I had built up quite a few nice shots of sunsets on my phone, and thought I'd loop them into this post about a particular night's gardening, on June 18th. I'm not a morning person so you won't see me weeding at 6:30 in the morning. I know it's the coolest part of the day but there is just no way.
I have a helpful hint for viewing the photos on a larger scale. If you single click on any picture, it will load a slideshow of all the pictures and you can see more detail.
The following shots are from June 18th. I had to be in Columbus that day and when I got home I had high hopes for pruning some of the lavender plants I had already cut from.
When I took Tutu outside though it looked like the rain, coming down from the direct North was going to go around us and I could garden all evening.
And to the east it looked positively time for an ark.
I put Tutu on the line and began getting out gardening tools, but the wind picked up, and the pollen started floating in the air and it started to rain ever so slightly, then a little harder so I sighed, looked at the radar that indicated it was all going to go around us, and went inside.
I did a little housework, I tried to take a late nap. A friend called and we talked for about 45 minutes. Then at around 7 I went back outside and realized it hadn't rained that much. So I bundled the dog back out, put her on the line, and got the gardening implements in the lavender. I dug up some clumps of poison oak with a shovel and tossed them into the pasture. Then, it started to rain. Hard enough that I couldn't keep Tutu out.
So I bundled her back in the house. Irritated that I wasn't going to get any gardening done, I decided that I was. I put on my Duluth Trading Company Dry on the Fly pants that are water resistant, and my Frog Togs jacket, and a rain bucket hat and some gloves and I put on my black boots and decided I was going to clean out a section of the lavender that had really gone off the rails.
I wish I had a before picture for you, but it was raining just hard enough that I didn't want to get my phone out. It was not so hard that I couldn't work. I gotta say, it was nice. At first it was overcast, and I just worked with a grim determination. This including cutting away tons of crap weeds and volunteer tree sapling limbs from the miniature lilac that grows at the edge of the lavender. This is just a stop gap for aesthetic as I didn't dig anything up or coat the cut parts with an herbicide. It will all grow back but for now, the lilac doesn't look like it's being consumed by other plants.
I also clipped some volunteer trees in the lavender by the clothesline. Again, a stop gap. I pulled up large weeds that were loosed by the rain softened earth. I weeded around the lavender plants in that area and pruned the Tucker's Early Purple. At 9 years old, they may not grow back. Like my original 12 beloved Marge Clark's I planted these with Dad the day after we lost half of our roof to the tornado on route four.
For more about that time, you can go here
Most lavender farms replace their plants at 5 to7 years. These plants had long given me what they could. Then I turned my attention to the heartbreaking task of ripping up the dead-beyond-recovery Marge Clark plants. The rotted and dried wood came up easily from my tugs. I sighed. I looked at the little bits and bobs of Marge Clark surviving, miraculously on one limb of the plant. I am not sure if there is even enough to take cuttings from.
But I reminded myself that everything has a season, even favorite plants. And there cannot be a new beginning unless there is an accepted ending. So I worked. As I saw my progress, I was inspired to continue work. My body was warmed up and it was cool rather than steamy with the rain. I didn't even notice that my gloves were soaked.
At some point I noticed a change in the light. It wasn't subtle. I had completely missed the transformation around me in my labor and it was breathtaking.
This is the third or fourth time this summer that I have been able to see individual raindrops falling in the sunlight. I marveled at the sight and fished my phone out, trying to take pictures and keep the phone dry. A week later I would be driving through Irwin in a downpour that was lit up by the western sun. I didn't get a picture of that since I was driving, but it's a vision I'm not going to forget. And with sun and rain in the right portions at the right angle, we get rainbows.
Have I seen more rainbows in the last two months because of the weather, or because I am home to see them?
I didn't take an after picture of the area I cleaned but I will take a picture right now from the second story window of the guest room, where I do a lot of blogging. It's the same room Andrew and I moved into when we had the master bedroom re-done when the roof was getting replaced. I'll try to walk you through the picture.
Look to the left hand clothesline post. This is the lilac that was overrun with multiple little volunteer trees, mostly invasive honeysuckle. Underneath the clothesline is where I did the bulk of the cleaning out of the dead Marge Clarks and pruning. Look to the middle right and you will see two blue wash tubs. They are antique and are right in the middle of last year's plants and this years. You can see the weeds encroaching once again but these will be easy to pull up.If you look again to the left, you will find another blue bucket, more weeds and a patch cleared of weeds. This area has much harder vegetation to clear, clumps of grass that need to be garden spaded out. I've gained quite a bit of ground though and once the rest of it is cleared, I'll be planting the lavender seedlings my green thumb gave me. The weeds in the middle, nearer the two large tubs, will take abut 4 hours to pull up.
If you enlarge the picture you will see lavender blooming in the back. These are also older plants and the stems were so short, that I didn't cut them this year and I left them for the bees. After the 4th of July I'll be pruning those too, giving the bees time to get their share but also to coincide with the waning moon as I am studying biodynamic gardening. Andrew is talking me into experimenting with some organic weed control so we shall see. Speaking of Andrew, in the back of the picture is his central summer project.
The herb garden on the same night. It's gone feral as I've had my attention on the lavender these last three weeks. Soon I'll be bringing some semblance of order here. I planted a lot of seeds this spring and by now, they should be large enough for me to tell apart from the weeds.
Please enjoy this short clip of Maxwell grooming is plush little self. Like watching chickens scratch around, or fish in a tank, watching a cat lick it's fur can be quite meditative.
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Next post will be about lavender planting and then a day trip.
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