The wisdom of trees

As  I have watched this Spring 2015 unfold, it occurs to me that there are even more lessons that can be learned from trees, in addition to the one I mentioned in my post entitled "Longing":

"I realise there's something incredibly honest about trees in winter, how

they're experts at letting things go."  -Jeffrey McDaniel

In the back pasture here on HeartSong Farm, there are various kinds of oaks and willows, as well as tallows, maples and what is often called a Chinese umbrella tree (which is not the same as a Chinese tallow or popcorn tree).

Leafing out starts off slowly.

In the backyard, next to the house, it is easy to see that the Japanese
magnolia is way ahead of the crepe myrtles in leafing out.

Some trees bud out as soon as the temperatures warm up a bit, while others wait longer, maybe a week or two, to sprout new leaves,  Some flower first, and some don't bloom until late Spring once they are all leafed out.  So, if we let them, trees can teach us about "everything in its own time". Realizing this helps me get through the impatient times that I struggle with as I get closer to retirement.  Everything is unfolding as it should, after all!  Relax and enjoy! Breathe and pay attention!

Look at all the manifestations of green just in my front yard!

When we look around at all the various shades of green in early Spring, and, later when we admire all the colors of Autumn, trees can teach us to notice and appreciate all the shades of the human race.   

All the greens go well together, no clashes in shades or colors.  There are yellow greens, blue greens, true greens, purple greens, light and dark greens, and they all exist side by side in Nature.  In Autumn, the yellows and russets and oranges and crimsons once again co-exist beautifully, and we admire them as they stand out against the greens of the pines and cedars.  

Similarly, shouldn't we admire and appreciate all the colors of the people of the world?! Our different colors, talents, histories, stories, religions, philosophies, foods, and music is what makes our world a very special place to live. Shouldn't we appreciate all the differences which make our world rich and interesting?  I happen to believe we should, and I hope that you do, too!  It really is a beautiful world out there, you  know.  Take a look around you.

I am a Tree Hugger,  and unabashedly so.  When I was a child, my Daddy often read to me from his favorite poetry books, and one of the first poems I can remember loving and then memorizing for him was this one:

             Trees
              By  JOYCE KILMER


             I think that I shall never see
               A poem lovely as a tree.

               A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
               Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;

               A tree that looks at God all day,
               And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

               A tree that may in Summer wear
               A nest of robins in her hair;

               Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
               Who intimately lives with rain.

               Poems are made by fools like me,
               But only God can make a tree.

                          Source:  Poetry (August 1913).

I absolutely adore the heart shaped leaves of a redbud tree! This one planted

itself by the driveway a couple of years ago and seems to like it there.

This oak sapling has sprung up out front near the fig trees.  Although it is

 not really in a "good" place, I am inclined to leave it right there.

Trees that produce fruit like my two fig trees are especially wonderful.

This little cottonwood (pardon me while I sneeze!) has sprouted in the
parking lot at work  next to where I park my car.

In pots, next to the side entrance, I have several "treelets" I found in the 
yard last year:  a crepe myrtle, a redbud, and a cedar.  Where shall I plant
them?!

All the rain of this Spring has really pleased Gloria, the bald cypress!  She 
has dressed her lovely  horizontal branches in a double layer of fringe,

something she has never done before.

In fact, she has even sent up some vertical "arms," perhaps in praise to 
Mother Nature for her "waterful" bounty this Spring?!

After each week of rains, Ben needed to rework the dyke and trench

in the driveway that diverted the water into the bog for Gloria.

Diverting the water from the driveway helped relieve the muddy water 

trying to get into my house at the side door by the parking pad, as well as

delighting Gloria with all the extra water for her feet and knees!

Two weekends ago the weather changed to a nice dry spell and I pulled my garlic bulbs from the garden. In the process, I got bitten by fire ants all over my hands and feet!  Dang those obnoxious little creatures!  I am not positive, but I think the ants actually devoured one of my garlic bulbs as I was only able to locate and pull 49 out of the 50 that sprouted when I set the buds last October.

Garlic bulbs fresh out of the garden.

