My Mother’s Day involved outside work. As usual.  Ron started this tradition  years ago when we first bought our house. The birch tree in our front yard had taken a hit during what is remembered as the Labor Day storm. This before we moved in. Very sad it looked too, poor dead tree. Ron decided it needed to be replaced over Mother’s Day weekend in 2000 so we dug it up and then as we were left with a large hole, headed off the a local nursery.

We bought a pretty tree, had it loaded into our pickup and headed home. Only to discover the two of us were  not strong enough to get the tree down into the hole.  Thank God our neighbor spotted us struggling and came to help.

This Mother’s Day was much easier on me.  And of course involved THF.   All I had to do was help Ron roll out and cut eight 60 foot lengths from his 250 foot rolls of landscape cloth.  We loaded up the trailer with the two rolls, measuring tape, chalk, scissors, knee pads, chalk snap line and headed to an open parking lot.  We chose a good one.  The parking spots were nicely marked and we were able to use those lines to keep a straight edge and our cutting point of 60 feet.  Got an early start as we were not sure how long it would take us and weren’t sure what  the neighbors would think.

The hardest part was actually lifting the rolls off the trailer.  They has some serious weight.  Then we lined the edges up and rolled it out.    Then we got out the chalk line and snapped away.

Ron, of course got the one with red chalk that ended up all over my fingers and pants. I was in charge of the actually cutting.

We cut and folded and rolled and marked again and again.  Not sure what the people walking by thought but they all waved and said good morning.    Sooner than we expected, we had a pile of eight sections ready to go.  We unroll the last bite from each roll and folded them up.  Ron will find a use for them somewhere.

Loaded everything into the trailer, making sure we left nothing behind.  We are seriously into not littering.   I thought my day was over.  And it being Mother’s Day that I would now  have some me time.

Ron had himself a better idea.  Our second hand lawn mower had seen better days.  Now the self propelled drive had died.  Made it much harder to doing the mowing so it really did need to be replaced.  He had already talked  himself out of getting us an electric model.  He was worried about getting it repaired.   So off we went to Lowe’s in Oneida.  Unfortunately they did not have the model he wanted.  We headed back to the Transit and made the drive to Rome.  They had a better selection and we found one with all wheel drive and made in America.  To top it off, I had a $250 Lowe’s gift card.

We got back home and grabbed a quick lunch.  Then headed out to get our new lawn mower set up. It was pretty easy.  Cut open the box, dropped the back and pulled everything out.  We had to tighten a few parts and add the oil.  Two pulls on the cord and Ron was off and running.  He took a couple of  passes and then handed it off to me.   The machine worked really well.  Jo will love it.  She is after all our official lawn mower.

Ron has been telling everyone that he bought me a lawn mower for Mother’s Day.  But he really got it for Jo.  I bet she cannot wait to try it out.

To place farm orders by himself.  Two weeks ago he ordered the landscape cloth we needed for our upcoming lavender planting and for next years juneberries.  The plan was to buy all we needed now.  We have to lay the cloth down this year to help kill the weeds.  Buying it all now made sense as we would save on the shipping and have it on site for when we actually needed it.   All very logical.

So he ordered it and soon it all arrived.  Four huge boxes and two massively large rolls.  That caught him by surprise as he was expecting only one.  So he checked order and discovered that he chosen the two roll pack.  Bit of a costly mistake.  But the upside is that we can actually use the stuff.  Just have to find a place it store it until then.

And then there was the lavender order.  He placed this in January to make sure we got what we needed.  He figured it all out and decided that 190 was the magic number.   This based on the width and length of the cloth and best spacing between plants.  Of course he had to order in blocks of 25 so we would end up with10 left over.  We would try to sell them at the CCE Herb & Flower Festival in June.  The goal was to sell our shiitakes, but  the lavender would make sure we fit with the herb part.   They were due to arrive the first week of May, giving us enough time to get organized for planting after May 15.

Then last Thursday we came home to a message on the machine.  Our order was to be shipping soon but would be cut by one third.  Needless to say, Ron did not take that well.  He had already planned to take the day off so he could get some work done on the Transit.   His phone got a serious workout.  When I got home from work he was talking with the president of the company.   The end result was that we would get the majority of the order from the company we placed the order with and the rest would come from a subcontractor in Rochester, NY.   We got a call from the owner, Jeff on Saturday to confirm delivery on Monday.

And when we got home from work on Monday, we had lavender.  One box in the garage and five trays from Jeff.  They smelled fabulous.  Grabbed a quick dinner and then Ron went out to open the box.  And got another, more unwelcome surprise.  We  had 125 bare root lavender plants. Not what he was expecting at all.  He thought we would be getting what he calls plugs.  A quick look at the company website confirmed they only offered bare root plants.  Am not sure what Ron was looking at.

We now had a big problem.  These things had to be planted right now, we could not wait until May 20.  The phone rang and it was Jeff calling from Rochester to make sure we were happy with the plants he delivered.  And he was a great help with advice on how we needed to handle the plants.  Ron was on the phone with him for about 30 minutes and ended the conversation with Jeff agreeing to look into getting the juneberries we need next year.

Now we had to run to the store for potting mix.  Thank goodness we had some large planters in the garage that we could use.   Six bags in the car’s trunk and we were back home trying to decide the best way to get this done.   The plan was to get 25 into each planters, we had gotten really good at using that number to keep track of things.

