A Visit to a Plant Nursery

Today I drove a LONG way out into the country to visit a plant farm I first found during the Kaw Valley Farm Tour last year.  You see... I missed my turnoff, and drove 20 miles too far west before I realized I had really gone too far.  I pulled into this drive to turn around again:

I was so glad I found it... it's the Lecompton Fire Brigade location, so I think I'll contact them and find out if this was a two-room school.  If you biggify, you'll see the neat old light above the door.  Wait... I'll just biggify it for you!

 

Highway 40, which I was on, is narrow, and there were few places to turn around, especially when someone is TAIL GAITING you.

 

When I finally realized my folly, I got back on the right track, and yes, I had run TWO Mapquests!

 

This teepee made of saplings was covered in vines last year.  I showed this to Keith... the teepee has chicken wire clear around it for the Hyacinth beans to adhere to.  It is a reflection of the summer we had... I heard Mrs. Henry tell someone that she had spent her entire summer just trying to keep plants alive.  I showed it to Keith to show him what I am going to do with the old tree that fell in the storm two years ago... it's going to get a chicken wire wrapping and vines planted around it.

 

I love the elevated planter box on top of the remains of the old tree behind it, too.  It was the only elevated box I saw planted... the arbor that was so full last year was unplanted this year.  I know why!

 

Here is another idea I'm going to try next year, so I warned Keith about it, too...

 

 

This appears to be a cattle panel contraption.  I'll show you the other end.

 

It's meant to be completely covered with the morning glories.

 

 

I can see myself sitting in one, surrounded by flowers, bees buzzing merrily past me... butterflies... hummingbirds... it does NOT look that difficult to build.

So then I decided to climb the observation tower you see to the right.  I have to tell you, I have a great fear of heights, so even this small tower made me nervous. 

And from it you could see... The Butterfly Garden!  I wish I could have gotten all of it in, but the tower was so close, directly over it... and I could not get my lens to pull back farther.  It's cool, isn't it! 

And despite our drought, there was still some color in some of the garden beds... this is a type of Celosia used in several beds.  I don't care for the rather insipid salmon, but the reds and wines were gorgeous.  In every single picture I took, the variety name DOES NOT SHOW.  I'll be calling them!

 

 

And somehow, I have to find a way to use Colclasia next year... I haven't figured out where yet.

 

 

I'd like for one of these guys and his girlfriends to live with us one day at Calamity Acres... but it will be after Lilly Ann and Ranger are gone... they can't be kept in the pasture like the chickens.

 

I got a couple of sedum plants, some coneflowers, and a beautiful mum, red with a yellow button.  Tomorrow after church, Keith has a golf tournament for charity, and I am going to be planting, planting, planting!

 

 

 

Weekend errands and Isis in Crisis

Another weekend has come and half gone, but your blogger blogs on. It has gotten cold in Kansas again, with temps in the upper teens this morning as I got up before church to do minimal chores. Carrying water to the waterfowl (despite the pond being open) so they could eat their morning grain, letting the birds loose, and feeing the dogs and cats was accomplished before leaving for church. At least we have hazy sun today, despite the cold weather. It is good to sit here in the house and smell fresh-baked peanut butter cookies and look through the window at the hens running back and forth. The Old Gentleman, Beau, has come through into the yard to graze for a while, while Lacey the little horse wanders slowly around. She is getting medication daily, and we notice when the ground gets hard again she has more trouble.

She is not up to coming into the yard to graze with Beau, but stands just outside the horseyard in the pasture, or walks to the henyard and back slowly. She is up, though, which is more than we thought would happen.

We have another patient here, the lovely Wyandotte hen Isis, who has been sick for over a week now. We have her in the isolation cage, with a warm light on her. Husband has felt her for an eggbound egg, but we can't feel anything, though he has had success with moving them in the past. She grows weaker by the day, but we cannot bear to put her down, she has been such a good girl. We were given five Wyandotte hens two years ago by my friends Nancy and Paul, and have gotten many wonderful brown eggs from them. Clea was lost in the dog attack last March, but Isis, Pandora, Sprocket and Lola have formed the core of our Big Bunch, with their daughters Brownie and Birdy, and their two friends Rosy and Ruby, the production reds. We are medicating her, but when a hen won't eat and drink, the end is probably near.

In two weeks is the first poultry auction of the year, held in the sale barn area of a small town near here. I will go that day, and try to find four more hens for our flock, so that we can give eggs to our local feed bank all summer. Any hens who come here are pets, not for eating, but we have always shared their eggs, and want to do so again this summer. We have raised our own replacements for the last few years, but have decided no chicks for this one summer, then maybe we will go back to raising them in the future, once our scholar has gone off to college.

Yesterday on errands I was able to snap two more of the schoolhouses that I see in my travels. One, the White School, dates from 1929. It sits at the edge of a business area in Lawrence, and was for sale recently, though we can't tell if it sold. It was converted to a residence or offices, but does not appear anyone is using it now. The other, the Admire School, is a mile from us, at the southern end of our gravel road. It sits at a crossroads, and is made of native limestone. A young carpenter began restoring it a year or so again, and now appears to have moved in. We love to see it's lights on in the evening now. One of these weeks I'll go to our local historical society and do some research about the little building that dates from the 1880's.

This afternoon will be spent quietly, doing a little laundry and scrapbooking. I'm looking forward to the Oscars this evening, though I will probably get disgusted with the "stars" and turn the channel. It's hard to equate people who live as if there is no tomorrow and what is happening in the "real" world around us now.