(Pic#1 this is the front w/old mulch)

(Pic#2 Mulching in process)

(Pic#3 My garden stepping stones)

So in the spring of 2012 I decided I was going to do a Memorial Garden to honor the memory of my loving parents that I miss dearly. Their ashes are buried in the very southern tip of Missouri and to drive from this location in Michigan to there takes about 11 hours one way. And that was with my husband doing his heavy petal to the metal. We went down there on Memorial Day Weekend 2005 to bury their ashes in the family plot. That was their request and I was the executor of the Estate and I followed all of their verbal instructions they drilled into me for years to the letter. My Aunt that lives down there had already purchased their headstone at my dads request and he paid her. I thought it was morbid at the time him showing me the picture of the headstone in place with mom’s info filled out. It made me feel sad and empty. So when dad passed my Aunt said she’d fill out dad’s part instead of sending a card or flowers. It’s a very nice headstone, if you can call them nice. It’s black granite.

(Pic#1 The garden w/new mulch and new plants)

(Pic#2 Another view looking from the South)

(Pic#3 My Mums in early Sept after pruning all summer)

Anyway to move out of this morbid train of thought. It was just to give a little background to my garden planning. My mom loved the color pink and my dad loved red. I am partial to red, but I love blue and my best friend and sister like purple. My friend always loves my lavender I planted many years ago. It needs some major tending to now that I’ve learned after the fact you need to prune it, because now it has some woody growth to it. It needs a major pruning and I pray I can do it correctly w/o hurting it. I have always loved Lillie’s, especially the Asiatic ones. I like the Day Lillie’s too with all the different colors they have. So along the garage side I added 4 different sizes and colors of Day Lillie’s behind the Mums and near my Honeysuckle. That is where I put my Angel as well. I needed something there that would bloom after the Daffodils and Crocus but before the Mum’s. I’m still pondering if I should add anything more there….

(Pic#1 My Memorial to Mom and Dad-Completed)

(Pic#2 My Angel Illuminated at night)

(Pic#3 Late August things really started to grow, Yeah~!)

On the other side of the garden, the North side, I planted 20 mixed Asiatic Lillie’s. To my horror all summer I was battling a mole varmit! He came and ate all but 3 bulbs by August, but by the end of the month those 3 were gone! I did all I could think of-traps, grape bubble gum in his tunnels and I was also told to place moth balls around the base of the bulbs. To no avail he still gobbled them up. I was ready to take my gun out there and shoot him. Sometimes I’d be out there and he’d zip from my lavender, across the front edge of the garden to under my Mum’s. I’d race to try to stomp him but being as uncoördinated as I am I missed and almost fell all the time! But to continue on with my saga: I planted 4″ potted Little Princess Spiraea, in the corner on the other side of the picture window I planted 2 Black Beauty Elderberry (I know I need to keep it pruned so it won’t outgrow that space, but it looked so cool) and in the front of the bird bath I planted Veronica Georgia Blue (sad to say of the 6 I planted only 3 have survived).

(These are the Day Lillie’s that are on the garage side wall-survived the mole invasion)

It had been a few years since mulch was put down and it was worn down and worn out. I was crazy to think that by buying 6 bags of beautiful red mulch I’d have enough! Hah, it barely filled in the section by the North wall! By the time it was all said and done, the whole area re-mulched, I was 20 bags into it!! Quite expensive but there was no truck available to get any in bulk and to get the color I wanted-Red. Vivid Red.  I then on a whim found some fantastic Bronze finished solar lights I put alongside the sidewalk to illuminate the way to the front door. They were on sale and a set of 8 which I considered quite a steal (until I realized why when getting the garden ready for winter-the finish was coming off and they started to rust )

(The top picture is my baby Spiraea at just a few weeks and on the bottom it has doubled in size in just 1 month)

Around the Angel it looked incomplete and I was figuring out what to do with it. I came across the idea to get 2 solar lighted memorial markers to put on each side and a small bag of white marble chips. I got through a craft store a small bag of white stones to put in the Angel’s bowl she was holding. Then I got to thinking after I saw an advertisement banner searching online, I got 2 personalized stones that represent my mom then my dad. Then it seemed to come together for me.

