Archive for the ‘spring’ Tag
I decided to do that one big job I had scheduled for today before I blogged anything. That may have been a huge mistake. I’ve been putting off doing some repair work to my lawn tractor that still refuses to start. I knew it would be a frustration for me because I hate doing things mechanical. The only mechanical person in my entire family was my late father who maintained a large float-glass factory for PPG for more than forty years. He knew everything about machines and he taught me only enough to get me into trouble. He also over the years taught me how to really and truly cuss. I was never aware of how many cuss words could be strung together until I worked with him on a few of his projects.
Pop was a professional cusser and damn proud of it. I ‘m more like him than I care to admit and if today was any example I may be better now than he was then. This effing tractor is driving me insane. I was tempted today to just drive it out into the middle of the back yard, douse it with gasoline, and a have a freaking bonfire.
After I thought about it a while I decided that doing that would then turn into something else entirely. With my luck some A-Hole from the town might ride by, check to see if I had a burn permit, and then call the cops when they found out I didn’t. Then the cops would have appeared and issued me a citation which would have sent me right over the edge. That combined with my pissed off attitude over this tractor would have assured me of a ride to the county jail for some sort of disorderly conduct charge. I know for a fact I’d have used a lot of those good old cuss words my father taught me and then the cop would have cuffed me and dragged me away.
If all that had actually occurred it would have cost me a few hundred dollars in fines, a few hours in the jail, and a somewhat questionable relationship with the local police. Then I would have come home and the real punishment would have started. I’d have heard each and every one of my father’s favorite cuss words all over again from my petit but really loud better-half. Nothing on earth is worth sitting through that tirade.
With my common sense keeping me from a trip to the jail I ended up saving a few hundred dollars today. Now if I take that money and hire a real mechanic to fix this damn tractor I just might break even.
It’s funny how things just keep snowballing along whether we like it or not.
I can finally accept the fact that Spring is here. I don’t take anyone’s word for it anymore but I do listen to Mother Nature when she speaks. The easiest way to make that determination is to sit on my deck and await the arrival of the hummingbirds. They arrived this morning and spent the entire day trying to empty our recently filled feeder. They must have been very hungry after their long trip and were sucking down that sugar water as fast as they could. Mother Nature’s sure-fire way of letting us know.
These last three days of beautiful sunshine permitted me to begin my yard cleanup and to complete a long list of repairs to the garden frames. Something else I picked up along the way was the beginnings of a bright red sunburn. My pasty white body will take some time making the adjustment to sunlight and I’ll enjoy every minute of it except for that first blast of hot water in the shower later tonight.
My better-half and I decided to take a few hours off and cruise up towards Sebago Lake which is an hour or so north of here. The town of Naples has always been one of our favorite spots for sitting on a deck overlooking the lake and enjoying a fun lunch. As you can see by the photos the sun is shining but the lake is only just beginning to thaw.
We drove the perimeter of the lake for an hour snapping a few more scenic pictures where the ice still is holding its own against the warmer temperatures. Most of the businesses have yet to open their doors and are spending most of their time cleaning things up in anticipation of the upcoming flood of tourists.
I can’t wait to return here when it’s a little warmer, with the restaurants open, and the place crowded with lots of interesting tourists. It’s a great place to relax, rent a canoe or jet-ski, and even take a plane ride over the lake up towards the White Mountains.
To misquote one of my favorite Generals – “We shall return.”
My bout with Spring Fever continues at a clip. It happens like this every year and every year I tell myself I’ll keep things under control. I’m afraid this will be the year that convinces me I don’t have a prayer of keeping things under control. I will probably continue to overwork and overspend like I do every Spring.
Yesterday the sun came out, the air was warm, and I was fired up after a few cups of ever-so-strong coffee. It was time to get out the old jeans and boots and get down and dirty in the garden. As I do every Spring I begin my chores in my herb garden. Pulling out those dead plants that didn’t survive the Winter, cleaning up debris, and preparing the soil for replanting. It appears that my normal winter losses were much less this year than in the past. Having that three feet of snow cover for most of the winter offered the plants a great deal of protection.
It felt good to be outside working and after a couple of hours I had a huge amount of dead plants and debris to dispose of. I had lunch and then decided to just keep on going. I use cold frames in the Spring to start a lot of plants to help increase the length of the short growing season. I’ve discovered over the last few years that certain plants like jalapeños will produce almost twice as much due in a large part to those three extra weeks spent in the cold frames.
‘This one lasted five years but is now on it’s way to the bonfire.’
