Beauty in the yard

I made a round of the yard this morning with the camera, so many beautiful things to observe.  Here are just a few:

Daffodils, tulips, hyacinth are blooming.  Sprouting are daylilies, asiatic lilies and banana trees.

Hosta and hen and chicks.

Stonecrop peeking through the creeping jenny, which has creeped the hell all over the place and needs to be trimmed back mightily.

Blue muscari and phlox, which smells wonderful.

A mix of parrot tulips by the mailbox.  This is their first year in the garden and I am very pleased to see they do indeed resemble parrot feathers in both color and texture.  Gorgeous!

Beginning of Gardening Season

Here in Tennessee, the weather is sporadically attempting to warm up and everyone is starting to work in their yards again - mowing grass, clearing out dead brush from the winter, getting new bulbs and trees in the ground.  The garden centers are filling up with flowers and fruit trees and young veggie plants.

I have begun to work myself.  Today I mowed and edged 1/4 of the front yard that grows faster and also trimmed some bushes.  Then I temporarily placed a line of stepping stones right down the middle of rectangular veggie garden, I'm dividing it into 2 sections and this will make it much easier to tend things without getting muddy.  Hopefully.

Over the past couple weeks I've been working on starting my seeds indoors.  These pics were taken on March 25, mostly everything has grown since then, I'll update again soon.

  This is my high-tech indoor seeding zone - a spare bedroom with little furniture (good floor space) and decent light from a south-west facing window.
Sadly, this is the most action the toboggan has seen in a couple years.  Oh well.

Here we have cucumbers, broccoli, cauliflower, corn, pumpkins, squash, zucchini, sunflowers, marigolds, zinnias, morning glories and surely other things I'm forgetting.

 

Yellow squash.
You can see the first tiny "true leaf" in the center of the  cotyledons.  When two of them have emerged and grown to a healthy size, it'll be ready for transplanting.





 

Pumpkins and sunflowers.




As the sprouts grow bigger, I'll transplant them from these cells to larger containers, which will then move to the garage which has windows and gets pretty decent light.  Then I'll shift the young plants to the front porch during the days, back to the garage at night and then finally let them stay out overnight night to complete the hardening off process. 

In 2011 I had great luck with corn in 5 gallon buckets.
In 2012..... not so much.  It was incredibly hot and dry last year and neither my 5-gallon-bucket corn nor my ground-planted corn had any edible success.  There were a couple puny little ears but that was it.



This year I'm planning to add more soil amendments to the vegetable patch (claybreaker and organic garden soil) because our yard is really heavy red clay and I think it will help with rooting and drainage.



Tune in later for more!

Spring Snow

We had a chance of snow in the forecast and it came through!  There was about 3/4inch on the cars, grass and rooftops by 10am, big slushy flakes that made great snowballs.  We had an impromptu snowball fight while clearing the windshield on S's car.  Then the temps came up a bit and it melted down mostly.  Sounds like the mountains are in for quite a bit more.
Here's what my Spring flowers looked like at 9:30

Daffodils and Hyacinth

Hyacinth and Daffodils

Blue Muscari

Early Spring

We were out and about in Cades Cove on Sunday - it was a beautiful sunny day, not a cloud in the sky, though it was a bit chilly and there was still a dusting of snow in the terminally shady spots.
This Winter has been much milder than the last couple years and going along with that, it seems that Spring is getting a jump on things.
After finishing our hike along Rich Mtn Rd and coming back down via an old roadbed, we popped out in the field next to the concrete fire ring(?) across the road from the Missionary Baptist Church and discovered a patch of daffodils almost getting ready to bloom.
This seems very early.
I imagine the large patch near the north end Hyatt Lane will be coming along as well.... didn't get to check on it.

Wildflower Extravaganza

On April 2oth, we took a hike through one of the popular Spring wildflower destinations in the Smokies. A drizzly weekday & therefore not too busy, only encountered a handful of people.

Catesby's Trillium


There were many different flowers to enjoy, but the stars of the area were certainly the huge patches of blue phlox covering the greening landscape.









Miterwort, Bishop's Cap


Eastern Red Columbine










Stunning carpet of phlox








What's this? A stinkweed amongst the flowers?! Bah! A dainty rosebud am I.





One of several caves in the area. Normally entry is allowed (with a permit only) but currently all entry is forbidden... & Big Brother is watching...



....due to the presence of White Nose Syndrome, which is unfortunately killing bats in huge, huge numbers.







There are multiple manways winding through the area. In past visits we'd followed several of them and I'd wondered where the others led. This time I'd done some research and printed an old topo map which was helpful. We were all over the place exploring, it was great.






Old gears





Still, there are other old paths yet to be explored among the heavily traveled ones.



A small waterfall plunges into a deep, slippery cavern. Once again, entirely no cave entry at the moment, on a normal basis entry by permit only.
We normally leave via the steep slope next to the falls, but today we exited on an old route to create a longer hike.



This little patch of stunning common blue violets near Schoolhouse Gap was an incredible shade of purple.








First sighting of the season! Crested dwarf iris blooming along the upper portion of the main trail.






Back in the parking lot, saw this growing in a large patch of horse poop.... looks like wild greens, maybe red veined sorrel? I don't know, but I could've eaten a pretty big salad at that point ;-) Off to find lunch.

Old Settlers Trail

Another hike along Old Settlers Trail, 4.11.10. We've hiked the area from both sides but I'm on a terrain covering spree and trying to connect up some loose ends. The goal was to travel from the trailhead in Greenbrier to the Soak Ash Creek area where a short trail meets coming from Steiner Bell Lodge. Distance was somewhere around 5.5 miles.

It was a fantastic day with a cool start and crystal clear weather. Spring growth is beginning to thrive, though I perceived the terrain to be dry while creeks were running a little high probably due to end of the snow melt.










Nice views as you work your way up the ridge.





Yellow trilliums are in bloom....



...as are trout lilies.











Ferns are spreading their fronds.






Down low along the creeks is becoming lush and green.




Higher up along Copeland Divide things are slower to sprout.





Trail winds upward through a moss-lined tunnel of rhododendron and mountain laurel.
Crossing Copeland Creek and Snakefeeder several chimneys can be seen. Many homesites were along the length of the OST.






Now the trail parallels Snakefeeder Branch.....




...and heads into Soak Ash, which is a remarkably flat and pretty area.





We reach the junction & goal. The trail behind the sign leads up to Steiner Bell Lodge (somebody has noted on back of sign). To the right (east), OST leads to Campsite 33 around 1 mile away, then after that and about 16 miles you'd reach the Cosby campground area.
We turned back the way we came.



Back between the Bird creeks we encountered a 3 foot black rat snake in the middle of the trail. It kinda 'hid' in the shadow of a tree before moving back into the warm sunshine as we continued on.

















Our hike was about 11 miles roundtrip and took 5 hours, and we encountered 2 backpackers and 2 dayhikers going out as we came back.

Spring flowers at home

We had some wonderful blooms pop out recently, a pretty combination of daffodils, tulips and hyacinths. Unfortunately the unseasonably early heat has begun to beat them down, but here are some shots from a few days ago:

Oh deer

Another sign of Spring, the whitetail deer showed up today near dusk, haven't seen them in months:

Spring has sprung

Sorta. We've been having a particularly cold and often snowy winter, but you can tell Spring is in the air. The days are getting longer, I've seen birds checking out last year's nests, and now my tulips and daffodils are starting to break through the soil. We're still in for more cold and snow showers, though....