Reflections on the Tenth Week of Winter – Never Too Late to Mulch Blueberries

 

Blueberry Bush

    As if we were newlyweds, Spence slung my swim bag over his shoulder and walked me to the Subaru Tuesday morning. Our shoes sank in the soggy mud coating our dirt road―too late to change into old shoes.

    Spence said, “Be careful,” and the sun peaked through the clouds.

    I ignored his admonition, flung my arms wide, and twirled to celebrate a day warm enough to drive into town without wearing a winter jacket. “I wish I could work in the garden this afternoon.” I lifted the swim bag from Spence’s shoulder. “But the soil’s too wet.”

    He tapped numbers on the key pad to open the garage door. “You could mulch the blueberries.”

    “Oh . . . ” I’d planned to mulch the blueberry bushes with spruce boughs last December. After cutting and bundling boughs for the Winter Solstice program at Ruffing Montessori, where I’d taught for more than three decades, and for Tarot Bean Roasting Company, where the Meadville Vicinity Pennwriters meet, Christmas preparations distracted me. “Isn’t it too late for protecting the roots against winter?” I slipped behind the steering wheel, inserted the key, and powered down the window.

    “It’s not too late to enrich the soil. Blueberries need acid and organic material.” He stepped behind his truck.

    I inched the car out of the garage.

    “Rake pine straw for mulch. That’d be easier than cutting spruce boughs.” He moseyed after the car to the middle of the road.

    In the rear view mirror, I glimpsed Spence waving wide arcs above his head. I stuck my arm out window and waved it up and down as if performing a quarter of a jumping jack.

    Pulling my arm back inside, I chuckled. Spence is a sweetie, and raking orange pine straw outside would be sweet too.

    Later, slurping homemade chicken noodle soup for lunch, I stared through the sliding glass door at rain pattering on the south garden blueberry patch. “Looks like my mulching adventure got rained out.”

    Spence squinted at his computer screen. “According to the radar, rain will stop soon.” He put the computer on the coffee table and headed for the basement stairs. “I’ll unload garden wagon.”

    I scraped the spoon across the bottom of the soup bowl, sipped the last of the chicken broth, and set the bowl on the floor.

    Our cat George hustled over and stuck his head into the bowl.

    I fetched an old sweatshirt. No sense getting my pansy turtleneck muddy in the blueberry patch. After pulling the sweatshirt over my head, I glanced outside. The rain had stopped. I reached for my boots, and the kitchen clock rang Big Ben’s chime for two. Time to give Emma, our other cat, her antibiotic eye cream.

    When I grabbed the plastic bag holding the medicine tube and organic cat treats, it crinkled.

    George’s ears flicked. He followed me down the hall but not into the guest room.

    I sat on the bed and cradled Emma in my arms.

    She mer-rowed a protest.

    I pulled back her eyelid, squirted yellow goop, and eased her eyelid shut.

    She purred.

    I screwed the top on the medicine tube and opened the treat bag.

    George burst into the room.

    I laughed and sprinkled treats on the bedspread for Emma.

    George’s wide green eyes stared at me.

    “Were you hiding in the hall, big boy?” I sprinkled treats on the floor.

    Both cats gobbled.

    Okay. No more distractions. I slipped into my boots and clomped down stairs. In the cold cellar, I grabbed the leaf rake, garden gloves, and weeder then stepped outside. Spence had left the garden wagon under the stand of old white pines. The rake rasped along the ground. I inhaled fragrances of pine, mud, and dam. The rake uncovered patches of grass in brown-black soil.

    Spence came to my side. “The grass thanks you.” He stuffed his garden gloves into his back pocket. “I’m going to check the creek from the top of the woods path. Do you want to come?”

    I set the rake on the wagon load of straw. “Sure.”

    Side by side, we walked to the woods and ten feet down the creek path.

    He stopped. “Yesterday I saw the creek from here. It must have receded.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Do you want to go back?”

    Crows cawed. A cardinal sang birdie-birdie-birdie. The creek burbled in the distance.

    A woods walk with Spence or mulching blueberries?

    “I’m curious about the creek. We can take a short walk.”

    In the valley, Deer Creek roared, rushed, and filled the creek bed from the top of one bank to the top of the other.

    Spence pointed to a dip in the flood plain. “Yesterday, there were three streams. One running here―” He moved his finger toward another dip. “―here, and on my tractor path.”

    I circled a maple to check the beaver bank den. “This bank den survived the floods. Are the dams okay?”

    He shook his head.

    Instead of heading uphill to the blueberry patch, I strode beside the creek. Dodging puddles and pausing to inspect raccoon prints, fresh gnawed saplings, and sprouting skunk cabbage, we walked to the old beaver dam across the secondary creek branch.

    Spence ducked under the hawthorn, crossed the shallow creek on stones, and stepped onto a mud wall―a three foot remnant of the old beaver dam. He stretched his hand toward me.

    I ducked under the thorny tree, grabbed Spence’s hand, and splashed across stones to him.

He squeezed my hand, let it go, and led the way up the bank of the island. Mud squished under our boots. Blackberry thorns grabbed our clothes. And the beaver’s bank den on our grouchy neighbor’s property remained as stick-messy in tact as it had been before the floods.

    Spence scanned the water. “No beavers.”

    We turned and followed the beaver path across the island to the wider creek branch. Scattered rubble piles marked the site of the new dam. Fresh beaver tracks lined the shores. Rebuilding their dam will keep the beavers busy.

    Work awaited me too.

    Stopping to admire two more natural wonders―two-inch iris leaves and a six-inch diameter tree dotted with woodpecker holes from bottom to its forty foot top―we made it back to the blueberry patch.

    “I’m going to check the tarps on my wood piles,” Spence said and walked away.

    I grabbed the wagon handle and pulled the load of pine straw to the top of the blueberry patch.

    Weeds.

    Bending over the four foot wire forming the bottom of the blueberry cage, I twisted to avoid knocking off a swollen bud or breaking a fresh red stem off the old gray wood. Gloved hands dampening from the soggy soil, I ripped out weeds and tossed them into the marsh where road runoff drained through the field.

    A mourning dove cooed, a chickadee sang hey-sweetie, and Lorelei’s school bus rumbled past. Lorelei’s four o’clock bus.

    Yikes!

    I spread the pine straw around the blueberry bush pulled the wagon to the next cage. A spring-like breeze cooled my sweaty back. What sounded like a spring peeper joined the bird chorus. A spring peeper in February?

    The sun set behind the woods, the air chilled, and five weeded blueberry bushes wore skirts of orange pine straw. I bent to spread straw around the sixth, and Spence’s words, “Looks good,” startled me.

    Turning, I saw him, hands on hips, studying the blueberry patch. I reached for another handful of pine straw. “I thought I heard a spring peeper in the woods awhile ago. Could peepers be out in February?”

    Spence chuckled. “When I was in the north garden, I thought I heard a peeper too.”

    North garden? Double yikes! Four more blueberry bushes reddened in the north garden without any mulch. I loaded the basket, rake, and weeder in the garden wagon and pulled it out of the south garden. On another tantalizing spring-like day, I’ll head outside with Spence and mulch the north garden bushes. It’s never too late to mulch blueberries.

Blueberry Cages