That Was a Short Summer.

4-16-21 VERMONT: Ken and Jane came over for dinner last night. It was the first time we had seen them in a year—what a crazy year it has been. 

I mentioned yesterday that we were getting a nice, overdue rain fall yesterday. Well it surprised us last night. As the guests were leaving, about 10 PM, we noticed that there was a bit of snow on the ground.

This morning everything was covered with 4 inches of heavy wet snow. The temperature was at the freezing point and only crept up a few degrees during the day. It continued to snow, and we ended up with about six inches. A tree came down and blocked the road a few hundred feet up hill from us, and the town DPW were here immediately to clear it and to plow.

There are some branches down, of course. All day snow has been sliding off the metal roofs and landing with loud thumps and upsetting  the dogs. The feeder birds have been busy at the feeders, but I worry about the others, the robins and flycatchers whose work zones are buried. 

The ponds are unfrozen and look black against the snow. Snow clumps and drips from the trees land on the water surface, splash and look like fish or duck activity. 

The water looks black, usually blue-green.

The smaller pond and brook. The willow tree has just opening green leaves.

That red maple is in bloom with red flowers. You can just make out the weather vane on top of the barn.

Icy rocking today.

Another look at the little pond

Let it snow!

More snow.

Spring Inches Along.

4-15-21 VERMONT: It’s raining and supposed to rain until sometime tomorrow. We need every drop. I need the day off. 

The clean up is done, thanks to our lawn guys and me. The fertilizing is done as of yesterday, and it should get watered in by the rain. Judy and I bought two new outdoor benches and set them up as well as all the old ones so there is lots of seating out there in the rain. We also put the picnic table back on the deck and put out the deck furniture.

I skimmed a lot of floating algae from the pond when the wind had blown it all near the end of the pond. We took the granite plaque with the dogs names to the engraver so Gus’ name can be added to the others. We put up a brass plaque on Brady the horse’s barn to commemorate his death.

Two turtles have been sunning almost continuously on the edge of the pond. Last year there were four, perhaps five, in residence, but turtles come and go.

I have one tree irrigator, a big, 20 gallon, plastic bag that zips up around the trunk of a newly planted tree, to keep the new tree hydrated when things dry out. You fill it with the hose and it drips water for about 24 hours. I went to six garden/hardware stores to get another one without success. Two minutes on Amazon found them with two-day delivery promised. 

New blooms: hepatica, forsythia, daffodil, blood root, yellow primrose, colts foot. 

Primrose, one of several kinds, last post I showed a purple one.

Hepatica blooms early, but the unopened leaves, which someone once thought looked like a liver, last all season in deep shade. They don't look like livers to me.

Hellebore, Lenten Rose, is another early bloomer, but it so bashful you only see the back of the flower unless you ask it to smile...

It's pretty if you get it to look at you. I wonder who pollinates it when it's facing the ground.

Red Maples.

4-12-21 VERMONT: I went to Brown’s Nursery for their grand opening on Saturday to look for red maples, specifically ‘Autumn Blaze’, Acer freemanii. The trees have brilliant red fall foliage, like the one we lost two years ago. That one was so big and red that people would stop on the road and ask for permission to take pictures. 

Brown’s have dozens. I wanted to have them plant two large ones here, but they’re already booked up until mid-summer.  So I got two not quite so big to plant myself, and borrowed neighbor Andy and his pickup to bring them home. We unloaded them in the yard near the new bridge.

My intention was to plant them on the far, east, side of the new brook, about where the big red maple that died had lived. After much discussion about tractors to move them over the bridge, Judy and I did it manually by rolling the root balls into position. It was hard but doable. Judy is very strong.

Yesterday I planted them after we ran a bunch of chores in the morning. There were a zillion dead roots to contend with, but I cut or sawed them out to create holes and rolled the trees in—job done, after back fill. Now we just need a rainy spring.

New blooms: crocus, primrose.  

Pretty sunrise very early in the morning. I let the dogs out and they scared a pair of duck, who were exploring the pond.

The ducks, American Black Ducks, I'm guessing. It was early and light was poor, this image was severly tweeked.

Mr. and Ms. Brown Cowbird working the grass yesterday before I started planting.

The trees after Judy and I rolled them across the bridge and up the hill.

Now planted. The trees behing them are other red maples, a beech and a catalpa.

Primrose that I planted by the new brook last summer.

Crocus provide early color in the garden.

Vermont In a Warm April.

4-9-21 VERMONT: We came up this morning, getting here in the early afternoon to full sun and 75°. As I have said many times, it’s like traveling backwards in time, having just left NJ with flowers and green grass. While it’s a beautiful day, there are still small patches of snow. The snow has lasted until late April other years. The  road is fine, but recently had been closed for deep mud.

The game cam showed ice on the pond as recently as two days ago and still iced over about a week ago. The ponds are ice free now. One turtle was sunning itself this afternoon, and I saw a crawfish, a newt and am hearing the first notes of the frog opera. The waterfall is a trickle. The huge wet areas below the new dam are much dryer this spring.

