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| Spring Lawn and Garden
|
Spring Lawn and Garden, 2008
After thirty years of worrying with this hillside
of clay we finally begin to reap some of the pleasure for having done
so. Last year I invested my annual 200.00 in sage plants, grass
seed, a few tomato cages, a load of top soil, and that was about all.
The sage plants do well on this ridge but must have
the tomato cages around them because the lawn mower will so easily mow
them. They are really nothing but just small sprigs at first. The
effort was worth it because this spring they are blooming in a prolific
way down the drive. I’m impressed enough to go for two or three
more.
The roto-tiller broke up a small portion of my back
yard for a garden. This is where I have marked off four foot by
four foot squares with runways between them wide enough so the riding
lawn mower can
pass through. In those squares I have tomatoes, radishes, strawberry
plants, carrots, squash, turnips and along the edge will be planted
okra.
I always like for the weather to be warm so the soil is through and
through warm before planting okra. This spring has been anything
but that.
“Where is this global warming they are talking
about?” I ask. Some days it is so shivering cold I must put on a
coat to put up with it.
This week-end Rod cleaned up some brush he had
stacked. We like to leave a place for the rabbits to hide from the
snow, but instead, snakes and mice can collect there, too. He did
run some mice out because we had a couple owls that night. Our
tribe does not like the owl and I have mixed feelings about this.
Sometimes, I believe they didn’t like them because they visit,
when mice are around. The mice, of course, are the culprits
for carrying disease. The question comes, “Why hate the owl when
he is just doing what he was created to do, eat mice?” Anyway,
the brush piles are gone and I can rake that area to use the mulch from
where it was. The owls didn’t visit the second night so hopefully, we
destroyed the mice’s protected, place.
A friend so many years ago gave me a start of what
we call winter onions. I had them planted along the drive and
some family objected to their strong fragrance while they were
unloading a car. I moved them to an, out of the way
area, and they must be happy there, because there are
unbelievable numbers of them this year. It is wonderful not to
have to plant onions. These come back every year and, in fact, if the
winter is not too severe, will winter over.
Blooming and fragrant at this time are: long
drooping white flowers of the locust trees, one variety of Iris, and
lilacs. The Privit hedge will soon bloom and they are fragrant,
too. There is no perfume with the Weigela but the pink and
lavender blossoms are lovely. Jasmine blooms are sweet at this time,
too.
The dark foliage of plum trees in front and the
Barberry bushes add a touch of contrast to the over all green of this
lawn.
I did conquer to area of the ridge that was
threatening to wash. My family hated the newspapers with a
mixture of Spagnum moss and Cypress mulch. I sprinkled some of the top
soil over it so the sandwich wasn’t so trashy looking and today a fine
cover of Bermuda grass grows over the whole thing. I imagine I
can hear a crunch of rotted newspapers, but really think this is just
my awareness of what is under the Bermuda grass. Doesn’t matter,
the small area is green and doesn’t have runners of where the water was
washing it.
Here is my gardening page if you wish to go over it.
http://www.electricscotland.com/gardening/america.htm
You can click on the photographs at the top of the page and it takes
you to some of Alastair’s photography of Scotland. He has
actually become quite an accomplished landscape photographer.
Scroll down to Sterling Castle, click on it to enlarge and then again
to see the detail so clearly.
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| Author |
Donna Flood |
Added
On |
Mon May 05th,2008 |
| Rating |
(1) |
Category |
Misc. |
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| We had a wonderful day
|
Chilocco Clean Up Day, May 3, 2008
“There has to be time to run off to Chilocco even
with all we have to do here.” I chatted with Rod while we made up
our mind to go have
lunch with the Alumni Group, who were meeting on the grounds. The
last time we went for just a few minutes, it was obvious the beauty of our old campus was being restored..
“Well!” Rodney commented as we drove over the
lake and toward the oval. “Looks like they have been busy.”
The full, black, trash bags stood neatly
all around the oval as if someone had measured where the full trash
bags were to rest. At the east end of that patio of the student
union building that is approximately twenty feet wide and one hundred
feet long was where the small group had set up their lunch.
Lucy and Garland Kent along with others of the
alumni certainly had outdone themselves on this meal. There were
grilled hamburgers, hot dogs in crock pots, potato salad, noodle salad,
chips, and too much more to list. I took a home made cake and it
was lost in the desserts on one end of the table.
No where were the rough vines and such we all had
experienced on our first visit, some years back. One of the
workers commented that things were not so depressing at this time, and
it was true.
Garland Kent and his wife Lucy along with Jim Baker
must be given credit for their stick-to-it, attitude. Without
this kind of commitment, never would there have been so much
accomplished.
We didn’t go to the cemetery but other were going to
take pictures, so things must have looked good there.
We visited with one of the ladies doing
research. She was retired from the State Historical office and
was doing research work on an independent contract. She had her
papers with her as she walked about over and over the campus,
again.. The neatly drawn maps were most impressive. She was
looking for the vineyard and Garland was able to help her with
that. Jim Baker knew about the dates on one of the schools
projects. Essentially, it was about a plot of land given to an
individual student, while they were at Chilocco. It was given them to
do what they wanted as far as growing produce. The sales they
made from that were theirs to keep. This project ended in 1970,
Jim Baker told. It had begun in the early 1900's.
I called to her attention the history of the
hospital which was no longer standing. I worked there in around
1957. She was impressed with the services available to take care
of the health of the students.
I”m really proud of this alumni, group’s work
and applaud them for staying with it. Garland said the leasers
there now have had the lease for one year and that is one down on
their five-year lease.
My questions were: Are there grant writers working.
Garland answered that Lisa Otipoby and Jo Exendine with the Kaw Tribe
were working on that.
I still am harping on the importance of having a
salary for a librarian and a helper so the great history we have
through the annuals would be available to former students that can be
put on computers, along with their children, whose grandparents
and even great grandparents went there. There is no sin in making a
profit on sales from that material. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if
the heirs of Chilocco alumni could have scholarships to receive from
this sort of business like endeavor? People would pay to come in
for tours, history lectures to student groups, records and copies of
pictures of their ancestors. We all want our children to become
educated through higher learning, but a lot of the time the young ones
simply have to go into debt, deep debt, in order to have that
privilege. It’s almost like a wonderful opportunity has opened up to a
segment of this country, the Chilocco people, if we could just go
forward, now. Not only saving a living history on those wonderful
grounds at Chilocco, but be benefitting our children and heirs,
as well.
It seemed to me more buildings were being boarded up
and that is progress. If no one can access the dangerous
buildings, more people could be allowed to go through. Tall
windows of the old power plant were covered and painted a jaunty
Chilocco, red color.
|
| Author |
Donna Flood |
Added
On |
Sat May 03rd,2008 |
| Rating |
(1) |
Category |
Current Affairs |
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