Spring: beauty everywhere..and a wood duck
Mendy's flying pig among 'liberated' daffodils...will tell that story soon ...now that the statute of limitations is probably up...
There is so much beauty popping up everywhere—singing, flying, blooming, buzzing, growing—that it’s hard to keep up with all of it! And of course I can’t, but it sure is fun trying. As Emily Dickinson puts it, “To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else.”
Beauty also shows up in unlikely places, the scum pond, as we affectionately call it, for example. On the property next door there is a shallow cow pond. It’s not remarkable at first glance. In the summer, thanks to the cows and sunshine, it has a brilliant green scum on top that sticks to the cows as they cool off. When they emerge from the pond, they are covered with green confetti. A lovely sycamore that stood with feet in the pond was badly broken in the ice storm a couple years back and looks the worse for wear.
Yet the pond is such a treasure. Iridescent dragonflies emerge in shimmering colors. I watched our resident pair of hawks mate (!) in the broken sycamore just recently. In the early spring, we wait for the chorus of peepers to begin the singing season, later deeper voiced frogs take over for summer. (You can listen to a springtime chorus of peepers I recorded at the bottom of this post. If you are reading this by email, you may need to go to the actual post to play it.)
Then last week on a cold, rainy day I looked out from my home office window and saw a small duck on the pond. I dashed inside for binoculars and camera.
Wood Duck at Larrapin!
First ever sighting of a wood duck at Larrapin Garden. What a beauty he was! The sighting was more delightful because we’d seen our very first wood duck ever — a female standing in a tree— just the week before on a vacation to Crowley’s Ridge, Arkansas. And here was another one, this time the beautifully colored male. He stayed and dined on something in the water for a few hours, then flew on to wherever he was headed. What a great day. Here’s to beauty everywhere.
If you enjoy wildlife in the garden, I heartily recommend one of my favorite blogs, Beautiful Wildlife Gardens for inspiration and ideas. And please listen to the spring concert in the audio in the podcast player below, courtesy of spring peepers at Larrapin, and a few thoughts thrown in by yours truly. It’s about a minute and half long…just click the arrow to play. Enjoy!
—A Larrapin Garden www.larrapin.us
Posts most wednesdays & weekends —you can subscribe by Email here. You can also get bonus links and recipes by “liking” our Facebook fan page at www.facebook.com/larrapin.garden. Geesh, we’re even on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LarrapinGarden.
Wednesday of Few Words…
Kale & Collard Seedlings
It’s been a busy week! The homemade seed-starting shelf has been well used, plus a few brave sugar-snap pea, spinach and kale seedlings are already out in the garden. The cute baby kale and collards above are just waiting to get a bit bigger and for it to stop raining long enough to get them in the ground. Strawberries went into the ‘row of shame’ this week, more about that later…
I previewed a lovely, lovely movie for Dig In! Fayetteville’s 1st Food & Farming Filmfest coming up on Saturday, March 19th. “Ingredients” is a celebration of fresh, local, organic food and the creative farmers and chefs who bring it to us in the most delicious fashion! I made the mistake of watching the film on an empty stomach and had a lot of trouble with drooling and stomach growling! It’s really inspiring and beautiful on many levels… Highly recommend! And I love envisioning how supporting our local farmers and restaurants who make the extra effort to use local products will create an even more vibrant foodie community in Fayetteville! You can check out the preview here:
—A Larrapin Garden www.larrapin.us
Posts most wednesdays & weekends. Don’t miss any—you can subscribe by Email here. You can also get bonus links and recipes by “liking” our Facebook fan page at www.facebook.com/larrapin.garden. Geesh, we’re even on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LarrapinGarden.
Seed Starting Update…
Ready to go into individual pots!
I’ll be potting up babies today! Meanwhile, if the weather’s dry today…may try some spinach, onion starts and sugar snap pea seeds directly in the garden….
Next time: the sweet potato experiment…
If you are reading this from Northwest Arkansas and surrounds, be sure to check out our upcoming Food & Farming Filmfest on March 19th!
—A Larrapin Garden www.larrapin.us
Posts most wednesdays & weekends. Don’t miss any—you can subscribe by Email here. You can also get bonus links and recipes by “liking” our Facebook fan page at www.facebook.com/larrapin.garden. Geesh, we’re even on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LarrapinGarden. Are you planting anything yet? Leave a comment and tell all!
Hundred-Year Snow
We’ve had a bit more of snow since I last posted. Here it was 16-18″ with twice that in the drifts. WOW. I’ve never had snow fall into calf-height wellies! It’s apparently a ‘hundred year snow’ in these parts. (I’m concerned that might refer to how long it’s going to take to melt! But with temps forcasted in the 60’s this weekend…that should do the trick, albeit with a little weather whiplash thrown in!) That’s my car above, clearly not going anywhere soon. To give you a comparision, the picture below is Herald the metal rooster in last week’s snow:
And the one below is THIS week’s snow!
Below is the Larrapin veggies patch in last week’s snow:
And below is this week’s snow:
And finally, below you can see the blue chairs in last week’s snow:
And below, Ada lounging in front of them this week. Ada loves snow, all snow. It’s great to lay in, play in, hide things in and find things there too! She is delighted to have gotten to see a hundred year snow, especially in dog years.
—A Larrapin Garden www.larrapin.us
Posts most wednesdays & weekends. Don’t miss any—you can subscribe by Email here. You can also get bonus links and recipes by “liking” our Facebook fan page at www.facebook.com/larrapin.garden. Geesh, we’re even on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LarrapinGarden. Thanks for stopping by the woods on a snowy evening!
