It's Spring..!
What a perfect day to pick up on Tilling By Moonlight! I was out at the crack of dawn cleaning the yard after the storms of last weekend. I also pruned a lot of trees, cleaned and trimmed the ivy beds in the front yard, and, at 1:30, the equinox, I went around and whacked all the trees with a rolled up newspaper to wake the up from their winter slumber and get them growing!
It's a beautiful here on the grounds of Stately Sad Old Goth Manor, all the spring bulbs are popping up and, a little surprise on the East side of the grim old pile under the hemlock trees, a crop of Snow Drops! I have no idea where they came from, I didn't plant them, but there they are.

I'll take it as a sign from Mother Earth that beautiful surprises are in order this coming year.
Well, back to the tasks at hand, I've got hours of cleaning up to do now.
Welcome back, my fellow wanderers!

this...
is not what I'm supposed to be doing on the sixteenth of August, especially when it's already close to ninety degrees at ten o'clock in the morning...










sow what you will...

spring is sprung...
sort of... it's in the high fifties right now, breezy and high clouds. Perfect weather for yard work. I raked and cleaned up the Western side of the grounds proper, cleaned out the kitchen yard annual beds and the foundation plantings. I also pruned the Crape Myrtles, getting rid of all the suckers and inward growing branches and pruned off all the growth up to about five feet high so they form a canopy this year and I can put some solar lighting under them to accent their form. They have a wonderful peeling bark that looks nice and the pruning will open up the area underneath for some base plantings.
The Autumn Sedum, Bearded Iris, Daffodils and the Day Lilies are all poking up, checking things out. My Coral Bells seem to have survived another winter. The Acuba have suffered a little winter burn, as have some of the new Thuja plantings across the front of the property, but nothing that will stunt them, I'm sure.
Tomorrow its more pruning, I have to lift the canopy of some Hemlocks that line the drive so the Mock Orange hedges get a little more light and airflow.
I love this time of year, it's unpredictable, and a tease, but it sets my green thumb to throbbing and I just have to get out and play in the soil.



sow what you will...

endless...
just endless...
I just finished a six hour marathon of raking and hauling leaves from the grounds around Stately Sad Old Goth Manor and it's already covered with a fresh coating of leaves. It's a good thing I enjoy raking, I guess. And, it's a beautiful fall day, just barely in the sixties, a steady, moderate breeze from the Northeast and big puffy clouds. My closest neighbor on my side of the road, who is about two hundred feet away, has his wood stove going and it's scenting my yard. I love that smell. It's primal and reassuring, mysterious and friendly at the same time. Before we switched over to coal (yes, how very non-green of us, huh? I support the mining industry, what can I say?) we used to have a Vermont Castings Vigilant wood stove in our dining room and a small Jotul in the living room and during the winter, the house was filled with that wonderful wood fire smell. It was really great to come inside from the cold and cozy up the to stove. On holidays, I'd open the doors on the Vigilant and put the screen in and we'd enjoy an open fire. Nothing like it.
Coal is ok, it's cheaper and much less labor intensive, for me, anyway and it burns a long time and gives off a nice steady heat. It's the better choice for sustained heating, but gives off a horrible sulfur odor when you open the door to stoke it or feed it. Not very pleasant, but the benefits outweigh the occasional scent of Hades. The living room stove is on the way out, I'm adding an extra heating duct, with a thermostat driven fan to help draw air from the furnace into the room and I'm putting electric radiant heating under the new flooring, so I won't need it anymore. I think I'll move it to the workshop, if and when that ever gets built.
Well, I'm going to have a bottle of Sam Adams Black Lager and a few smokes and kick back for a while. Tomorrow is redoing the outside of our living room bay window. I'm redoing the trim and cladding under the window to give it a more traditional look that better fits the house. Gotta get stuff like that done while the weather cooperates.
I think if the wind dies down a bit tonight, I might get a fire going in the fire pit and spend my birthday eve with pipe and flagon and the waning moon.
Later, friends.


sow what you will...

raking leaves...

I just got finished raking about a third of the grounds. It took me almost as long as it used to take me to do the whole property ten years ago. I'm not moving as fast as I used to, I guess. I think that's less do to age than it is to do with a different attitude toward that particular task, now that I'm a bit older. I used to attack that task as a necessary evil when I was younger, something that got in the way of doing other things, time wasted, energy wasted. I'd stew over things while I raked, getting into a bad mood that made the job seem longer and harder than it really was. As I've gotten older, though, it's become an opportunity for me to get outside, spend some time with the Autumn sun on my back and the breeze in my face. I'm a little more wont to observe things when I rake, stopping to look at the swelling hips in the rose hedges, wondering what's living in that new little hole on the edge of the kitchen garden, listening to the birds and the bugs while I casually rake away. I now look around the grounds and see how much I've accomplished with my old rake, rather than looking at what still needs to be done. Right now, the lawn is clean and the grass, which really needs another mowing, is laying in a pattern that traces where and how I raked. By tomorrow morning, it will probably be covered again and I'll probably go out and rake some more, but not with any urgency or haste. I've realized it's not a contest, it's just one more thing that you do in life because it needs to be done and it's fun to do. I might even chance burning a small pile tomorrow, rather than carting them away to the huge, ever evolving pile that borders one side of the wooded lot in back, my wild compost pile that takes care of itself. I miss the smell of burning leaves. When I was a kid, there was an old fellow who lived down the road who would rake piles of Sycamore leaves into the dirt road, light them up and stand there, resting his hands and his chin on the handle of his rake and just watch them burn. When I'd smell them, I'd wander down there to say hi and enjoy that special time with him. He was very old and always wore bib overalls and a green cap, both threadbare and stained, more a part of him than just clothing. He'd always say, "hey, there, young fella", and that was about it. I'd sit on his front lawn and watch the curls of smoke and bask in that delightful odor, while he'd just stand there, absorbed in his own thoughts. I didn't intrude. I guess I'm getting to be a bit like him. As I get closer to the end of my times, I make more of my times. I think I learned a lot from him, even though we hardly ever talked.


sow what you will...

the wheel, it doth turn...



A Blessed and Merry Mabon to you, one and all.
This is my time of the rolling year. I was born an Autumn child. It has been a time of great changes, wonderful adventures and unbridled growth for me, all my days. I love it so...
May the turning of the season bring you bounty, beauty and, above all, peace.


This beautiful illustration is by Mystickal Realms Graphics.


sow what you will...

aw, for cryin' out loud...
I didn't expect to have to do this on September 1st...



Those are poplar leaves, friends. It's not unusual for them to be the first to fall, but they're about two weeks early. I don't know if this is a sign of the winter to come, I hope not.


sow what you will...