Port Potager

Although we enjoyed our vacation last week, it was also really nice to come home. One reason for this was that we were greeted by a green lawn and a low of colorful bulbs in full bloom: If you have no trouble growing hyacinths, this probably isn’t that exciting to you. For me, though, these are the best I’ve ever managed to grow. This is probably due to the extra sun they’re getting, since once again , another fence section fell during the winter.  Since these are growing in the cutting garden, I cut some to bring inside. I love the way they smell, and a little goes a long way. The other big flower story this week is that our orange tulips are blooming: This picture, taken on an overcast day, doesn’t really do them justice. They are a much more fiery shade in real life, which looks great against the yellow paint of the house (and will look even better once we finish that paint job).  Last fall I planted another 100 orange Darwin tulip bul...

Last week was April school vacation week here in Massachusetts, and we used the time to take a vacation through Pennsylvania and New York. After visiting family over Easter weekend, we headed west to Lancaster County, where we visited the Moravian town of Lititz. The town museum is housed in an old German building made of stone, and behind it is a small public garden, which you enter via a very inviting arbor: The only flowers there right now are some new pansies since it’s still early spring, but you can see some green perennials poking up as well: The centerpiece is this diamond-shaped bed, which for some reason I failed to center in the photo: This is all probably quite lovely in the summer. What you can’t see is that if you keep walking through the garden, you’ll continue down a slope that goes to the small river that runs through town.  The next day we went to the Landis Valley Village and Farm Museum , which has original buildings, buildings ...

This turned out to be a really strange maple sugaring season.  We tapped the tree back in February when we had a bit of a warm-up, and at first things went really well. Afternoons were warm, and we started out with a strong run of sap. Then it got too  hot, and the sap stopped running because the temperatures didn’t drop below freezing for several nights in a row. And then   temperatures plunged , and it didn’t get above  freezing for almost a week. So still not much sap, but for the opposite reason. Then on our final weekend of boiling, this happened: It started as rain but turned to snow while we had the fire going. Not that big of a deal, but not exactly pleasant. But since we weren’t exactly keeping a keen eye on things, we also ended up burning a batch that boiled down more quickly than we expected. And by last weekend, the sap had turned: Once it runs yellow, the season is over. This sap isn’t sweet at all, so I’ve been using...

I’ve decided to write about each of my month-long New Year’s resolutions after the fact, so I can share how the whole thing went. In January I gave up added sugar ; February was a major caffeine draw-down . For March, I decided to give up alcohol . This was really not a big deal. I’m not a daily drinker by any stretch, and mostly enjoy a beer or two with my bandmates or a glass of wine at a restaurant.  Though, if truth be told, I had more wine that usual during the election season (entertaining) and its aftermath (not so entertaining).  So despite the occasional hankering for an evening drink during the first half of the month, I really didn’t miss it at all. In fact, there were a lot of positives to note: Better Singing: Alcohol is really pretty bad for your voice, and when you pair it with staying up late and talking a lot, it’s a recipe for laryngeal disaster. I took the opportunity to do some real warm-ups and singing this month as well, which has...

The additional daylight in the spring means that the chickens begin laying again, after a sporadic winter of not doing very much. Martha and Rachel got the memo weeks ago and are going their jobs well: Sally is also a champ. But sometimes this happens: As you can see, Sally’s eggs has been pecked open and eaten. That blob on the floor of the nesting box shows that several eggs have been raided and destroyed over that past few days. This is not a protein or calcium issue, as they have plenty of extra seeds and oyster shells to eat. This seems to be about spite. I caught Abigail — who, it should be noted, hasn’t laid an egg in months — pecking away at one just the other day. jerk. Kirk and I were also talking just lat night about how Lizzy — the worst chicken — also hasn’t laid any eggs in recent memory, and how she’s generally not earning her keep at all .  And then today I found that she had, in fact laid an egg.  And it was eaten. Along with ...

It’s been a tough stretch of weather, with blizzards, power outages and freezing rain, even though spring is officially here. There are a few signs, of course: But most of the garden looks more like these tree peonies, buds curled tight and waiting out the cold: So in the meantime, I decided to switch up the look of the blog to brighten things up. This June will be its sixth anniversary, so it’s definitely high time for a makeover. Let me know what you think!

ICYMI: I decided to make my New Year’s resolutions last all year this year by working on 12 mini-resolutions instead of one big one. In January I gave up added sugar ; for February, I decided to tackle something even more difficult: cutting out caffeine. I really do love coffee, and when I was still teaching, I had quite a bit of the stuff — truly necessary fuel for someone who had to get out of bed at 5 a.m. every day and be stuck in traffic for close to 90 minutes each morning.  It was not fun, but at least I always had a full — large! — travel mug of coffee in my hands to make the commute bearable. Fast forward to this February, where I found myself six months into my new life working full time from home. I had somewhat cut back on the coffee just by using a regular mug instead of my double-sized travel cup, but now that I have been allowed to let my body decide when to wake up — emphatically  not before the sun comes up — I no longer actually need ...