Showing posts with label Spring. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Spring. Show all posts

Friday, March 30, 2012

Irish Spring

This is the road behind our house.

Horse pastures belonging to local stud farms flank this narrow backroad, and soon the trees will overhang, creating a canopy of green.

But for now, the daffodils are blooming in their thousands on this mile-long stretch of little-used road.


Here's the road behind us! Bloomin' beautiful!



Saturday, May 02, 2009

Perfect Summers Day

It was the perfect summers day in Ireland today. The weather couldn't have been any better. I thought I'd share a few photos.


Here's Daisie playing in the stream. The sun caught this one section under our crabapple trees and she took the opportunity to go snorkling. This is where she puts her whole head under water and looks for rocks to bring me so I can throw them back in the water so she can go snorkling again. The funny thing is that she doesn't quite get them back to me. She ends up taking them to the edge of the stream and expects me to climb down and get them. Not bloody likely! I was wet enough just throwing the ball into the water for Poppy who DID have sense enough to bring it back so I could throw it again. The problem with Poppy is that she can go for hours where Daisie usually gets bored with a game and then she's away with the fairies. The exception is when she's in the water, where she kept snorkling for rocks and still kept taking them to the edge of the water but not up to me. Goofy dog!


Once both dogs were sufficiently wet, I brought them out of the water one at a time for a bath. Poppy first, since she was already at my side with a ball hanging out of one side of her mouth and her tongue from the other side!
Then it was Daisie's turn and once she saw the soap bottle in my hand she headed back into the stream and refused to come out. I don't understand it, and I probably don't need to, but she LOVES water. Doesn't matter where she is, if she spots a big puddle, pond or the sea, she's in it. But the hose with water coming out? No way! Well, eventually she came out and begrudgingly let me wash her.
Then I ran them to get as much of the water off them as possible before the sun went in and they had to come in the house. Anyone who's been to our house or knows us knows that we use a tennis racket to whack a ball up the backyard, which is about a half acre. They see me pick up the racket and ball and they're instantly up the back and waiting for me to hit the ball to them. It's a great way to exercise collies, let me tell you. After about 15 minutes, Daisie is usually ready to play another game, but Poppy is all about running, and if it means hitting the ball for another 15 minutes to wear her out, who am I to deny her? So here they are, above, laying on the back steps in the sun, catching their breath and the last of the afternoon sun. Ah! It's a dog's life!!


Here are a couple more shots of what's growing around our property. Left is a very old white hawthorn tree that has buds coming in all over. Unlike the crabapple tree which is next to it, the buds are coming in green rather than pink. The flowers will be striking white when they've bloomed, so stay tuned for that picture. They're absolutely stunning.
Lastly, we have a Carnival Tulip. I've tried growing tulips in the ground around where the daffodils are in front of the little stone structure in our front yard, but they never do well for some reason. So I put a bunch of bulbs in various containers to see if they'd come up. The Carnival Tulips are really stunning, looking like starlight mints from Xmas time.
Well, let's not talk about Xmas time when we've had such wonderful weather today. Who knows what tomorrow will bring? The weather "experts" have been calling for rain this weekend and today we had sun. It's anyones guess what tomorrow will bring until we open the curtains in the morning and look out.

Friday, April 24, 2009

Anticipation

This is the time of year when Ireland is waking from her winter slumber. She's stretching under cool foggy sheets and groping for warm spots in the folds.

Once barren trees are starting to leaf, wild fuchsia is bushing out, bramble vines are getting into everything, and the grass is growing out of control. It's also that time, given a bit more warmth and sun, just before everything explodes with blooms. The anticipation is palpable! Sure, we've had the usual early season daffodils and masses of dandelions. But the end of April generally heralds the coming of the flower boom known as May. Remember the old saying, April showers bring May flowers? How true!

I should back up to mention that our house sits on the property of an old farmstead dating back to the Great Famine. Most of the old stone buildings are gone now, but two walls remain from what was probably a buttery or the like. Beside this building are the foundation stones of what was probably a barn. Today they stones are tangled with ancient...OK very old...beech trees. And surrounding the immediate property is a stream. This would have been a really traditional farm. Thatched roofs and all.

As with any farm, the housewife would have maintained gardens. And one of those gardens included blackberries, black currents and crabapple trees.

When we first saw the new house, we were taken by the masses of blackberry vines all over the property (can we say gallons of home made preserves?), the massive black current bush we thought was a tree and the crabapples on the trees. And it's this time of year that they begin to bloom.

It seems like it's been ages in coming, but the lime colored leaves have come on really well, and the pink blossom buds make the trees look like they're strung with exotic pearls. Providing the wind behaves itself over the coming weeks, we should have hundreds of tiny green apples. We really must harvest them and try making crabapple jelly.

We've owned our property for almost eight years now. There are about seven and a half acres in all, but the house itself sits in the middle of about one acre, and the backyard is the better part of half an acre.

Over the years, it's been very interesting watching the seasons change. And noticing how no two seasons are the same. For example, last year our backyard was covered in clover. This year it first looked like it was going to be all about the danelions. Then I took a stroll around with the dogs and it's covered with about a million plantains. English Plantain to be specific, also called Ribwort Plantain and Plantago.

Apparently as far back as Neolithic times, land that could grow plantain was supposed to be an indication of fertile grazing land for cattle. And through the ages, both in Ireland and Great Britain, plantain has been used in the making of teas (tisanes) and herbal remedies to treat various ailments such as treating bowel disorders, lowering cholesterol and controlling diabetes. The plantago is one of the nine plants invoked in the Nine Herbs Charm that was recorded in the 10th century by pagan Anglo-Saxons. Knowing all this, I feel like I'm sitting in the middle of a bit of history! So much history for such a little plant.

Or if you grew up in Ireland, as my husband did, plaintains were used in the playing of a game known as soldiers. Once the flowers head had grown, kids would pull them and use them in a game where the stalks were hit against the opponant's stalks like swords. The first one to lop the head off his/her opponent's flower won. Beginning about this time of year in fields all over Ireland, kids had hours of endless entertainment. Well, as long as the plantains held out!

With so much property that changes every season I had to go out and buy a book on Irish wildflowers. It's the Collins Gem series for wild flowers around Britain and Ireland. It's pocketsize, which is ideal for wandering around the property. It's fun to identify what's growing on our property, and collecting samples to press at home.

We have a lot of trees on the property too. The house is surrounded mainly with native ash and some beech, but we also have traditional white blooming hawthorne and sycamore. Some of the trees are very old. But this will have to wait for another time.