Sunday, May 30, 2010

home

After a flurry of Parisian posts from the easy comfort of our friend's apartment in the 7th arrondissement, we have been away from the desk as it were.  We have arrived home.  Coming home at the beginning of May to a growing season that is about three weeks ahead of itself, plus re-opening the restaurant and recovering from jet lag has kept us running to catch up with everything around us.  Usually when we return, the buds are just starting to show a green haze on the trees and the daffodils are still blooming and the forsythia has just started.  This year, because of the warm weather in March and the beginning of April, we arrive to lilacs and fruit trees blooming, bud-break on the vines.  And everything is green.  Green, green, green.

So, the last three weeks have been very full.  And while I hope to return to some stories of days in France, we are now confronted with the stories that have begun at home.  It is sometimes difficult to shuttle so much back and forth like a transatlantic itinerary.

In the last three weeks, there has been spring cleaning at the restaurant, and opening to a busy first weekend.  And despite the mid-May cold snap (what the old farmer's in New England call Blackberry Winter, or their European counterparts call The Frost Saints), Caleb has planted lettuces, tomotoes, carrots, cauliflower, brussel sprouts, radishes, onions, peas, beans, beets, root chicory, daisies, and nasturtiams.  We sweated out 30 degree nights hoping the tender leaves on the vines would survive, and worrying about the flowers and buds on the apple trees.  Vines are incredibly resiliant.  Some of them took a good hit from the cold.  But with vines you get two shots at fruit, and three for foliage.  Each bud has its own  primary, secondary, and tertiary buds to give it every fighting chance if you loose the first round.  So now everyone in the vineyard has happy looking leaves that are unfurling proudly.  It's still early days, but we'll see if there will be any fruit this year.  Just last night, I saw one tiny bunch. 

The orchard has not faired quite so well.  The fruit set is thin.  Some trees don't even show fruit, just the remnants of brown blossoms.  Other trees show a modest inclination.

We have had a hot, dry spell immediately following the cold snap.  90 degree days just like mid-July.  Everything is growing rampantly, and then the past few days things have slowed down because we've had no rain.  The roses, which started out with a profusion of leaves and imminent buds, have now acquired a yellow, thirstiness about them.  Caleb has been watering his seeds and new plantings at night when we get home from the restaurant (always water at night when the plants get the most benefit.  If you water during the day in hot sunlight, the leaves can scald, and the water evaporates too quickly in the sun), but we've let everything else fend for itself.  We live on an acquafir, so water has never been a problem.  But roses need both water and sun.  That's why they love those English summers so. 

Just last night, a balmy evening, I watered the roses looking the most sweltered from a row of buckets we use to collect rain water off our roofs just as lightening started to flash in the darkening sky.  Thunderstorms had been predicted for the afternoon and night.  As we puttered around doing final chores before going into a late dinner, we saw the moon rise golden over the tree line.  It seemed like a good idea to sit for a moment outside with a glass of wine and watch the show.  While the moon climbed higher, dark, menacing clouds rolled in occassionally obscuring the moon.  The lightening continued to flask and strike, the thunder rumbled.  Lightening bugs sparkled in the trees and meadow.  (We never see lightening bugs until the 4th of July).  Finally, we felt the first drops of rain, thankfully.  We laid market umbrellas down, and protected garden furniture and ran inside just before the deluge.

--Deirdre

3 comments:

Vermont Wine Media said...

Hi Dierdre,
Quite a welcome home...that certainly was some light show. We are glad you folks are back, and are looking forward to the Garagista series this summer. I'm enjoying reading through your Parisian travel posts!

Deirdre Heekin said...

Thanks! I have lots more on Paris, and trying to get back in the swing of what's going on at home....maybe after this first garagista!

See you soon-

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