Dan's Ramblings

Dan here. Sunday night, no fire, although it has stopped raining, at least for now, I decided it was too chilly and wet. In the studio tonight. I actually sewed a while during the rain this morning and will sew once this is written. Real heavy rain all morning but at least no wind. Stopped raining after lunch so off Carol and I went for our short walk together, then I continued for the rest of my five mile walk. Dark and dreary day, I even made soup for supper because it seemed like a good idea to warm up.

Daughter Erin and I went blueberry picking on Friday. While there are many more green ones than ripe ones at this point, it did not take long to pick more than we needed. 

We also picked a couple quarts of raspberries for her boys. I’m not a big lover of raspberries, blueberries on the other hand don’t seem to last Carol and I too long. When the picking gets a little better we will fill the little freezer in the shed with blueberries for later. This year I won’t need the freezer for food storage, I hope. We used it last year so I didn’t need to go the grocery store as often. Hopefully that horror show is slowly getting behind us.

This past week we saw a couple of dead bass wash up on shore. One had the obvious round wounds on it’s side from a sucker fish and the other could have been a fish that was inappropriately handled when it was caught and later died. We live on a pond, it happens. I saw them on the beach and said to myself, “leave them there tonight and get rid of them in the morning”. I knew it was me talking because I recognized my voice. So I left them. Was looking down the beach later that evening and see a big snapping turtle out in the water having one of the bass for supper. 

In the morning I could find no trace of the other fish as well so Mr. Snappy must have come back for a midnight snack. The snapping turtles are pretty ugly but they do serve their purpose within the ecosystem of the pond. Something had to eat the fish and I knew for dang sure it wasn’t going to be me. We have not seen suckers in the pond in years but so far this season two dead ones have floated to the surface. When the boy next door brought one to shore after finding it floating on the pond, I suggested he leave it in the water along the shore. He did and was really excited when later in the evening, about dusk, Mr. Snappy came back again and grabbed a meal. I guess he was able to get a few pictures along with it making his day.

My planter garden is beginning to look like a jungle. The tomatoes are slowly beginning to ripen and I think the cucumbers are about to take off. There are all kinds of small 1” cukes and I think that a few are starting to realize they are supposed to get bigger. If they all develop I will need to make pickles. Most of the flowers are disappearing under the tomatoes, cucumbers and the cleome. I planted everything much farther apart then last year but many are still already long buried in the foliage of the other plants. 

I have two plants that came to Oxford from Rangeley when we moved. One of them is a Meadow Rue (Thalictrum rochebruneanum). It was given to me quite a few years ago.

When in Rangeley we had annual quilt camps. We always had several in each years group that had been before. Four ladies came for many years, three of them were sisters and the other a friend. The oldest sister, Allegra, had brought from her home in New York, a bucket of the Meadow Rue to give to her sister. We got talking about my love of plants and it was decided that I would be given part of the contents of the bucket. I planted it in Rangeley and I think I had to move it at least once before digging it up to come with us to Oxford. I planted it in front of the house and it loves it there. 

The other plant is a highbred lily given to me by a fellow gardener and former plumbing customer from Rangeley. I’ll tell you about that one when it blossoms. Hopefully nothing happens to it as I think it has ten buds on it. It should make for a nice display. In Rangeley, there were several years that the deer would eat the buds. So I never got to see the display.

Hopefully the sun comes out some this week, the forecast is not terribly promising. Enjoy the week anyway, I will.

Remember, where ever you go, there you are, if I’m supposed to meet you there and you get there first, draw a blue line where we planned to meet. If I get there first, I’ll rub it out.