(one of the other many visitors that came to my garden-we have many rabbits and as a result many Coyote in the middle of the night)

I made a point of it each morning to go out and water my new plants, I called them babies actually, and the older plants as well. I’d weed and put down more Preen. Preen became my best friend as well as Miracle Grow. But while I was out there every day, even when it was hot but the sun didn’t hit that side of the house yet as it faces West, I’d forget my worries and concentrate of making my plants thrive and grown. Plus fighting that varmit! It turned out to be a hot and dry summer so I had to tend to my garden every day. And since it was in memory of my parents that was extra motivation. I plan on adding more to the garden this year, a vibrant red plant (Perennial is a must) to surround the Spiraea and fill in the blank spaces. I’d like to do Lillie’s again now that I got a great hint on using chicken wire to cage them in when I bury them. Wish I had known of that last year. Oh well I got those bulbs on sale so it’s not like I lost a lot of money for them to turn into mole food. It’s just the idea of it.

(This is one garden visitor that freaks the crap out of me-the other one was a small garter snake slithering under the lavender-I stayed away from that for the rest of the season-no weeding around the lavender!)

So along with gardening that I discovered took my thoughts off my problems, I also did journaling and then blogging. But my best friend was right. And so is my new blogger friend Steven. Gardening is very therapeutic, when you don’t have rodents and creepy crawly things to scare the crap out of you, but it still gets your mind off your problems, you’re doing something productive, you’re getting out of the house, your improving your atmosphere as well as the appearance of your yard, and you get to sit back and watch the fruit of your labor thrive and grow. Doing this and being able to interact with some pretty doggone amazing people online through blogging, Face Book and Twitter, all of these avenues are great coping mechanisms. I would highly recommend a flower or vegetable garden. I’m trying an indoor herbal garden with Rosemary. That is slow going but Steven said it would be so I will be patient. I will get it a buddy so it’s not alone in that pot. And I will do another container planting on my back deck. I can’t do any landscaping because that is where the dogs go and they eat and tear up stuff. But I am going to involve my mind more by planning what to add and where to put it, therefore distracting myself from my burdens.

I will post some updates to my project in the future. I hope all of you have a hobby you enjoy that you can find joy and happiness from. If you don’t have one by now please find one and immerse yourself into it fully and reap the rewards.

Until next time wishing you all a Blessed and Pain free day.

Dave helped me get the rest of the deer netting up. We were able to salvage it all from last season with a few repairs to holes using twist ties. We had to get crafty since we ran out of the netting with about 10 feet to go. So we took some scraps and tied them together to make the final piece.

After the deer net was up, I tied mason line around the top between all the posts and tied the netting to it. Every year grass and weeds grow up into the fencing and makes it impossible to trim. It always looks so messy. This time we laid some paper down and used some of the millings to line around the perimeter. I’m hoping this chokes the weeds out.

Right now this is looking a little tacky but once it’s trimmed and the Day Lilly mature, it will look pretty nice. Last year the fence was on the inside of the row of Lillies since I wanted them to hide the base of the fence. Unfortunately, the deer made a feast of them and while they hid the base of the fence as intended, there were no flowers to enjoy. The ones that were inside the garden did fantastic as usual. The first ones open between July 1st-4th the past few seasons. The only reason I remember is because I want them to be open for our annual 4th of July gathering and it’s always a race to the day.

I still have about 20 ton of millings left. It sounds like a lot but it’s less than you can imagine. I bought it from the contractors doing the street in front of the local school. They had a lot of it to be had and I wish I would have gotten a few more loads. I bought it for the patio actually.

The millings were really intended to finish this project. I’m hoping there’s another project in town this season where I can get a couple more loads of millings on the cheap.

Here’s another look at the patio steps I put together. There’s landscape fabric and millings on them but that didn’t stop the Daffodils. They grew right up through it on the first rise. Oh well, tread all you want on them.

Earlier I mentioned that I had run out of space in the shed under the lights. So I built this cold frame yesterday.

I had some of that plastic left from last season, bits of it, really. The boards are scrap that was laying around, too. I noticed immediately when I closed it up that it was warmer getting really warm and humid inside. I poked some holes in the bottom to let water seep through.

The Napa Cabbage is looking really great. It’s one of the flats getting transferred to the cold frame. In less than a month our hard frosts will come to an end with the exception of anything out of season hitting us.

The Broccoli isn’t looking to shabby either. Not nearly as strong as the Cabbage appears. I am unsure if the colder conditions they germinated in are going to produce smaller yields or not. They also had to come out to the cold frame.

Here’s the Cauliflower that made it. The few that did make it aren’t all equally healthy either. They also came out to the cold frame. It’s likely these won’t yield much and what they do yield will be grainy in texture maybe. The germination temperatures were way too low for them.

