November Hill farm journal, 186

 I haven’t taken any photos in the past 10 days so have nothing to share today, but sometimes no photos mean life is busier, or good things are happening and I just sink into them to the point that I don’t even think about documenting with my phone camera.

Mostly it’s been a busy week and a half. We continue to keep an eye on properties, I’m in the process of working with a land conservancy who are interested in conserving the mountain land we own, and working as usual on keeping up with farm stuff. 

The holly trees have been nicely weed-eated and fed with mature compost. I had been planning to do a bit of limbing up but they developed a few yellow leaves and I don’t like to stress a plant or tree when it’s reacting to something - in this case I think they just needed the compost and we’ve been dry for awhile so a good rain would be helpful. They’re past the year point of being transplanted so I’m not doing regular watering. If we don’t get rain in the next 4-5 days I’ll give them each a good soak. 

Our farm helper did a weed-eating pass down the path to Poplar Folly and also on the inside and outside of the fence down there, which has made walking up and down much easier! He also cut a perimeter path in Arcadia, leaving the center area to bloom on with forage for the insect pollinators, including the honey bees. All the hives are busy and working hard. I am a little embarrassed to admit that I have never yet leveled the empty hive box that lured its own swarm earlier in the spring, and for sure it will be a mess inside with bees building down as they do. At this point if I level it everything they’ve done will be crooked. This is not great beekeeping on my part! It will sort itself out at some point and mostly that means we will have a hard time accessing those frames without tearing things up. Live and learn. Or know and do in this case!

I have a lot of work to do in the larger pollinator plant bed near the house, and need to do some work in the bird haven area, plus in Poplar Folly. There are many native volunteers down there that I’d like to mark, and some invasive non-natives that need to be pulled. Also some buck-eyes that are native but there are far too many of them right now and we’re going to have to be thoughtful and cull 2/3 of them. 

What I have not yet done: washed/put away horse blankets, done a spring clean inside the barn, power washing porch, deck, camper, exterior areas on barn. I’m sure there are more things pending but at this moment I do not even want to remember more than what I just listed! 

This is writing weekend and I’ve also started my ongoing 6-week at a time writing class, so my mind is on that work and was also fueled by an acceptance of a piece of flash fiction. The horse folk who read here will enjoy it - I’ll link when it goes live which I think will be in August. 

I’m closing in on my first embroidery project’s completion, and I will tell you now that the blanket stitch has mostly defied mastery for me. I do the same thing and it looks awful, then suddenly I hit a streak where it looks good, and I cannot tell difference in what I’m doing to have such varied results! However, in this endeavor I am practicing the philosophy of “not letting perfect be the enemy of good enough.” I’m learning, I’m enjoying the process, and honestly, if I do not look too closely at the stitches I love the little needle book I’m almost done making. It will be a very cheerful way to store embroidery needles and every time I open it I’ll see the first project and can thus mark progress as I hopefully get more skillful at this work! I have another project that will let me continue learning and practicing stitches before I move on to some of the more traditional embroidery kits I have accumulated and am eager to complete. 

It’s amazing to me that it’s June already. The summer solstice will be here soon and around that time the horses will get their ACTH tests and I’ll see if they need an increase in Pergolide as we move into the seasonal rise. Right now all are well. Little Man looks truly fabulous - very handsome and somehow perpetually clean and groomed even though we are not doing it for him. I remain convinced he has a team of pony fairies who come and attend to him daily. Keil Bay is good, very happy with his meals, and moving well, and Cody is hanging in there. He got an abrasion on his upper right front leg and because of a couple of episodes over the past year or so where he’s developed cellulitis, we started antibiotics and avoided a repeat. I’ve been having dreams of galloping and keep thinking I need to get him back into light work. The donka boys are also looking good. Between the dry weather and us cutting back some on hay amounts they are a little sleeker than they were, and for Rafer especially this is a very good thing. 

There’s an endless accounting of all the things happening here but this is enough for today, I think! 

November Hill farm journal, 185

It’s a beautiful week on November Hill, with the foliage feeling like it has really hit its lushest volume and  the sense this year that we really do have a haven of privacy here. The cedars and hollies we planted have grown and are healthy and offering food and shelter to birds and pollinators, and screening for us. On Sunday we decided to remove the HorseGuard tape that has kept the hollies safe from nibbling equines, and my hope was that they would do some weed-eating work for us between and around the trees. In one night they cleared out the grass and have subsequently finished off the rest of the palatable green things growing. Now it’s ready to be tidied up with a weed-eater and we’ll leave the tape off and start to do the first round of limbing up - my goal is a lovely row of hollies whose trunks are kept clear of branches up to about 4-5 feet, which will encourage them to grow fuller up top and eventually grow together. Perfect screen, great for wildlife. 

A few glimpses of the garden beds:

And the view from the potager corner of the upper front pasture. The pastures are not lush this spring and we have not done anything about that, with our herd of easy keepers. They get their 10% or less sugar/starch hay and we rotate them through the barnyard and the grass paddock periodically so they get some grass. In the fall we will spread lime and then compost and grass seed. 

I’m so happy to see the button bushes gearing up for their spectacular mid-summer bloom time! 

(Some may wonder - will I even be able to sell this farm? Some days I think not, and imagine it being a writing retreat, a guest farm, but still in our lives. An investment? We will see. I will continue carrying out my plans until I drag myself away to a new home.)

We had a special day on Sunday - my husband and I celebrated 29 years of marriage and Bear Corgi turned 13!  My husband worked hard on Sunday planting vegetables in the potager, first weeding the empty beds, then hauling up November Hill compost from the big pile. I have not spent much time sitting on the potager bench so far this spring/summer but it is on my list to take a break out there this week. 

