Category Archives: Off the (Gardening) Wall

Contest Judges Held Hostage to Herman's Hermits

The other two large  
Robins eating juniper berries. If you click on the picture, you'll be able to see the berry in the bottom bird's beak. Notice all that snow on the roof behind the upper bird.

There was supposed to be a post about contest rules yesterday, but there wasn't. Such is life.

It was tax day. And there was all this snow, a foot of it since Tuesday. Also birds. It was necessary, therefore, to take photographs. And to go skiing.

(Actually, the judges were taken hostage by a crew of irate gardening fanatics wielding sharpened hoes, heavy hoses, and the Herman's Hermits' complete playlist. They have commandeered my study, locked the judges inside, and are demanding that the rules be expanded to allow a wider range of categories.

The cries of outrage and pain, audible even over “I'm ‘Enery the Eighth, I am,” have ceased, so I assume that progress is being made and that the finished rules will be slipped under the door shortly. I hope so, because I am getting very tired of “Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter.”)

In the meantime, I will do what I can with earplugs and a woofer blasting the White Album.

GBMD: somewhere i have never travelled

Johnson's g


somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look will easily unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,  mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

–e.e. cummings

I will admit to having a quite personal reason for treasuring this poem: back when I was madly in love with my husband and he was not in love with me (that would be our sophomore year in college) he gave me this poem. Now, I know a love poem when I see one, and I refused to believe it meant nothing. Maybe that's why I was able to outlast the others who had designs on his heart. 

The photograph is of what I believe to be a Johnson's geranium, growing wild near an abandoned settlement in Newfoundland.

Shake or be shaken: see the big screen

This one's for James Alexander-Sinclair (Blogging from Blackpitts Garden) who was apparently inspired by the automatic compost screeners featured in my "Shake yo' compost screen" post earlier this week. But he wants something "bigger and better," he says. His brain on fire, he is all pumped up to turn his many talents to the question of large-scale screening.

Well, James, in support of your efforts, I decided to share with you these possibilities.

This one's quite cute, and will fit in the back of your pick-up. However, since it has no moving parts, it's not entirely clear how the dirt you dump on top is supposed to make it through the screen (especially a screen at that angle), but I'm sure you'll figure something out: maybe instead of shaking, you can take up jumping. Of course, you can always buy the "Optional Vibrator Package" for a mere $1,400. 

Soil screener new lg

Portable Soil Screener. Portable as in slip it into your back pocket?  The site has a video of it in action. If you have had a very dull day, check it out.

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Minnesota Spring: GBMD, approximately

I thought it was still Monday when I set out to transcribe this; I'd had three hours' sleep Sunday night and none Tuesay night, and I'm a bit addled. (I slept 18 hours last night, a personal best.) The occasion for this sleepless extravaganza was the last, mad push to finish, at last, the compost article, which I sent out yesterday. Afterwards I felt rather like a somewhat limp helium balloo that might just drift away over the landscape.

Anyway, I thought it was Monday, but it wasn't, so this isn't really a Garden Blogger's Muse Day contribution. It's even less of one than it should be, because I forgot to post it yesterday.

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Spring? You’ve got to be kidding!

Snow chairs

What is all this nonesense about spring? I spend a few minutes looking around at other blogs, and I’m about ready to sell my house (as if anyone could do that these days!) and move south.

Mr. McGregor’s Daughter has a post titled “It Really Is Spring;” Always Growing has one called “Happy for Warm Days;” Benjamin of The Deep Middle announces that the "Sandhill Cranes Are Here," The Giraffe Head Tree has a "New Look for Spring." and the Heirloom Gardener is blithely (rashly, if she could see my scowl) writing about "The First Tree to Flower in the Garden," the witchhazel. Even though Gotta Garden has a post titled "Snow Flowers," the snow gets short shrift and the flowers are many and lovely.

Now if you visit my garden, I'd be happy to offer you a seat, but I don't know if you'd want to accept the offer, and there sure wouldn't be any flowers to admire, as the photograph above demonstrates.

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