30 March 2008

Wet Spring Garden Walk around Larrapin

I thought I'd take you along on the stroll we took today around the land. Ok, that makes it sound too tranquil. What really happened is it stopped pouring for a few hours and the sun came out yellow and bright. We grabbed galoshes and cameras and made a mad dash for the door!

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Above is the view down the slope alongside the chicken paddock. I love it because the sun sets behind it and lights up the uncut grass and wildflowers under the trees. You can barely tell what it is, but the thin sticks in the front left is a clump of wild maples we brought home from my mother & father-in-law's place. It has been so happy once we planted it in its new home.

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Out front, the row of redbuds are beginning to put on their show, always an amazing shade of pinkish purple.

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The ornamental pear is blooming and covered with pollinators of all kinds -- bees, butterflies and little wasps (when it isn't raining anyway). It's not a Bradford Pear, but some kind of rangy early attempt at one I think. We've spared it -- despite my feelings about Bradfords -- because obviously the blooms are important to the pollinators. (And Mendy wouldn't think of letting me take it out, even though it partially shades the veggies, because she loves it...)

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Meanwhile, the "Prairie Fire" crabapple is getting ready for her amazing show. I love this tree! It was the very first tree we planted at Larrapin.

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And the curly willow is greening up there beside one of the bird baths. Spring is greening! Thank goodness.

Now, if you notice I didn't show the veggie garden, it's because it's not very pretty right now. I've got tarps and buckets and tools all over the place from last weeks' digging frenzy. I'll do photos once I get it cleaned up a bit! Thanks for joining me for a wet spring walk around Larrapin Garden.

In case you doubt it's been raining here...


1, originally uploaded by larrapin67.

This is one of the new pots I bought for dwarf figs on the patio. Obviously I haven't removed the plug from the drain hole and it was sitting underneath a place where the gutters overflow if it's raining hard. This pot is thigh-high on me and it filled with water just from the thunderstorm last night. The ground is muck, the grass is greening and the farm ponds in the area are very, very full. Unfortunately, all this rain is exactly what the folks downstream don't need at all right now. I was startled to read in the paper that nearly half the counties in Arkansas were declared disaster areas after the recent flooding (ours wasn't among that group). But this explains why out of state friends and even out of the country friends called last week to "make sure we were ok." It's a good feeling to have people checking on your well-being! My thoughts go out to those folks who were not so lucky.

Spring Down the Road - The Old Cabin




This is the wonderful falling-down cabin down the road from us. The flowering quince and tiny daffodils are still blooming, even as the walls tilt and the floors cave under. There is a cardinal guarding the quince, where the nest probably is hidden.

Spring Down the Road

This is the field around the cabin down the road -- I love the way the grass contrasts with the broom sage and the tree trunks. The old timers in NC told me that broom sage means the soil underneath is too acidic and the tests of the soil in my yard say the old timers are right!



This captures the way an overgrown field in the Ozarks hills looks in mid-March. I love it.

Spring Tiptoed In..


2 great iPhotos, originally uploaded by larrapin67.

This photo was from March 4th, but I'm just getting around to posting it. Since then there have been so many projects! New garden beds, new writing on native plants (more about that later), and oh, days and days of deluge and rain here in Arkansas. Lucky for us, we're in the highlands of Northwest Arkansas, and if that weren't enough, we're on a particularly high and dry slope of a flat-topped mountain. It's raining again today, so I'll take this chance to post some things I've wanted to... Thanks for dropping by Larrapin Garden!