Plenty of room in the cold frame. In fact, room for more.

All buttoned up and getting warm.

I used rocks from the garden to pin down the top. It’s important to have this vented so it doesn’t get too warm in there. Each side is vented on the top. Today is supposed to be in the 60′s during the day so I may open it up for a little bit in the afternoon but close it up early enough to get it warm for the over night.

The ring of Daffodils actually produced a few flowers even though it was a sparse planting this past fall. In the middle is a very large grass specimen that my friend, Jman, let me hack a chunk of. I still need to decide what to put around it for after the Daffodils die back.

I could have probably gotten Spinach in a couple weeks ago. Maybe even earlier. It should be planted as soon as the soil can be worked. But, it’s still pretty cool outside so no biggie. I planted some near the Garlic Chive in the back corner bed near the pond where it’s like Tomatoes and Peppers will go.

Next to the Spinach I planted a couple thin, tight rows of Lettuce. The space still covered with straw is where Tomatoes and Peppers will reside.

Here’s a new addition to the garden. Between two trellis frames I hung a wind chime. It’s not loud and annoying but still makes a little bit of “noise,” if you want to call it that. I’m hoping the new sounds in the garden will continue to act as a deterrent. Before the deer netting went up, I noticed Day Lillies were getting munched to the ground already, though they were only inches tall. Since the netting went in and I’ve put some noise makers out in the garden, I’ve seen no sign of them. Earlier this season I saw tracks by the pond where they must come and drink. I’m hoping the pond doesn’t serve as a local meeting place with salad bar for deer to socialize.

The Daffodils are strong at the head of this row. Right behind them is a 4 foot row of Snow Peas. Beyond that is a Morning Glory pole with the Chamomile patch right behind that. The Chamomile patch is the circular stone feature you see. It appears, as of yesterday, that the Chamomile seeds have germinated. Beyond the Chamomile patch is where the row of Day Lilly begins that separates the beds from the row. You can see them getting stronger by the day.

A look at the garden from the Northern end. It’s only April 21st and it’s still looking naked and desolate. I put some blocks of Black Walnut in there to sit on. Brenda is taking advantage of one while she trims the pinwheels she and Ma made last week. They are part of the noise in the garden I hope the deer hate. They sound like shuffling when they spin.

Another rogue Tulip growing in the garden area along the fence with the Day Lilies. I am not entirely sure how it got here, probably from the hacking Jman let me do of his Day Lilies a couple years ago. He says there’s more Iris to be had again this year. Can’t wait.

The back of the garden, near the pond, always grows over. Lots of weeds. This season I put the deer netting as close to the pond as I could. Now I have to scalp and dig that are to clean all the weeds out and lay down more cardboard, newspaper, straw, mulch, stone, or whatever I have to help choke them out for good. My friend, Dave, said his neighbor has a bale of straw I can have. That’s really cool since right now bales are $6-$9 each, depending on where you get them. Last year I took my trailer up to a hay farmer in Eden, NY and he fork-lifted a huge pile into it for $20. He said it was the equivalent of 20 bales.

At the end of last season I went on another drive with the trailer and collected bags of leaves people had put out at the curb. My elderly neighbor, Mickey, let me come rake her yard and take garbage cans full of them home. Why wouldn’t she, right? Then I mowed them over and over and over and over… and over and over… into a fine mulch before cutting them into the beds. Then I covered the beds with dark row covers for winter. They beds get warmer sooner in the season which brings the worms higher in the soil to eat the leaves. The end result is a very healthy, nutrient rich soil. It would also be best if I get a better composting method than I have. That would be the icing on the cake. As soon as I peel back the row covers worms are all over the place. That’s a great sign since it’s their castings, or poo, that make a soil fantastic. It rained recently so the soil is a little damp and sticky, not optimal for planting seeds, but I am going to anyway.

The Snow Peas have started to come up. I think it’s been 7-10 days since I planted them. If you look closely, that little bit of green you see is one of the Snow Peas. The green on the bottom left is actually a weed. Sorry for the blurry pic. Close up with an iPhone. Not the best method.

I planted more Lettuce at the head of the first bed next to the Oregano and Rosemary. I haven’t decided what’s going in this bed with them yet, however, my options are open since Lettuce can almost share the same bed with many different veggies.

