Spring has sprung around here. The birds are chirping. The violets and springing up. The daffodils and yellow and the bluebirds are blue. But. If you think it's all duckies and bunnies you would be mistaken.
Vermin-wise we seem to be making a seamless transition from mice to wasps and ants. Indeed, we had this lone-wolf of a mouse creating a public nuisance last week. Pooping on the stove top (grrrr…), nibbling his way through a small part of a brand new loaf of bread (grrr!) such that I had to throw the whole thing out, etc. So Isaac and I dutifully broke out the live trap, and sure enough, there he was the next morning, staring up at us with his inky black eyes.
I took him down to the creekside for his new life in the woods, where I can only hope he will be eaten soon by an owl. (It encourages me that I've been hearing one at night.) He was clearly not the smartest mouse in the world in the first place (all the other mice had the sense to move out) and his night in a tin box perhaps had left him even more disoriented than usual. I unlatched the lid, and leaped back, assuming he would spring out and run for cover. Instead he just sat there, fur slightly damp from his own pee. I held the lid open with a stick while he ambled out, and very slowly nonchalantly made his way off into the underbrush.
Later that night, probably about 3 a.m., I found myself trying to scratch my foot off of my lower leg. I found myself wondering, really, what could possibly be the downside of total foot (or why not knee down?) amputation. Diagnosis: poison ivy. I got it going out to release the stupid mouse! If you've never had it, just imagine the itchiest possible bug bite. Then add hives to it. Then make it glow from within. Then make it throb with itchiness, such that tearing your own flesh seems a very fine idea indeed. Oh yes, and if you indulge the desire to itch it, it only gets worse. Oh yes, and it spreads. What started as a brush against a tiny bit of ankle– I was wearing long pants and trend-of-2006 Croks– is now up two-thirds of my calf.
Poison Ivy and I never had any trouble whatsoever before last year. I happily maintained total ignorance of what it looked like, where it lived, and what it could do to a person. Then we bought this place, which is like poison ivy HQ, and I began to develop a reaction to it. This got more pronounced as the summer wore on, and now, this spring, before the little plants seem that they could even have peeked their heads up, it's here with a vengeance. I just went to the CVS and spent vast sums of money stocking up on poison ivy remedies. (I recommend the Cordaid scrub and spray combination– it's pricey but does work well). I spent some time on Saturday examining the many ways to kill it in the weed-killing aisle at Home Depot. I can see now that battling poison ivy is going to be a subplot of the remainder of my adult life.
"Leaves of three, let it be. A vine with hair, best beware." Do you realize we have monster poison ivy vines, ropes as thick as your arm, going up 60 foot trees? My plan for these– and it dovetails nicely with the other subplot of the remainder of my life, rose greed– is to a) cut through the vines near the base of the trees, thus cutting the supply lines to the whole vine; b) spray the open wounds with RoundUp, the PC weed killer, and c) plant enormous tree-climbing roses to then suck up and strangle out what feeble poison ivy growth remains. (I just ordered a Paul's Himalayan Musk for my first try.) I'll have to wear a hazmat suit to do this, of course, as we've now established that I'm allergic to the stuff, and getting more so all the time. But this is my plan… I'll check back to let you know if it works.
Speaking of rose greed, I'm working through it. I have spent the last three months reading rose books. Ben has tired of finding me, when I have only ten minutes, sitting amid a pile of open rose encyclopedias with my laptop humming, cross-referencing rose listings. I've made some initial selections. After much thought and research, I finally settled on "Gloire de Dijon" to climb on the pergola that doubles as our front porch. I called back my old dear friends, Graham Thomas and Golden Celebration, although I was sorry to learn that "Comtes de Champagne" was sold out. These form a yellow area… and so on to the pinks, "The Ingenious Mr. Fairchild" is on my short list, and "Wife of Bath" is there too, if only for the title. I need to find a place for "Peace." I need… thousands of dollars and a team of strong men, preferably bare-chested, to break the sod and prepare the soil and dig many, many "almighty" holes (you know the old saying, "two-bit rose, ten dollar hole"?– those holes are a bitch to dig.) But… in the meantime, I did manage with the help of two small children to get my three tiny Gloire de Dijons in the ground this weekend. I also dug up this poor wisteria at our old house, which our neighbor had aggressively pruned down to a stick, and moved it here where it is more welcome. I'm not sure whether it will survive this ordeal, but wisterias are notoriously tough…
I'm also happy to report that I just ordered us a big fat worm bin and two pounds of wiggly red worms. Seems that with a septic system instead of city sewers, the garbage disposal is frowned upon. So my plan is to have worms eat our garbage and make soil for the garden. They say this is easy to do. I fear it's not all that easy, but we'll see.
There's so MUCH potential around here. I mean– 7.82 acres!! Our old property, including the house was a stunning .04 acres! It's totally overwhelming. I keep telling myself… work in progress… gonna take years… one step at a time… but my mind is just swimming with options.
I'm going on a magnolia tour at the local arboretum to pin down what sort of magnolias I should put where.
The evil man who had a pending sale on this property for a year, and who came here and tore out OUR huge rhododendrons also tore out a bunch of lilacs. THese he tossed in a heap behind the house and left for dead. But they are still alive, have sent shoots up and even have buds. My project this week is to find them a home, dig some massive holes and relocate them.
I'm giving some thought to the whole native plant movement, and how I can develop areas that will feed the bugs, birds, and support the ecosystem, butterflies, and migratory birds.
I've got two bluebird houses up and am watching, watching, watching at least one pair of bluebirds… they seem to be house hunting and giving this area a second look.
Wouldn't it be nice to create a clearing down by the creek? So we could get at it, and sit there… like maybe a bench and a weeping willow? But that will take some serious RoundUp, a chainsaw, and much heavy lifting.
Vegetables– there's some prime land that has vegetable garden written all over it. But this will require a huge amount of work, a fence, and a rototiller.
(A bunny already nibbled on my Gloire de Dijon…)
I think I'm going to put a little herb and flower garden for the children right up by the terrace, where they can water it while we're sitting there drinking lemonade.
I'm waiting… maybe this week… to see what we have here in the way of blooming trees. It looks to me like maybe this huge tree we have right outside our window (some sort of non-fruiting pear?) is about to burst into bloom.
Wasps are flying around the dining room windows again– Elias came up with a good sign for them, "Airplane spiders!" Ants are hard at work between the kitchen floor boards. The carpenter bees are making a comeback at the play structure.
Ah well… nature is not my friend. Not by any stretch. But we're working on our differences and you could say we're civil. Yes. I have a civil relationship with nature. That's good enough for now.