redtree_innerview_mon redtree have you prepared your garden for winter yet? 051101 ... mon no. 051102 ... mon it's been left to fend for itself the leaves are on it, snow will fall there's nothing i can do for it really my shoulder is fucked and it's all too_much 051102 ... mon i probably should do something like check the fence posts see how they're holding 051102 ... mon but i just can't 051102 ... redtree my garden is also neglected. its stone paths riddled with weeds and grass. its beds overtaken with wildness, trying to return to the field it once was. i had noble plans for it, but no time, for it requires much of it. i plan on stripping it down and covering it with heavy straw, hoping that will keep the unwanteds from returning. i wish. is your fence up to keep out animals? 051102 ... nom deer 051112 ... redtree i had a job for a customer this spring to construct an 8'x12' garden with a 7' high deer fence surrounding it. also, last week i spent two days putting netting on all the shrubs and trees of a customer's woodside landscape so the deer wouldn't eat them during the winter. what is your favorite thing to grow? 051112 ... nom my fence is 100'x50', and 8' high i only had to make three sides (2 50s and 1 100) because the fourth was already there,...my neighbour's fence) i dug all the holes 2' deep the posts are 8footer 4x4s with 2x4s tacked on 2' up to make them 8' above ground worked out cheaper than 10footers) was originally going to get poles from the woods like my neighbour did, but the season was pressing me to hurry, still had to plant) i painted all the bottoms of the posts with boiled linseed oil before erecting them and used rocks from the garden and creek to fill in around them with dirt i was going to paint the tops of the posts with the linseed oil too but i got sick from the digging and placing and filling and just too much sunshine and everything so by then i was too sick and never got to finish painting them and didn't get a gate up either i barely got the fence wire all tacked up with unails before i fell over my uncle from manitoba helped me put up a makeshift tarp-gate, it was supposed to be temporary but somehow i never got to building an actual gate gate and so the tarp gate became kinda permanent but it was sagging down to 7' in the middle and the : deer : got in a bunch of times there and along the neighbour's side where it's 7'. and i believe i told you before about a poor deer in winter who got caught in the fence,...the ravens and other creatures had a feast,...there was only a few tufts of hair left a few days later. "sleepless ravens dream of jumping fences with sprightly hooves" -ghost_wind 040105 luckily my fence hasn't killed any other deer since then, that i know of there was a : fawn : that got caught in the neighbour's fence one day, not in my garden but, anyway, it was sad to witness i wouldn't've built a fence at all but they ate almost everything in the garden the first year, (hundreds of tomato plants, beans, even jalapenos and habaneros) so it was either 'build a fence or don't garden'. 051112 ... nom favourite thing to grow: i'm thinking... 051112 ... nom my first thought is the three sisters (corn, beans, squash) which i always plant together, i just love them 051112 ... nom i like planting a few types of corn in successive rows, so they pollinate and ripen at different times. the peaches and cream is always the best. royal burgundy bush beans are most tolerant of the drought,...they produce the most. and i love the way they look on the bush and in the wok when they change colour being cooked pumpkins are fun. so are spaghetti squash,...and butternut. too yummy for words. 051112 ... nom carrots are cool, celery is wonderful, potatoes are essential 051112 ... nom really i don't know if i have a favourite thing to grow, i love it all. 051112 ... nom some of the weeds in my garden are quite edible so i let them grow in spots,...wild spinach/lambs quaters/pigweed/chenopodium album is abundant and delicious cooked so i don't need to grow actual spinach. 051112 ... nom wow i really went on about my fence, guess i'm still proud i actually built the thing, even if i couldn't finish it 051112 ... redtree you should be proud. how many posts is that? 2o? that's killer work, especially at two feet deep because you are certain to run into rock, although i don't know canadian soil. like you said, locust would have been the best for the posts because as you know the wood is extremely hard and lasts forever. i've seen locust posts around here in farmer's fields that have actually sprouted into trees. deer are a real problem in pennsylvania as well. many people hit them on the blind-curved roads and suffer major damge to their cars. it's weird because auto insurance will pay, but only if they find deer hair on the car. one was hit and killed near robin_hill just yesterday and on my way to work i watched a stray dog hunkering down near its fresh carcass. when i came home that evening, the white ribs were glistening in the twilight, poking up to the sunset. sorry, that was gross, but that dog must have been thrilled. my favorite thing to grow are potatoes. i love to watch them flower and then of course, the digging, like searching for buried treasure. ................................................................................ so, you are pressing flowers....did you grow them yourself? what do you plan on doing with them? 051113 ... nom flowers = moments in my mind impressions) was playing with words 051113 ... nom but i do press flowers, usually pansies, and others as well, in summertimes past wild gathered and planted garden ones 051113 ... nom souvenirs and specimens 051113 ... redtree what are the latest blooming flowers where you live? 051114 ... nom i'm not sure 051221 ... redtree have you ever forced an amarylis, narcissus, tulip, crabapple, or a forsyhia to bloom inside? 051221 ... nom i grew a bunch of daffodils, tulips, crocuses and hyacinths in my bedroom in 2002or3, it was snowing outside at the time they bloomed, it was neat. i don't think i really did it properly though. i just had these bulbs that i didn't get planted before the ground froze,...i tried keeping them cool, but they started sprouting so, not knowing what else to do with them, i put them in little pots and they flowered. i tried painting some of the daffodils in oil with a black background, but i didn't finish it. 051230 ... nom i was actually hesitant to grow daffodils inside because of the unluckiness of bringing daffodils into a house,..but i reasoned with myself that they weren't cut flowers, they were growing, so the rule didn't apply. 