April 12, 2004
Waking Up
One of the earliest books I loved was The Secret Garden. It wasn't the story so much that I cared about, but the idea of a hidden, well, garden. I think I especially liked the idea of walls defining its boundary.
Since then, I've had some gardens, and loved them. But more than that, I loved living alone - and it wasn't possible to both live alone and have a back yard, not if I wanted to be able to afford the rent. Besides, my summers were taken up by doing stuff outside, like hanging out at the rowing club or paddling or biking...
Now that I live on a 100 acre farm, you'd think it would be possible to find a spot for a garden again. But I hadn't even considered it, for two reasons: it's pretty lame to put in a little kitchen garden when, just up the hill, there are entire fields of vegetables, and even if I did, the blind donkey has a keen sense of where anything tasty might be and she roams all over the farmyard and would in all likelihood have a little garden for a tasty little snack. That's what she's done with all that has tried to grow so far, anyway.
And then, on Saturday, I sat in the sun in front of the barn, talking to Lorenz. The dog noticed a raccoon at the end of the paddock closest to the vegetable barn, and took off. Lorenz walked down to investigate. I walked with him about half way, and then I noticed that the top rail of the fence at the south edge of the paddock was broken, and I wandered off that way. I was completely astounded to realize that, on the other side of that fence, there is a little plot of land that is completely overgrown and hidden away. On the north side is this paddock, on the east is the heritage building, on the south another fence near the greenhouse, and on the west a row of cedars dividing it from the pool. I'd never noticed this spot before, even though I live only about 20 meters from it!
It was full of brambles and vines and matted weeds, but I was absolutely fascinated by this version of the secret garden. When Lorenz came back from the bottom of the paddock, I pestered him to let me clean it out and turn it into something. Given that he's as tolerant as they come, he said something along the lines of, he didn't really care what I did, and the snips are in the garage.
By Sunday, I'd made good use of the snips - not to mention the rake, and finally a saw. I still have a lot of work to do, but I feel like I have my own back yard again.
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Things are starting to happen at the farm. Up in the fields, the chives are growing and the garlic is coming up in its spelt straw mulch (the spelt is sprouting too). Soon, there will be rhubarb, and after that, asparagus. Down in the greenhouse, the plugs are sprouting away like mad. I never realized that a greenhouse at this time of year takes more supervision than a toddler does - every time the sun comes out or disappears behind clouds, things change in there. Doors are opened and closed to ventilate (soon the sides will roll up when necessary), there is a heater and heat pads, and most importantly, there is watering to be done. Lorenz explained 
that things like peppers and eggplant like it very warm at night, others like lettuces don't like the heat so much. If some plants get too cold even in the transplant stage, they won't set fruit properly months later. So he is constantly in the greenhouse (though the first of the apprentices starts today, so I suspect that job will be shared soon).
Sometime this week, maybe some day-old chicks will come (they like it really warm, they get a heat lamp), and then later in the spring, some piglets. Lorenz plowed the field to the west of the house today. I don't think he's plowed it before. This will then be turned into a pick-your-own flowers field (I suspect my picking may prevent a decent profit from happening there!).
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Things are waking up in the woods, too. On Friday, Sarka and I went for a long walk in Hilton Falls Conservation Area. We mostly concentrated on trails far removed from access points - it was a holiday, and the falls area itself was overrun with people. The first of the wildflowers are out, Sarka says they're hepatica. There are big clumps of what will be trilliums everywhere, too, and the frogs were singing their heads off. Sarka has a keen eye - she spotted both the skeleton of some critter that didn't make it (I think maybe it's a raccoon, but I'm not sure) and the clumps of wild garlic. We used some empty baggies Sarka had to pick the wild garlic greens, they're better than chives as far as I'm concerned.