Baboon Blog Redux

Baboon Redux – A Splash of Color

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While our early spring may not be this much advanced, I was warmed by the recollection of this post from May 2011.

While riding my bike yesterday morning on the way to retrieve a car that has been in storage all winter, I was stopped short by a splash of color on a corner lot.

A friendly fellow named Pete was out tending his tulips. He told me in lightly accented English that he was from the Netherlands, and that gardening is something he does as a gift to share with the community, including lucky passers-by like me.

He was examining the beds. Some late-blooming tulips were mixed in with a few of the earlies, which is not a fatal flaw, but it means with a little bit of shuffling bulbs around, things could work better next year. Pete likes everything to be timed properly, just like the producer of a fireworks show wants to create amazing crescendos.

Also, once the petals fall, it’s tough to remember exactly which color is planted where, so it’s smart to take notes and make adjustments.

He showed me his map of the layout. I admire anyone who is a careful planner.

I felt lucky to have the chance to stop for a look at Pete’s garden – now that I’ve got the car back I’m much less likely to happen down a random street. In this case, a random street with an appropriate name – NE Summer St.

What have you planned for the Spring of 2016?

69 thoughts on “Baboon Redux – A Splash of Color”

  1. I will try to come up with some kind of plan for planting vegetables which is something I should have done by now. I have been thinking about getting this done. I do have some plans for completing parts of the design for landscaping our yard. Ground cover will be planted between the evergreens on the bank in front of our house and a row of prairie grass will be planted at the upper edge of the bank.

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  2. Morning all… sorry I missed the weekend. Binge watched Season Six of Downton Abbey. Thank you, Steve, for lending me the first season on DVD a few years back and getting me hooked!

    Most of my planning for 2016 is the anticipating and hoping. Transplanted a bunch of tim hostas last fall and also put in some Sunsplash Irises and another variety that I can’t remember the name of (they were blue and white). So waiting to see what comes up along with the rest of my garden. Will probably have to move more of my orange lilies from the boulevard, assuming they ever get around to replacing my tree out there! And of course, still working on the big plan for how to keep Guinevere out of my flowers in the back. My little fences mean nothing to her!

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    1. Oooh, I almost forgot. Part of my plan for the year is planting the pretty red beans that Jim gave me. I know Ben says you can plant right into the straw bales, but I’ve decided I’m going to get them going first so I have seedlings for my bales. Just “feels” better to me!

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      1. Speaking of straw, if people are still interested I would like to coordinate the Twin Cities Area straw delivery.
        A few other FB friends want straw too so I am sure to be making a trip.
        Please send an email if you’re interested. Tell me how many bales you want and where you’re located and I’ll see what works.

        Benhain – the at sign- Gmail.

        Bales are 14″ tall, 18″ wide and length will vary, but roughly 42″ long. (Honestly, I’m guessing at length…) 🙂

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        3. The Luverne High School FFA club had a Drive Your Tractor to School day, as well as a hay bale throwing contest last week. 57 people competed

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        4. PJ, I hate to put a firm price out here in space… the rate sort of floats… 🙂
          Send me an email.
          Made myself a new email just for this: Strawmanben (at) g mail . com

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  3. Rise and Shine Baboons!

    We will go to AZ for a week in early April where we will bask in the sunshine and plan our Minnesota Gardens. Lou took down our rabbit fence around the vegetable garden over the weekend, and we will reconstruct it with chicken wire. The rabbit fence was not truly rabbit-proof. (Please refer to past 2015 post about the genius rabbit who climbed the fence).

    Saturday the donald was in the AZ town we stay in when there–we can see the place he spoke from the balcony. Now I will feel like donald slime is all over town. eeeewww.

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    1. can lou pee on it from the balconey too? im sure the neighbors would understand. it might take two or three doses to wash away the slime

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  4. Let’s see… Spring Break in Phoenix mid-April. Help to put on comic convention in the Grandstand. With the day job, that will book me up until mid-May.

