Growing Space Expands

As my growing space expanded, weeding walkways became unbearabley demanding.  Brown, spundbonded polyester landscape cloth provided an answer for pathways among my annual beds.  While air and water flower through the cloth, weeds rarely penetrate it.  Two-foot-wide strips laid in passageways now control the weeds.  I also use a limited amount of herbicide.  Two sprays per season keep brick and oyster-shell pathways between perennial borders weed-free.  This is the only chemical I use.  I use it sparingly and never around the blooms I harvest.  However, under organic rules, chemical herbicides are not allowed.  Consequently, my operation is not a certified organic operation.  

Weeding the perennial beds is interminable.  It’s May 25, and there are still five areas left.  But the weather is gorgeous.  The sunlight is soft and warm.  The air has a dewy feel as spring moves toward summer.  Rhubarb plants grow at the base of granite boulders.  Each plant erupts from the soil like a small Vesuvius and will soon sport huge, fan-shaped leaves suspended over bright red stalks.  Rhubarb is a staple on New England homesteads.  Generations of women prepared tart pies and jams from its stalks.    

A mocking bird has settled into other area.  I hear him.  Or her -- since both male and female mockers sing.  In most bird species, singing is a male specialty.  I scan the top-most branches of the maples and telephone poles along the road where they perch to sing.  But I see no bird, only hear its song.  A short passage ends with a rising note, as if to form a question.  There is a pause.  Then the singer gives a long ad complex answer as though it carries on a conversation with an invisible other.

Mocking birds sing in daylight hours and after dark, especially during a full moon. In fact, they sing so constantly and so loudly that much of the email to an Eastern Birds website is inquires as to  how to shut up them up.  They are indeed inventive songsters.  As mimics, they sing the songs of other birds.  Sitting on a high branch, they go on and on,  skipping and trilling with few repeats of the same melody.  A well-versed male will have a repertoire of up to 200 songs.

Link to Mocking birds song