seasonal cycle
sastyk | October 11, 2012We missed frost earlier this week by a degree or two, just enough to clip the basil (basil is wussy that way ;-)), but tomorrow night should be definitive. We've moved from steaming amber spice orchards (as the poet puts it) to "post-frost" quiet. We brought the pumpkins in earlier this week, picked the last of the okra and tonight I'll bring in the green tomatoes for pickling and/or ripening (depending on how far along they are). The first fire in the cookstove will probably be tomorrow or the next day. We picked the last raspberries on Sunday afternoon, and they became the last batch…
sastyk | March 19, 2012The season cycled over the weekend - officially it is not quite spring, but in fact, spring now has a toe hold. Even if it goes back to chilly or even snows, the ground is too warm for it to last, by the end of an unusually warm week the grass will be green and the soil dried enough to move forward. That doesn't mean my (optimistic) plantings of peas and bok choy, spinach and sweet peas may not stagnate or my fruit tree blooms get caught by frost (we can't even say a late frost, it is two months to my last frost date, and anything can happen in upstate NY and usually does), that the boys in…
sastyk | February 11, 2011"Did you look at the forecast?" "Is this it?" "Should we get them out?"
My children keep asking, and I keep telling them that I think so, but that no one can know for sure. We are talking of the change in the weather, slated to begin today, warming us up from the last wave of bitter cold with night temperatures last night around -12 (we hit -29 earlier this winter, so that's pretty balmy), to days in the 40s (gasp, and maybe even near 50) next week, while nights are just below freezing.
It is possible, of course, that the warm spell will turn and go south, although the predictions are…
sastyk | July 29, 2010Something told the wild geese
It was time to go,
Though the fields lay golden
Something whispered, "snow."
Leaves were green and stirring,
Berries, luster-glossed,
But beneath warm feathers
Something cautioned, "frost."
All the sagging orchards
Steamed with amber spice,
But each wild breast stiffened
At remembered ice.
Something told the wild geese
It was time to fly,
Summer sun was on their wings,
Winter in their cry. - Rachel Field
I'm trying to get back to normal - even though things aren't quite normal here. In the last three weeks my blogging home has melted down twice and my physical…
sastyk | March 12, 2010Note: It hasn't happened yet here, although we heard them down the hill in the valley yesterday. But we seem to be having an early spring, even though we've still got more than a foot of snow to melt off. I wrote this last year, and though the precise circumstances are different, the need for that sound is just the same. I know I owe y'all new content, but this one seemed appropo. Has spring sprung for you?
Spring doesn't come easily in upstate New York - she wrestles with Old Man Winter for a long, long time before he gives up. The first sign is the daffodils, up a small amount in…