JLfromNH

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!

New Years Eve 2023

Well, another year has come and nearly gone. When I look out into the front yard this is the view I have.

The total lack of snow is quite notable. While we have had snowless Christmas’s before, they were few and far between back when I was young. It was more customary to have at least five inches of snow on the ground, if not more, by the beginning of the New Year. Now it seems to be more like every other year. Thanks to climate warming, this is the new norm.

The implications for gardening are hard to measure. With insufficient snow pack, some plants cannot make it through the winter should there be a sudden severe cold snap. Weed and insect pests which might have died from the cold can now make it through to spring. All this requires adjustment on my part when planning a garden. What will do best come summer? What soil amendments will be needed? How heavy or light will the rain be? This past year was quite wet, a change from the semi-drought conditions of the past decade. But these are questions that have always come up no matter what climate change has done or not done.

Many months lie between now and spring allowing me to peruse the latest batch of seed catalogs and mull over what to try in 2024.

Have a happy New Years!

November Notes 2023

November seems to have run its course very quickly. The first few snowfalls have whitened the landscape, though mild weather still returns often enough to melt it away. Thanksgiving has come and gone. Christmas now looms. A fresh coating of light snow from some unsettled weather this past weekend gives the lawn outside the appearance of winter, even though technically it’s still late fall and not all of the leaves have gotten raked up.

A morning walk several weeks ago turned up this interesting discovery.

A fallen branch from an old beech tree shows a series of holes drilled into the bark. This is the work of a type of woodpecker called a sapsucker. In New Hampshire, it’s the yellow-bellied sapsucker which abounds.

Like other woodpeckers, it feeds on insects, berries and fruits, but it derives its name from its habit of drilling neat lines of holes in live trees and feeding on the sap that oozes out. Healthy trees can tolerate the minor damage caused by the birds, though sickly ones may eventually succumb if the damage is significant enough. For the most part, these little holes, or sapwells as they are sometimes called, can serve a beneficial purpose. Other birds, insects and small mammals like squirrels will also feed on the oozing sap, exploiting an important food source.

The sapsucker nests in cavities they excavate in tree trunks. Once the nestlings are raised, other birds such as swallows and bluebirds will make use of the ready made holes for their own young.

Because of these modest but helpful benefits, sapsuckers are regarded as a keystone species in the northeastern woods of North America. If you’re interested in seeing these small birds, they will frequent bird feeders and appeciate suet placed out for them. So keep an eye peeled for them this winter.

Have a happy holiday season.

The Remains of the Season

Fall foliage is past peak and either turned brown or fallen. The first few snow flakes of the coming winter got spat out of a dreary raw rainy sky yesterday along with a few pellets of sleet. Halloween and November are on the doorstep. Plenty of seasonal lawn ornaments, some cute, some ghoulish.

Halloween lawn decoration, giant skeleton

Already plenty of leaves to be raked up with more to come.

While there’s been no frost or freeze yet, the weather has been raw enough so that growing season has pretty much ended, except for the occasional fungi bursting out of the ground.

I find it hard to think of it as still fall, with the first day of winter still over a month away. Rather it seems more a curious pause between fall and winter. The brilliant colors of autumn have vanished but the snows of winter have yet to collect on the ground. This little segment of the year ought to have a name of its own. Possibly Ember Days, which in Christian calenders marked a period of time following the change of the seasons (spring, summer, fall, winter) when fasting and prayer were done. There are a number of different types of celebrations done at this time of year, honoring the summer and the bountiful crops (if any) it produced, allowing food to be put up for the winter to come.

Given what a short period of time it is (roughly end of October to Thanksgiving, or whenever the snow begins falling in earnest) perhaps it might best be named the Quiet Time. A time for taking stock of the past year and begin preparing for the year yet to come. A time for peacefully appreciating what we have, rather than going berserk in the wild consumer bacchanalias that Thanksgiving and Christmas have been turned into.

Whatever it may be called, enjoy and have a happy season.

Summer’s End 2023 (part 2)

With this past summer winding down and the first day of autumn this Saturday, I like taking a look around before the fall chill really starts to bite down. A few leaves have begun turning color, although the real show won’t begin for a few more weeks. Small flocks of birds are starting to congregate, in preparation for their migration south for the winter. The raised beds are past their prime with the potatoes having matured, their greenery dying back. Those I will leave in the ground for the time being. Wax beans have mostly gone by, with the last batch being just enough for a meal.

Zucchini has never done well for me, with only a single zuke on the vine that looks like it might actually amount to something, the others having withered and dropped off the plant without getting any longer than my thumb. This can be due to missing soil nutrients such as calcium or inadequate pollination by insects. Since I have seen a decent population of bumblebees this summer, I suspect that the soil may be the issue. Oh well, there’s always next year.

Carrots didn’t do all that great, with poor germination by the seeds this past spring. I had to replant and even then the seed sprouted slowly in a very desultory fashion. The excess amount of rain we received this summer may have affected their growth. Those that did grow will stay as long as possible in the ground before I pull them up to see how they did.

The carrots left over from last year that I planted as an experiment, blossomed profusely. Many, though not all of the flower heads are going to seed. I noticed with some surprise that ants seemed to favor the blossoms, climbing around on top of the flower heads. My initial suspicion was that they were farming aphids, but close examination of the flowers and stems showed no sign of aphids. Apparently the ants seemed to like the flowers themselves, but whether they did any pollinating is hard to say. I have seen ants on wild sarsaparilla blossoms also, so they may do a bit of pollinating here and there.

The last few weeks of September are when stores such as Home Depot and Walmart fill up with fall mums. The grocery stores offer them up as well. There seem to be just three main colors (that I saw), white, yellow and deep purple. I haven’t seen any of the orange-bronze color yet. As many of my potted flowers are going – well – to pot, I dug some of them out and planted fall mums.

Fall wildflowers put on a bold display with goldenrod and asters predominating. My personal favorite is the New England aster.

The blossoms are a vibrant purple with orange centers. Bees, wasps and yellowjackets zoom around over these tall flowers, eagerly pollinating them. Herbalists make use of these plants, employing the stems and root for relieving pain and healing wounds. The root by itself is claimed to ease diarrhea and fever. I haven’t had occasion to try them out, much preferring to just admire them and try sowing the seed heads about after they finish blooming in the hopes of helping them spread. If this plant does have medicinal value, it’s worthwhile to have as many as possible.

That’s all for this month. Hope your summer was a pleasant one.

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