Welcome Back!

 

I saw my first hummingbird this week.  I had put the feeder out just the day before, after hearing several people say they had seen one or two.  The next morning, I was sitting on the front porch, talking to my neighbor, Clay, and suddenly there he was, jeweled head shining in the sun and hovering just in front of the feeder.  “Look!” I pointed.  “Welcome back, little guy.”

I had spent the afternoon before inspecting my wild flower garden, checking on the shooting star, which was finally blooming,
and looking around down at the branch at the bottom of the holler.  I spent countless happy hours down there as a kid, playing in the water, catching minnows and tadpoles and building dams of mud and rocks.  My friend Alice and I used to dam up little pools to contain the minnows then knock the dams down and watch them dart away.  I don’t remember ever wondering where the minnows came from, but now I do wonder.  The branch wasn’t big enough for big fish, especially during the hot, dry summer months.  It was fed by tiny springs all along the banks – I don’t remember exactly where it started but it certainly wasn’t what you would classify as a creek.  It trickled and meandered down the hollow, merged into gullies and eventually emptied into the river.  Maybe the minnows came upstream somehow from the river?  I found two little springs still feeding the branch, the water bubbling out from under the rocks along the edge of the branch.

My good neighbor came and disked up the garden this week.  So, now we have a beautiful expanse of rich dirt, just waiting for plants and seeds.  The smell of freshly plowed dirt is intoxicating.  It can cause otherwise sane people to run out to a garden store and fill their trunk with plants.  I feel the urge to visit Martin’s Greenhouse to buy tomatoes and squash and pepper and okra seedlings, but I’m trying to wait until at least my mama’s birthday to plant anything.  The ground is still a little cold for tender plants, but it sure did work up good!    We found the ancient implement the other day in the wood shed that we used to make the rows.  It’s pretty rickety now, but maybe it would work.  We also found the broad axe head that has been misplaced since I moved to the farmhouse three years ago, several more boxes of Christmas decorations and a wonderful vintage milk crate.

On my wild flower walk in the holler this  morning, I found the putty root I thought I had lost and what I think is a Star of Bethlehem I had forgotten about.  I spent some time on my sitting rock, listening to a raucous woodpecker and wondering what the dogs were finding so fascinating in an old hollow tree up the hill.  The larkspur is still putting on a show and the trillium are hanging in there, but the bluebells have given up their finery.  On my way down the path, I was startled by a tree that appears to be haunted by goblins. 

I don’t know how their faces got in there, but I hope they don’t get out.  All I need are goblins haunting my woods and stirring up the dogs.  Come to think of it, maybe that’s what the dogs have been chasing down there almost every night.  As I started back up the hill, I noticed a tree that surely could have been an Ent.  They were part of the good guys in Lord of the Rings, so maybe this Ent will keep the goblins contained.

My cousin has already planted potatoes and onions in the newly tilled garden, and I heard the first whippoorwill the other night, so I know it’s time to plant corn.  The busy garden season is upon us, but today I took a whole morning to explore the woods and sit on the front porch with the dogs, watching the hummingbirds dart around the feeder, admiring the yellow and blue pansies I planted this past week, and listening to the tap, tap, tap of my resident woodpecker.  I had planned last night that I would cook something this morning but it was too nice a morning to spend in the kitchen.  I made a ham sandwich instead and ate it in the swing, sharing with Sophie, who always seems to sense when food is nearby.  Maybe the impulse to cook something will return later today, but I doubt it.  The porch swing is a remedy for many things.  The urge to cook is one of those things.  I think there is enough ham for at least one more sandwich.  

Ready to plant