Here’s another look at where the Lettuce was just planted in the front edge of this bed next to the Oregano and Rosemary. If you look in the bed past it, on the right side where the row cover is flipped up, I planted two, nine foot, tight rows of lettuce there also. There are more Snow Peas planted in the front edge of that same bed also. I believe more Tomatoes and Peppers will go in that bed also. not pictured but in the far bed, I planted more Spinach as well. I had Spinach seeds of my own that I collected, also Lettuce, but I also bought some too as a back up plan as well as having a different variety to take to the salad bowl.

Another look from the other corner on the Northern side of the garden as the day winds down. The cold frame is doing very well on it’s first day since it’s nice and warm as well as humid inside. The plants should be fine through the evening.

If you’ve been following this blog since the beginning, you’ll remember this corner having a Rhododendron in it. You’ll also remember seeing it covered in snow as well as completely dead in Fall. It’s really fun to watch it come back to life, even though I’ve moved the Rhododendrons from the front beds. The Day Lilies are getting stronger and the Hyacinth are bright and fragrant. No deer trouble yet. Knock, knock, knock.

I had no idea that the Ivy we have covering some of the front bed actually flowers. Purple, too! These are coming in at the same time as the yellow mystery flowers. I need to get some of those yellow flowers involved since my wife tells me yellow and purple work together because they are complimentary colors. She would know. I just know I like them. So, do you know what those mystery flowers are yet?

My final picture is of this lonely Muscari, or Grape Hyacinth. They’re tiny. Great color. They propagate themselves quite nicely so last season I chopped them up and placed them around the front and side beds. They seem to die off only a week or so later. For the most part, the front bed is looking sort of naked since the deer and rabbits ate so much stuff last season. The Giant Hosta isn’t even coming back. They ate it only days after I bought it. Not enough time to become permanent, I guess. The other Hosta are coming in fine now. After I planted over 100 crocus I came out to little pit holes where the squirrels had eaten them. I had no idea how many they ate until this season when I saw only a third of them or less. We have some work to do to replace them as well as get transition flowers involved. Then figure out how to beat the critters.

I did however have my trusty little Panasonic Lumix TZ10 with me, which is a fantastic little point-and-shoot camera. The macro is especially impressive; the main photo below is of moss flowers, which are so small that you can barely see them with the naked eye, yet the Lumix could focus on them from about 3cm away.

EXIF: 4mm | f/3.3 | 1/30 | ISO 100

EXIF: 6mm | f/3.5 | 1/60 | ISO 80

I’ve included a photo (see right) of the old stone bridge on which the moss was growing, to show the scale of these tiny plants. The image above is of part of the small patch of moss growing on the ledge shown on the left side of the bridge photo.

EXIF: 4mm | f/5.6 | 1/125 | ISO 80

There were also a few spring bulbs starting to poke through the grass, and some lovely hellebores in the Victorian garden.

Click any photo for a larger view.

EXIF: 6mm | f/4 | 1/250 | ISO 125

EXIF: 4mm | f/5.6 | 1/500 | ISO 80

Look how this tiny brave-heart flower struggles its way through the twig!

This was taken at our dacha (which is to the North-East of St Pete, there’s a particular climate there as we’ve noticed), where the snow has just gone away and the earth is drying itself up under the crazy springtime sun (the sun was actually so intense that I noticed the ‘trick’ of this new flower only after zooming in on my computer). And the flower wants to become just like his eldest brother:

The nature will see to that. It will also welcome to this crocuses the first butterflies and bees:

So delicate… Could not resist (the bee shot was too blurry):

The nature has everything in place – the old berries and the new buds on the same bush, the new life will soon overcome and the old will be forgotten, becoming the food for the new. Nothing is useless. I think that only humans are capable of littering this whole planet up.

Off with the spring session, on to the recipes still waiting in the line to be posted (oh those lines, a characteristic trait of the Soviet times of which I’m in no way nostalgic!). This post is about black and white sourdough bread – not that the bread is b&w, of course! I’m just sharing with you a recipe of a more rye-ish bread which we call ‘black bread‘ in Russia (mostly to accompany your lunch or dinner OR great with sweet&sour varenye – for the true gourmets!) and a less so bread which we’d call ‘white bread‘ here (for breakfast). Let’s start from the lighter sourdough bread:

The rolls’ rye content is provided only by the starter. BUT there are other things you would certainly like – suffice to read its name:

Wheat Bran, Oats and Anise Rolls adapted from bitterbaker.com - the anise flavor while this bread is baking will please even those who have bitter childhood memories of the cough syrup
WARNING: the procedure will require two days! But don’t worry, it’s not that complicated.

