Already Waiting for Spring

 

I don't know about you, but I'm ready for spring.The days have been getting shorter and darker, I'm still in a state of continual re-adjustment to the time change and suddenly it's cold. But tell that to the above primroses. These flowers are usually a tell-tale sign that spring has arrived; these crazy plants seem to bloom all year long. It's November, it's 23 degrees over night and they're like, "Perfect weather!" The kicker is that they came from Stop and Shop or Shop Rite- yes, I guess the variety is Super Market Mix. I buy them (marked down, of course!) in February so as to have color in the house and then plant them outdoors when spring finally arrives. Originally I thought we'd get a season's flowers and then they'd die but boy did I get a tremendous surprise when they came back, year after year. Truly perennial! 

I've got quite a few of them now. Last year, they were blooming in the snow so go figure: they must be some new mutant variety dreamed up in some horticulturist's perverse lab. But they're pretty and cheap so you gotta love them!

Okay but the main reason for my post is that I finally planted all the bulbs I bought:

As I've said before, bulbs are great; if you plant them and if they don't come up, no big deal! No one knows you wasted your time and money on them... not like some fancy-pants, over-priced perennial that looks swell at the nursery but immediately withers and dies when installed in your garden. So I planned on obtaining some bulbs. I have a spot where I plant tulips every year and then yank them to plant annuals. (Most tulips being not-too-perennial but soooooo lovely!) While bob and I were in Vermont recently, switching out his remarkable sculptures, I requested that we visit the Bennington Home Depot to see if they had marked down bulbs. Yes they did! And good colors! So for 50% off, I got Pink Impression and a beautiful mix called "Pride" (purples and pinks and reds). Also a bag of deep blue hyacinths for the Blue Garden.

I didn't stop there, however. Enthused by my luck and lured by the sales from nurseries that filled up my email in-box, I ordered petite miniature daffodils (Jack Sprite and Tete-a-Tete) and aliums (Bulgaricum and Christophii) and more tulips! Just you wait 'til next spring! Our gardens are going to be jumping! (*1)

(*1) I was fortunate that I encountered several warm sunny days to stagger around our vast estate, pushing a wheel barrow full of assorted bulbs, looking for spots to tuck them all in. It wouldn't have been fun had it been as cold as it was this morning!

The 900 Pound Patient in the Field

Yup! That's Miserable Maggie and her delightfully abscessed hoof. Here's a close up:

Swaddled in the ol' standby remedy of Epson salts and iodine mixed into a poultice and slapped into a disposable diaper and strapped on with duct tape! My poor Mexican pony!
Maggie started favoring her foot on Thursday.On Friday, in the midst of a spontaneous snow storm and swirling winds, she was really down for the count. Her leg was so retracted upwards to her belly that I began to fear that she had ruptured a tendon or broken a bone. And when I came home from work, she wasn't even standing: she was laying full face down in the snow and mud. I thought she was a goner.
I called the vet on Saturday and Hallelujah! They have Saturday hours. Since Maggie had made it through the 6 degree night (with a minus zero wind chill) I was pretty sure she'd survive, but the vet came and confirmed our diagnosis of a particularly deep and nasty abscess. So once the hoof was wrapped and she had consumed a couple of sizeable horsey pain pills, crushed and camouflaged in molasses and grated carrot, I was relieved that she didn't require a bullet to the forehead. I am happy to report that two days later, she's actually walking a way that resembles walking*- just in time for a Bombogenesis or Bombodelic or Bombolicious (something like that!) storm! (A sudden drop of 24 or more milibars... whatever that means.)
 So we await Stella and already have four or five inches of the fluffy white stuff. Our house is warm (that's another story) and Bob's going to make a pork roast and we have a coconut cake (looked like a snow storm!) and a box of wine. I think we'll survive! Here's a picture to warm us up and cheer our flagging winter-weary spirits:

I am a sucker for the primroses that all the supermarkets sell at this time of year. And these were marked down! The weirdest part to me is that they are actually hardy and if I don't kill them with intermittent over watering and allowing them to dry out and wilt, I can plant them out if Spring ever arrives!

* You have to imagine a 900 pound beast limping on three legs- not a pleasant sight!