JLfromNH

May Flowers, courtesy of April Showers

Now past Memorial Day, I look back on how spring has been progressing in my neck of the northern New Hampshire woods. As usual, my personal obsession is with the flowers I see appearing. Along with a generous amount of dandelions, strawberry flowers, Canadian mayflowers and both violet and white violas have burst out of the front lawn. The back lawn has a glorious cluster of forget-me-nots, mostly blue but with a few white and pink ones sprinkled in. It gives me a good excuse for holding off on mowing the lawn.

Wildflowers appear in the patches of woods in my neighborhood.

I spotted this lovely patch of wood anemones just a short ways up the road from where I live.

Star flowers, Canadian Mayflowers, bunch berry and a solitary pink lady slipper have bloomed in the wood behind my home. The single flower of the lady slipper was a pleasant surprise as the plant had not put any blossoms for at least three years, something I attributed to the prolonged dry spell we had been having in northern New England. But the generous rains of last year must have given it a boost.

While technically a wild flower, I managed to convince a few trout lilies to grow alongside the foundation. Their yellow flowers, bowing their heads towards the ground, put on a quiet but pretty display along with large lavish green leaves.

Flowering bushes decorate many lawns around the neighborhood. Along with the forsythia and azaleas, there are flowering crab trees which seem to be putting on an extra lush display this spring.

But of course my all time favorite is the fragrant purple lilac bushes. Their wonderful odor conveys the essence of springtime as nothing else does for me.

This bush is popular enough so that the nearby town of Lisbon, New Hampshire has a Lilac Festival every Memorial Day weekend, rain or shine.

Now on to June! Happy springtime to all.

April Showers

Been under the weather the past week or so. Don’t have too much to write about but I do have some pictures.

Bright yellow jonquils are making a nice showing this spring. Rains have been adequate and the flowers obviously approve.

day lilies growing near foundation of house

By the south facing foundation are growing my mother’s daylilies. I have no idea what variety they are but they are an attractive orange when in full bloom. The warmth of the house foundation often starts them early, poking up through the mulch as early as February though they wait until it gets really warm before they really get going.

The patch of day lilies in the center of the above photo are actually growing out onto the lawn and will need to be dug up. The trick is to find a spot on the front bank where I can place them, as I have already done this several times with previous ‘escapes’.

It’s raining again today with thundershowers. Here’s hoping April showers bring more May flowers.

Happy May!

Spring Equinox Tidbits

Well, last month the main topic was the abnormally warm weather we’ve had this past winter. That continued to be the case right through March up to and a bit past the Spring Equinox. Then this past Saturday, winter decided to take one last whack at us. Beginning early in the morning, a fine snow began falling at a great clip, rapidly accumulating. Weather forecasters had already put out the winter storm warning so I was stocked up grocery-wise in case I was snowed in. There had been a snow-fall several days before of about four inches.

By the time the snow had tapered off Sunday morning, there was sixteen inches of fresh snow on the ground on top of what we already had. Some places got as much as two feet. In all, I think we got more snow the first week of spring than fell all winter. Global wierding indeed.

Robins must listen to the weather forecast as they showed up in the front yard, the day before the storm, filling themselves up on berries from my two hawthorn trees, dislodging some cedar waxwings which had begun to feed.

The robins still had their winter plumage, which consists a large white patch at the base of their tails, spreading up to their abdomens, giving them the look of wearing their long undies. Being larger than the waxwings, they dominated the trees, though a few pine siskins and a house finch managed to sneak in a few bites.

Several weeks prior to this, I saw several small flocks of geese migrating overhead on their way back north. Thanks to the mild winter, there is open water for them to land on when they stop to rest. Lake Winnipesauki had ice-out declared on March 17, beating the old record of March 18 set back in 2016. Never mind what the calendar says, spring seems to be coming earlier every year. To add to the wierdness, Easter falls on the last day of the month with April Fools Day coming the very next day.

Now the weather has warmed above freezing again, melting away the snow. It should be mostly gone by Easter, just over a week after it dumped on us. A solar eclipse will be happening on April 8, but given how mercurial the weather is here, it may be cloudy when it happens. What next?

Well, here’s to hoping April won’t be too crazy. Have a happy Easter.