051230 ... nom i can't remember exactly when that was 051230 ... nom i think that was the only painting i did that year, i think it was 2002 051230 ... nom winter 01-02 051230 ... crOwl what is the rule about bringing cut daffodils into a house? where does tthe warning originate? 060102 ... . i do know that the bulbs are inedible to animals because of a poisonous element. 060102 ... nom my mom told me it was unlucky to bring daffodils inside one year when i was picking them to paint them. then in 2000 i picked some,...put them on the kitchen counter and went out for a few hours. while i was gone, my cat merlin kocked the vase over (probably drank some of the water first), and chewed on the stems a bit. (he had a bowl of water he could've drank,..but,..well,...y'know cats...) next thing my mom gets a phone call saying that her aunt had died. and merlin got deathly sick within a few days. i kept telling the vet about the daffodils but she didn't think that's what was wrong with him. she couldn't figure out what was wrong with him. several weeks and hundreds of dollars worth of tests and fluids and whatnot later, he died. and the vet couldn't say why. all i know is he got sick right after the thing with the daffodils,...so it seems to me they were involved. "Daffodils are considered by many to be unlucky, and they will not have the flowers in their house because they hang their heads, bringing tears and unhappiness. The sweet-scented old fashioned white narcissus, also called scented lily or white lily, is also known as grave flooers and unlucky to take indoors...In the Isle of Man it is unlucky to have the plant in the house till the goslings have hatched. The Manx name is lus-ny-guiy or goose herb. In common with primroses, daffodils were sometimes banned from the house by poultry-keepers, and, in Herefordshire, if daffodils are brought in when the hens are sitting, they say there will be no chickens. However in Devon, the number of goslings hatched and reared is said to be governed by the number of wild daffodils in the first bunch of the season brought into the house...Robert Herrick alludes in his Hesperides to the daffodil as a portent of death, probably connecting the flower with the asphodel, which the ancient Greeks planted near tombs..." - The Genus Narcissus edited by Gordon R. Hanks www.dweckdata.com/Published_papers/Narcissus.pdf .. "...There are many people who will not bring daffodils into the house, out of the superstitious belief that these flowers bring with them sorrows of the grave. Even Socrates called narcissi "chaplets of the infernal gods." White daffodils have come to be more associated with death than are yellow, & such scented white narcissus as the popular cultivar 'Thalia' have been known as Grave Flowers & regarded as especially unlucky to bring indoors. On the Isle of Mann it is said that they are only safely brought indoors after the first goose egg hatches, hence the common names Goose Herb, Goose Leeks, or Gooseflops. The association with geese derives from the flowers having long necks with their pointed unopened bowed buds suggestive of pecking geese; & the bulb itself would be the goose's egg. In Herfordshire it was similarly believed that daffodils were unlucky to bring into the house until after the hens begin sitting, accounting for the occasional common name Hens & Chickens, a name today more associated with succulent Sempervivums..." - http://www.paghat.com/narcissusthalia.html .. "In some parts of England it is thought to be unlucky to have daffodils in the house." - GARDENING FOLKLORE http://www.witcheswell.com/text/stories/garden-lore.txt .. "Daffodils have been the subject of many myths and superstitions. In some parts of the UK, it was considered unlucky to bring daffodils into the house before goslings had hatched." - cumberland-news.co.uk .. "...Daffodils are said to bring good fortune to the person who avoids trampling on them...daffodils should never be present at a wedding. The Greeks originally associated daffodils with death. According to Greek myth, daffodils grew in the meadows of the Underworld, kingdom of the dead. It was here that Hades captured Persephone after she had strayed from her companions to pick some daffodils..." - http://www.baacks.com/thelanguageofflowers/list.nhtml 060102 ... crOwl thanks for all the fascinating info and folklore. it's a scary flower, yet a beautiful one. they flourish at robin_hill by the hundreds. we have brought them inside unaware of the negative stories. and now, i can easily connect their presence with death. i like the whole idea of risking the enjoyment of beauty...gaze and die. 060103 ... nom you're welcome. thanks for asking. i guess i could've included more about the rebirth aspect, besides the eggs. i think daffodils in fields are lovely. wordsworth said it best. 060103 ... crOwl "i wander'd lonely as a cloud that floats on high o'er vales and hills, when all at once i saw a crowd, a host, of golden daffodils; beside the lake, beneath the trees, fluttering and dancing in the breeze. continuous as the stars that shine and twinkle on the milky way, they stretch'd in never-ending line along the margin of a bay: ten thousand saw i at a glance, tossing their heads in sprightly dance. the waves beside them danced; but they out-did the sparkling waves in glee: a poet could not be gay, in such jocund company: what wealth the show to me had brought: for oft, when on my couch i lie in vacant or in pensive mood, they flash upon the inward eye which is the bliss of solitude; and then my heart with pleasure fills, and dances with the daffodils." ~william wordsworth (177o-185o) 060105 ... nom you missed "I gazed--and gazed--but little thought" ...and...it's "thAT inward eye" so sorry to correct, i used to recite this 060122 ... crOwl so did i and i made a small film once, where i shot all the daffodils of robin hill and read the poem overtop. i had several other poems in my head i could recite but that was a long time ago. 060123 ... nom that must've been interesting. 060123 ... crOwl check this out... wordsworth's original inspiration daffodils at glencoyne bay, ullswater www.visitcumbria.com/pen/daffodil.htm 060123 ... nom neato. i was going to try searching for info about the location,...figured dorothy's writings would hold answers but hadn't checked into it. thanks. 060123 ... redTree what are you living for? what would you die for? what would you kill for? 080505 ... redTree what are the top five events of your life this year? 081209 ... redTree what were you doing in brasil? 081220 what's it to you? who go blather from