Learning on the Job Digging Dahlias and Gladiolus

The warm days of autumn have faded into the chilly days of early winter, and I've been busy helping Kevin and Katie wrap up the growing season. My flower growing knowledge is rather limited, but bless their hearts, they agreed to let me help out, and I'm really enjoying it. And I'm learning a lot! 

Annie has taken it up herself to keep an eye on me as I work. 
Not a bad idea, someone needs to make sure I do it right. 

A couple weeks ago, I volunteered to dig the dahlias. These were from their specialty patch at their house that Katie uses in the flower arrangements she sells in season. At first, I dug them and laid them in the grass nearby. But it was a windy day, and I was having trouble keeping their nametags in place. 

So, I abandoned that idea, and as I dug them, I just carried them 2 at a time to the greenhouse to dry for a couple days. Let's just say that helped get my steps in. Ha. 

A couple days later, George helped me dig the dahlias from the U-Pick patch, which was less stressful, since those ones weren't tagged, meaning I didn't have to worry about making sure I didn't lose said tags. After they dried a bit, Kevin got them all tucked into barrels with a blanket of peat moss to keep them cozy for their long winters nap in their basement. 

Today, it was the gladiolus' turn. Because of the wet spring, they got planted late and then bloomed beautifully as long as they could. Kevin and Katie decided to leave the glads in the ground for a while despite frosty nights, so the glads could go through their winding down process. But with the possibility of snow next week, it was time to get them out of the ground. 

This was my first time digging glads, and I was pleasantly surprised to find out I could just pull them out of the ground by hand, using a garden fork occasionally if one broke off from the stem. I filled 2 crates by myself, then George helped me fill 2 more. The kids helped with the last 2, and let me tell you, they had the pulling process down! I was the stem cutter, and I could barely keep up with them. 

Hopefully the fact that the glads had some frosty nights won't be an issue. Last year, Kevin accidentally skipped a row when he dug them up, and that row made a surprise appearance in the summer, with no damage. 

Now the glads are taking their turn in the greenhouse to dry before they too get put to bed for the winter. 

 

A Surprise Under the Dahlias

Our daughter Jessica gave me some of her dahlia tubers last spring, and I planted them by the porch, outside the kitchen window. Such a unique, and beautiful star shaped bloom! I think this variety is called Verrone's Obsidian.

For a week or so during the late summer, a hummingbird would hover around them, drinking in their sweet nectar. I was never quick enough with the camera to get a photo, but I sure enjoyed watching.

We've had a few hard frosts by now, so a couple days ago, I decided to dig up the tubers. I was surprised that I didn't have to get out the shovel or spade. I was able to pull out the whole clump by hand.

But that wasn't the only surprise. When I pulled them up, I noticed the slightest movement in the dirt.

At first, I thought it was a snake's tail. 

But snakes slither away quickly, and this didn't make a move other than the slightest twitching of its tail. I was feeling brave and used a long screwdriver to flip away more dirt.

A yellow spotted salamander! 

Even with the dirt removed, it didn't make a move. I gently covered it back up with the loose dirt and left it in peace in its hidden home. 

Bees, hummingbirds and even salamanders. Those dahlias sure did put out the welcome mat!

Goodbye Summer, Hello Fall on the Porches

The frost took the coleus a few nights ago, and the impatiens were alive, but not happy. I miss when they looked like this: 

But, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade, right? 

Time for fall! I decided to see how long the sweet potato vine and the sweet alyssum will last. Dare I hope until Halloween? 

Love pumpkins! I don't think I'll be potting up anything this late in the season, so I may as well fill the potting bench up with pumpkins. 

As for the potting bench on the other porch, it is also decorated for fall. And Willow seems to think she is part of the display. 

Trying our Hands at Drying Flowers

Just a few weeks ago, the U-Pick Patch at our son's farm was in full glory. Howard Family Farms in Salisbury, PA was the place to go to pick and arrange your own bouquet. 

Unfortunately, the end of the season comes when Jack Frost makes his annual debut.

The night before the predicted frost, George & I cut a row of flowers Katie wanted to dry from the U-Pick Patch, while Kevin did the same in their private patch at their house. 

It was getting close to dark, and we were hustling. And to be completely honest, we really didn't know what we were doing. But we managed to completely fill the truck bed with just one row of flowers.

