our trees; most are sugar maples which are over 85 years old, and two of them had been struck by lighting. Lightning was what had killed our patient.
   So Ed spent most of the day in the tree with a chain saw. About half of the tree had to be taken down, and he doesn't hold out much hope for the rest. We do feel better that most of the death has been scraped away, despite its obvious embarrassment, and we'll wait for one of those natural miracles. Until then we have looped a fifteen foot length of climbing rose around its nudeness to keep it company.

   Of the death - seasoned wood. By Monday afternoon Pete and I had moved and stacked the cut branches and limbs that Ed had left under the tree for us - about a cord we think.

Oh, how wonderful it is to be working outside - something we will be doing for many months. Ahead of us are some tasks which we really aren't prepared for, so much more adventure to follow.

Half gone but not forgotten

 

Slouching Towards Any Color Whatsoever

    Thus far the greatest challenge of antique home ownership in Connecticut has been saving the bird food from the impressively-limber squirrel population.

   Until now. Presently I am scouring the property for any Spring color to send to our lovely Kate on her birthday. This challenge is a credible second. The third challenge is probably coming up with the property taxes.
    For us, most of the color we've seen this year has come with the birds. Since December 4th when they first noticed our attempts to feed them, they have brought an indefatigable spirit and then, finally, Spring! After this long and cold winter, I shall always capitalize 'Spring' and feed the birds.We've even started making our own feeders so we can watch them more closely and with fewer hindrances.

A piece of slate on a rope

   Yesterday I sat in the big window and made a list of the afternoon birds: cardinals, bluebirds, bluejays, grackles, nuthatches, chikadees, starlings, a house finch, umpteen house sparrows, a downy and a red-bellied woodpecker, a hawk far above, juncoes....but I bore those of you who have been surrounded by Spring for months.

    You've seen the crocuses...

but here is something new for us.....violets.

And these opened just in time for the festivities,

Not-so-colorful but exciting nonetheless,

And cheating...

...this one we had to force bloom inside....and given our in-home temperatures it took a long month.

And our final colors for you...

...the marbles in the fence.

Happy Birthday sweet Kate!
 

Planting for Spring

    Alas. Our hands are tied. We can not plant anything. It isn't the fact that we're still in danger of frosty nights...that has never stopped us before, though it should have. It isn't that we're over budget and shouldn't spend money on unnecessaries - though we probably shouldn't. Our problem is a splendiferous one.
   Surrounding the house are flower beds. In the bed outside the kitchen window grows a ten foot rose which we didn't cut back in the fall. Now there are clumps of dark purple crocuses. The problem - we have no idea what else is in there. We arrived in late October and don't remember anything but the rose and a money plant. All winter the bed has been buried under two feet of leaves, and we are just now beginning to clean it out to see what arrives. So far I've found a lime green croc and a tin bucket. The dig continues.

A pot of greens

    There is another bed directly beneath the window in the dining room. There grows another rose, a hydrangea, some sorts of grasses and fifty or so iris rhyzomes - thus far.
    The bed across from that one, beside the weathered fence, contains too much lamb's ear, more grasses, chicks and hens, wild oregano, Joe Pye weed, some mystery bulbs, and, again, we know not what else. For us, this Spring will be like Christmas.
    So I have a drawer full of seeds and no place to put them.

   But I lie. I have stuck in a few seeds here and there. Among the lamb's ear, at the suggestion of mama, I scattered some bachelor's button seeds before last night's rain. The morning before I planted some Russell's lupin along the short slate wall between the two beds. A hanging basket above the nuthatch house holds nasturtium and sweet pea seeds.

    The one place I do feel free to plant is on either side of the front walk. It seems to have been left to its own devices. Last fall I interspersed stones then moss to prepare for an herbal rock garden. The primroses from the kitchen windows await that move.

    In Connecticut, in the second week of April, we are still very thirsty for color, including the green of the grass; and we are still anxiously awaiting the first leaves. Man-oh-man, it has been one very long bare season and I hope with all my heart that I have color to send for Kate's birthday next week.
    But slap me if I'm complaining because this is the first week that the house is over sixty degrees and, as I write this, a chikadee and a cardinal share the feeder outside the window.

April Fool's Day...

...arrived one day early in Connecticut this year.

This was the backyard yesterday-

And this is today - April 1

Happy Birthday Jimmie Joe!

And HAPPY MAYBE-SPRING everybody up here!

in Just-

spring          when the world is mud-

luscious 

the little

lame balloonman

whistles          far          and wee

and eddieandbill come

running from marbles and

piracies and it's

spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer

old balloonman whistles

far          and             wee

and bettyandisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it's

spring

and

         the
                  goat-footed
balloonMan          whistles

far

and

wee

e.e.cummings

"Hope is the thing with feathers...

...that perches in the soul" and in the northeast it is thoughts of warm sun and crocuses and any color other than soiled-white that fires our icy and wearied imaginations.
Oh Spring...where are you?
   Every cold afternoon I walk through the snowful and soggy yard hunting for bulbs and fresh green shoots. For Peter and I, this spring will be extraordinarily exciting because we don't know what will be sprouting. What we do know is that the former owner of the house was an avid and Irish gardener.
   We have found the roses, some of which grow twenty feet into the trees.

These rosehips attract bluebirds

   We have found the grape which tangles itself relentlessly through the fence posts. We have been told by our lovely neighbor Patricia of the host of daffodils beneath one of the sugar maples.
  I have uncovered the tiny patches of bulbs which I hope will grow up to be grape hyacinths.

   Beneath one of the living room windows is a bush I pray is a quince and beside that imaginary quince is a beautiful and malignant wisteria.
   Among the moss I put down at the stone base of the house there are a few maybe-tulips forcing themselves through.

The moss we collected from the shed roof

   And beside our beautiful little shed poised here in its winter finery,

 is another pièce de résistance - a flowing and generous lilac.

Proactively added our own color to the landscape

      The only thing in the yard that has grown this winter is my tipi, which I hope will support sweet peas and morning glories in the early summer.

But first spring must come!