IT RAINS

Finally, we get the rain the weatherman has been promising. Perhaps this will save the corn crop and the parched gardens. The temperature may drop below 100F and we will throw away our air conditioners. I intend to float paper boats in the creek with help from the neighborhood moppets, in celebration.
There is good news in the automotive front as well--the car passed inspection. Its temperamental air works well enough. I shall kick the tires to make sure the are absolutely A OK.

IT RAINS!

ANI YEHUDI

Too hot to blog. 99F and climbing. The whole week will be just as hot. We live on gallons of iced beverages and chilled fruit. We read and watch movies and try to remember how cold it was this past winter.

WHAT WE DO FOR CHEVRE

The way to Sally’s goat farm is not without perils.  Herds of   suicidal  deer  whose supreme joy is the prospect of  close encounters with compact cars,  lurk in the woods. The ancient trees that border the road tend to shed branches large enough to impede traffic. If that is not exciting enough, we never fail to leave our maps behind. Inevitably, we try to call Sally for directions only to be reminded  that cell phones do not always work in her neighborhood. The best  thing to do in these circumstances is to  go to the Bakerton Fire House where the firepersons know every inch of the county.

“You’re five minutes away almost there, mi’ja,” says a fireperson who will pass us in her  very cool red Mustang convertible a few minutes later.

Our arrival throws  the resident flock of  chickens into a panic. They cluck and run as if  voracious predators were in hot pursuit. We are not that hungry. The goats are, but they usually stick to a vegan diet. The chickens are safe. So are e as long as we keep our hands to ourselves.   Starbuck, an overenthusiastic fan of raw human blood, rushes to the fence in the fond illusion that we will forget that last time we met he thought  my hand with a tasty tidbit. I considered waving a borrowed blood donor card under his nose. He favors O pos. 

     I cast an envious eye on Sally's asparagus and strawberry beds while she fetches fresh eggs from the chicken house. The chickens are not amused. They  cluck  the Internationale. e ignore them. Sally gives us  a  gallon of milk. Later in the day, the infanta ill make make a batch of herbed chevre. The following day she ill collect the hey and soak the cheese in brine  so that it will form a substantial  rind. Friday  we will be bake whey bread for a gathering at Murdoch Mountain.  We hope that Doug will be there with his cello and that  Berto will be there to tell jokes in Nabokovian English. We know  that the hummingbirds will make  an appearance and that we will be able to pick ripe wineberries when we hike to the lake. We will come home at dusk to watch the fireflies bathe  the heart shaped leaves of   the catalpa tree   in flickering greenish light.  We will have a bit more chevre, bread and a glass of wine and we will forget the difficukties of getting to Sally’s place.

LILIES AND SISSINGHURST

Sissinghurst, in southeast England, is one of the gardens I hope to visit before I am too decrepit. For the moment, reading Adam Nicolson's SISSINGHURST: AN UNFINISHED HISTORY is as close as I can get  to the the cluster of Elizabethan buildings the author's paternal grandmother, poet and gardening writer Vita Sackville-West bought in 1936. The garden she made there is  series of green rooms--spaces defined by green hedges--filled with monochromatic collections of flowering plants. Its white garden has  inspired  many American gardeners, including  Barbara Damrosch whose plan for a moon garden  THEME GARDENS is clearly influence by the the one in Sissinghurst.
There is among my s gardening books a gorgeously illustrated compilation of gardening columns  Vita Sack-West wrote for The Observer.  Few of her recommendations apply to my  humid, bug and deer infested West Virginia garden. I read them with pleasure nevertheless and I dream of buying the available land around my house until I realize that it would take and a huge staff to tidy up the jungly grounds. As it is, mowing,, watering--I use gray water--and perfunctory weeding are all I can manage.   I would not know what to do with an English castle and a formal garden except what Adam Nicolson's father did--he donated it to the National Trust.
Nicolson's book, for which I wrote am uttterly unsatisfactory review--see www.richtexts.blogspot.com-- is  about his effort to return  the Sissinghurst farm to organic gardening. He loves the land, he knows its history and  geology and he obviously cares about it deeply. He tells the story of the place  with grace with which his grandparents gardened. The result is a richly entertaining book in which the author imparts information about history, economics and social change in an eminently readable style.
In my garden, such as it is, it is lily season. The few bulbs the voles  missed during their endless bacchanialia, are in bloom. None of the two collections of daylilies from White Flower farm survived. None of the collections of Oriental bulbs--dozens of them--made it. The dozens of Csablanca lilies planted in flowers beds, perished. But a few daylilies, a  pink trumpet I dislike intensely  and potted Casablanca lilies persist. The deer nibble the blossoms of pink trumpet, but they  avoid a few of the specialty daylilies planted near a clump of lavender.   Perhaps a huge lavender hedge would keep them away from flowers and veggies. I think I will apply to the National Trust. I wonder if they would consider taking over a log house built twenty five years ago.

IN THE COOL OF THE EVENING

Hundreds of fireflies float in the pale blue shadow of chestnut tree. A quarter moon lights  the sky--a Chinese lantern dangling from blue velvet. Pale green green rose petals fall silently on a gravel path. The sugary smell of honeysuckle suffuses the evening air. The dew is on grass, the owls are in their nests. The creek sings on its way to meet  the river. In the garden, passion flower vines twine around an old wheelbarrow, a stray gooseberry bush sinks its roots in a whiskey barrel. Basil leaves, punctured here and there by persistent insects, glow green in the twilight.
Life is basic in the cottage garden. The cat kills a baby garter snake. The crows mob baby owls. All the poetry of lily buds exploding into starry flowers cannot obscure the violence that takes place amid the cycle of death and renewal that is the very essence of gardening. I plant arugula, beets,  calendula, cleome, cucumbers, dill and  gourds knowing that the deer will devour most of the seedlings.  Yo garden is to hope that something of use will endure.