Early Meadow Rue

The unidentified plant that I dug up along the trail is an Early Meadow Rue. Since I found that these have separate male and female plants I will have to make sure I have both. You can see a picture of them at this site , http://www.ct-botanical-society.org/galleries/thalictrumdioi.html

Spring Larkspur

Jeff and I went out along the trail and dug up some of these along with white sweet violets and another plant that I haven't identified yet. I planted them in the yard in hopes I can get them to spread.

Our house

Elevation- 2400'
I'm having fun studying maps of our little neck o' the woods.

Asparagus is up!

Spring is here!

Jeff and I went on about an hour long walk today on the trail running by our house. The first time we have been out there since spring really started coming on. It was a misty mountain day and it made us remember what a cool place we live. We made it just over the other side of Walker Mountain from our house and turned around before the trail started going downhill. Since most of this part of the trail lies in a gap it is a very fertile and lush area with Keywood Creek lying way down in the bottom of the gap. I could see a bunch of rhododendron on the other side of the gap(the east side). But just along the trail I found many spring wildflowers including wild columbine, wild geranium, sweet white violet, and spring larkspur. Since this is such a rich area I am hoping to see trillium in this gap later in the year. I used to come across huge patches of it in West Virginia and I believe it is my favorite flower.

Please comment

What would you pay for a wreath like this(if you had the money of course). I know it is simple so I won't be offended.

Hot and tired!

Update

It is 3:30 PM the day before the first farmers market of the season. It is hot out(about 78 degrees) but my tulips are sitting in the cool barn until we load them this evening. I'm beat from a long week of working outside. My arms and neck are sunburned. And I am about a week behind already according to my planting calendar. I haven't done any dishes all week (Jeff has done enough to get us by) and I have given up keeping the house clean until winter. It is gonna be a long season. But I am looking forward to it!

Bushels of asparagus

I toughed rain and snow today to plant 50 feet of asparagus. The only reason I did it today was because I read somewhere that a cool rainy day was a good day to plant asparagus. So I risked getting the plague and spent the afternoon in 35 degrees and rain mixed with snow sitting in the mud carefully spreading out asparagus roots. I'll Ive gotta say is, "they better produce a heck of a lot of food." Then after all that I got worried because we are supposed to have a freeze tonight and went out this evening and covered all the beds with blankets. Hey! I didn't want to risk losing the profit from this effort. Oh, and the only reason I do not have a picture was because Jeff was too wimpy to come out of the warm house and take a picture of me. :)

Jeff and I bought a reel mower and Jeff tried it out for the official first lawn cutting of the year. I am a big fan of a small yard...in fact I think anything over a 1/4 acre of grass to mow is just downright ridiculous. Since we are letting most of our front yard "go wild" we decided this mower would work for us for the area left in grass. So far it does a great job....and it is easy to use(which was a surprise to me). And of course the best part....it doesn't use any $3.25/gallon gasoline and doesn't require the maintenance like a gas mower. As far as the rest of the front yard....I can't wait to see what kind of meadow plants come up in it. I already transplanted one weed into it just cause I liked it. :)

The tulips are blooming!

They came a little early probably due to the warm winter we had and the extremely warm spring we are having. So I will leave them alone this year and hope for a colder winter this year. Maybe next year they will make it to the market. They do look good though!

Sunday Afternoon Hike

Jeff and I went on a short hike this afternoon on the Iron Mountain Trail. With Jeff's leg still giving him fits we didn't go very far. Gonna try to take day hikes more often until Jeff is better. Maybe we'll be backpacking again by fall.
Not many signs of spring on Iron Mountain like down here in the valley. I did see some huckleberries getting some buds though. May be a place to remember come July to pick berries.
Here is one of Jeff's every "artistic" photos. Don't ask me. Ands that me, down on the ground, digging up "specimen plants" to take home and cultivate in my yard that we are not going to mow. :) Yes, so we are strange, but at least we admit it.

A frequent visitor

Project # 2,063

This is my first attempt at building a low tunnel. I used row cover over plastic pipe. The plastic pipe is anchored in using pieces of bamboo that I cut from the edge of the road. I put this over my 90 feet of larkspur.
The trellis I pulled up from our back yard and reused out here in the field to grow sweet peas.

Hardening off area

I finally it a picture of my hardening off area. Obviously this is of a few days ago because it has been cool and rainy for days now...Jeff and I both agreed that today was a very southwest Virginia mountain-ish day..the fog was really low, it was misty most of the day, and about 50 degrees. Looked like a picture of Scotland. No wonder the Scottish immigrants settled here.

My long time friend, Taylor, came this past weekend and helped me with some drywall work. Here he is on his perch. (He should be used to that being a tree climber for a tree care company...not one that hacks the top off trees of course....a GOOD tree care company that tries to keep trees healthy not kill them like others) I sure hope he comes back again soon...he was a good motivator for getting some work done on the bedroom.