Williamson Ranch Update

(plus a gentle reminder not to clothe my ample ass in double-knit)

My birds are still moulting. I don't understand this whole moulting business, I was under the impression that hens do this before winter and kind of all at once. Mine have been doing it for a few months straight through the cold in a very painfully slow operatic style feather dropping dance. They are still laying eggs, just as they have been all winter- though certainly each of them is laying less as we've been having to buy eggs for the last two months. By the way, the chickadee above is Pinny, who has lost her long tail feathers now and looks rather stunted.

I love macro lenses. This is going to be a rhubarb leaf soon. Right now it's just a brainy looking tumor of plant material that is pushing it's way out of a vegetative bud. I am learning to like rhubarb because I have a glorious clump of it, but I admit that I still prefer it in tandem with strawberries.

I managed to get out in the garden on Tuesday to plant all of my enormous asparagus crowns. If they don't take, that's it. No more attempts at growing it. I have to admit that the last two times I've planted it I broke the rules and planted it in clay soil with poor drainage and then had to finally conclude that the garden books mean it when they say asparagus likes a well drained soil. This time I've planted them in raised beds filled with a sandy loam. So we'll know how I've done in two years.

Whoever says it's always grey and rainy in the Pacific Northwest is BLIND. (OK, I admit that it's already been solidly grey for the last forty days, but geeze...aren't people fussy for sun?!) Being out there in the dirt was wonderful. We did have a little light sprinkle while the sun was shining and it sounded so delicate. I have a case of garden fever very bad. It's all I can think about right now. I've had my nose in the National Geographic Encyclopedia of Herbs for a week now while compiling a list of the herbs I will be planting in my monastery garden. I really wish I could get my hands on some mandrake just for the fun of it.

The girls were enjoying the gold light of afternoon though they're kind of mad that the feed has been low. We ran out and I'm waiting to get our bulk order of organic chicken feed in which we should have for them today.

I haven't cleaned out most of the refuse from my summer garden and so I have these wonderful lacy tomatillo ghosts lying around. Their seeds are all waiting for the right conditions to sprout. Nature is brilliant!

I would love a dress made of this tomatillo lace. Simple and delicate and beautiful like a fragile skeleton.

In case anyone was wondering, we are still going strong on the local eating. There have been transgressions (I'm not punishing myself, but I do love an excuse to use that word "transgressions" which implies the need to drop on knees in a posture of humility to beg forgiveness) and yet for all that it is impossible to be perfect, we've done quite well. I have taken to ordering salads whenever we're out now because I'm hungry for greens. Well, since I've had some salads out I'm actually not as hungry for them as I was. However, I am getting ready to beg one of my two favorite farms (Oakhill Organics) to let me put together an order. Their CSA was (as usual) quite full so I just have to hope they'll do it.

At my Master Gardening class yesterday we had a three hour lecture on lawns. Do you know how deeply I couldn't care less about lawn care? All I ever do with my lawns is rip them out to put in things I like better. I don't hate lawns by any means and quite enjoy them in public parks, but I don't have room for carpets of water sucking greens that I can't eat in my own small kingdom. My vegetables take water too, as do my roses, but I get other better benefits from those.

As always, I felt quite out of place in my class. There just aren't very many people with my interests there. And the double-knit polyester pant wearing woman with the very bad hair and the medical inability to smile is really hard not to stare at. (I'm sure there are people who really do have medical reasons preventing them from smiling, but I'm just being sarcastic here. I've tried being friendly with this plastic-fiber clad person with the awful hair and she just stares at me like an emotionless basilisk.) As a side note, if this woman didn't happen to have very large breasts I would assume she was a man. Please let me remember not to let go of every ounce of feminine allure just because I'm getting older. Please don't let me cut my hair very very short and perm only the top portion. Please...please don't let me ever convince myself that double-knit polyester will suit my generous bottom.

Looking at some of the ladies in my class has inspired me to get more vigilant about putting on mascara. I feel quite fat and ugly most of the time and it's easy to let things slide when you don't feel so great about yourself, but I have to remember that mascara makes my eyes much nicer and such a small detail can remind people that I care about looking nice even though I'm not obsessed over it and even though there is no chance of looking like a princess, there's no reason to look like an ogre either.

Clearly I am learning a lot more at my master gardening classes than just the difference between pruning subshrubs and caning plants.

I haven't yet gotten an official answer about my trees but the Directrice* had a look and she says it's frost damage and sun scald that has occurred and that I should wait and see if my trees survive. So I don't have to trash all my trees. That leaves me with the problem of replanting some of them in more felicitous locations. I am in love with my new garden plan which is so much better than my old one. Furthermore, after living here a couple of years I've come to realize that I don't want sweet cherries in my own yard. They don't preserve satisfactorily for my taste and I can get loads of them for cheap from u-pick sources when they are in season here. I also don't want to fuss with my half dead nectarine. So a few trees may be ditched and the rest replanted.

This weekend I'm going to a rose pruning class at the Heirloom Roses which is near by. I will also hopefully be acquiring a few new roses. It's time to get some new ones established. I was spoiled before by being so close to Garden Valley Ranch from whom I got the majority of my bare root roses when I lived in California. Now I'm close to Heirloom Roses. I think it's wise to always live close to a first class rose source, unless you're April, of course.

It's time to get ready to do some freelance work and also consult the lists of available roses for sale so I can compile my rose wish list. I always have one of those going at this time of year.

Happy Friday everyone!



*The head hauncho of the Master Gardening program. I call her the Directrice.