One of my older cold frames was badly damaged by the heavy snow this year. It was crushed under the weight of the snow which completely shattered the glass cover. I was forced to remove it from the garden and discard it. Then it was off to Lowe’s to purchase some pressure treated lumber and hardware so I could begin construction of a new cold frame.
‘The required hole was dug and I was ready for installation.’
An hour later I had the cold frame completed and installed and with just a little landscaping and digging to finish the job. I was pleased with the results and I look forward to at least a minimum of five years of use.
“Ready for the plants.’
Another hour of cleaning the other parts of the garden and I was getting tired. It was time to take a hot shower, pour myself a brandy, and relax on the deck. The cat and I got seriously lazy awaiting the arrival of my better-half from work.
It was a great start for 2015 but a lot of work remains to be done. I’m really looking forward to getting the garden preparation completed and to begin planting. If today was was any indication I know one thing for certain, I’m going to be more than a little sore in the morning.
I may need to restock my Tylenol supply very soon.
With a major warming trend gripping Maine I was swept away with a huge dose of Spring Fever this week. I moved my grill from storage, cleaned it up, and cooked my first feast for 2015. I spent some quality time on the deck reading one of my favorite books with my favorite lazy cat. Life was slowly improving and I began to throw off those Winter doldrums.
I decided that since a great deal of the snow had disappeared I’d take a trip to the coast to look around a little. I worked my way up the coast to the inlet where the great Scarborough Marsh empties into the Atlantic Ocean. This inlet is populated by a large number of lobster boats and their owners and is the area where you can buy the freshest lobsters in town. There was a lot of activity in the harbor with the boats being cleaned and readied for the warmer weather.
As you can see by these photos it was a gray day but slowly showing some signs of Spring. I should have known better than to get my hopes up because the weather in Maine is nothing if not fickle.
I awoke yesterday prepared to face the day and to begin the cleanup of my yard and garden. How stupid am I? I walked to my bedroom window, looked out, and saw an overnight deposit of four inches of snow. WTF!
Now I’m once again depressed and irritated. While listening to the radio today I heard about the Freezing Rain Alert for tomorrow where high winds, sleet, and power outages are expected. What did we ever do to deserve this I wonder?
I think it’s time for me to sit quietly, sip a glass of my favorite brandy, and relax so my head doesn’t explode.
More light snow through the night last night but we’re expecting warmer temperatures today. As we drove through the surrounding towns this morning it became fairly obvious that Spring has officially sprung. It seems as if every maple tree in Maine is in the process of being tapped for their sap. It’s one of the best indicators that Winter is on it’s way out finally. These first two photos are examples of the old time way of tapping.
‘Old School – Low Tech’
Many of the local farming families have been doing this since just after the Pilgrims landed and like doing it the tried and true way of their predecessors. Others have succumbed to the more modern ways and now use multiple plastic tubes from multiple trees that flow into a central container. Take a look.
‘New School – High Tech’
The results are the same but there’s something really comforting about seeing it done the old way. You can almost picture the pilgrims and their ancestors tapping trees in these same areas in the mid 1600’s. History is just too cool.
As we made our way home I snapped this final picture of what looks to be a very lonely horse. He’s just hanging around and watching the world go by. I think he’ll be just as happy as the rest of us to see Spring arrive.
The Spring melt continues between bouts of annoying snow that keep showing up almost every morning. Fortunately it’s usually just a dusting that melts away as soon as the sun comes up. What’s been the most surprising is the speed in which the snow has been disappearing. Having four feet of snow on the ground for most of 2015 and piles more than fifteen feet high found in certain parking lots, it’s melting away much quicker than expected.
I’ve been mentioning for the longest time about the amount of ice and snow that has built up on the roof of our home. The rear of the house gets very little sunshine and the accumulation there is always an issue. Each year we look forward to the "ice fall" and this year was no different. I was working on my computer when the whole house shook much like a small earthquake. I knew immediately that the ice had dropped and OMG it was amazing. A sheet of ice between ten and twelve inches thick, four foot wide, and thirty feet long, smashed to the ground with a tremendous roar.
‘Be glad you weren’t standing here when it came down.’
After last Winter I was forced to rebuild the hand railing on the steps for the third time. When the ice drops it usually crushes the railings and they must be rebuilt. I attempted to build a replacement rail that would survive the ice drop and I was successful. This huge ice sheet hit the railing and bounced down off and landed in the yard. That’s one project eliminated from my Spring repair list.