The next day, George & I tied them together into bundles, while the kids & Kevin hung them to dry. Once again, we really didn't know what we were doing, but we gave it the ole college try. We were almost done when Katie got home from work, and told Kevin that technically, we were supposed to strip the leaves. Oops! But she was fine with how we did it, (or maybe she is just a good actor?) Hopefully the drying leaves won't be too much of an issue. 

Ah, well, this may be a live and learn situation. Isn't that most of life? 

They sure look pretty hanging there! Katie has plans for them. It will be interesting to see what all she comes up with! 

 

Strange Dandelions

Last spring, we found a few of the oddest dandelions on our son's farm in PA. It seemed that 3 or 4 of them fused into one, making a wide stem with multiple flower heads coming out of it. 

I have no idea if that is common or rare, but it was a new sight for me personally.

The grandkids found the first one, then we found a few more, all within the same general area. 

I'll have to keep an eye out for them again next spring! 

Frost is Coming Soon for our Flowers. Boo.

Chances for frost are increasing, so I wanted to get a final photo of our garden doors before the end of the season. The zinnias looked much better a month or so ago, but that's ok. 

George and I made all the decorations. All had been in our shop at one point. The butterflies we made from old tin corrugated roofing were a great seller, as were the various chair planters we had through the years. We had fun making birdhouses and decorating them with old junk. As for the garden angel, we did sell several of them, but we kind of got in on that trend a little late. They were starting to fade in popularity by the time we started making them. Ah, always a dollar late and a dollar short. We ended up keeping a few of them, and I sort of rotate them in and out of use. 

This is the view we see of them from our house.

And this is the view our neighbors see:

We want to make it look nice on their side too. Although I do have trouble remembering to water the flowers in the little wagon. They aren't looking so hot at this point. Actually, I thought they were dead once, but I went ahead and gave them a BIG drink, and they came back. Then we got a little rain, and dewy nights, and they managed to stay alive despite me neglecting them. 

We had bought the wagon to sell in the shop, but it never made it there. I rarely kept things without even trying to sell it, but the wagon spoke to me. "Keep me, keep me!". So I did. 

Same with this red one:

I can't remember for sure if I ever had this wagon in the shop, but I'm thinking it also told me to keep it. When a wagon speaks, you have to listen. Hee hee. 

Look at those plants! This is a first for me! That coleus... I can't believe it got so big. The sweet potato vine just kept going and going. The impatiens did pretty well, and the sweet alyssum... Wow! This is the first time I even kept it alive. Honest! 

I watered frequently, and fertilized with Miracle Gro a few times, and by golly, I got rewarded big time. I hate to lose them to the cold, but I guess that day is coming.  

I may fool around and learn how to be a flower gardener yet! 

Combining Vintage Items into New Treasures

Reminiscing...

One of our favorite things to create when we had our shop was combos.

We would look around our stash of vintage items, and inspiration would hit.

"Hey, look! This will fit on this!"

In this case, it was a 4-loaf bread pan that fit nicely on metal legs.

The large metal dishpan was a good topper for the barrel, giving it a whole new look.

We had the bowl from a vintage pitcher and bowl set for quite a while. No one wanted it without the pitcher, until we set it on the metal stand, which looked like it had been made for it. 

We laid a feed dolly down on its back, and added a box, making it into a fun planter. 

Somewhere along the way, we had picked up a box full of rusty concrete tools. They took up space in our garage for years until we turned them into hooks by attaching them to boards. The pointy one on the left is an old fur board that had been used originally to stretch pelts.

We attached 3 other fur boards to a bench for a unique look.

The barrel attached to a dolly made a fun planter.

As did the metal thingy attached to a wheel thingy.

How's that for an official description. Ha!

Once you start looking outside the box on vintage items, the possibilities are endless! 

Oh, in case you are wondering, all these items sold when the shop was open. 

We closed in 2023.

 

We Were Beginning to Think the Buzzards Were Waiting on Us

My last post described a fun experience with parakeets at a zoo. 

This one is also about birds. But not fun. 

Creepy. Very creepy.

One day this summer, as we pulled into our driveway, we saw 5 buzzards sitting on the fence posts between our yard and the neighbors hay field. 

As we got out the car, they just sat there, like sentry's guarding the house.

Buzzards. The bird of death.

Instead of walking up the sidewalk to the front door like we usually do, we snuck in the garage door, through the inside of the house and up to the living room window. One had flown off, but the other 4 were still there. I took photos through the front window. They just sat there.

I opened the front door. Still there. 

We were beginning to wonder if they knew something we didn't. Were they waiting on us to keel over? 

