Cows, Herbs, Flowers.

5-26-12 VERMONT: I forgot to mention in the last post that we have three cows in the pasture. They belong to Josh, who does the lawn and is a neighbor, and are heifers, young ladies awaiting their coming out parties. It will be a bullish affair. Afterwards they will have a career in the dairy business. Two of them are chocolate and the other vanilla.

Yesterday was rainy, 0.1 inch, and we ran errands, including a trip to Longacres for plants and MoleMax, a mole and vole repellent. Something, voles, moles or chipmunks, ate some of the lily bulbs. If the repellent gets rid of them, I’ll plant something new. Between showers, I cleaned and replanted the herb bed. I saved some iris, columbine and Jacobs ladder volunteers for a flower bed. The thyme and oregano which usually over-winter are mostly gone this spring. The bed now has: curly parsley, rosemary, dill, tarragon, basil, oregano and thyme.

Today I did the perennials. I put three violets in the bed below the new wall, Viola cornuta ‘Sorbet Babyface Purple’, ‘Etain’ and ‘Rebecca’. In the porch bed, I put two coneflowers, Echinacea ‘B’s Knees’. In the lowest north terrace bed, I put two cardinal flowers where blue ones have done well, one red, Lobelia ‘Red Beauty’ and one white, Lobelia ‘Gladys Lindley’. I put one yarrow, Achillea ‘Pomegranate’ and one thrift, Armeria maritima, in the bed on top of the new wall, and a sweet William, Dianthus barbatus ‘Indian Carpet’ in the north pond-side bed. Add in some weeding and pruning and it’s a day.

New blooms: epimedium, centaurea, first hybrid daylily.

Pasture ornaments.

Mama robin at work. The daddies don't have that dark tip on the beak.