November Hill farm journal, 104

It’s been very hot last week and this week and I have had some issues with migraine aura symptoms so have been staying out of the bright sunlight, thus no new photos right now of things flowering and growing on the farm.

Thankfully we’ve gotten rain regularly enough that I haven’t had to water anything, but if we don’t get any today that’s going to change!

While hanging out inside this week I’ve been working on sketches for new garden beds this fall. I’m going to have to transplant goldenrod, purple coneflower, rattlesnake master, and eastern horsemint because all of them are spreading and beginning to crowd out some of the other plantings. Since these are all favorites of mine, it will be nice to have plenty of plants to put in without buying them. I’ll add in a few new natives to each of these new beds, depending what’s available locally this fall.

I’ve also, finally, done some moving and shifting of furniture upstairs and gotten on with the painting of three bookshelves that will be going into another room. I discovered some interesting paints online one night when browsing design images and I got 5 colors that I’ve had for awhile now. It was fun to bring them up yesterday and get going with this project. With all of us in the house working from home now, we need another “garret” - my writing garret has been utilized by my daughter doing her university coursework, and the desk in the bedroom commandeered by my husband, so I’ve been using the dining room table as my writing and office space. 

Creating the new garret was on the list but it’s gotten bumped up some due to the pandemic. I’ve moved a day bed in from the guest room, and am painting some old bookshelves to move over to the guest room where there will now be a wall of books. I’m replacing the old desk in the new garret with something lighter and more Scandinavian in design, and I’ve already got the paint for the walls, a nice bright botanical green. It’s going to be completely different and will give my daughter a dedicated workspace that she can call her own. 

Meanwhile, we’re on the electrician’s waitlist for some work to be done at the barn that will allow me to move forward with the renovation of Delphine. Until I have easy power out there it’s just too hot to work on that. I have three things on the list to get done once the electrical work is complete.

It’s that time of the summer when outdoor projects are on hold and the daily focus is keeping all the animals and the human ones cool, hydrated, and happy. 

There are a ton of good books in my pile and if you keep an eye on the Goodreads app on the sidebar here you’ll see them as I read. Nonfiction and fiction. 

I have to say - July is my least favorite month in the year. Between July 4th and the heat it’s a month I would be okay skipping. In years past I’ve always had the dream that one day we would have a farm in the NC mountains, a remote and quiet place we could pack up and head to for May-September. It’s cooler there and not as many biting insects, and the trip isn’t too long for the horses. 

Now, with everything going on in our country, I’ve been thinking of Canada. The winters! I think mostly it’s that the idea of escape is soothing to me whether or not it actually comes to pass. For now I’m hunkered down here on November Hill, and grateful for all it offers. 

What’s Coming Up In The Garden, 56: Black-eyed Susans

I didn’t make it out to get a photo until the sun was up and full on the beds, so the photo is not great, but here they are, adding a new color and texture to the garden this week and on into fall.

It’s been very hot the past several days and was starting to dry out again. These well-established beds can take dry weather without being watered, but the newer plants I’ve put in this summer need some extra care during dry spells. I woke up this morning thinking I would be heading out to do that but thankfully it had rained in the early morning and so everything on the farm got a nice drink.

We may also get some thunderstorms this afternoon, but given our location near the lake these sometimes split and go around around us on either side - I never count on the forecast when it comes to watering the garden babies!

More info:

Rudbeckia fulgida 

Common Name(s):

 

• Black-eyed Susan
• Orange Coneflower

Phonetic Spelling

rud-BEK-ee-a FUL-gih-duh

Description

Black-eyed Susan is an erect herbaceous perennial that may grow 2 to 3 feet tall. The many yellow daisy-like flowers with a brownish-purple center first mature in early summer and continue into the fall. A rosette of leaves that originate at the base of the stem persists through the winter, creating an attractive winter ground cover. Leave the seed heads on for the birds. Remove floral stalks after booms spent for lush rosette of green leaves. 

Blackeyed Susans are easy to grow, thriving in any but soggy soils. It does best in full sun but tolerates partial shade. It also bears up under hot, humid summers and, once established, will tolerate drought. The plant spreads by underground stems called rhizomes to form large clumps. Propagation can be done by division in the spring or fall, or it can be propagated by seed. It is utilized for perennial beds, backgrounds, in pollinator gardens, in naturalized areas, and borders. Staking may be required for large heads.

Bear Corgi and helpful supplements

Just wanted to update about Bear and his issues at age 10 with stiffness. Here he is, and please note that he is on the sofa! Which means he jumped up there.

He’s getting 2400 mg of fish oil a day, per the vet; eggshell membrane capsules, per CalmForwardStraight; Dogzymes Complete, per Clementine’s breeder; and Springtime Advanced Hip and Joint Chewables per me wanting to throw everything I can at this issue.

The combo of all the above has made a huge difference in his movement and comfort. He runs, plays, jumps on the sofas, and generally just seems happier now that all of these supplements are on board. They all offer different things to the mix and while it’s an ordering extravaganza every month, it’s so worth it.

Bear’s a sweetheart and we’re so relieved he’s feeling better. Thanks to CFS for the recommendation of the eggshell membrane. That made a big difference on its own!