What I changed:
Added spelt bran + sprouted rye and wheat grains to the dough ingredients; used oat flour for the topping. As for the shaping, I made just 8 rolls.
The bread proved to be quite well resistant to keeping it for a long time, perhaps because it’s divided into smaller rolls.

See the indentations? Fork. The original recipe tells you to stab them, ohooh.) And the good things inside? Here they are:

Bran, flax seeds, grains, anise seeds. And here are the rolls with the stabbing monster and some corks (just for fun):

The cloth is a Russian traditional linen towel, very thick and, well, quite old. The recipe is not Russian at all but I was in the mood for this towel.

Result: shaped as rolls, this bread is perfect for breakfast but also with any meal – we ate it as ‘black’ bread and I even tried it (shhhhh) with jam. the anise flavour is not that acute and if you wish you can just skip it.

***

Hungry for even more good things? Yep!

Now presenting the ‘black’ sourdough bread (a lot more rye-ish) from a blog I discovered just recently thanks to a friend’s blog:

Walnut Pumpkin Seed & Rye Sourdough Bread adapted from www.greenkitchenstories.com will make 2 loaves of (SERIOUSLY) amazing bread. AMAZING.
And again, because it’s sourdough, baby – WARNING: the procedure requires 2 days! And of course it’s worth it, no doubt.
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes:
For the wholegrain wheat flour I used a mixture of wholewheat + plain flour + wheat and rye bran; instead of walnuts – and what I think we all appreciated – I mixed in pumpkin seeds + sprouted rye and wheat grains; I skipped the dried figs option.

As for the procedure, I left the loaves for less than three hours for the second rise as they were getting menacingly overproofed. The baking time had to be adjusted too, as the original 35 minutes were not enough for the loaves – I baked them for at least 45 minutes.

Ok, just another shot of those – should I call them meaty? – seeds. I tell you, the pumpkin seeds, not that tiny type, but the true XXL one, will… make this world better

Result: This is a very meaty bread, me, a vegetarian, I have no other word to describe it. This is meat for me! And you know what? I have not tried this bread with any jam but what I did was to spread some natural yogurt on it and then add a slice of cheese… Ammmmmmmazing. And don’t forget, it should be toasted – then the effect will be just right.

Reading that book about St Petersburg in the late 19th-early 20th centuries again, after a brief pause for a certain F. Sagan. Are we going in circles or what? I mean, some 100 years have passed and we’re still living in the same conditions and the same ‘types’ are living there (but please, not to be placed on postcards now as they did back then!) and … well, I’ll make a post about it, especially after visiting so many places with these job interviews and spring cleaning / wallpaper gluing / Ikea bed assembling with my friend.

Who’s next in the line?

G.

April 20:

But at least it wasn’t like this.

Today, April 21 we’re back to this:

I love scenes of rebirth like this one of crocuses in Christmas Fern leaves.

Is it Spring yet?

Watch full screen at 1080p

Watch full screen at 1080p.

A blue crocus is captured with a 90 mm Macro lens

There is hope after all. You wait, and you wait, and then suddenly spring truly arrives in 24 hours. We’ve seen signs in the air, we’ve heard it in the way the birds sing, and we’ve smelled the fresh ground starting to wake up after the winter.

But of course we still have snow. This weekend has been nice and sunny, and what better way to spend it than shoveling snow.

It seems the key is to break the remaining snow banks, spread the snow everywhere and then watch it melt in one big whoosh. I hope today was the last day I had to shovel snow. Maybe you’ve heard of Santa’s little helpers, but have you ever heard of Spring’s little helpers? Well, we all live in Finland and our main task is to shovel snow.

Can you believe those tiny Crocuses are growing even under the snow? Pushing upwards through some 10 cm of snow. Impressive attitude!

Since I write about my home forest and nature so often, I think I’m going to add a new category “nature” to make it easier for you to read those ramblings.

♥ In the meantime: A spectacular new place is about to be opened in Espoo, portraying the beauty of Finnish nature. Haltia – The Finnish Nature Center celebrates its grand opening in May 2013. I will definitely blog about this more in the future, but based on what I’ve seen so far, it’s a-ma-zing.