Finally, when I took a couple steps onto the porch, they flew off. 

An hour or so later, I looked out again, and they were back. Ok, this was getting really strange. Again, I opened the door, and they just sat there, until I stepped outside. That time, I thought I saw something on the ground. 

After they flew away, I walked over to the fence. There was a dead opossum on the ground right against the fence, half hidden in the grass. 

Whew! It was the opossum they wanted, not us. What a relief! 

That was actually our second experience with buzzards this summer. 

 

On Easter Sunday, we took a drive in PA, exploring some backroads.  As we were driving up one road, a buzzard started flying up the road ahead of us, as if it were leading us. We followed it for at least a quarter mile, maybe more. 

We started wondering that day too. What does it know that we don't? Was it leading us to our demise?

Seriously, we knew that wasn't the case. But we had fun joking around about it, especially since at that point we weren't sure where we were. After a few miles, we finally realized we were headed up the mountain roads to Mount Davis, which is PA's highest point. 

Ahh, good. Now we knew where we were. And the buzzard let us go the rest of the way in peace.

The White Peacock

Recently, I walked out of a store and saw this white peacock in front of our truck. Um...

I went back inside, and told the clerk about it, thinking maybe someone had lost their peacock. She said it belonged next door and sometimes wandered over.

It was fascinated with our truck. I got in the driver's seat and carefully backed up. It came with me. I got out, and it was circling the truck. I got back in and could not tell where it was. I honked the horn hoping to scare it back a few feet, but it still stuck with me. I looked up, and the clerk apparently heard me honk, realized what was happening, and came out to help.

She motioned for me to go once the bird was far enough away. I did, and once I was closer to her, I stopped and we chatted a bit. She said the reason it was so fascinated with our truck is that he liked to look at himself in the bumper. So, it wasn't really the truck he liked, it was the handsome fellow in the mirror. Ha! 

 

That peacock made my day! 

 

Hovatter's Zoo and the Parakeet Experience

 In August, we went to Hovatter's Zoo in Kingwood, WV where we had a parakeet experience.

It started out innocently enough. John held out a food stick, and a parakeet flew over and landed on it. So sweet. And then...

Let's just say the parakeets weren't shy! It was crazy! It just took a few seconds until they were all over you. Note to self: make sure you wear a hat! We had a little trouble getting them out of my hair. It was fun, though a bit painful. Ha! Those teeny-weeny little bird feet claws are sharp!

The other animals were much calmer. The kids got to feed lots of animals, including the giraffes. 

Word of warning, the roads to Kingwood are very windy. I got a little seasick. Grace got very seasick, and we had to make a quick pullover in a store parking lot for her to throw up. A car stopped beside us to see if we needed help. Turned out to be (I think) the owner. He was so kind, which we appreciated more than he will ever know. 

Other than the motion sickness, it was a great day, and we will know to load up on Dramamine the next time! 

Scarecrows for the Wild Apple Festival

We had a lot of fun making scarecrows for the Wild Apple Festival which our son and daughter-in-law hold on their farm.

Wait a minute, those 2 on the ends aren't scarecrows!

We scattered our new creations around the field.

This guy is next to an old grain cleaner in the U-Pick Flower Patch.

This one is a short guy, with a short window and a short corn shock. 

Perfect size for little ones to pose with. 

If you look closely, you can see an arch with small pumpkins growing on it. The plan was for the vines to completely cover the arch, but a too wet Spring followed by a too dry Summer took its toll. The flowers in the background did great though! 

This one is at the top of the lane, helping to announce the two-weekend festival. 

And this guy was our biggest challenge. We named him Johnny Lee, because he is wearing grandson John's pants, and neighbor Lee's hat. But technically, he could be called Pappy Johnny Lee, because he is also wearing Pappy's shirt. 

He was the hardest to make, and the hardest to stage. We knew we wanted him to look like he was plowing. It took a little doing, and a few stakes, but it worked!

He is part of the Scavenger Hunt in the apple orchard. There is a list of 15 items to find in the orchard. Some natural, some added. Anyone who finds at least 12 of the items is entered to win a gift basket of Howard Family Farms products. 

And how do you get to the orchard? On a hayride! There are goats to admire, and pigs to feed. There are kid's games to play. Flowers to pick. A trailer load of home-grown pumpkins to choose from. 

This is the second year for the festival, and it's really taking off. 

Lots of people were there having fun this morning.... until the rain moved in this afternoon. Sigh. 

But tomorrow is another (supposed to be sunny!) day.