That Time Of Year Again

With March beginning near the end of this week, has come the time when I begin deciding what to plant. Seed catalogs usually begin arriving around Thanksgiving but continue on through the winter. It’s fun to look at them but I really can’t get into the mood for planting until the days have grown noticeably longer and the weather begins to warm.

This past winter has been light on snow and mild (relatively speaking) in temperature. Decades ago it was routine to see below zero Fahrenheit temperatures often days at a time. Cold snaps of this sort could be counted on to show up at least twice, if not more, at some point during the winter, usually in January or February.

Thermometer showing below zero Fahrenheit

Not this winter. While it came close to zero degrees Fahrenheit several times, the sub-zero temperatures have been strangely absent. For northern New Hampshire this is beyond unusual. Officially we’re at Zone 4b on the USDA hardiness zone map as it currently exists. But unless we get some seriously frigid temperatures over the next two or three weeks, this winter’s temperatures have suddenly bumped my area up to a zone 6. This may just be an unusual winter but it makes it hard to plan when to plant and what conditions I am likely to expect. That’s always hard anyways but these wild oscillations really play havoc with any gardening plans.

Still, I’ll go with the old standbys which I like, such as potatoes, peas and carrots. Those tend to be pretty reliable. I’ve bought Swiss Chard seeds, something I’ve always had difficulty growing, but hope springs eternal. Light snow this winter may very well mean a dry summer, so the drip hose will be coming out, especially if I plant potatoes and carrots as well as wax beans, another favorite.

I also bought a seed packet of Pinwheel Marigolds this past week and got a good laugh when I read the back of the packet.

If they grow the way it says, I will have to call my brother over with his chainsaw to cut a few blossoms for me. Not sure what I’ll do for the vase.

Have a happy Saint Patrick’s Day and a productive March.

February Holidays

At the beginning of each month I use Open Office to create a calendar day for that month which gets stuck on the fridge. The Drawing program is the best one for building a month. I insert a picture, usually a humorous one, near the top, then using the Insert Table function, I create a table for putting in the days and weeks of the month.

I then mark in some holidays of the month while leaving other days open so I can note appointments and other events on them.

For February, there’s Groundhog Day and Valentine’s Day. Groundhog’s Day (February 2^nd) is an odd holiday which we inherited from the Pennsylvania Germans who emigrated here back in the 17^th, 18^th and 19^th centuries. The notion was that if the groundhog (we call them woodchucks here on the US east coast) comes out of his burrow and spots his shadow on this day he will return to his hole to hibernate another six weeks, while no shadow meant an early spring. The fact that there are precisely six weeks between February 2 and the Spring Equinox, irregardless of whether or not the weather is clear doesn’t seem to matter. That is apparently beside the point. It’s an excuse for a small group of men to dress up in formal wear and drag out some poor woodchuck and hold him up the waiting cameras.

February 2^nd is also known as Candlemas, a Christian feast day celebrating the presentation of Jesus at the Temple purportedly 40 days after his birth. It is also called Imbolc or Saint Bridget’s Day although traditionally that is actually celebrated the day before. The origins of Imbolc are a little more uncertain than Candlemas but it seems to go back to early Medieval times.

February 14^th is Valentine’s Day, also a Christian holiday commemorating the martyrdom of Saint Valentine. There were apparently several men named Valentine, dating back to late Roman times. The custom of giving flowers, sweets and other gifts seems to have originated in Britain. In Slovenia Saint Valentine was the patron of spring, good health as well as of beekeepers and pilgrims. This sounds far more benign than the current commercialized bacchanalia of chocolates that cram store shelves around this time, soon to be displaced by the avalanche of sugar poured out in celebration of Easter and Mother’s Day. Small wonder we’re all turning into diabetics.

There are a few lesser holidays such as President’s Day, celebrated on the third Monday of the month. If you do a Google seach, you’ll discover a plethora of holidays for each day of February: Carrot Cake Day, National Homemade Soup Day, National Peppermint Patty Day and so forth. Who comes up with these and more importantly why?

I prefer to keep it simple. Celebrate the birth of Saint Bridget, light a candle to her. Celebrate Saint Valentine’s Day the Slovenic way with perhaps little displays honoring good health, the spring to come and yes even beekeepers everywhere. Don’t forget to eat a bit of chocolate in their honor.

Happy Curmudgeon’s Day!

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