"In wildness is the preservation of the world"

Henry David Thoreau said that. We have a little bit of that wildness in the yard just off the kitchen. Years ago, we planted some iris, spiderwort (remember what Henry Mitchell says, "wirt" not wart), phlox, rosa rugosa, globe thistle, and mountain bluet there.

You walk out this door

and look to the left. Most of those plants are still there, but over the past few years some milkweed has crept in and of course we kept it, because one, it is beautiful; two, it smells wonderful when in flower; and three, and most importantly, it provides a "nursery" for monarch butterfly caterpillars. This year there have been many, many caterpillars and butterflies, not only monarchs but lots of others, two. My sister-in-law said that milkweed provides for many kinds of caterpillars.

Each day, I've gone out to look and today there are no more. We are supposed to have our first frost tonight so they must be thinking their warm weather here has ended.

This is what we call our "wild garden". We've let the milkweed grow a few feet further into the lawn. Wild asters and goldenrod have begun growing there, too.

and down behind is a ton of comfrey which has been full of bees. The field beyond is where the animals used to graze when we had more of them. Now with just one donkey, 6 sheep (with two more coming soon), and the chickens, we don't need two pastures so they just graze the one near the barn. Tom mows it in the fall, and it grows up again in the summer, welcoming the birds and the bees and the butterflies.

Here is a closeup of the milkweed pods.

I actually saw the caterpillars chomping away on these leaves.

A while ago there was a lot of concern about the lack of milkweed, but at Windy Poplars Farm, and down on our neighbors' land, there is plenty of it to make all the little creatures happy and thriving. I think people have learned that it is a plant well worth keeping in one's garden.

Farm and Garden Report 2019 - First Potatoes

This year I bought a couple pounds of Yukon gold seed potatoes to plant in our new vegetable garden.  I was also given some purple potatoes from a friend who had more that she could use. These potatoes came from a nun who does the gardens at a home for elderly nuns. We ate many, but let some of them wrinkle up and sprout eyes, and we planted those as well. We have quite a good size potato patch.

This evening we dug for the first time, and found these beauties.

They are in the oven baking right now. We'll have them with pesto made with our basil; a salad made with our lettuce, tomatoes, and cucumbers; and some leftover tabouli made with our parsley! Ah, the bounty of August!

I'm sorry I haven't written more often. It has been a very busy summer with the little ones, and also planning a move for Tom's mother and step-father from Independent Living to Assisted Living. That takes place on Friday, and the kids start school in a couple of weeks so there will hopefully be more time for ye olde blogge.

Springtime at Windy Poplars - a photographic tour

This is what one of the flower gardens looked like on the day spring began, March 20.

Two days later

March 24

March 28

March 29 - plotting out the new vegetable garden, in the snow!

April 3 - sheep shearing day

April 6 - evening light

April 9 - evening light again

April 13 - signs of growth

April 20 - chickens on the lawn and crossing the road

Also April 20 - daffs we planted last fall are up!

April 22 - amazing evening sky - second picture only seconds after first one, and third seconds after that.

May 5 - forsythia. I learned it should really be pronounced with a long "I" because it is named after William Forsyth, a Scottish botanist.

May 6 - Ice Follies narcissus was a blog header picture

May 16 - viburnum up the road

May 17 - double rainbow, and our old daffs on the side lawn

May 24 - a bouquet of my plum blossoms, and lily-of-the-valley coming

May 26 - newly tilled up vegetable garden

Field violets -  were here when we came

 Thalia daffs

Bleeding heart

The patio gardens

June 7 - lilacs

June 11 - the white barn lilacs. Tom's mother gave him this for Father's Day decades ago.

Crabapple. At the top left of the picture you may see a mowing line. We are leaving half the lawn un-mowed this year. Lots of pretty wildflowers are appearing.

June 17 - Iris we transplanted into patio garden in the fall

Baptisia Australis - wild indigo

 Aquilegia, also transplanted in the fall

June 18 - on the hill out back. The wild garden, never weeded with a Lucy path through the middle. Ferns, iris, lupine.

That beautiful evening light - was a blog header. This was the last picture I took of the gardens of springtime. What a spring it was. Everything bloomed abundantly and lasted a long time. It was cool and wet, with some hot, sunny days.