Turkey Tracks: March 18, 2013
Garden Promises
We are getting “plowable” snow tonight and all day tomorrow.
You’d never know it as it is a sunshiny day today.
Last summer I went around the yard and took pictures of all our garden decorations. We have way more than I would have thought as neither I nor John like overly decorated yard stuff.
Anyway, I’ve saved the pics for a day just like today, when we are expecting a big snow storm and can’t quite imagine what the yard looks like during summer.
For instance, this porch now has two feet of snow on it–which was melting away until we got our present cold snap.
I love wind chimes and have them hanging all over the place. They sing to us all summer. This hanging plant was so beautiful this past summer. At dusk, in the quiet heat, it perfumed the whole porch. John loved sitting on this porch the most of all.
John and I both say the dragonfly one day in Renys, and without a word between us, it went into the basket to come home. The dragonfly is my artistic sign. Were I to start selling quilts, they would be “Lovey Dragonfly Quilts.”
The rock woman came from our hillside. She was waiting to be showcased in this place where she now lives.
Bedo was a present to John from me back in Virginia. The story is that the real Bedo was made by a little girl for the Notre Dame cathedral roof in Paris. He keeps watch over our driveway all summer.
All across New England, people hang stars of various sizes and colors on barns and houses. For no message or reason that we’ve ever been able to discern. Everyone just likes them. And, they are happy, aren’t they? That’s a metal butterfly to the left of the left garage door. I forget what is usually on the right side and will remember when I start bringing out the decorations in the spring.
The children gave John this bench one father’s day. We would often have a mug of tea together while sitting on this bench and admiring the garden in all its stages of development. This past year we planted all kinds of winter squash in the blue tubs, and they fed us well into the winter. You can see them just sprouting in this early summer picture.
June Derr sculpted this Indian, and Charlie Derr worked on it as well. Skywatcher. He likes Maine a lot a there is no ambient light to keep one from seeing ALL the stars. The garden is fenced temporarily to keep the chickens out as they are still loose in the yard.
St. Francis sits in the river birches amidst the Lady’s Mantle.
That’s our well pump with the bird bath on top. Putting the bird bath on the well pump was John’s very clever idea. The Smoke Tree (purple plant) was planted just after we came nine years ago in June. Beyond the pump are wild woods going up the hill.
John built the two fences to shield my compost holders, the generator, the propane tanks, and the clothes line. The red climbing roses are doing very well in this spot we carved out of the gravel and fill dirt. The blue pot stops the eye from plunging on down the rock wall just beyond it. And, hopefully, any young grandchild unaware of the drop. Later I planted nasturtiums in the beds at the foot of the fences.
Bowen, Kelly, Talula, and Wilhelmina made me this rock for my birthday the year after we moved to Maine. I love it.
So there you have it, a garden pictorial essay when, in Maine, we are yet far from spring.
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