Sheltering in Place

Farmers and gardeners are the luckiest people on the earth. We always have our work with us no matter what's going on in the world. "Sheltering in place" is what we do, pandemic or no pandemic. Here is a photo collage from my farm isolation, which has consisted, so far, of cleaning kidding pens, hiking through the woods and putting dog hair on wild flowers to deter deer, transplanting tomatoes from flats in the greenhouse/jungle room into pots, and more. No photos of all my digging out invasive Lesser Celandine, which I do every spring, or deadheading daffodils, or all Johnny's work cutting up downed trees for firewood and hauling them out of the woods (or off the driveway) or sifting a huge load of compost for me. In other words, life hasn't changed much for us.

Skunk Cabbage seen from the barn

 Horse wagon of flowers between house and barn...

 In the woods, there are now eleven of these tiger lilies coming up. Rarely do they get to bloom but I'm hoping the smelly dog hair will keep deer and slugs away this year.

Sessile Trillium in bud. They bloom later than the Western Trillium

Western Trillium

Wild Ginger with flower. I had this in an earlier post (A Virtual Walk Around the Farm) but I seldom see Wild Ginger flowers so here it is again...

Johnny spotted this Brown Creeper creeping up a moss covered tree trunk, as Brown Creepers like to do. I seldom see them although I know they are here and I can no longer hear their high-pitched calls so very thankful to have this photo.

This Chocolate Lily has never had a bud before... always eaten off long before. Hopefully the dog hair will let it bloom this year!

 On one of my rambles, I stopped in the horse field to take a photo of our farm with Spirit Mountain behind.

From there, I crossed this foot bridge to wander through a lowland area we planted with redwoods and cedars long ago. The horses can drink from the stream on their field side, but that white phony-electric tape draped across the other side keeps them from crossing.

I love skunk cabbage.

That lowland area loses a lot of alders to the creek, which catch other logs floating downstream, hopefully creating good habitat for wee fish to hide and grow in.

East of our lowland area is the south field, where the mountains beyond still have snow.

This day, the kestrel box we erected in the south field had a Kestrel on it! Just hunting, but I'm hopeful he'll find a mate and bring her back to nest. If not this year, maybe next.

In the far southeast corner of our property is an Ash Swamp. This time of year one end of it is covered in lush looking Veratrum viride, Indian Hellebore or Corn Lily (or probably other names, too.) It looks like it should have gorgeous tropical-looking flowers... but it doesn't. They're inconspicuous and die and turn brown quickly. Quite disappointing. The plant itself is "one of the most violently poisonous plants on the Northwest Coast, a fact recognized by all indigenous groups. ...even to eat a small portion of it would result in loss of consciousness, followed by death." (From Plants of the Pacific Northwest Coast by Pojar and MacKinnon, an excellent field guide.)

Back in front of the barn, I feed the wild birds.

White-crowned sparrows are just back from their winter vacation to the south.

Oregon Juncos are here year round. Here one shares seeds with a WCSP

Fox Sparrows are winter visitors, still here before heading north to their breeding territory

Golden-crowned Sparrows are also winter visitors, soon to leave us.

When it rains, I work in the greenhouse (rather than house-clean, which I should do), I recently potted from flats five kinds of tomatoes into that wonderful compost Johnny strained for me. I think every seed came up this year in the flats.

I also planted butternut squash seeds I'd saved from a squash I grew in 2017.  I hope they produce butternut squash and not some weird hybrid. Who knows what other cucurbit I planted that year that they may have crossed with.

The only flower of note in the greenhouse right now is a poinsettia from our friends the Woodhouses who left their flowering plants with me when they moved to Minnesota over a year ago. It was blooming when they gave it to me and still is!

Goats are due to kid soon so maybe there will be baby goat photos to share in the near future. Never a dull moment on the farm, pandemic or not.