Saturday, May 14, 2022

Gardening Day - Must Be May!

 

Last night Travalon and I went to the Dorfhaus for a fish fry, and I also forgot to mention on this blog that on Star Wars Day (May the Fourth), we went to a bonfire on Picnic Point hosted by the guy we had a joint birthday party for with Rich.

Last night it rained, so today I went to check if there were more morel mushrooms. No, but there were these pretty tulips.


Then we got some ground cherry plants from the co-op and went to the community garden, where they were also selling plants, so I bought some kale and Swiss chard. We planted them in my plot and weeded a bit, but it still didn't look like anything has been done in my plot, so I'll have to go there tomorrow or they might take it away from me. We met Kathbert in the Arboretum, and all the crabapples and lilacs were blooming:


When you stand right in the center of it all, it smells wonderful. I always describe it as a scent cathedral. There were still a few magnolias blooming as well. Travalon took some photos with his good camera, but I'm too tired to upload them tonight, so look for those tomorrow.

Then we went to a boardwalk in the Arboretum from which you can see an island with pelicans on it. Kathbert said yesterday the whole island was covered in them, and even today there was quite a flock. I'm so happy that pelicans have finally come to Madison! We did see some flying overhead as we were driving along the road into the Arboretum.

Then Travalon dropped us off at Rich's house and went fishing, while we helped Rich in the garden. It has been years since the three of us spent the whole day gardening. Check out the fascinating blossoms on Rich's paw-paw trees!


My main goal was to move the rose bush from under the redbud tree that I had moved there over a decade earlier, when it was just a seedling. Now it is shading the rose, but there was a small shoot coming out of the rose, so we dug it up. That's when it got weird - it had hardly any roots! It was an old, well-established rosebush, so what the heck? We moved what was there to a sunnier spot, and here's hoping it recovers and hopefully once again has the large white blooms we loved. I feel so guilty - this is all my doing. Then we discovered some interloper lilac bushes growing under the redbud that must have come from the one just on the other side of the fence, but the two larger ones had roots under the fence, so they will just have to fend for themselves. I did move a small one to a sunnier spot. Meanwhile, Kathbert trimmed Guinness the Juniper Bush. Of course I didn't think to take a "before" photo, but Guinness was blocking the door to Rich's garage and also spreading out beyond the edge of the house. It was just monstrous. It should have been trimmed years ago (just like the rosebush should have been moved years ago), but anyway, now it looks fantastic.


And here is our poodle Rodney's grave right in front of Guinness.


Callie the Cat and Charlie and Cashmere the Rabbits are also buried in the vicinity, but their graves aren't marked. Sylvia the Hedgehog was buried right beside the rosebush, but we didn't encounter her skeleton as we were digging it up. 

I had brought some onions from my garden and the rest of the morels, and Travalon came back with a cheese pizza. We tried to fry the onions, but we're not used to Rich's stove, and we somehow burned them to a crisp. We lightly fried the morels and then took the pizza out three minutes early, put them on top, and put the pizza back in. That seemed to work perfectly. It was a gorgeous evening, so Rich set up a table in his driveway, and Travalon set up four folding chairs, and then we had morel pizza and the sun tea that Rich had been brewing all afternoon. What a glorious day!


Famous Hat


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