Halfway through No Mow May

Yesterday we mentioned trilliums and lilacs. This morning we were pleasantly surprised to discover trilliums we hadn’t previously noticed growing along a road we frequently travel. A more obvious  hedge of lilacs has developed flower clusters and will be in full bloom soon. It makes us feel as if we’re coming to know an area when we’re familiar with a variety of locations where domestic and wildflowers grow. Now we’re reminded that it’s time to check on our local patch of prairie smoke. Maybe tomorrow.

Prairie Smoke (Geum triflorum)

Photo by J. Harrington

We’re more than halfway through May and so far we haven’t mounted the mower deck on the tractor nor have we fired up the mulching / bagging push mower. Looks like we may successfully celebrate all of No Mow May. On the other hand, we’re vacillating on brush piles versus burning the dead branches that keep falling from our oak trees. There’s only so much area I want to devote to brush piles and the branches decompose at a rate much slower than they fall from trees. We’ve yet to find an approach we’re comfortable with for managing dead branches in an ecologically sound fashion that isn’t more work than it seems to be worth. We’ve learned that throwing lots of branches onto a pile and then lighting the pile when weather conditions and our burn permit permit is less work than breaking up lots of branches so they fit in the burn pit and we don’t need a permit. We’ll keep working at this issue.

The Better Half claims she’s seen a handful or two of various kinds of bumblebees while she’s been gardening. I’ve not seen any except one on the violets earlier this month. It seems as though, this year, our bees have disappeared. We hope it's not permanent and will cross our fingers and keep our eyes open.

Pea Brush 

Robert Frost - 1874-1963

I walked down alone Sunday after church
   To the place where John has been cutting trees
To see for myself about the birch
   He said I could have to bush my peas.

The sun in the new-cut narrow gap
   Was hot enough for the first of May,
And stifling hot with the odor of sap
   From stumps still bleeding their life away.

The frogs that were peeping a thousand shrill
   Wherever the ground was low and wet,
The minute they heard my step went still
   To watch me and see what I came to get.

Birch boughs enough piled everywhere!—
   All fresh and sound from the recent axe.
Time someone came with cart and pair
   And got them off the wild flower’s backs.

They might be good for garden things
   To curl a little finger round,
The same as you seize cat’s-cradle strings,
   And lift themselves up off the ground.

Small good to anything growing wild,
   They were crooking many a trillium
That had budded before the boughs were piled
   And since it was coming up had to come.

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