It's About Time

So what if it is the first of June and we often have snow by the end of October?  So what if, in an attempt to be helpful, our friend Devon sent us a gardening catalog open to a page on "season extenders" that caused me to feel a little bitter.  How rude!  "Hey, I know that, unlike me with my perpetual warm climate and ever-present, ever-blooming outdoor pantry, you people may not even harvest a single radish without a lot of extra hardware and a whole lot of luck to shield your garden from the harsh elements that precede and follow your two hot, dry days of Summer weather so that when you play at gardening you might actually scrape enough produce in some stage of maturation sufficient for a meal or two before your endless Winter ensues." 


I'm sure that was not how the suggestion was intended to come across but that is what I like to infer about it when I want to complain about the only flaw in our otherwise wonderful location.  And besides, as I've written elsewhere, when colder weather is upon us, she sends us the goods (the really good goods).    

At any rate, we did actually spend some time working in our garden spot and even got some plants and seeds in the ground today.  In the spirit of efficiency or, as I like to call it, purposeful laziness, we planted some perennial matter - rhubarb and asparagus.  Though we will not harvest any of the asparagus for a year or three, we are looking forward to it when it is ready.  H also planted tomatoes and some flower seeds that the girls got her for Mother's Day and have been dying to plant with her since. Though it will not be a drop in the bucket as far as foraging resources go, we thought a big strip of Cosmos, Sunflowers and Columbine would be a nice gesture towards our bees.  For the present, M, A and E picked some dandelions and put them down near the entrance to the hive.  Call it a snack, a late hive-warming gift or an offering to the queen; I just call it cute.   

M and C helped dig  walk/waterways and they also, along with T, picked up a lot of rocks (something we can harvest as much as we want whenever we want).  Everyone helped with the flowers and with any other tasks that our labors required.  It was great fun to have such excellent help and to work together on what turned out to be a very nice day in spite of weather forecasting to the contrary. 


Finally, I can stop waiting for my first bee sting as today a bogey got my left forearm while I  was mowing close to the hive - a little too close, as it were.  Fortunately for me, I do not have any anaphylactic response difficulties to compound my paucity-of-common-sense issues.  B