Memorial Day Weekend.

5-23-08 VERMONT: Judy arrived yesterday with Nick and Gus for a happy reunion with all of us. They had a hard trip on Thursday of the holiday weekend. While waiting for them, I got the chain saw started [sorry if that sounds too ominous] and took down a couple small cherry trees that were in the wrong place, pruned an old apple and took a big, dead lower branch off a pine.

Continuing with the gas and oil, I started the trimmer and cleared around the veggie garden and around the roses and whacked several burdock and thistle, well-known criminals of the plant world. Today I finished the veggie garden set-up, repaired the soaker hose under the plastic ground cover, strung the electric fencing and put up tomato trellises. Then I weeded a new flower bed and put up supports for peonies and meadow rue.

We actually had about fifteen minutes of rain today that was enough to wet the bottom of the rain gauge. The day was windy and cool, and it doesn’t feel much like Memorial Day. Or maybe it does. Years ago we sailed in Memorial weekend races on Long Island Sound, usually from Larchmont to Block Island and back. There was always one cold, rainy night.

New blooms: creeping phlox, azalea.


A cloudy sunset.

Hellebore, an early blooming, shade tolerant perennial.