♣ Song of the day: Future Islands, Give Us the Wind

Last Friday after dropping off the big kids at school we went to the zoo to see the elephants (thank goodness for an annual membership!).  The weather was overcast, but I hoped to be done before the rain started and did not take an umbrella.  I would need at least three arms in order to juggle the umbrella, push the stroller and hold on to the two year old.

Our first stop was the monkey house, where my two year old found a front row seat watching the gibbons.  We sat there at least 40 minutes, watching the gibbons play.  I kept suggesting we go see the elephants first, at the very back of the zoo.  She was just too engrossed in the gibbons, and then the rhinos were getting some special attention from their keeper, so we watched that and had a nice conversation with a docent about the rhinos.

Another stop at the Eco center, and watching the otters.  Meanwhile the sky is getting darker, and the temperature is dropping (we had our jackets so that was fine).  At last we made it past the polar bears and wound down toward the elephants.  We almost made it to the baboons when the rain started.  We hunkered under the shelter watching the baboons, hoping the rain would let up.  We could just see the elephants from the baboons, so at least we “saw” the elephants.

After waiting 15 minutes in the cold wind under the shelter, I decided to just get wet, and get out of the zoo.  The stroller was covered, so the baby was pretty well protected, I think she still got a little too cold despite the blankets.  Evidence:  cough and runny nose that started a couple of days later.  She’s handling it all very well, though she has been sleeping a bit more.

If we get a decent weekend I hope to take all the kids for a nice nature hike, before the trees are all done blooming.  I like to make a photo scavenger hunt for them and split into teams.  We end up with some pretty neat photo memories and the kids forget about it being exercise.

What are your favorite free and low cost family activities in the spring?

the crocus blooming in my backyard today!

Some of the crocus plants we have in our yard. It is one of my wife’s favorites, she is still waiting for her most favorite, the hyacinth to come out.

Thank you so much for visiting! Have a wonderful day!

Crows-An-Wra are a new band with a new sound. Members of this band have an impressive back catalogue of bands  having been in S&N favourites Kasa, Crocus and Ravachol. Crows-An-Wra are in many ways an underground screamo supergroup.

So with an impressive array of records and bands behind them, this can only be good right? Correct.

It’s not exactly what you might be expecting though. This certainly isn’t straight up screamo and only briefly touches on the fringes of hardcore, this is a spacey screamo odyssey. Yes there is screaming and shouting in the traditional screamo vein, but it sounds altogether more punky, and this combined with some lovely little mathy riffs and spacey guitar pedal echoes combines to create something truly unique and quite wonderful.

It’s a surprisingly catchy EP that doesn’t pack an instant punch, preferring instead to grow and build, songs are three and four minutes long and ebb and flow in and out of anger and space. Every now and then there’s a hint of aggression and anger amongst the dreamy space filled guitars, this is soon washed away by the guitar tone. Most of the anger comes from the vocals, which shouldn’t really fit with the music, but it does and after a while it all starts to make sense. Impassioned vocals on the top of dreamy, technical music, sounds like it shouldn’t work, but it does here, and it works very well.

In all there are five tracks totalling sixteen and a half minutes. “Medicated Ludicity” is the pick of the bunch for me. This song changes pace half way through, in fact it almost comes to a stop and your mind is tricked into thinking that a new song is starting, but it isn’t, it grows into a pacey gang vocal filled end.

It’s like all of the previous bands have had an influence in some way on the sound of Crows-An-Wra. There’s the Kasa like vocals, the Ravachol like rhythm and the Crocus like intensity. They’ve taken parts from each band, added some bits and bobs and what you have is an original and fresh band that more than total the sum of their parts.

The artwork is worth a mention as well. It’s a figure encompassed by what I assume are feathers with only the hands visible. But it could be some sort of material or multi coloured pieces of bacon, probably not the final option there. Anyway, it has a mysterious Egyptian or Arabian look to it, I like it and it fits the music really well.

There are lots of bands trying to do something different in today’s music place, but Crows-An-Wra stand above them all, give them a listen and you might just be hooked.

The EP is going to be released on an ultra clear 10” limited to 300 and is being released by several fine labels across the world.

Buy and listen: http://crows-an-wra.bandcamp.com/

Alternatively check out the labels involved:

UK – Barely Regal Records / Boslevan Records
Europe – Flood Records / Listen To Aylin Records / Alcove Records
USA – Middleman Records

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PN

Spring finally arrived in Denmark last weekend, and today I arrived in the Flâneur Garden to have a lovely and relaxing weekend here that may or may not include hard physical labour. We shall see about that, all depending on whether the chain saw will work or not. (The chain saw is, by the way, not for the crocuses – or should that be ‘crocii’? – but for the piles of fir logs cluttering the lawn after the Flâneur Husband and one of his friends took down three trees before Easter.)

