Spring Updates

Hey Kids! I know there isn't much happening outside, but I already have spring fever. Such a bad time for this. I think I'll start my leeks and onions soon. Maybe the end of the month. The "girls" are doing well and laying eggs often. I am getting an average of 3.10 eggs per day. Wait Zach, you may ask, how are you getting 3.10 eggs? I'm just averaging the number of eggs that I am gathering over the course of them laying. It is so humorous. I never named the chickens, I just called them "the girls". My mother, on the other hand, all of a sudden started talking to me about Georgie, Henrietta, Esther, ect. This was the text I got from her one day.

Mom- "Zach Henrietta in out in the yard!"

Zach- "Okay...and..."

M- "I put her in the coop"

Z- "WHY? Who is Henrietta? Is that a chicken?"

Anyways you get the picture. So now I am getting lots of different colors of eggs. I am selling them now, and all the proceeds are being donated to my local church. I made my coop from a Lil-Tike play house, I'll have to tell you all about it some spring. Unfortunately I lost all of my pics when they were babies :( 

To sign off, here are the girls wishing you 'Good Mornin' while eating their oatmeal breakfast.

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Plants that work for a living

"Plants that work for a living" has been my screen for plants to add to my garden for a long time.

Do they provide sustenance for pollinators?  Are they host plants for butterfly pollinators?  Do they provide habitat for nesting birds? Do they restore habitat?

I should add, too, do they feed me and my hubbie, too?  I'm a passionate vegetable gardener as well as being a gardener who welcomes and supports wildlife.

I loved this article in the NYT about Asking More of the Landscape.

It's all about restoring the habitat diversity in our personal landscapes and public landscapes.  It's vital and important to do.  And it's good work.

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Argentinian Patagonia

In the Argentinan side of Patagonia, the drier vegetation (because of the rain shadow effect) is evident.

We drove along a lot of gravel roads (really rather remote and seemingly untraveled) in this part of our trip.  There wasn't cell service (even if we'd had "smart" phones along). And our other wireless devices...

But the landscape was amazing, expansive, and incredible.

near Esquel, Argentina (view from the "the Old Patagonian Express")

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Queulat National Park

I'm trying to find time to get back to our trip to Patagonia, among way too many distractions.

Here's an view of a wonderfully powerful river, below the hanging glacier in Queulat National Park, in Chile, off the Carretera Austral.

It's a wonderful place.

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Sharing nature with kids

A school field trip today had me rethinking my volunteer activities in the future -- it's such fun to share nature with children, even on a chilly February morning.

It's magic to encourage noticing furry buds of Japanese magnolia or showing them a "tea" plant.

Even if it's not as vibrant as it is in spring, summer, or fall, nature (in the garden or in the woods) is always magic.

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Lake views

I've taken to walking on the dikes above Lake Hartwell with Woody in the mornings.

The winter views are open and lovely, and the light clear with winter's low humidity.

I'd walked occasionally on the dikes over the years, but there's something now about the expansiveness of the view that draws me now, and I've become a "regular," I suppose.

It's a grounding walk -- I'm mindful now of leaving the Upstate for the mountains of Western North Carolina in a few months for the final time.

And shedding the saved articles, folders, memorabilia, and stuff etc. of decades (both related to work and home) -- hmm.  Both much harder than I ever anticipated, but freeing too.

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Celtic spring

Today marks Imbolc, a Celtic holiday I'd never heard of -- before signing up last fall for a online nature and place-based writing course marked by Celtic holidays.

Hmm, so far we've gone through Samhain (All Hallows Eve/Halloween) and Winter Solstice -- now Imbolc.

Imbolc seems to have turned into Groundhog Day (in North America), in an odd turn --  as the holiday is really about celebrating signs of spring and lengthening days.

So why not thoughts about whether we'll have more weeks of winter to come, or not?

Japanese apricots, crocuses, and snowdrops are already in flower (non-native all).

Prunus mume (Japanese apricot)

Our first native is usually Hepatica, but usually not until late February (lots of posts in the past about first spring flowers!)

I'm noting, too, that in 2009, I wrote about exceptionally early flowering (in January) in our non-native flora, including winter annuals like henbit.

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