Snowprise

While it was pouring rain elsewhere, it was dumping snow on me. Sometime in the night it transitioned, way ahead of schedule.



I thought it might warm up and turn back to rain. The thermometer said 32 degrees when I woke up to the snowprise.



But it just kept pouring snow, piling up rather quickly.



No painting today. I played house instead. Unpacking dishes and kitchen stuff and putting it in the cabinets. Thanks sis. Tidying and organizing, making it look more home like and less construction zone like.



The pouring snow let up, but it never stopped. It changed to frozen snodrizzle.



And to think I had been sorely tempted to plant my first greens, snow peas and taters. The strawberries, at least did get compost and chicken poo before being reburied.



Wud's going to happen to the WUD?



I imagine everything will be just fine this go round. It's not diagnosed to get mega cold. Cool and rain looks to be on the near agenda.



This snow may not make it through the day tomorrow.



Just how a proper southern winter should be.



And we will quickly return to our regular spring programming after this brief winter message.

Surprise

It was bound to to happen. It just wasn't supposed to happen until late tonight.



There is still no mention of snowy white stuff for today and only a slight chance for after dark.



Hello NOAA. It's snowing in the high country now.

A Little Variety

I'm still waiting for the WUD, World's Ugliest Daffodil, to bloom. That seemed a better choice than crawling under the barbed wire fence in the cold misty rain and prying open its petals to see what was going on in there. It is looking like it will be normal again this year. The question is what will the cup look like. It has been different two years running now. If it is a single cup as I suspect, a full reversion to normal will have occurred. Then it won't matter that it has escaped. We already have that kind.



Some of each is Bulbarella's general thought behind ordering bulbs and buying hosta. White crocus are beginning to appear through the leaf litter.



Chionodoxa forbesii 'Pink Giant' has multiplied and returned. This is the only patch of it in the garden. It really should be moved to a better spot because it is being buried by a huge clump of forsythia.



Putting different kinds of crocus in the same hole makes for a more varied floral display. There are also daffodils planted in the group to act as poisonous guardians for the more tasty crocus corms. Surrounding bulbs the varmints might eat by the poisonous daffodils is a new experimental strategy in the garden.



The day was too grey and misty, threatening rain at any moment, to paint. I looked at the radar and went to town between waves for more pea gravel. The lake is still a touch shallow for my liking, but it will do for now. Then I just had to see what the glass bottle edging would look like and used some bottles sizes not in the pattern going in around the cabin side bed.

I really like the juxtaposition of the glass with the stone. I may have to start dumpster diving soon for more bottles so I can finish this project off. I have not thought much at all about what to plant in the bed behind Turd Blossom Lake, other than perennials. The sewer line runs through there after all. This scene almost cries out for a weeping Japanese Maple though.

I still need to add more soil to the bed for better freeze protection for the sewer line so there is time to mull over what to plant. It would be nice to have some structural winter interest and not just an empty bed or tattered perennials in the winter.



There are more kinds of daffodils on Bulbhilla than you can pick up sticks around and more are showing up every day. The clue is a lump in the leaf litter. A quick swipe with a stick sets them free.



Show time is still a good month away, but more variety of life keeps appearing every day.

Getting A Little Satisfaction

I may not pass my final inspection and get my certificate of occupancy for another month or so, but that is no reason not to keep acting like everything is done and it is time to move outside and work on other projects. The uphill girder and columns got their first coat of paint.

Really I'm just not in the mood to work on closing the steps on the exterior stairs. I'm still contemplating exactly how I want to do it. The loft ladder won't even ship for another two weeks. There is plenty time.



The Lake of the Floating Turd Blossom got its first layer of pea gravel.



I need more gravel to fill the lake and more wine bottles to edge the shore. It would be abnormal if I did not have several projects going on at once. I still need more wood chips for the roadside vegetable garden. It's on the list.

The grounds are really beginning to take shape and that is cause for some authentic satisfaction. The place could actually start to appear garden like this year.