In the last two years of growing garlic, I have learned quite a bit.  The first year I planted buds from garlic bulbs bought at the grocery store.  I planted them in the late Spring and dug them up a year later.  Out of the 15 buds I planted, only 4 or 5 produced anything.  This had to do with the fact that they were most likely from hybrid garlic, plus the fact that I planted them at the wrong time of the year.

I have since learned that garlic should be planted in the Fall, usually early October so that it can have a chance to start its root system and sprout before cold weather sets in.  It is ready to harvest in late May, usually, when the stems turn yellow and flop over.  So, this year's crop was much more successful by far than last year's uneducated attempt.

Something I learned with this year's crop of garlic is that I planted them too close together for them to become as large as I would have liked them to be.  I spaced them neatly at 3" apart in rows 6" apart. Ideally, they should be minimally 6" apart in rows 12" apart.  Come this October, I will be remembering that!

I set the garlic bulbs to drying on the racks of my little greenhouse unit on the back porch where it is shady, cool and dry.  With the garlicky aroma I am not expecting any problems with vampires for the time being!

And finally, I discovered that you do not wash the dirt off of the garlic bulbs until after they have been allowed to dry, with stems on, for about 10 - 14 days in a cool dry place.  They are ready to wash up and store when you can press your thumbnail into the neck of the bulb and hear a nice crunching sound.  Last year, I washed them all clean and whacked off the stem and put them in a bowl on the counter by the stove.  It didn't really ruin them because I didn't have but about 5 and I used them up quickly.  But, they would not have lasted more than a couple of months before they mildewed and/or rotted.  The flavor is also enhanced by this "right out of the ground" drying process.

My very first homegrown, handmade garlic braid!

The rain total for the year so far in my neck of the woods is a tad over 46".  Incredible!  That is almost four feet!  And California needs it so very badly.  Wish we could pipe some to them, but the pipelines around here are used for oil and natural gas.  My kitchen sink "burps" now and then, and drains slowly because the septic field lines are so saturated with the unusual rainfall totals making the ground stay soggy.

The rains and standing water and cloud cover have done a nice job of keeping the air and soil cool so far this year. It has not gotten hot enough here on the farm to heat the soil up consistently so that I can plant any cotton seeds.   There have been only a handful of days where the humidity was bad enough to make me think it was finally time to turn on the air conditioner.  This was the case last year, also, and the heat didn't really get insufferable until July.  My cotton crop last year was minimal, at best, and I expect this year to be the same, if I decide to go ahead and plant any seeds.

Speaking of cotton, I do need to "gin" last year's minuscule harvest this summer and add it to the bumper crop harvest from two years ago, then card  and spin it.  That is something I hope to accomplish this summer.  It is on my Summer 2015 Bucket List!  And also to learn to spin it on my  book charkha.

I have finally turned on the air conditioner here at HeartSong Farm, and am ready to work mostly inside this summer, hopefully finishing up quite a few projects I have started and never finished over the last several years.  I do miss hearing the sounds of frogs, crickets, and birds, though, through the open windows.  I feel less connected to Nature, all closed in and cool. That is when it becomes time to take a glass of iced tea out on to the back porch, sit in the swing, and relax in the balmy breeze of an East Texas summer and listen to the songs of mockingbirds and orioles, and watch the dragonflies skip across the tops of the grassy weeds and dip down into the water troughs.


Meanwhile, another little leopard froggie has left the habitat for the spacious wilderness of what is HeartSong Farm!

It's a jungle out there!

The front yard at HeartSong Farm was a jungle, recently.  You can barely see the metal roof of the house from this angle!

I started writing this post a month ago and am just now having the time to finish.  When I began, we were still being deluged with rain, rain and more rain, with cloudy, rainy days in the forecast.  In fact,  27.25 inches of rain officially fell in my town center between 1/1/2015 and  4/16/2015, and by now it is close to 40".  I think that probably even more fell on HeartSong Farm.  I bought myself a cute brass and glass rain gauge several years ago, but a week after Ben installed it on the backyard fence, a windstorm toppled the big maple tree over on top of it, and I have not replaced it.  For the time being, I must rely on a co-worker to relay the rain amounts that her husband keeps excellent track of in town.  Good enough.

