Serving Proudly As The Voice Of Valley County Since 1913
Serving Proudly As The Voice Of Valley County Since 1913
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The raspberries have really come on strong in the past couple of weeks. I can easily spend three hours in the cooler air of the early mornings picking them. Then they need to be rinsed, drained, and frozen. I’ll vacuum-seal them in pints the next day. Of course I keep a lot of them out to eat immediately. I know I’ve said this before, but even though I also eat a lot of them whilst picking, I never get tired of having more. While a lot of my time each summer is spent on gardening chores, I still need to prep foods and cook meals. You pro...
I’m tendering apologies. I completely forgot to write a column last week! I can offer several excuses: I’m old; I was busy doing other things (can’t remember what - see previous excuse); I was lazy; I didn’t feel like it; I honestly thought I had sent in a column. I think all of them could apply. You can pick whichever one you like. Anyway, I’m sorry. There really have been things going on up here. I finally got around to running the weed whacker in all the nooks and crannies and corners the riding mower doesn’t reach. Then there was enough...
I’m sure not many noticed the lack of a Green Spaces column the past two weeks. If you are one who did, you could blame my sisters (with their husbands in tow) for coming from southeastern Missouri to see us. The first few days here were spent getting reacquainted with northeastern Montana. These two sisters also attended school here in Opheim way back when. They much prefer the dryer atmosphere here over the mugginess of a Missouri summer. We attended the Fort Peck Theatre production of Murder on the Orient Express, and then had ribs at E...
Mother Nature seems to be stuck in a wash cycle that features way too many rinses and repeats. The rains just keep on coming. We’re definitely not complaining about the abundant moisture after the past few years of drought. Personally, I’m loving seeing all the green up here. The pastures are rebounding and the waterholes are staying fairly full. There’s one small nitpick, though: perhaps She could space out the four inches of rain over two days instead of two hours? We like having the roads and railways in good operator-friendly condi...
A lot more has been accomplished up here beyond the Middle of Nowhere, but the end is nowhere in sight. I repeat: there’s always more to be done, especially weeding and mowing. No complaining about the rain is to be tolerated, however. It’s wonderful to see the country so green. It does make for more work, but it’s work I enjoy. We took a half-day off to attend the Memorial Day program in Opheim. Upon our return home, he went back to seeding wheat, while I mowed the lawn. Then I thinned more catmint and tiger lilies. A lot of rhubarb was pulle...
There's been a lot more work completed up here this past week, some in the garden and some in the house. And, of course, as mentioned last week, there's still more to be done. The goldfinches are voracious. I'm having to refill the feeders almost daily. We have eight set up around the place, but three of those don't see much action. The birdbaths (four) get rinsed out and refilled almost as often. As soon as I washed windows and installed our two air conditioners, it started a cycle of rains....
As I once remarked to my mother-in-law, there is always, always, ALWAYS more work to be done. I also once asked the in-laws, "Why are we working? Simply to work? Or is it in order to be able to go and do things and to enjoy this life?" So, anyway, I've done some work. I've been able to do some things and I've been enjoying some life. On Tuesday, we re-started seeding the wheat crop. I'd helped get things moved to the field and then helped fill the air seeder. Then I headed to town: the women's g...
Mother Nature gets confused when she heads north. Our April showers are arriving in May. (April brought us lots of winter snows. Boo! Hiss!) We are still managing to get some May flowers, though, so I guess I'll forgive Mother Nature. As if she cares about me and my forgiveness. She'll continue to do as she wishes. There's not a thing I can do to stop her. Last Monday afternoon (a week ago) was very productive for me. Many seeds were planted, starting with my three types of peas: regular, sugar...
Dare I hope spring is finally really here? Am I dooming us to more icky weather by uttering the word spring? To that second question, I certainly hope not! I’m pretty sure I don’t possess the power to jinx all of northeastern Montana. If I had power over the weather, I’m sure I’d have been misusing it. A lot has been accomplished up here at Honrud, Montana, since last I wrote. The garden space has been tilled. Does anything smell as nice as freshly turned soil? Okay, maybe the air after a nice rain does. The drip system is staked in place s...
I feel like we're trapped in a Groundhog's Day movie scenario: the last couple of Wednesdays and Thursdays have dumped another six inches of never-ending winter on us. A couple of weeks ago we had two nice days in a row. I'd thought we were Free At Last, but I was wrong. So wrong. Because of the new, heavy, wet snow, I haven't yet returned the freshly cleaned bird feeders to their stations. But not to fear, the ones I left outside were filled and are being constantly visited by the little...
Spring is still late. Mostly it's missing, perhaps playing hookie. I feel like a broken record. Seriously, more snow?? We had another 6" of cold white yuck last Thursday night. The highway was solid ice Friday morning. And there's more of that nastiness coming according to my cheerful mate who keeps checking the forecasts. My sympathies go out to everyone living in flood zones. At least we can hope that the majority of the grasshoppers eggs got washed away. I did get out to my storage shed last...
Finally! We're getting some spring weather. The snow is melting. There's mud everywhere. Of course, as deep as the drifts are up here north of the middle of nowhere, we're going to be looking at and working around mud for a while yet. But there's hope of gardening budding in my heart. The seeds I've started are still growing. More of them are sprouting as well. Some are slow starters (looking at you, seed onions!). The snow has receded from my storage shed, so perhaps this week I'll retrieve at...