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  5. Late last fall, I plucked a maroon colea plant from the window box, thinking I’d just give it a try as a houseplant. It’s gone from 8″ tall to over three feet high! I’ve had to wire it to a goose neck floor lamp to keep its branches upright. The only downside it that it has to be watered every other day or it begins to droop a little.

    Now, I’m planning on multiplying these plants for gifts. With this success, I could easily grow half a dozen floor plants next winter

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  6. Don’t really have anything special planned for this spring. Lower back problems will severely limit whatever gardening I can do, but I hope to get at least a few tomato plants, some herbs, and a couple of varieties of kale in the ground. That’s not the end of the world since I have ample access to several farmers’ markets.

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  8. It sometimes amuses me how innocuous questions can seem weird in view of my present circumstances. What are my plans for this spring? Well, I hope to enjoy spring and live through all of it. I’m not sure it would be appropriate for me to hope for much more. They say the way to make God laugh is to make a plan. I’d like to stay on his good side. Does that mean I should avoid plans that he might consider presumptuous? Or would he enjoy a good laugh at my folly? Maybe I should just say I hope to sail through this beautiful time of year in good health . . . God willing.

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      1. Not as often as I would choose to. His summer plans are being formed right now. Last summer he attended several camp programs. It didn’t work well. He’s a kid who doesn’t adapt well, and going from one program to another was difficult for everyone. I usually see him more in summer because he enjoys the pool here so much.

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  9. Next week heading to Brazil for 16 days. This is a trip that was cancelled twice last year by the tour company for lack of participants. We are really excited that the third time is the charm even though there are still only 6 in our group (4 of us traveling together) – it will feel like a private tour. Our itinerary takes us from Iguasso Falls in the south, to Rio, to the Pantanal wetlands, to the coastal city of Salvador, and finally Amazonia. Nearly everything I am bringing with clothing and gear-wise has been sprayed with Permethrin and we all have heavy duty bug repellent. Hopefully we will not be traveling home with the Zika virus. Once back home, spring allergy season should be in full swing…….oh great!

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  11. We started chili peppers a week and a half ago. I will start tomatoes, eggplants, and cabbages in April. Husband has plans for 5 poles of pole beans(Vermont cranberry beans, blue lake pole beans, and arikara beans) along with potatoes, butternut squash, and a new strawberry bed. Three Annabelle hydrangeas will go where we had a too shady strawberry bed.

    Our major project for the spring is our trip to Europe. Daughter, who has very flat feet, managed to partially tear an Achilles tendon on a trip to Washington DC. She walked too much on her trip, keeping up with three friends who are members of the women’s volleyball team.She can only wear Birkenstocks, and may need a special ortho boot if it isn’t any better in 6 weeks.

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  14. i saw my first blue hyacinth yesterday. how nice. i was amazed at how fast the little pond in our back yard melted and the ice disappeared. i went for a walk to the lake a block down the raod on sunday and was amazed that two weeks ago there was ice on the lake, one week ago there was 10 feet of unfrozen water along the shore and yesterday there was no ice … none on the monster lake that is a block down the raod.
    spring this year marks the date that acknowledges how poor a job i have done of being in touch with the planet i inhabit. it is impossible that i have watched january february and march go by almost un noticed. i will tyr my best not to let the one more r month sneak past before all those no r months leading up to that run or r months after summer is over. i hope to enjoy the heck out of spring and summer in the land of the trails. paths and parks over here in my childhood home of bloomington.
    im going to have two daughters playing n the ultimate frisbee team which is my new favorite sport and a new business to hatch so all in all it should be one of the most interesting springs in my life. i have been weaned off some of the heart medication from my scare a year ago and hope to be proclaimed fit for all the ambition left in these increasingly apathetic bones.
    i miss trips and adventures but i like looking back and being able to say i knew me whe.

    maybe this will be the spring that becomes the spring i talk about in the years to come about the one i was glad to be there for.

    im gonna work to make that happen

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    1. I like your attitude, tim. I’m at the age where an increasing number of friends have severe health challenges; grim reminders to not take things for granted.

