Get Up!

Last week's bounty; Deb Marshall photo

“Get up!” The Husband said. “You’ve got to look out the window and see this!” 

Tired; hard night. It hailed and then it snowed. I was awake when the snow started. What’s so important to look at? Did we get more than a dusting? I don’t have my glasses on.

“Just get up; I’ve got to call the police,” he said, bounding back downstairs.

Huh. Snow doesn’t require a call to the police. So I reluctantly found my glasses and went downstairs. And there – in the field, next to the garden, or what was left of it after last night’s weather – were two horses dressed in blankies, rolling about in the snow and dashing about the field and through my garden beds and skittering with every blow of the wind, which was a lot of skittering. These horses were clearly having the time of their lives, but no one in the nearby owns horses, that we’re aware of; though there are a few fainting goats and a donkey down the street.

The Husband called the local police, then headed out with big carrots from our garden to try to keep the horses away from the road. I called the vet to see if they knew anyone who might be missing some horses. Then I put clothes on and headed out with more carrots. By this time the town cop had arrived, and he and the Husband had followed the horses into the neighbors’ yard, and then down the road.

By the time I got there, horses and cop and husband were out of sight, but the daughter of the woman whose horses they were showed up, and we headed into the next neighbor’s yard together. Her mom’s car was parked on the side of the road. In a few minutes Husband and cop returned up – Mom was going home with the horses, on foot. Daughter told me that one of the horses, who we’ve seen from a distance a few times coming down Kimpton Brook Road with rider, is in love with the donkey down the road. We figure when they got loose, the happy horses  took their usual route to visit the donkey, and by the time they made a side-trip down our driveway they were already headed home for breakfast, though they were perfectly happy to accept the carrots the Husband offered.

Giant hoof-prints in my raised beds aside, the horses caused less damage than the damned chipmunks have, and continue to, cause. Currently they’re digging up flower bulbs almost as soon as I plant them. They aren’t eating them, just tossing them onto the ground where they’ll get frost-bitten or freeze and be ruined if I don’t find them quickly enough and replant them. Not really interested in planting these bulbs more than once, and so far I’ve planted about half of them twice. Cussing the whole time.

This morning, my weirdly still-green and lush asparagus ferns were lying flat on the ground. I have a very bad feeling that the damned chipmunks have been gnawing on their roots. I’m going to be furious if there are no asparagus next spring because the damned chipmunks ate the roots. Someone told me they knew someone whose apple trees were completely stripped of apples this fall by the damned chipmunks – you see the apples balanced on branches up in pine, and maple, and beech trees when walking through the woods.

One of the most interesting things that developed over the last gardening season actually started last fall, when I put a largish clay pot on the floor near a window in the room we call the chapel (because it has one stained glass window), near the woodstove. I must have immediately forgotten why it was there, tho’ I continued to throw water at it from time to time because it had sprouted one single stalk of what looked like really interesting grass, or a grain of some sort. I decided I wanted to see how the thing would develop; and eventually I planted cat grass in the pot for the Furry People’s use. Come summer, I put it outdoors on the wart with the rest of the plants that summer outdoors, and was disappointed when it didn’t develop a seed head or any other interesting thing; and in fact, it turned yellow and kind of dwindled.

When I got ready to put empty pots away for the winter I upturned it to dump the soil into the compost bin, and a big chunk of something fell out. Thinking it might be a damned chipmunk, I gingerly fished it out and brushed it off and discovered it was, in truth, a big ginger root! I’d grown a lovely large ginger root without remembering planting it! So I put the soil back in the pot, broke off the two nubs that were starting to sprout again, planted them in the pot, and put the pot back in the chapel near the woodstove, and I’ll be really interested to find out what’s in there next fall at about this time.

What I found in the pot; Deb Marshall photo

The garden’s pretty much done for the winter. I’ve still got 15 pavers still to place, and 15 bricks, and there’s a bale of hay and a bag of cedar to spread before they freeze – one in the raspberry bed, where I just finished cutting out the spent canes, the other to fill in spots where the cover wore thin over the summer. I’m waiting for some perennials to arrive, and I hope they come soon and I’m not trying to plant them in a snowstorm into frozen ground; and I’m replanting the bulbs the chipmunks toss out. 

The marjoram and sage and bee balm and hostas have been cut back, and there’re still a handful of other plants that need to have spent foliage cut back when I have time on the weekend. But the season’s turned again, and we’re effectively in very late fall - we even fired up the woodstove, yesterday. The only real thing happening in the garden is the spoiled vegetation rotting away in the compost bins, which, after two weeks of hard work, are filled with rotting stuff that needs to be changed into something useful.

Time to do as much for our country. In just about 2 weeks, it’ll be time to vote. Voting’s the way we yank out the old, rotting stuff in our country and toss it in the compost bins, while planting new bulbs to flourish and invigorate us and make our hearts sing after a long, hard winter. Be a good farmer and toss out the old stuff with vigor, even though it’s hard work and it can take awhile before we see results. Otherwise, all we’ll have in our country is a miasma of rotting, nasty stuff that’s not good for us, and we’ll slowly rot away and die. 

Remember to vote; and remember, we’re all Witnesses.

For the blog.

Getting ready for what's coming; Deb Marshall photo