I began today by heading to Lowe’s to purchase the materials I’ll need to rebuild my mailbox. I’ve come up with a new design that will hopefully keep those damned snowplow drivers from costing me more money next year. Here are the results:
‘Before’
‘After”
Later this week my plans for rebuilding the frames for a portion of my garden will begin. Then we’ll decide what we’ll be planting and where. I’m looking forward to the warmer weather and getting outside to dig in the dirt a little. Winter can’t disappear soon enough as far as I’m concerned.
‘All you need is a coat, hat, gloves, a blanket, and a space heater.’
I hate to admit it but I think I may be suffering from a slight case of Spring Fever. I try never to fall prey to things like that but I’m beginning to feel it. With official Spring being just a week away maybe it will actual happen.
I see ice and snow quickly disappearing and to help that cause along I spent two solid days cleaning snow and cumulated ice from my second floor deck. The snow was still two feet deep and the ice under it was between four and six inches thick. To put it bluntly it was a real ball-buster of a job which I’ll never do again. When I finally cleared a large enough area I set up the deck table and chairs and sat down for a break. Spring in Maine, twenty degrees, bright sunshine, sitting on my deck wearing a parka, hat, and gloves.
Yesterday was another beautiful sunny day and I decided to greet Spring with a flurry (no pun intended) of photographs of the beaches in the area.
Here we go . . .
‘It’s hard to walk on the beach when you can’t get there.’
‘If you think the water looks cold you should feel the wind.’
So maybe I’m rushing things a little. Can you blame me? This has been a long, long, long winter and it needs to “cease and desist” right now. I took a drive past the amusement park in Old Orchard Beach and wasn’t all that amused. Brrrrr!
‘It’s the only time of the year when the lines for the rides are this short.’
‘Almost open for business.’
Even the birds are unhappy. I can’t imaging why they insist on swimming around in freezing cold water but they appear to love it. I was uncomfortable just watching them.
So much for my first beach day of 2015. I hope to God the rest of them are considerably warmer with a few more thongs and bikini’s to catch my interest. This is as good as it gets in March so I shouldn’t be complaining.
It can only get better.
After thoroughly enjoying my day-off and cruising around the area with my better-half it was once again back to work. It seems that we’re finally free of the frost for this year so we I began planting the next group of plants which included black beans, green beans, wax beans and snap peas. Any or all of these are delicious to eat fresh from the garden but they also can be canned without losing their flavor. Normally we use them as part of the vegetable mixes we make for use through the Winter in stir-fry’s.
The vegetable mixes are usually the last thing we do before closing down the garden. The mix can contain any number of veggies that are left over at summers end. We try to make a number of different assortments as you can see by the photo’s.
The better-half has been trying unsuccessfully for years to grow gourds. She gives them a great start in the house under glass as you can see. Then they are moved to the cold frames before final planting. We decided this year to move some of the gourds out of the garden to a spot closer to the house where they can get sun and be better protected from the weather. We’ll cross our fingers and hope for the best one more time. In my opinion it’ll take a minor miracle to get them to grow large enough to produce anything useful. She’s forever the optimistic and is certain it’ll work this year. Half full is her manta in all things.
I wanted to plant the jalapeños and cayenne peppers but stopped myself. As a rule peppers do best when they have warm nights so I decided to wait another week or two. I’ll be able then to put the cucumbers, zucchini, and squash in and finally be done with the garden planting. So for now they remain in the cold frame.
My winemaking efforts continue and that red wine I mentioned in an earlier post has completed it’s hard fermentation and moved into glass jugs and sealed with air locks. It’s now just a wait of a few months for the jugs to clear. Eventually gravity will cause all of the yeast to drop to the bottom of the jugs and I can siphon off the clear and finished wine. I have to say I love the smell of yeast and wine when it’s fermenting. I wish some company could bottle that smell because I’d make sure my man-cave was always filled with that fragrance.
While I was cleaning and organizing my man-cave I was pleasantly surprised to find this bottle of wine.
This is a bottle of blackberry wine that I made back in 1986. I’ve recorked it a few times over the years and each time I’ve taken a small taste. It’s pretty potent after all those years but I think I’ll put it back in storage for a few more years before I try it again.
A day-off was really becoming necessary after the last few hectic weeks of gardening and lawn clean-up. Today was the day. The better-half was also on a day-off so we slept in a little, loaded up on coffee and breakfast, and then jumped into the car and took off. It was a semi-beautiful day but the cloudiness was going to make taking pictures a challenge.
