spring

spring, Barefoot & Bare-fist fighting: Ozarks gardening

2 Comments

90 minutes and only got in the beetroot, beans, corn, onion sets, summer squash, okra, radishes, cucumbers, marigold, nasturtium and spinach. Still need tomatoes, peppers and eggplant. 

I may also have forgotten something planted or on the to-do list for 2nd planting time (1st planting time is around Imbolc, 2nd Bealtainne, 3rd Midsummer).

  
Sage coming in nicely:

  
Baby dill. He’ll grow about 3 feet bushier:

  
Lavender’s having a rough spring. Very little green has peeked out from last years remains:

  
6 foot high garden fence topped with barbed wire, to keep out deer:

  

spring, Bobby: Morel hunting is the WORST hunting I’ve been party to

5 Comments

–the one thing I did find was my 1st tick-bite of the year

Not only is it plant hunting but … we found none. I took photos as I searched and went into the front creek after giving up. Bobby got to enjoy some swimmins when we got back to the house. -he swims 3,278 times a day in our ponds anyway but it’s always fresh for him!

Missouri Wildflowers -helps identify by colour

Basic (Missouri) Mushrooming -don’t miss several linked articles at bottom for related articles

Lichens of Lower Ozarks -for the serious wildcrafter, this is a paper by a member of MOBOT

Our Front Creek is part of the Big River Watershed -we’re in the nice, mixed-y-up area towards the bottom with the best variety of geo-formations

Videos as links to my flickr, below photos…

 

baby wild carrots

Bobby and Himses Pond (one of them)

methinks a fawn femur, given size

determined white oak roots clinging to the side of a ravine

mmm, shaley goodness

I’m crap at rock identification but I think the orange might be granite. Honestly, I took this for Cha0tic, whom I thought would like these two more colourful ones

sun! (reflexion)

purple hyacinths and Bobby on the wrong side of a fence

everything around here is tumbled down, it’s a very Ozarks sight

robust moss, less-so wild fern

fawn (reckon) vertebrae

unsure: tree ear fungus?

you can’t tell but this is 20 feet down a ravine where a bunch of our chat washed, which is also a common Ozarks phenomenon. Put 20 tonnes of chat on a road, next year 2/3 of it will be Elsewhere. #Incline

redbud blossoms

wee mandrake/ mayapples…they’ll grow up 10x this size or if you know what a full-grown plant looks like, this is at 1/10th

Bobby in full swim (about 15 feet deep where he’s crossing).

Front creek.

spring, bit damp round here 

3 Comments

thank gods the National Weather Service is ‘on’ it…-that’s sarcasm

This came to my phone with accompanying screech almost an hour after my house flooded. Guess it may help the Flatlanders upstate.

  

An hour earlier, Bobby warned me by appearing terrified but I knew something wicked this way cometh cos it had gone pitch black at pre-10h.

Like any hillbilly worth her salt, I ran outside to see what I could see/ forecast where to run or lie in a ditch.

I heard the freight train sound and reckoned I’d go inside and lay the levees. -since Kitchen River is a frequent spring-summer thing, I’ve learnt where to place a couple of sauna towels to narrow the flow towards a drain

Normally,* this is my only flooding area. The house had that work where they dig around, lay drainage tiles, bury drainage pipes out to the pastures and we have a sump pump for when the water comes down to quickly to allow natural drainage.

While I heard the train sound (tornados don’t always make that sound but if you hear it and don’t live near a train track but do find yourself in the Midwest, it’s a given that something was a-cycling over yer head!), it didn’t set down–at least here. What we got was a super-cell storm that brought within 3 minutes, enough water to flood the kitchen and *dining room, which has never happened.

Then it went away but another wave came. We’re meant to have this off and on all day.

Normally, I’d be at work but I was home sick for the fun and frolic! Can’t be bothered to clean up as you can’t battle Mother Nature. Let her tirade and once she’s stomped off, then I can clean.

I told The Duchess it was safe to use the phone, it was clearing for now but another wave was coming (pointing at the sky). She went to ask Spike if she could use the phone and he told/ showed her the same thing.

Heh. He is older but I was raised here, too! Besides, who do you think taught me to read the sky? Hell, I impressed fishermen off The West of Ireland with my weather forecasts. They rely on news nowadays. Me? I was raised like it was the mid-19th century, the way their grandparents (or great-grandparebts) were. Didn’t have electricity to tune into a non-existent wireless back then, did ya? 

Look to the skies! –and listen to animals, the wind, watch the trees and animals

It’s not sympathetic augury. It’s real shit. I can’t tell you the next month but the next few hours, I pretty good with!

spring: so Lilac you

Leave a comment

Driving home, most things are still muck-beige to clay-brown or wilted yellow. 

Why, yes! –for the Flatlanders Those are grain elevators…and an electrical wire.



As in the earlier, pre-peach tree bud post, things are just starting to peek out.

Lilac:



My thighs and feet. 



Flora: wildflowers

6 Comments

20130418 wildflowers.jpgThese are amazingly fragrant, as you’d expect!

I only pick when there are loads more or you’d see a wider variety (over-harvesting could ruin the ‘colony’).

Last night’s walk showed many ‘pop ups’ from the insanely-hot day (for spring). It was 90F/ 30C. Tomorrow’s low will be nearer freezing — although we don’t expect it, we could still get a hard freeze!

This high temp belongs in July but here it is! Tree frogs (extremely loud, unlike the joyous noise of spring peepers) are coming out, Mayapples and Dogwood peeked out and a WASP!