Here we are, suffering through yet another winter event even though the calendar tells us it’s spring. It’s so depressing to see more snow blowing sideways through the yard. Yesterday the highway up here was bare. Today we’re back to a total mess: patches of wet, flowed by slush, followed by snow-pack, followed by slushy drifts, soon to be followed by ice. There are long sections where none of the dividing lines on the road are visible because of the build-up of snow/slush. The fog isn’t helping at all. I have finally put some seeds into so...
The official meaning of hiatus is "a pause or gap in a sequence, series, or process." I've been on an extended hiatus from gardening. Perhaps there's a word for this extension (forced vacation? jail sentence?), which I need, since I'd say this winter has been much more than a pause or gap. It's a yawning chasm, not a gap! Right now I'm doing my best to ignore all the snow outside my door. Those big drifts have compacted downwards quite a bit. The scratching noise from the lilac tree outside our...
Here I am, complaining about the weather again. But I feel like I'm in good company on that front: who isn't sick of winter by now? Could we please have at least a full week of no snow, sunny skies, and very little wind? I'm sure all the road crews agree with me. But I guess that's been too much to ask for this past month. We've made too many trips to and from Glasgow on snow-packed, icy, and/or slushy roads. Our highway has been treacherous. (I'm aware through second-hand reports that it isn't...
This latest blast from Mother Nature has certainly dampened my enthusiasm for gardening out of doors. My plans to start some seeds are on hold, although they probably shouldn't be. I know onions started from seed take forever (a few months wouldn't be too long) to grow large enough to be transplantable. But I can be a lazy gardener and starting seeds is definitely a time and effort commitment. Those baby seedlings need almost daily waterings. Whatever you use to start those seeds (peat pots,...
A year or so ago, I gave a couple houseplants to a friend up here in the great North of the Middle of Nowhere. I didn't have names for them, so she looked them up. I'm sure she gave me the correct names for them, but my brain changed the one. Therefore, for the past year I've been calling this lovely plant the Pearls of Omar. I stand corrected: it's the Jewels of Opar. Ooops. That's very similar, right? I've never heard the name Opar, but am aware of more than one Omar. The way I came to possess...
Badger versus skunk: this really doesn't have much to do with Green Spaces. But this particular battle occurred near my garden, and concluded underneath it! The column this week is going to stink, but not nearly as much as our house and garden did. (The next day Dennis discovered the fight must have started under his work pickup, which was parked outside the kitchen. The smell was intensified by a factor of 10.) In the afternoon on President's Day, Feb. 20, I was peacefully painting kindness...
Can I talk about this today? They do say half the battle of curing an addiction is admitting you have one. But you can't be cured if you don't really want to be. And I've convinced myself my case really isn't that bad...Dennis may think differently. I will admit to having caused two of our three daughters to become hooked on houseplants and/or container gardening as well. I believe it's genetic, though. My mother hooked me, as well as my sisters. I think my brother escaped unscathed. Maybe it's...
The weather recently has actually been pretty nice, especially for February. I secretly think Mother Nature is doing her best to soften us up for the next bit of nastiness we all know is coming. But when it's been as nice as this, it's easy to lie to ourselves and allow hope to grow that spring is closer than the calendar says. I'm among those who has allowed herself to believe that gardening weather is returning. So much lying to myself! Last week when we went into Markles (drain cleaner was...
Editor's Note: This column was submitted to the Glasgow Courier Jan. 29. We are back home from our hockey-watching trip to Quebec City, which is north of Maine, on the St Lawrence River. The grandsons got to compete on the ice rinks at LaVal University. The university hockey program, Rouge et Or (Red & Gold) folded in 1982-83. Quebec City hosted the original 1967 Canada Winter Games Hockey Tournament. Currently the Canadian Hockey Enterprises hosts the Quebec International PeeWee Hockey...
We’re off on another trip that involves our grandsons and hockey. This one, unfortunately, is not to warmer southern climes. There’s a bit of prideful boasting involved in this, since both boys were invited to compete in a tournament in Quebec City. The boys are 10 and 12 years old, and I’m still blown away at how far these Florida natives will travel to compete on ice. Us grandparents are also willing to travel that far to cheer for them. I’m sure I won’t be coming home with photos of botanical gardens. I’m writing this column a week early and...
Last week I briefly mentioned there being so many varieties of palm trees at the Sunken Gardens. There were palm trees scattered throughout the gardens, a well as a palm grove. Many of them I'd never heard of. I thought I'd write about those this week, to keep us envisioning tropical climes and ignoring the cold and snow enveloping our corner of Montana. I'd thought I'd be able to do a quick online search for palms of Florida, but no, there are way too many types to cover. I'd said I was amazed...
During our last few days enjoying Florida, we made our usual trip to see the manatees. These aquatic mammals, also called sea cows, used to be mistaken for mythical mermaids. I think those sailors who saw sirens in these huge animals had been out to sea for much too long! (Manatees are the elephants of the sea, and far from siren-like.) There is a manatee sanctuary/viewing center at Apollo Beach, which is really close to where we stay while in Florida. The center is near (and maintained by) the...
As you may have read from previous columns, we are currently enjoying some time off from the usual northeastern Montana early winter weather. That cold invasion from Canada extended even deep into sunny Florida. People joked about Canada declaring war on the U.S. Of course, “cold” in Florida is much different from that found in our area, where it is expected to occur. We Montanans are usually much better equipped and prepared for the inconveniences associated with below zero weather. We know to have basic food provisions laid in. We have the pr...
