Into the Woods

This old mattock couldn’t stand up to Ken’s demands.

Though we used a rented gasoline-powered augur to drill the holes for the fence posts, and though we frequently use a battery-powered drill and screw driver, otherwise we are using hand tools this summer. Ken is strong and doesn’t mind the work, and in most cases the hand tools are much safer.

Ken saws a post.

Ken planting a post for a hose rack

A fence rose

With Ken here to do the planting, the landscaping around Acorn Abbey is finally starting to take shape. We planted climbing roses along the new fence. The rose variety is called Awakening, and it’s a relative of the New Dawn climbing rose. I believe it is considered an heirloom or antique rose. I expect these climbing roses to cover the fence in three years or so.

A gardenia

It was a long day, but Ken and I finished building and installing the two gates today. So the fence is officially done. We let the chickens celebrate this event by letting them out of the chicken coop to scratch inside their vast new garden fence for the first time.

Ken opens the door to let the chickens out. By the way, I believe we are seeing the pecking order here, left to right. The red chicken is No. 1 in the pecking order, so she is first up to the door.

All this new ground to scratch!

One of my regular stops is the Monitor Roller Mill at Walnut Cove. There’s a family of cats there, working cats that patrol the mill. Here’s one of the spring kittens, making himself at home on the front counter.

The first day lily of the year bloomed today. This is a hybrid lily. My common lilies, which I call railroad lilies, should start blooming any day now.

Hmmm. Another gate.

Cats really know their territory. I had kept Lily indoors for more than two weeks, mostly to try to get her to adjust to Ken’s presence. I let her out this morning. I noticed that she immediately started checking out the changes that have happened outdoors while she was trapped indoors. She walked the fence, found the gates, and noticed all the other changes.

Something’s missing.

Where’s the trailer, my old home?

What’s that over there?

Someone’s been busy here.

This is not so bad.

Ken and I planted some tomatoes and basil in the straw bales yesterday. We’ll see how it goes. The vegetable garden is going to be very limited this year. The fence-building project got in the way. Not to mention that to start a garden before the fence was up would be to take chances with the deer (again). Last year, for example, the deer pretty much wiped out all my tomato plants in one night.

This year, however, there will be a weekly farmer’s market in Walnut Cove, and a farmer’s market every other week at Danbury. I’m hoping those two farmer’s markets will make up for the smallness of the vegetable garden.

I had never eaten sardines until yesterday. But lately sardines have been showing up on such lists as “the top 10 healthiest foods that you aren’t eating.” I bought a can at Whole Foods.

How do they taste? Not all that bad. Kind of like canned tuna, but with a stronger flavor.

For more than a week, Ken and I have been hard at work on the deer fence. The posts are all in place, and the corner reinforcements are done. We’re ready to start putting up wire. I’ll blog the whole fence-building process when the job is done.

Two years ago, I cleared an acre of pine trees to make room for the house and garden area. I was amazed to find a magnolia growing among the pines. It was tall, spindly, and starved for light. The loggers worked around the magnolia tree, and in the last two years it has started to fill out. It’s about to bloom for the first time.

The coreopsis, which I planted from seed a year ago, is flourishing.