In the wild cultivated garden next door, Iris reticulata 'Harmony' still blooms. The warmish has turned a tad cooler. Cool and perhaps waiting for pollination keeps things open for business longer.



The WUD sits outside the fence on the right and its closest possible source of generation blooms inside the garden boundaries. What ever it is and how ever it got there, the WUD is multiplying. The clump gets bigger every year.



The second daffodil has arrived, in time according to the diagnosis, for a slight chance of snow on Sunday at the tale end of the coming storm. It looks like an extended period of cool is on the way.



That's good. There is no need to rush spring. The sunny utility meadow still needs to be hand mowed to get ready. And there's that bridge I starting building across the stream down there that needs some fine tuning.

The ridge top garden is all set for spring, as nice and tidy as a wild cultivated garden could be.



Evening strolls are much more regular now without the snow and all the new life bursting forth in need of viewing.



It's good to be back in the garden.

In The Time Of The Crocus

All the electrical upgrades the inspector mens requested have been completed. I was more interested in a process with a bit more visual satisfaction despite having nothing to do with inspection and moved on to putting the first coat of the Molera Vaquero Red on the main girder downhill. It needs another coat, but already it is satisfyingly complete. Now I just need to paint the uphill girder and columns.



It has been a long week and after getting up before 7 every morning to wait all day for amorphous appointments, I just ran out of steam after the first coat and wandered off.

The new stone sculpture I am contemplating will be viewable from above. It keeps calling me and I keep getting closer to hauling boulders while the utility meadow is in its dead, brown and dormant phase and don't have to wade through a six foot high thicket of asters, elderberry and thorny blackberry thrown in for good measure.



Close to 4pm when I had given up, the phone man finally arrived. I almost have phone service. They ran the wire from two poles away to my pole, through the buried conduit and down to the cozy cabin. Now a lineman must turn something on to complete the connection.

I showed the phone man the entire layout from far pole to cabin including the utility grounding bar the inspector mens said I had to have and see that yellow tag. He grounded it to the main wire with his own clamp and didn't even use the grounding bar. Good grief. I better not hear anything about that when the inspector mens return. The conduit for his line rising from the ground is crooked too. That annoys me and I will have to straighten it.

It's a good thing I choose grey as the cabin's color.



Last year at this time the mountain was still swirling with snow. The crocus were a distant hope. These freezing mornings with warmish sunny days have allowed all kinds of activity that would have had to wait last year.

The crocus are blooming a good three weeks earlier. I will never figure out what a normal year is this way.



There are plenty more crocus than when I first arrived some three and a half years ago. More is Bulbarella's goal. Between modest annual purchases, natural multiplication and seeding, more happens.





These crocus were not planted this way. They did it on their own. With some regular cleansing of the tall dead wild you can actually see them.



'Harmony' still blooms a good month before last year. You have to take their pictures when you can. In this warmish they will fade away and the next wave of bloom will arrive.



Now is the time of the crocus.

A Very Complimentary Failure

I was priming my girder for a paint job when the building inspector mens arrived. Yikes. Two of them.

They poked. They prodded. They unscrewed things. "This place has turned out really nice."

"Does that mean I am not failing miserably?"

"No, it's pretty good."

"Now do this list of things and we will come back to check again."



One utility grounding bar screwed to the wall. Done. Check.



Two ground rods, not one, at least six feet apart on a continuous line. Done. Check. Why didn't you tell me that the first time you looked at this thing?



Bubble covers on the exterior plugs and switches. Two of three done. Half a check.



The exterior staircase needs to be closed in. What that means is any open space greater than four inches beneath the treads has to have a closing board so your foot will not slip through that space on icy steps. That's not much of a big deal. I can handle.



I failed on a short list of minor and mostly cosmetic it seems electrical upgrades. They didn't like the labeling in the breaker box. Kitchen, kitchen wasn't good enough. One needs to be labeled kitchen 20amp receptacle.

They seemed pretty cool with the engineers drawing for the loft ladder, but they really are supposed to see it installed. We have to come back anyway so write that down too.

Overall it went very well and in my mind I have moved on.