By mid-April,  the scissor-tail flycatchers had arrived, the first batch of Eastern phoebes had fledged from the clay nest on the front porch, and the grass was as high as an elephant's eye.  When I was much younger, I wanted to live in the jungle for a few weeks, and now, it seems I have gotten my wish.  But, I also wished for a baby elephant and a pet monkey.  I haven't seen those yet! I actually do have algae growing on parts of my car.

All the mud has been appreciated by the barn swallows and phoebes for refurbishing their nests from last year, and for supplying materials for those that need to start brand new.  One afternoon, Ben showed me how some small orange-brown butterflies were landing in the mud in the driveway, taking on moisture before taking off again.  And, for sure, Gloria is loving all the excessive rain. 

Gloria, the bald cypress, flourishing in her modified bog. 

In mid-March, the front yard was coming to life with the warmer temperatures
and all the rain.

Just a few weeks later and we had a jungle of high grass and weeds growing with no 

way to control it without getting stuck in the muddy ground.  Yep, we could actually see 

and hear it growing!

The back yard was the same.  The pastures were lush and the llamas were 
enjoying all the high green stuff.  Quite a salad bar, I suppose.

The vegetable garden area quickly became overgrown with weeds from all the rain.

Looks lush, doesn't it?!  Sadly, the only thing actually planted in the garden on purpose is the garlic.

It appears that I have a big job ahead of  me in the next few weeks.  Luckily, this was not to be a 

year for serious gardening, anyway.  (This is the year of finishing projects already started!)

The old rose garden in the front yard was overgrown like everything else.

The old rose garden is made up of rogusa roses now. The tea roses that were here when I bought
the farm became neglected those first years, and all but Mr. Lincoln have returned to their root 
base, rogusa.  I rather love them, though! 

Taking a walk down the driveway towards the mailbox and highway, I stroll under the shady

canopy of several huge hackberry trees.  Not my favorite specie of tree, but they sure do provide

some nice shade in the heat and humidity of the East Texas summers.

Along the way, I pass the English dogwood that has also enjoyed all the

 extra rains early this year.

The lovely blossoms of the English dogwood, which also goes by the name
"mock orange."

One of the old hackberry trees along the driveway. There are lots of iris
growing around its base, but they need to be dug up and replanted where

there is more sun as they have not bloomed for several years.  Will put 
that on my "To  Do List".

Out front by the highway stands the largest of my two fig trees.  Last year, it produced 

the best crop ever after getting lots of rain in the Spring.  Hopefully, the rain of this Spring 

will give me an even more abundance of figs.  Yum!

Of course, with all the rain, fire ant hills have popped up all over the place

and you really have to watch your step.  I appreciate how these little varmints 

aerate the soil when building their mounds, but it really isn't enough to forgive 

those stinging bites they are so quick to deliver!

Hidden in the tall grasses, some purple bearded irises do have enough sunshine 
to bloom.  I want to dig them up, though, and place them in a garden where
they will be able to get more sun and much more attention in the future.

This perky little flower is a Japanese iris that I brought with me from my 
home in Connecticut.  

The water continues to stand and accumulate in the front and back yards, making it difficult to get

the grass cut with our lawn tractor for way too long.  

At the driveway entrance to the house, the two Lady Banks roses that we
had to severely prune in February are coming back with lots of vigor!  Way
to grow, Kate and Bess!

The climbing rose at the entrance to the back yard across from the veggie
garden has bloomed more profusely than it ever has with the abundant rain.

In fact, there were blooms way up into the crepe myrtle tree and lots of new growth for future blooms!

On the back porch, the question was when will the tadpoles become frogs?!  It's a Big Mystery!

There is one little fella who has gotten his hind legs!

The rains stopped, eventually, and we were finally able to fix the lawn tractor and get the majority of the front and back yards mowed.  All it took was a bit of duct tape! Well, duh!  Isn't that usually the case?!

After so many weeks of rain, things were finally beginning to dry up here.  And then, right this very moment, it is raining once again for the next several days.  With all the storm damage and tornadoes just north of us, we really must be grateful here on HeartSong Farm!