Oh, look, there’s another crocus! The top one was in The Evening Border on the North-West side of the covered terrace, but this one was growing under the hazel bushes. I have no idea how these bulbs came to either of these places, but I’m just glad to see some colour in the garden after all the snow and ice.

I also found a small host of pale mauve crocuses growing under the rather misplaced brambles by the entrance to the courtyard. They really ought to be moved this weekend while I still notice them so next year they can flower in a slightly more prominent position.

One flower that isn’t blooming yet but hopefully will is the tulip. Or rather, the tulips. I didn’t get the bulbs in the ground in the autumn as you’re supposed to, so they spent the winter on a garden chair on the covered terrace – ensuring they definitely got more frost than if they’d been 4″ in the ground – but apparently the bulbs I bought were not aware that they should have spent the winter underground, as they seem perfectly happy to grow after I finally got them into the lawn bed 4 weeks ago. I guess some times plants don’t realise – or care – that the gardener is a bit negligent or caught out by early winter.

Things are also growing in The Puddles. It’s amazing how much algae will appear with only a week of spring weather! The tiny solar-powered pumps that normally provide some modicum of movement in the water were taken out before the onslaught of winter, but it seems it’s time to put them back in as soon as I’ve pulled out all the brown leaves and algae – after all, leaf mulch is excellent for beds, borders and whatnot, but not so great for puddles.

Please note, though, that there is also something green growing between The Puddles! The sedum ‘herbstfreude’ are looking very promising, and I almost feel guilty already that I’ll probably be giving them the Chelsea chop in about a month and a half… (Last year the mature plants grew too tall and flopped over into the adjacent puddles, which is clearly not a great look, whereas the new cuttings grew to only half the height and stayed out of the waters.)

In that area – and anywhere else in the garden that I have them – the irises and day lilies are also looking very good. Oh, ye trusty oldy cottage garden perennials; you never let me down! And in The Ambitious Border there are tiny red peony shoots, and the roses of course seem to just YEARN for warmer temperatures so their budding leaves can unfold.

Speaking of roses… I had a small “accident” on my way from the city to the summer house today. I had some waiting time between arriving in the town of Frederikssund by train and leaving by bus, so I did some rather flâneur’ish shopping in a supermarket – a bottle of wine and a box of candles is surely all the sustenance one needs, right? – and then before I knew it I had added a few plants to the basket. One was a “Sutter’s Gold” rose, but there was also a red currant and 10 plugs each of blue lobelias and purple petunias. All are destined for the lawn bed, except for the petunias which will most likely go in pots in The Courtyard. The red currant will fit in nicely with the black currant and the gooseberry that’s already in one end of the bed, and the “Sutter’s Gold” rose will be a nice complimentary contrast to the “Blue Rhapsody” roses in the other end. And the lobelias will help cover some ground so it won’t be too weedy, at least I hope so.

So there. Things have finally thawed in this neck of the woods and spring has fully arrived. Who’d have thunk it just two weeks ago, eh?`

To what purpose, April, do you return again?
Beauty is not enough.
You can no longer quiet me with the redness
Of little leaves opening stickily.
I know what I know.
The sun is hot on my neck as I observe
The spikes of the crocus.
The smell of the earth is good.
It is apparent that there is no death
But what does that signify?
Not only under ground are the brains of men
Eaten by maggots.
Life in itself
Is nothing…
-  Edna St. Vincent Millay, from “Spring”

I know that we cannot depend on the return of Spring to heal us~
it is balm not cure.

I know that none of its beauty can bloom without it dying before~
it is a shroud thrown over to cover our decay.

I know I cannot be transformed by the warmth of the sun~
it is not enough for my skin to sweat when my heart lies still and cold.

I know I must dig deeper in holy ground for the truth~
it does not lie in perfumed blossoms and sweet blue skies.

I know what I know~
life in itself is nothing unless
death is overcome yet again
and our hearts, once broken,
begin to pulse red once more.

Mi casa, su casa!

Dogwood

Hyacinth

Dwarf Azalea

Creeping Phlox

Angelina Sedum

Camellia

Giant Azalea

Have a good week! – - Joanne