We drove east towards the shore and the traffic was light. In two more weeks the tourists will arrive in force and make traveling a little more interesting in these beach areas. We drove up the coast for a few miles and stopped briefly in a small cove used primarily by local lobstermen. I snapped of a few photo’s of them at work and a few of the birds covering the nearby rocks. Neither seemed too happy about my picture taking but I persevered.
It was breezy as hell and the temperature had dropped just low enough to require a hoodie if you planned on walking around. We returned to the car, turned on the heater, and warmed up a little. As we proceeded north it was great to see everything struggling to become green again and the sun finally decided to make an appearance. We stopped briefly at the Portland Head Light which is one of the most visited and photographed lighthouses in Maine. It guards the entrance to Portland harbor.
As you can see it’s just a place made for photographers. It’s almost impossible to take a bad picture there. Normally this place is mobbed with tourists but we were lucky to get here before the Memorial Day madness.
Our trip continued north as we entered the city of Portland. If you you’ve never visited Portland your missing something special. It’s a small city with a small town feel. It has a colorful waterfront as you can see and if you like the ocean the aroma of low tide here will enchant you.
My better-half has a overwhelming desire for beer at almost any time so I decided to make a quick stop at Three Dollar Dewey’s, a local ale house and restaurant. It’s located on Commercial Street in Portland, adjacent to the harbor. It’s a charming area with fish markets, micro breweries, and some serious parking issues if you visit in season. We try to stop at Dewey’s whenever we’re in the area for a quick cold one and a large order of fries. They are just what the doctor ordered.
We finished our fries and drinks and then walked around town for a few minutes of people watching. Everyone was out in large numbers enjoying the sunshine and warm weather. Check out this little project someone created along the street. Snap a padlock of some sort on the fence and write your name on it. I though it was pretty cool so take a look.
It was mid-afternoon and time for us to depart. We enjoyed this relaxing break from our normal lives and were ready to head home. Tomorrow is another day.
“Spring Has Definitely Arrived”
Yesterday was one of those days I look forward to every year. My better-half and I both love this time of the year regardless of the work involved. It was a day spent traveling around southern Maine visiting nurseries and buying the plants needed to complete this year’s garden. We like making a day of it and we visit as many nurseries as necessary to find the plants we’ve decided to grow.
For many years now we’ve shopped at a small nursery or what once was a small nursery along the border of Maine and New Hampshire. In the intervening years that nurseries reputation has spread and it’s no longer considered little. Healthy plants should be the goal of any nurseryman or woman and these people are the best. We tend to find their plants healthier and produce better than those purchased elsewhere. We spent at least an hour roaming through their greenhouses and making our selections. We picked up a few jalapeño and cayenne pepper plants and a selection of herbs to replace many of the ones that didn’t survive the winter.
We found some beautiful cherry tomato plants that should keep us in salad tomatoes until Fall. Those kind of tomatoes are also added to our vegetable mixes and canned. There’s nothing like having a selection of tasty garden veggies in the middle of a cold and snow covered February.
“The Rhubarb is Up”
We purchased a number of pickling cucumber plants that should deliver many dozens of cukes for making our Bread & Butter and Dill pickles as well as sweet and hot relishes. If this year’s production is as good as last year we’ll be very busy come September.
One of the items my better-half desired was a licorice herb. It’s leaves have a heavy licorice scent when heated. I personally like fennel or star anise for that flavor but I’m keeping an open mind for now. It would be a nice surprise if this new plant were easier to grow than the others and tasted better. We found the plant at our fourth nursery we visited and were very pleased. That plant can be difficult to find but certain nurseries are known for carrying the more unusual plants and we know them all.
“The Sprinkler’s are Installed”
It made for a really pleasant day and we returned home tired but happy to have found everything we were looking for. We should also have an excellent selection of herbs to harvest and dry this year to fill our requirements for the winter. Another week should get us past the danger of frost for this year and all of the new plants will be planted and left on their own to flourish for a month or two.
Our last purchase next week will be a large number of really fragrant marigold plants. We’ve learned over the years to plant them in and around the gardens to keep the critters away. Apparently small animals and even deer have a real aversion to those flower and their strong odor. If that doesn’t work then I may be forced to go the high-tech route. I have a neighbor who installed a system last year that has a motion activated sprinkler. If visited in the middle of the night by deer or other animals the sensors detect the animal and shoot a blast of water at the trespassers to scare them off. It sounds too good to be true but I’ll keep an open mind. We’ll just have to wait and see.
This morning is rainy and gray but the plants need the water and I need some time to loaf. We’ll be back at it soon enough. A few hours on the X-Box today should clear my head nicely.
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