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Today is day fourteen of the 10 to 14 day germination period listed for the bergamot seeds we planted in two seed trays. There are minuscule signs of life in about 20% of the tray cells. We have our fingers crossed that more seeds will germinate over time since the trays have only had one day of warm sunshine for a couple of hours. Weather forecasts are threatening frost this weekend so... no planting yet. In fact, we’re not even ready to park the trays outside daily so seedlings can harden off. The wind has been gusting enough to blow over the trays. Plus, the “safety date” for frost is Memorial Day weekend. Welcome to spring in the North Country.

wild bergamot in bloom

Photo by J. Harrington

A pocket gopher has been creating mounds in the real back yard, not just out in the fields behind the house. We’ll see about setting some traps tomorrow or later, after the Soil and Water Conservation person has visited. We’re exploring the possibility of getting some funding to help turn our fields into wild prairie, helping create habitat for local pollinators. Maybe some of our bergamot seedlings will become a step in our prairie restoration?

The day lilies are coming along nicely. Maple buds have burst and their “shells” now cover the ground. The Better Half recently dug out some CDs from our [much] younger days, including early Judy Collins, Ani DiFranco + Utah Phillips, and Janis Joplin. I’m taking that music plus my rapidly growing frustration with today’s “culture” as a cue that it’s time to revert, not to a second childhood (there are some who would claim I never left my first) but to a second Hippie-hood. It feels like a wonderful way to spend the rest of the year, and maybe the rest of my life. At least I could make more sense of people’s actions and inactions way back when. Now, not so much. (If you’re not old enough to remember the Lone Ranger, the rest of the title goes “to those thrilling days of yesteryear.......”)

Back Up Quick They’re Hippies

By Lani O'Hanlon

That was the year we drove

into the commune in Cornwall.

“Jesus Jim,” mam said,

“back up quick they’re hippies.”

Through the car window,

tents, row after row, flaps open,

long-haired men and women

curled around each other like babies

and the babies themselves

wandered naked across the grass.

I reached for the handle, ready, almost,

to open the door, drop out and away

from my sister’s aggressive thighs,

Daddy’s slapping hands.

Back home in the Dandelion Market

I unlearnt the steps my mother taught,

bought a headband, an afghan coat,

a fringed skirt — leather skin.

Barefoot on common grass I lay down with kin.

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