      As Piet Hein succinctly put it: “Living is a thing you do, now or never, which do you?”

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      1. can we have a picture
        i saw a yard on sunday during my walk with all the bulbs popping and gettng ready to show their stuff. i am so looking forward to seeing the bloom. i did a bulb garden years ago but the shade at my last house made it impractical. i like peonies next then lilies and iris’s. by the time you are past iris’s its so summer the flowers are there to ride along not to lead any longer.
        did you ever read the short story on iris’s maybe by hesse

        http://www.godsdirectcontact.org/eng/news/181/sa_83.htm

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  18. Spring comes a month or more earlier here than in Minnesota. Our fruit-bearing trees burst into flower mode ten days ago. This weekend is when they schedule the tulip festival here. Hummingbirds have migrated north this far by now. I’m accustomed to thinking of late March as the raggedy back end of winter, but here early March is the sloppy front end of spring.

    We never did get a snow that stuck on the ground. The good news is that it rained almost every day this winter. The creeks are full and the mountains peaks are cloaked with snow. When it is time for salmon to drive upriver to spawn, the rivers will actually have water in them.

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    1. Extra spring just means extra mud at our house. We spread what’s left of last year’s straw over the muddy parts of the yard yesterday. Maybe that will help!

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  19. Our friend and neighbor (and Lola’s mom) is buying our house, so part of my spring will be showing her what plants are where, maybe training her in” on everything.

    Once we get to new house, Husband will transform back yard into veggie garden. Both houses we covet have space for this, and some limited space for a few perennials… and a nice tree in the back yard.

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  21. Morning all. Here’s a new question for us:

    Considering the weather reports around the country, will you shovel or wait it out until it melts?

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  22. It’s snowing quite a bit where I am (Twin Cities) but so far everything is melting when it hits sidewalk/street/grass.

    And to answer my own question… at this time of year, unless it’s too much snow to actually drive through, I just let it melt!

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  24. As much as I’d like to support TB by answering the question, I have a problem. There are many things I once possessed but no longer do. Three of them are a shovel, a sidewalk, and snow. But, hey, that’s cool, because one more thing I don’t have is a letter carrier who trudges through snowdrifts to deliver mail to the mailbox (which I also no longer have).

    I could go on this way, actually. I really could. But as people say these days, this is a mute point. Totally mute.

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  25. On the lake, we’ve had the second earliest ice-out in history. In 1885, it went out on March 10; this year on March 15. The amazing thing I may have ever witnessed was sitting while on the phone and watching the ice go out as I talked. Normally, this happens overnight when people are asleep. I miss real Minnesota winters.

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  26. If it accumulates as snow or slush, I’ll try to shovel it off the walks as much as possible. If you leave it to melt, it pools in the low spots in the sidewalks. Then it freezes overnight, and you have that sloppy weather thing going where you try to walk on the ice and you break through. Wet feet weather.

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  27. Even though snow is accumulating on the ground, I have no intention of shoveling (not my job!). I also don’t intend to put my shoes back on; the sandals stay. So there.

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  28. Hi —

    College campus closed at 4:30 today. I was already gone because daughters after school program announced Yesterday that they were not going to be open today. And they’ve already said they’re closed tomorrow.
    Rochester Public schools closed tomorrow.
    College campus not re-opening until 4:30 tomorrow afternoon.
    And I have a piano / soprano concert onstage tomorrow night anyway so at least that isn’t cancelled.

    At the moment, it’s just cold, wet and blucky out.
    Blucky. Is that a word??

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  29. Morning—

    Snow depth varies a bit… it was windy so the south and east windows are all coated with snow. Drifts in front of the garage and in stairways… walking down to the chickens it’s 8-10″.

    Clouds are starting to break up… saw a little blue so it’s coming.
    Still windy. Will head out in a bit and start blowing and clearing…

    Kelly took day off ‘just in case’. I meet the accountant at 3:00 for taxes. Plus the concert tonight. So for now, we’re all just hanging out and enjoying the quiet.

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  30. Pingback: MORE Glossary | Trail Baboon

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