I had time to do a bunch of stuff—I put away the snow shovels, took down the reflectors for the driveway plowers, put up the pasture gate, put away the big tarp covering the rockers and deck table on the terrace, started clearing the winter debris, repaired a wall, walked around the pasture with Judy and the dogs, put out a couple benches. We talked to Steve and Diana, the neighbors, who were taking down the sap buckets and taps. They said it was a bad syrup season. 

The grass is brown, the trees are just beginning to open buds. Robins are here working on the grass. If you look down in the beds, you can see tiny shoots of the perennials just starting to grow.

New blooms: snowdrops are everywhere, hellebore.   

A fox crossing the frozen pond a few weeks ago, there is extensive snow cover.

Four days ago, there are snow piles around the house and ice on the pond.

Two days ago, there is still ice on the pond and snow piles around the house as Diana walks across the dam.

Today, Bally sees his reflection in the pond. All the ice is gone and only a little snow left.

A little patch of icy snow still to melt.

It must be spring.

First day out of the mud at the bottom of the pond?

Snowdrops.

More Flowers.

4-8-21 SHORT HILLS: The weather has been lovely, if a little dry. Fortunately the sprinklers are running after a few repairs. I have finished the spring fertilizing, mostly treating shrubs and trees that I planted, not the volunteers. 

Viburnums, burning bush, spice bush, rose-of-Sharon grow all over the yard and are on their own unless one is in a special spot, I don’t treat them. Most of the shrubs get generic 10-10-10 fertilizer, and the acidophiles get Holly-tone. There are a lot of holly volunteers, but I only fertilize the smaller ones or ones that I transplanted. 

The spring flowers and bulbs get a taste if they’re up. There are very few perennials in this yard––no sun when all the trees are out. It’s sunny now, but in a month will be a shaded yard. 

I’ve continued pruning winterkill and deadfall as shrubs come into leaf, and I can see what’s dead or alive. 

The march of the flowers continues. I’ve seen bumble bees and a couple of butterflies across the yard. The birds seem to have paired off, except for the grackles, who continue to act like gangsters. They go to the feeders in a mob and intimidate and chase away anybody who might be there. 

New blooms: saucer magnolia, Yoshino cherry, violet, clatonia, pulmonaria, purple lamium.

Yoshino cherry tree. They come out a week of so earlier than the pink, Kwansan, cherries. These actually make cherries that the birds devour, which makes me wonder why there are no volunteers in the yard.

Saucer Magnolia is definitely one of the highlight of spring. Driving around town one sees them all over.

Clatonia is another spring ephemerial, popping up all over in white petals with red pinstrips, standing tall at two inches.

Violet is another early delight, this foliage lasts all season. They also come in white and yellow.

Pulmonaria, so called because the leaves reminded someone of lung tissue. They bloom a long time and the foliage lasts all season.

Purple Lamium is the first color of lamium to appear. The others are pink, white and yellow and all make a nice ground cover. Yellow is the original and most vigorious and the other are hybrids.

More Yellow.

4-4-21 SHORT HILLS: It started out cool this morning, but warmed up when the sun came out. We did a short dog walk with Bebe and Ron and Sunny. We shortened it so to not stress Kaley after her radiation treatment, and she did fine. 

In the afternoon I did some trimming and pruning off winter kill, now that new growth has started. I did the clematis by the kitchen door and the hydrangeas and roses. I cleared a little dead fall and some broken branches on the junipers. 

Tomorrow the sprinklers get serviced, and I will start spring fertilizing of trees, shrubs and perennials.

New blooms: marsh marigold, peace lily [in the sun room].

Marsh marigold will soon explode with more yellow for a few weeks and then vanish until next year.

A big lily flower appeared almost as soon as the sun got high enough in the sky to shine in through the sky lights in the sun room.

Yellow Season.

4-1-21 SHORT HILLS: It was cold and windy this morning with rain and, briefly snow, but now we have sun with the wind and cold. The colder weather doesn’t seem to have slowed the march of blossoms into April.

It’s Yellow Season—forsythia, spicebush, daffodils, dandelions, march marigold due momentarily—and two goldfinches on the feeder yesterday almost completely dressed in summer finery.

Kaley, our friendliest dog ever, started having nose bleeds a few weeks ago. After a rapid and extensive, and expensive, evaluation at BEVS in Burlington, VT, disclosed Stage 4 nose cancer, we opted for treatment with stereotactic radiation. A center in Clifton, NJ, PetCureOncology, provided the treatments quickly and with a lot of smiles from the staff. We knew it would be expensive when the first discussions were about financing. 

We are all hoping for the one year response they thought reasonable to expect. Kaley endured all the diagnostics and therapeutics without a whimper. She actually hasn’t shown any symptoms except the bleeding. Thanks to Dr. Rebecca Stevens in VT and Dr. Kelsey Pohlmann in NJ for expert care and compassion.

New blooms: pachysandra, squill, dandelion, daffodil.

Forsythia says spring.

Daffodil also says spring.

Spicebush adds more yellow.

Pachysandra joins the spring parade.

Siberian squill pops up now and is on the scene for a few weeks and then gone for another year, like the snowdrops and other ephemerals.

Vinca minor, creeping myrtle, blooms now, but the foliage is evergreen, like pachysandra.

A robin poking around in last fall's leaves for creepers.

Kaley after her day in Burlington.