For some reason Sunday morning struck me out of the blue as the perfect time to apply the annual tung oil to the front gate, posts, and the mailbox. I hadn’t even thought about this until suddenly the cool weather, cloudy day but with no rain coming, perfect tung oil opportunity, presented itself. I finished all but the cross bars and the large posts. The gate and mailbox look wonderful and fed. 

I had aimed to do some mowing over the weekend but when it came down to it, there were many bees of many species foraging the wildflowers and the clover, and I decided to let them go awhile longer. We will mow a path around the side strip area and will mow in front of the front pasture fence, and a path around Arcadia. The little bit of lawn we have our fire pit area in needs mowing in full but it can wait another week. 

On my list - power washing the front porch and back deck. It’s actually a satisfying task to do but we have to feed a hose through the front porch cat fencing and it’s just enough of a pain that I’ve put it off. A hot day is a good time to do it, so I’ll wait for one of those that fall on a free day. 

And, oh dear, horse blanket wash, sun dry, and pack away time. I have sworn to do it before the month is out after leaving it last year to the last minute in what was it, October? 

Otherwise I have done a little embroidery work this week and submitted several pieces of writing, and I’m now, at this moment, gearing up to start my work day with clients. All is well. 

November Hill farm journal, 184

 It’s a prolific year for milkweed on November Hill. The first three photos are the butterfly weed and daughter’s capture of some very bedraggled native bees in last week’s rainfall. 

This morning I walked out to the common milkweed going totally nuts and this is just two of the plants among many in this bed. It is the biggest milkweed show we’ve ever had since I started the native plantings. 

In a different but still beautiful vein, today’s artwork by my 2-year old grandson on his first exploration of my iPad Paper app. He used tools I didn’t even know were there. I love the colors and the lines, and now that this is adjacent to the milkweed photo above, isn’t it interesting/fascinating? He has created an abstract of my garden bed. 

It’s another lovely week on November Hill. I’m back to work in my garret with clients via telehealth, working on writing projects, and enjoying time with the herd yesterday and today as well as time with my grandson. There are of course about 2034 projects that need some attention, but nature and writing will wait for those who love them, right? I’m soaking it all in.

Life is good.

Stay At Home Writing Retreat

 I’ve had a great week of writing and digging in a little to a pandemic embroidery purchasing spree project. The hours in the garret doing creative work are great to balance out the psychotherapy work I do there (which is also creative, honestly), and last evening it was very cool, the wind was blowing, and there were many moments when it sounded like ocean surf outside. 

We all need this kind of time and I encourage people to take it, whether it is a week, a day, an afternoon, or even 15 minutes. Self care and creative time are things we need to flourish.

At the beginning of my week I pulled out printed copies of my TV/film projects - turns out I have 10, which is exciting. Of the 10, and nearing the end of my week,  I have 4 3/4 completed scripts and two pitch decks mostly done. While I’ve been focusing on writing for the screen this week I also noted that I have 6 novel mss that I have not done anything with in terms of getting them out into the world. I’ve been focusing a lot on short work the past few years and I’m not switching from one to the other, but I think it’s good to take inventory of my longer form material and bring one project at a time forward to get it fully finished and out the door. 

The projects:

The needle book project, perfect to practice different stitches and manageable enough to make good progress. Since the photo I have embellished the flowers quite a bit and will soon work on stems before continuing with the “book” structure. Please do not ask me how many kits I have stashed! 

When I go into something, I tend to go all the way, and without ever having done a single stitch, I purchased this magnifying lighted lamp thing that was “highly recommended.” And I can add my endorsement. It swivels to whatever position I need while I’m sitting comfortably in my chair and it takes the aging near-sighted woman to perfect vision land again. 

It’s nice to be learning a new thing and I’m really happy to have found the time this week to jump in the embroidery/stitching pool. If in doubt, there are wonderful YouTube videos on how to do the stitches. 

Today I’m spending time with my grandson and again tomorrow morning - tonight and tomorrow afternoon and on through Sunday I’ll be back to retreat time. Monday is back to client work and a very full schedule. For which I’ll be fresh and rejuvenated. 

November Hill farm journal, 183

 A few more photos from the farm this week. With everything blooming and growing, I can hardly keep up!

The volunteer elderberries, a wonderful native, have gone mad this year. This one has taken root in the compost behind the fallen tree that helps with run off after big rainfalls. I haven’t done a thing to this beauty. 

This one is in the middle of the upper pasture and the photo doesn’t capture how big it actually is. It looms above my head and you could easily climb inside and have room for several people to sit and talk. The birds love these shrubs.

This one has grown around the stump to an old oak that Salina became obsessed with - she chewed its bark and encouraged the rest of the herd to join her. They girdled it and it died. Since then we have wrapped the trees they have shown interest in chewing but I love that the elderberry chose this place to grow.

This is what I call the bluebird bed, due to the bluebird box that enjoys its proximity. I planted it here mostly because this corner is where an underground drain pipe comes out and the bed helps absorb the run off above ground on this slope. It’s a cheerful bed and I have some ideas about using the stone from the walkway to make it a little more visually interesting. 

The butterfly weed is looking really good this spring. I’m very happy to see it and am patiently waiting for the Monarchs to come. 

Many milkweed plants have popped up this year and this one is positioned by another patch of butterfly weed. I love these colors together - they’ll be even more striking when in full bloom. 

The first aster of the year blooms!

I love the purpling of the wild Columbine leaves, and find the layers of pale green to purple to tan so comforting to look at. I could see a sweater with these colors. If I ever manage my knitting goal, I will make one! 

The gardens are full of color combinations that make me want to take some courses in botanical illustration. 

This week I’m doing a stay at home writing retreat and spent many happy hours yesterday in my garret working on screenplay projects. What a joy to have that work punctuated by walks out to the horses, donkeys, pony, bees, and gardens.