While waiting for it to get warm enough to paint and for the inspector mens to arrive, I chopped and dropped my sunny utility meadow and contemplated the stone earth work that should take shape in this section of it this year. I want to think about art and beauty now.



I couldn't have post with just boring construction pictures and a sad story of rejection. A nice garden stroll at the end of the day is good for what ever may ail you.

Iris reticulata 'Harmony' opens on a beautiful day. According to the astute Sallysmom that was my previous ID.



The first daffodil of the year is here. Now this daffodil concerns me. I am near certain it is the annual WUD, the World's Ugliest Daffodil. This year it has a single cup. Last year the cup was frilly and fully double. In the past the cup has been so deformed it was hideous. It is a real phase shifter and it has never bloomed this early. What is going on?



Crocus gather steam in a sporadic and possibly self seeded sweep intermingled with the rising daffodils.



Bigger clumps of crocus get ready to bloom. While kneeling in for the closeup I noticed this clump was surrounded by dozens of much tinier crocus sprouts well away from the main group. They can be identified by the white stripe in the mid vein. Obviously they are setting seed.



It could be my imagination, but it seems like there should be more daffodils. I remember there being more. But this warm is doing odd things I think. There may still be thousands more in hiding, not trusting these sunny days and frozen mornings.



The loft ladder will ship around the 16th. A week to ten days later it should arrive from California. I told the inspector mens not to expect to hear from me for a month.

"Not a problem. Just call when you're ready. You haven't ever been in a hurry with this."

"No I haven't. I'm not like most people y'all are probably used to. I wasn't planning to move in really until the second week of April."

"Then there's plenty of time."

Yes, plenty of time.

The Environment Is Good

The Lake of the Floating Turd Blossom and the delta to which it flows was determined to be good by the environmental inspector man this morning. He called at 6:50 am and said he would be here at 9am before I had to leave for bug class.

One river has been crossed.



After bug class where I learned how to read labels and calibrate a tractor driven boom sprayer, I headed to Client #1's to finish up the last bit of spring cleaning. It is getting very spring like down in the valley.



The fall planted pansies always look best in spring when they actually grow. When planted and all through winter, they just sit there, maybe having a few flowers. Come spring they burst forth as intended. Then they start to wind down when it really gets warm.



The Hellebores are all lush and new and full of blooms.



The Magnolia stellata is just starting to flower. This an earlier bloomer by nature and by nature the flowers are often subject to freeze damage. Is it too soon this year? Time will tell.



Back home on the mountain is was still a nice sunny day though quite a bit cooler. That is a good thing as far as I am concerned. More crocus are popping up every day that the sun shines.



One of the few dwarf iris up here has appeared. I may have ID'd it in previous years, but there is little retention in my grey matter theses days. Until it blooms or becomes necessary and I can look it up, it is one of the dwarf iris.



Daffodils? We have a few of those and may even have the first blooms in a few days. 'Rip van Winkle' is usually one of the first to bloom and those seem to be lagging behind. This is the prime, annual World's Ugliest Daffodil or WUD contestant. What will it do this year and why is it looking to bloom so soon?



Tomorrow a second river will be forded. The final house inspection that will grant a CO - Certificate of Occupancy - is scheduled. The environmental inspector man was dazzled by the wine bottle edging, even suggesting I add lights inside them. Not a bad idea. Too much work for me, but it would be cool.

I hope the building inspector man is dazzled enough not be in the mood to nit pick or go out of his way to look for problems.



I have the engineers drawing of the loft ladder that goes here should that be a question. It is set to be shipped around March 16th. The install will only be the tracks the ladder hooks to. This ladder has hand rails, will fold flat to the wall and also be able to be unhooked and used for the mini loft library. It took some searching, but I found exactly what I wanted at Alacoladder.com



It will still be a while before I cook my first meal in a new kitchen. I will be nice to the gas company and give them that week to ten days to fill the gas tank and come back to check for leaks. There are a few other items that need doing as well. There's always another process.



The snowdrops are fading away. Time marches on.



It is near time to move on to new things.