Ron split open the bags of dirt and dumped it into the planter.  First we tried using our dibble to make holes, but the roots were really too wide to fit in the holes we made.   So I just used my hands to scoop out dirt, shove the plant in and then cover it all up.   It longer than we thought it would, but we got them all planted.  We left them all in the garage for the night.

Wednesday morning we pulled all the planters out on the driveway to get the plants a good drink  of water and some sun.

They don’t look like much right now, but I have high hopes for the future.   The other plants we put in the small green house in backyard.

Before we left for work, we covered them with sheets.  It was only 34 degrees out at 6 am.  Do you see the two big rolls by our birch trees?  That is what we are going to use for our lavender.  I called Jo about 10 am to take the sheets off.  It does come in handy at times to have her working a later shift.

Just before I left work yestserday afternoon, I called Ron to check in.  He informed me that he was confused.  He came home to find 96 more lavender plants in 3 boxes on our front porch.  And he had a voice mail from Jeff explaining it.  In their efforts to cover their bases and make sure we got our full order, the original company contacted two different subcontractors.  And they did not get the second order cancelled in time.  So we now have lots of lavender.  And this last batch was at no charge.

We will now plant lavender at three different stages of growth.  It will be interesting to see how they do and which does the best.   Actually four stages.  I tried my hand a growing from seed and had some success.

Nine of the seeds I planted germinated.  I lost one but now have eight babies that are looking pretty good.  This project will give us the best time line for growing lavender.  I do believe I will try this again.   And Ron has already talked with Jeff about getting more lavender for next year.  But no bare roots.

This might have been a stressful situation, but once again Ron handled it.  And as a result we have bonus plants and have made a solid connection with a grower in our area.  One who just might be able to get the juneberry plants Ron wants.  Things just do have a way of working out when Ron is involved.  I do have to wonder.   We will be using that extra roll of landscape cloth this year for the extra lavender.   Did Ron have a nefarious plot in mind all along or was this just lucky happenstance?  Either way, this is how so many of his plans work out. Not exactly the way they started, but better for us in the long run.  The man does have a knack for coming up roses.  Am I the only one who finds people like that annoying?

But I am still going to check all of his orders before he hits the submit button.  I am the CFO of THF after all.

Last year Ron ordered and we planted pink pussy willows along the banks of our creek at THF. The instructions were quite clear – weeding was essential. Yeah; we kinda skipped that part. But I hold Ron responsible. I told him we needed to weed, but he would have none of it. Just wanted to get them planted so he could move on to the next project. The result is what you might expect. Not a total loss, but at least half of our plants did not survive. Come spring 2017 we shall see if any of them are still alive.
His plan was to grow them to sell for Valentine’s Day.  In a small flower vase with our red twig dogwood branches, he is convinced it would be a winner.  Doing more research on pussy willows I have  discovered that Palm Sunday is also known as Willow Sunday in the Eastern European Christian Churches. Instead of more traditional palm branches, pussy willows are blessed and then taken home the same way palm branches are.   Palms not being something easily grown in the colder climates of Europe.  This gives us another market to explore.  Utica, NY has a strong Polish community as does Syracuse.  But Buffalo, NY is very big into an “interesting” Polish tradition.  Dyngus Day celebrates the ending of lent and beginning of Easter. On the Monday after Easter, boys who wanted to attract the attention of their favorite girl would throw water on them and hit their legs with pussy willows. The girls would throw dishes in return the next day.   These days water pistols are used instead of buckets and apparently everyone is considered a target.

So this year, Ron decided to take another shot, ordering them again from the Vermont Willow Nursery but taking some precautions.  This time, when he got them in he planted them in large potting containers. We kept them in our backyard under our pine tree so we could keep an eye on them.  They were up high so our rabbits were not able to eat them.
By May 18th we had buds or leaves showing on almost all of our cuttings. This is looking promising.  By November they were strong and ready for planting.

I thought we were going to plant them in the same spot as last year.  You know, with willows liking water so much.  But Ron wanted to plant them in our field, next to our elderberries.   We can keep a better eye on them and it will be much easier to control the weeds.  So out came the rolls of weed cloth again.   Once again we had to work around the wind.  Luckily we have “rots of rocks” laying about the place that we used to tack the long sheets down.   We marked off the spacing and Ron got busy cutting slits in the cloth.  Then Jo and I dug the needed holes.  Not so easy.  The rocks, of course were and issue but we had also forgotten to bring an actual shovel with us.   The ones we had on site were too big.  We found a cheap little trowel and made the best of it.  Because the field had been planted with winter wheat, it was a bit easier to do the actual digging.

Did I mention that it was cold?  And the wind was not making it any warmer.    My elderberries to the right of us are still looking pretty good heading into fall.  We didn’t have too much damage from our deer.  Fingers crossed that they continue to stay away next year.

The trowel tended to bend every time we used it and we took our gloves off as they got in the way.  That made for colder fingers but we worked quicker as a result.  Ron had to get involved with his pry bar when we hit another big rock.   Which happened more times that we liked.

Cannot really see the bushes that well yet.  Especially against the growing wheat.   But in a couple of years, they should be lovely.  We hope.  I have always liked pussy willows, but have never seen the pink ones.   I will give the man his due.  Once he has an idea, he seldom gives up.  I am looking forward to spring.  Will Ron’s persistence pay off?  We shall see.