Saturday, March 10, 20074:40 PM and 40 degrees here on the hill. The warmest it's been for weeks. The rain started about an hour ago and continues falling lightly. The power company truck just went by so I am assuming the wind that preceeded the rain knocked a tree over on the main line. Our electricity comes down the hill from Route 232 but everyone below us receives theirs from Peacham and it comes up from the pond. I'm not into electricity and don't know if this makes sense but that's how it works here.
Today's picture is of some chain links I found one day while digging in the lower shade garden. I was making some holes for new hostas and my shovel made a clanging sound as the middle of my right foot dug deeply into the top of the shovel and reminded me of a pain I don't want to feel again. We call it the lower garden but it's really a garden within an old barn foundation. It's going to be difficult to replicate at the new site come spring because there are so many special stones involved. There's also quite an accumulation of leftover hardware common around old New England foundations. I have yet to find something really interesting but I have uncovered everything from the front grill from an old car to a tractor radiator to a couple buggy seats. There's a fairly large wagon seat coming to the surface ever so slowly and perhaps this will be the year I'll have to dig the perennials out of it and get it out of the walkway. Frost is a powerful force which does what it wants when it wants.
I just kind of tossed the large links on the corner of the foundation and they have only moved once in several years when a fairly small kid decided they needed to be rearranged. I rearranged his thinking about my garden and they haven't moved since.
As you look at the size of some of the stones which farmers have moved in Vermont, you have to be amazed. One stone in the headwall of our foundation is over 8 feet in width and who knows how deep. It's granite so it weights something like 165 pounds per cubic foot so it's really heavy. Chains like these were probably a part of getting it into place. Manpower, horses or oxen no doubt contributed too.
Links like these remind me of the sturdy garden links which build a fine Internet for us to enjoy. I am trying to add links to this blog as I find them so if you have any that you think I should include, please pass them along.
I stopped at the Cabot Store this afternoon and Aileen reminded me that there was no absence of snow at our new property. It's funny how quickly word gets out when you decide to start something new. She apparently watches what's happening there just as I watch the Winooski River now that we own a piece of property that adjoins it.
Wednesday afternoon on the way home from work I was as happy about what I saw by the river as I have been for some time. En route to Twinfield H.S. from Plainfield and in the field on the right just before the big red barn was a mature bald eagle pondering a dead deer. I almost reconfigured my truck when my eyes left the road which they shouldn't have. Another car was pulled off to the side confirming the importance of my sighting.
I wish my friend Eric from Massachusetts was around to witness this. He might want to tell me bald eagles don't eat deer but I didn't imply that....only said the eagle was sitting by the deer. I've seen eagles before but not in large numbers as they are just beginning to accept Vermont. I'm not sure why Vermont has been a hold out for them as the state has no native population unlike the rest of the country. I just wish that this summer I'll be able to see this same eagle sitting on the old butternut tree where I have seen a great blue heron and an osprey several times this summer. That would make our new land very special!
I have to get going here with a fish chowder I committed to making earlier today. The way the rain is falling now, it seems like a good meal for tonight.
Writing from the mountain above Peacham Pond where the sky is black and the power crew just headed back up the road.
George Africa
http://vermontflowerfarm.com
http://thevermontgardener.blogspot.com
Today's picture is of some chain links I found one day while digging in the lower shade garden. I was making some holes for new hostas and my shovel made a clanging sound as the middle of my right foot dug deeply into the top of the shovel and reminded me of a pain I don't want to feel again. We call it the lower garden but it's really a garden within an old barn foundation. It's going to be difficult to replicate at the new site come spring because there are so many special stones involved. There's also quite an accumulation of leftover hardware common around old New England foundations. I have yet to find something really interesting but I have uncovered everything from the front grill from an old car to a tractor radiator to a couple buggy seats. There's a fairly large wagon seat coming to the surface ever so slowly and perhaps this will be the year I'll have to dig the perennials out of it and get it out of the walkway. Frost is a powerful force which does what it wants when it wants.
I just kind of tossed the large links on the corner of the foundation and they have only moved once in several years when a fairly small kid decided they needed to be rearranged. I rearranged his thinking about my garden and they haven't moved since.
As you look at the size of some of the stones which farmers have moved in Vermont, you have to be amazed. One stone in the headwall of our foundation is over 8 feet in width and who knows how deep. It's granite so it weights something like 165 pounds per cubic foot so it's really heavy. Chains like these were probably a part of getting it into place. Manpower, horses or oxen no doubt contributed too.
Links like these remind me of the sturdy garden links which build a fine Internet for us to enjoy. I am trying to add links to this blog as I find them so if you have any that you think I should include, please pass them along.
I stopped at the Cabot Store this afternoon and Aileen reminded me that there was no absence of snow at our new property. It's funny how quickly word gets out when you decide to start something new. She apparently watches what's happening there just as I watch the Winooski River now that we own a piece of property that adjoins it.
Wednesday afternoon on the way home from work I was as happy about what I saw by the river as I have been for some time. En route to Twinfield H.S. from Plainfield and in the field on the right just before the big red barn was a mature bald eagle pondering a dead deer. I almost reconfigured my truck when my eyes left the road which they shouldn't have. Another car was pulled off to the side confirming the importance of my sighting.
I wish my friend Eric from Massachusetts was around to witness this. He might want to tell me bald eagles don't eat deer but I didn't imply that....only said the eagle was sitting by the deer. I've seen eagles before but not in large numbers as they are just beginning to accept Vermont. I'm not sure why Vermont has been a hold out for them as the state has no native population unlike the rest of the country. I just wish that this summer I'll be able to see this same eagle sitting on the old butternut tree where I have seen a great blue heron and an osprey several times this summer. That would make our new land very special!
I have to get going here with a fish chowder I committed to making earlier today. The way the rain is falling now, it seems like a good meal for tonight.
Writing from the mountain above Peacham Pond where the sky is black and the power crew just headed back up the road.
George Africa
http://vermontflowerfarm.com
http://thevermontgardener.blogspot.com
