To The Surbiton Manor Born

45 mile per hour gusts of wind today blew over the empty firewood rack. A grey sky is lowering upon us. The squirrel houses are swaying in the treetops. Wouldn't want to be a squirrel today. Who would you sue if your house got blown down or the tree limb broke?  Will this insufferable winter ever end? 36 degrees tonight.  In spite of the truly wretched weather, we accomplished some things over the past week. On Saturday I uncovered the strawberries. Hopefully this was not premature. I got some sunflowers planted in the squash bed, "Autumn Beauty" variety. I also put a couple in the bed with the peas for some late summer interest. Planted one of the three beds in front of the deck with spinach. Popeye would be happy . I also tossed down another ten pounds of Dutch White Clover seed throughout the yard, and put down some black eyed Susan & milkweed seeds in some spots that are destined not to get mowed this year. Hopefully a nice pollinator spread will work on the hill

  Do you see that bitter, grey, grim looking sky? Well, that's what it has been like for the last week. Typical highs this time of year are in the '60's. We've had to make due with '40's and with an incessant, howling wind.  So planting has taken a back seat this week. It is no matter that the extra Dutch white clover seeds are delayed in the mail. The black eyed Susan seeds that I purchased are languishing on my desk. The cauliflower in the greenhouse seems to be at a standstill. Just little, tiny sprouts.  I worked on hardscape instead this week, finishing a shadow-box fence that will conceal our garbage cans out along the side of the garage.  Surprisingly, the many, many tulips K. planted last fall have managed not to be killed by the hard frost we are getting every night. I've left the strawberries buried under straw, even though some are starting to burst out of their own accord. Two more nights of below 30 degrees, so I'm not encouraging them. Shoc

  The season moves quickly. The week started with near record high temperatures reaching into the mid-high '80's. Today, I'm looking outside at a light coating of snow, which has been threatened to accumulate to three inches. Kiki's bulbs have burst forth from the earth. I planted the appropriately named snow peas, rocket, carrots and beets using the fancy new planting square. This is an amazing time saver. It has color coded holes, a measuring stylus to press into the ground to the exactly correct depth, and when you press the square into the soil, it presents a perfect square foot. This saves the whole spreading string across the garden, measuring, tying, etc. Brilliant thing. It's going to be heavily used. Peas Carrots Beets Beets covered to protect from late frosts & snow Some "before" pictures that show where the clover seed was strewn in the slag from the stair construction last fall.  There's a mulch project going on, which I will picture wh

  We seem to have actually got through the worst of winter, now that it is April 9th. We are looking at a week of 60's and even an 80 degrees (predicted for Wednesday). It's been a busy time. Actually getting out in the yard.  I put up a privacy screen on our deck. It's kind of nice not to see the neighbors. Nothing personal, but like Shrek, we like our privacy .  Yesterday involved a trip to the local big box store for some red mulch to try to eliminate more (very pesky) mowing down in the lower garden. We'll fill all the spaces between the raised beds with mulch. Voila. Less mowing.  Last week's downed tree branch... is firewood for fall of 2024 thanks to our new battery powered chainsaw. I went on a nine mile run yesterday in shorts. It's been a long age since that's been possible. Because of this activity, today promises to move a bit more slowly. And yet, carrots, kale, arugula, and possibly snow-peas are going in. Given what things looked like a week a

Friday night (a night we'd intended to go downtown St. Paul to see a blues band) we were treated to a fresh foot of snow. Before the snow fell, quite a bit of ice built up. Our giant diseased (but inoculated) ash tree in our front yard lost a major branch and two smaller ones. The branch is large enough to force the acquisition of a battery powered chain saw so that we can reduce it to firewood for fall of '25.  My calendar said that I should be planting snow peas this weekend. The foot of snow pretty much knocked that idea down as flat as some of the other neighborhood trees.  The peas are supposed to go in the far bed there, with the trellis standing ready. It's just as well, though. Still concentrating on the interior of Surbiton Manor, we had to move much of our furniture out of our bedroom, out of the lower level, and remove doors and paint our bedroom the lovely, plain "Atrium White" to replace the hideous two-tones of purple that the Hated Previous Owners (