Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Finally back again
It's been nearly 3 weeks, but I arrived at Sidetrack about 1:30 yesterday. A pair of loons were floating in the lake a few meters beyond the dock. Everything looked ship shape.
Except for the salvia in the pots on the deck. The stems looked like sad sticks with a few red, sagging flowers at the top. No wonder the hummingbird feeder was nearly empty. Cleaning and refilling it was one of the first things I did.
A few of the salvia revived a bit after I watered them. There must have been rain here, but so light it didn't get through the pine branches to reach the salvia pots.
Here's why I know there's been some moisture: at least three different kinds of mushrooms growing in the yard. A couple of them are huge.
In the reference section of the Sidetrack library, we have identification books for birds, trees and shrubs, wildflowers, rocks, ferns, and pond life, but nothing for 'shrooms. If you know what any of these are, let me know. The largest ones are 6-8 inches across.
It's also time for the tiger lilies to bloom. I delight in those feathery blossoms because of my childhood memories of my great-grandfather's front garden. When I was about the same height as the tiger lilly stalks, there was a relatively huge patch of those red-orange plants on the southwest corner of his house.
The tiger lilies blooming at Sidetrack now are plants I liberated from a road ditch about half a mile from here. They were in the road crew's mowing zone, but one year I saw them blooming while on a walk. I went back in the fall (twice) and dug up pails-ful of the roots and brought them back here. Most of them survived. There are now about 20 stalks, but not all of them are mature enough to bloom yet.
And I get to revel in 60-year-old memories of the 90+-year-old guy who would pat my head and claim that his hair was once as red as mine and tell tall tales about his youthful adventures.
Here's great-grandpa Albert Rohl standing next to his hollyhocks. They grew in his back yard. I'd guess it was taken in the later '40s or early '50s and hand colored by my mother or one of her sisters.
Except for the salvia in the pots on the deck. The stems looked like sad sticks with a few red, sagging flowers at the top. No wonder the hummingbird feeder was nearly empty. Cleaning and refilling it was one of the first things I did.
A few of the salvia revived a bit after I watered them. There must have been rain here, but so light it didn't get through the pine branches to reach the salvia pots.
Here's why I know there's been some moisture: at least three different kinds of mushrooms growing in the yard. A couple of them are huge.
In the reference section of the Sidetrack library, we have identification books for birds, trees and shrubs, wildflowers, rocks, ferns, and pond life, but nothing for 'shrooms. If you know what any of these are, let me know. The largest ones are 6-8 inches across.
It's also time for the tiger lilies to bloom. I delight in those feathery blossoms because of my childhood memories of my great-grandfather's front garden. When I was about the same height as the tiger lilly stalks, there was a relatively huge patch of those red-orange plants on the southwest corner of his house.
The tiger lilies blooming at Sidetrack now are plants I liberated from a road ditch about half a mile from here. They were in the road crew's mowing zone, but one year I saw them blooming while on a walk. I went back in the fall (twice) and dug up pails-ful of the roots and brought them back here. Most of them survived. There are now about 20 stalks, but not all of them are mature enough to bloom yet.
And I get to revel in 60-year-old memories of the 90+-year-old guy who would pat my head and claim that his hair was once as red as mine and tell tall tales about his youthful adventures.
Here's great-grandpa Albert Rohl standing next to his hollyhocks. They grew in his back yard. I'd guess it was taken in the later '40s or early '50s and hand colored by my mother or one of her sisters.
