flowers

Today might be the first day of spring, but we still have about a foot of snow on the ground with the possibility of more to come tomorrow.

icy stream

reflections on ice

Yesterday we took a walk down to the old quarry to visit the local porcupine neighborhood and see who else was ambling around in the past week.

porcupine trail near the quarry

Charley and I at the quarry

Turns out, in addition to porcupines steadily walking on well-beaten paths, a bobcat bounded around the quarry, daintily made its way across the snow crust, toes splayed wide like snowshoes, and meandered through the blackberry thickets in our woods.

bobcat bounding up

bobcat bounding down

bobcat tracks

bobcat walking on crust

And for a real treat, we found otter slide tracks around the edge of the beaver pond, complete with scat made of fish scales.

otter slide

otter slide on beaver pond

In garden news, not much is happening. We have lettuce and spinach growing under lights inside. In the hoop house, the voles happily ate all of the greens and even some of the tops of the leeks. Some chickweed is coming in… hopefully they don’t devour it all too!

lettuce

spinach and lettuce under lights

The houseplants are feeling the longer days though.

Klivia

Orchid

Klivia

Orchid

This is the time of year when I glory in bringing in the harvest. It never ceases to amaze that a tiny seed, given rain, sun, soil, and a little love, will grow into a great vigorous plant that miraculously produces big, juicy, delicious fruits that feed us until we can’t bear to eat any more.

gorgeous peach

Seascape strawberry

We’re overrun with luscious fruit!! Over 55 peaches eaten fresh in just about 2 weeks of gluttonous delight! Everbearing strawberries are still producing. Tiny blueberry bushes loaded with berries. Raspberries dropping off the canes (but covered with horrid fruit flies). Watermelon, cantaloupe…

blueberries

watermelon

peach tree

raspberries

Vegetables are doing well too, for the most part. I’m swamped with produce to put up for the winter.

peppers

sungold cherry tomatoes

corn

lower garden

my favorite summer treat. Homegrown tomatoes, basil, homemade mozzarella

black beauty eggplant

But I say “for the most part” because the tomatoes now have late blight. It’s horrible. The fruits get gross blisters and the whole plants wither and die.

sungolds with late blight; note blackened vine

brandywine with blight scabs

My parents visited and we fixed the hoophouse that partially collapsed in the snow last winter. This fix makes me feel much more confident that we will survive the next big snowstorm without further damage, plus we can now walk through the central aisle without dodging boards.

propped up in the central aisle

supported interior

swaybacked hoophouse

looking straighter

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

I’ve also been working on our high porch railing, in part to keep all of our friends’ kiddos safe from a second story drop-off; previously the railing basically functioned as a ladder.

The flowers are nice too…

driveway bed overflowing

Charley in the zinnias

obedient plant

lobelia

Our hugelkultur bed succeeded in growing pumpkins and tomatoes, despite the fact that it is essentially still a pile of logs, sawdust, and grass clippings.

Aug 17

Sept 21

A few hen turkeys along with their mixed-age young like to journey through our yard frequently, eating grass seed and dust-bathing in the potato patch.