Alone Together.

8-20-09 VERMONT: Lily and I hiked on Mt. Ascutney to Crystal Cascade on Tuesday, and yesterday the three of us canoed on the Connecticut and Mink Brook. Today, Lily caught the early morning bus to NYC leaving us alone together again for two days.

I was back on the job at the crack of noon. I did a bit of rose pruning, sprayed some weeds with Round-Up, cleared the culvert, filled dog holes, watered the new plantings, planted a new purple iris in the pond, and planted hostas and lingularia in the porch bed from which I had pulled daylilies. They were: Hosta ‘Guacamole’; Hosta x ‘Gold Standard’; Lingularia dentata ‘Othello’; Lingularia dentata ‘Britt-Marie Crawford’; and Lingularia stenocephala ‘The Rocket’. I lost the name tag for the iris.

I also laid wire mesh over an area that Gus digs up every day. I fill it in; he digs it up. Now we’ll see if he can use a claw hammer.

It has been dry for almost a week. There have been showers, but the total accumulation has been about 0.1 inches.

New blooms: globe thistle, lobelia, sedum.


Dewey Roquemore daylily. Redness!

A Twofer.

8-12-09 VERMONT: It continues to rain everyday. We have had another 0.55 inches, and the yard remains soggy. Last night’s serving of rain came with a side order of electricity.

Today we went to Greensboro, VT to see Caspian Lake—beautiful—and visit Vermont Daylilies. The nursery has hundreds of different cultivars of daylilies. We bought four which will occasion a new bed for those and some other hybrids. The four are: ‘Fire Lane’, ‘Dewey Roquemore’, ‘Betty Warren Wood’, and ‘Lime Frost’. The first two are bright red, the third is yellow with frilled petals, and the last is white with a green throat—all dramatic. We lunched at the Highland Inn and drove back through Peacham which remains a delight—worth a trip.


Not your father's daylily-'Fire Lane'.

New wildlife sightings include a great blue heron visit to our pond, a coyote on I-91 and a tiny snapping turtle, about three inches long, who snuck into the pond.

New blooms: chrysanthemum.

8-17-09 VERMONT: Well, we survived. Alison and Dan had about thirty guests here, college classmates, spouses and children. The dogs were a big hit with all the kids except for one whose initials are, AMF. The septic system conked out Sunday, but was pumped out on Monday.


General Gus leading his troops.

The new daylilies and some other hybrids were tucked into a new bed before the weekend, and I bought some hostas and lingularia to fill the spots newly emptied by the transplants.

Lily stayed behind when her family left. We have offered her asylum. Lonnie and Bette arrived for a sleep-over as the horde departed, and now they have moved on to Northampton.

New blooms: helianthus.

A Plague of Mosquitoes.

8-9-09 VERMONT: We had Alison’s family here for this weekend, and they’re due back next weekend with up to three dozen friends—yes, three dozen. It’ll be OK as long as they stay out of the gardens.

August started with 0.9 inches of rain, and then there were three or four dry days! Now, of course, it’s raining.

I cleaned the culvert again, repaired a section of the pond bank that had eroded, filled more dog dug holes and weeded. The mosquitoes are out, hungry and frequent. All the rain has left standing water for the bugs to breed, and the bats, big bug eaters, have largely died from white nose disease. The swallows are swooping and, well, swallowing bugs, but plenty of bugs are left to bedevil us.

New blooms: white star clematis, black eyed susan, potentilla has been out, but I forgot to mention it two weeks ago.


Water lilies appear to enjoy the rain.

Maine Event.

8-5-09 SOUTHWEST HARBOR, ME: August began with more rain. We left Vermont, by ark, to visit the Maine relatives on the third of the month. We hiked, Beech Mt, and boated in the fog on the fourth, boated in the fog and hiked Cadillac Mt. on the fifth, visited Thuya Gardens in Northeast Harbor. We saw an osprey and eagle. Tomorrow we head back to VT. XYZ gets my vote as the best restaurant on Mt. Desert Island, if not all of Maine. Bob’s Clam Hut is second. We were lavishly entertained, and it was good to see the nieces, nephews and progeny. We actually had three days here with no rain, yet. There was fog, but the weather was pleasant.


The sailboat masts are visible above the fog bank.


More fog, next day, the fog bank is being blown up and over Bear Island.


Bar Harbor, in the fog, from the top of Cadillac Mt.

Ducks at Dawn.

8-1-09 VERMONT: July closed with another 2.6 inches of rain which totals 13.9 for June and July. We’ve seen a lot of wildlife the past few days. Deer and wild turkeys are pretty commonly seen, but foxes less so, and coyotes even rarer. A couple mornings ago, I was up early and saw a pair of female mallards on the pond. They were repeatedly diving, staying under for up to a minute, and popping up in a new spot. As the dawn lightened, I got a look at them through the long eyes and saw that they were eating crayfish. They hung out for about two hours before the dogs chased them away.

New blooms: first asters, helenium, golden rod, joe pye weed.


Ducks by dawn's early light.

Another daylily.

Climate Change.

7-27-09 VERMONT: Today we had an intense short T-storm at midday that dumped 0.3 inches in about twenty minutes. Yesterday I emptied 1.3 inches from the gauge—the total rain since the beginning of June has been 11.3 inches. Annualized, that would come to 68 inches of precip—a whole new climate for us here. Hopefully, our aquifer is getting recharged.

I have been catching up with chores. I finished the mulching of the roses, added pavers out front, added gravel to the driveway, cleaned the culvert again, cleared the path by the driveway, weeded and pruned, filled holes dug in the lawn by a certain puppy, who shall remain unnamed.

New blooms: pumpkin, echinacea, two-tone daylilies.



What's as dramatic as a lily?

Living on the Edge.

7-23-09 VERMONT: Sorry, dears reader, busy with guests and grand kids. Well, we had more rain, another 1.05 inches, and it's still cold.

This week the boys had no camp, other than us, fortunately, Val and Steve were here to pick up Maggie and Lucy and stayed for a few. We went to the Ruggles Mine, climbed Gile, hiked in the woods, played whiffle ball, went to the Haverhill [NH] Fair, and those under fifteen, spent time in the pond. Tomorrow they go back to California, and we go to sleep.

New blooms: hollyhocks, Asian lilies, Shasta daisies, monkshood, liatris.


Kids doing hard time.

Pond life forms.

Because it's there.

Hollyhock.