Hodgepodge

It’s that kind of day. I’ve been losing my focus this week and I feel a bit like one of the 25-odd Swallowtails on the buttonbush this morning!

Yesterday afternoon these three enjoyed a little hay between rainfalls in the barnyard. Cody had a reaction to insect bites last week and I went at him with a homeopathic remedy first, with Benadryl and then vet as back-up plans. He already gets chondroitin, fresh ground flax, and spirulina in his feed, and I’ll be adding a trio of additional supplements to see if I can boost things overall. What I did that worked in the short term: did a work up for a remedy and gave it. Bathed him with Banixx shampoo. Used the EcoVet spray (as I have been). Set up our spare big outdoor-rated barn fan in his shelter so he can stand in the air flow to stay cool and insect-free. And fed wet hay to get more water into him. The wet hay was a shoot from the hip kind of thing but I believe for Cody it made some difference, since I suspect his sensitivity to bug bites is connected to his sensitivity to dust in hay, and I just wanted to cover every base I could.

If you’re like many of my family members who do not believe homeopathy is a legitimate treatment, I respect that, but I can tell you that whether it’s a placebo or simply chance, after the first dose he became more agitated (which can be common if you hit the right remedy) and then after the second dose (given 30 minutes after the first) I saw a literal reduction in the many hive-like welts on his body. You’ll have to take my word on that, but it’s true. I guess it’s possible the placebo effect impacted me and he picked up on that and it impacted him, and if that’s how it works I’m fine with it! By the third and fourth doses that same day, he was looking close to normal and things are back to an even keel for him two days out from that.

My source for remedies for horses is George MacLeod’s book The Treatment of Horses By Homoeopathy. It’s an older book that you can get on Amazon and it’s a terrific resource for using homeopathic remedies for horse ailments. I would never suggest that anyone do this for serious issues or without calling your vet if that is needed, but most of the time homeopathy can be used as a wonderful adjunctive treatment. My experience is that if you do the work to identify the correct remedy for the individual patient you will get excellent results. I’ve found that skin issues respond very well to homeopathy, and I’ve at times been able to nail it myself, and other times used our homeopathic vet to make the call. Considering that the mainstream treatment for hives would likely be a shot of steroids that carry the risk of laminitis, I feel it’s prudent to try this first. It has worked 100% of with my herd in 16 years of keeping these horses.

With everything on the farm blooming right now, I have been happy and surprised to see this snake plant send up its own lovely flower. It’s not native but was a gift and I’m happy to see it thriving. It comes inside for the winters but seems to love going to the porch for the summer season.

In other news, we have yellow jackets nesting in a wall of the barn aisle. My husband has been stung several times now, and since there seems no way to get them to leave before they naturally die out in the fall, we’re going to have to use something to spray and exterminate them. We rarely do this kind of thing (fire ants and ticks being the exception) but with the proximity to horses and people it’s necessary. This evening when the horses are turned out we’ll deal with this. It’s only happened twice in the years we’ve lived here that yellow jackets built a nest in or near the barn, so hopefully this is it for awhile! They have to live somewhere but the barn is just not the place. 

I have wondered today if Cody possibly got stung by a yellow jacket and that kicked off the reaction, but I haven’t seen anything on him that looked like that kind of sting, and he isn’t usually in the area where the nest is anyway... but it’s a possibility. It’s also odd that with my going in and out of the barn doing chores I myself haven’t encountered them at all - but they seem to be going at my husband specifically. I’ll be glad when they’re gone. 

Buttonbush, nodding onion, rattlesnake master

The buttonbush plants are going wild this week. I read today in the NC Wildlife Federation’s Butterfly Highway newsletter that this plant supports 24 insect species, 8 waterfowl species, 3 mammalian species, and several pollinators. No wonder it’s so busy!

The rattlesnake master are also very busy and looking very nice (though they have spread so much in two years I’m seriously going to have to transplant this fall - the one I transplanted in late spring wilted and I thought it had died, but it has revived and grown to over a foot tall in its new place along the walkway!).

Here you can see the goldenrod I transplanted in late spring - they were a few inches tall and they too wilted, but have revived as well, and zoomed up. I’ll be interested to see how they look when they start to bloom!

The nodding onion are blooming and while delicate and still not fully mature in their bed, they are lovely.

Last week we got so dry I watered every pollinator bed for the first time this season. Of course, two days later we got a huge rain and we’ve had rain every day since! Thankfully we’re also getting sunshine mixed in with the rain so that nothing is staying soggy. Yesterday it poured rain while the sun was shining - something my grandma used to say when this happened is that the devil is having a fight with his wife. 

We had a one day break in the number of cucumbers - I got two - but today we’re back to five. I can’t believe how quickly they grow from one day to the next.

I formally proclaimed to myself this week that I have officially lost control of the weeding. The garden beds themselves are fairly weed-free, but the stone walkway, the empty areas in some of the beds, and the drainage trench areas are completely overgrown. I don’t want to weed-eat and it’s too much to pull, even with my weeding hoe, so I’ve resorted to large pieces of cardboard to smother them. It isn’t the most aesthetically pleasing method, but it works!