Reflections on the Last Week of Spring – Summer Gets a Second Chance

Sun Filtering through Maples

Memorial Day, the beginning of civic summer, came with sunshine and periwinkle blue skies―a favorable omen for gardening. After a morning of talking to myself and numbing my butt on the guest room floor with vain hopes of luring the new barn kittens out of the closet, I let the weather lure me outside.

I stepped onto the porch which faced the tree nursery not the road. Fortunate, because I pulled off clothes down to my underwear and socks. Listening for vehicles to crunch gravel in the driveway―UPS arrived at all hours―I shimmed into pants, a shirt, and shoes that had been sprayed with permethrin. Not clothes to wear around kittens. Feeling like a scarecrow, I clumped down the steps and slope to the basement door below the porch. In the basement, I searched for cover cloths, binder clips, and a hoe. Ready. I ambled along the tractor path beside the north garden.

With gloved hands, my husband bent from the waste to spread Moo-nure around asparagus stalks.

“Would you help me cover the cherry trees, Spence?”

“In a minute.” He straightened and shook more manure out of a plastic bag. “I may need to mow first―if its dry enough.” 

I followed the path behind the garage and dropped the gear.

Thigh-high weeds surrounded the cherry trunks―spring rains at work!

After fetching a sickle, I bent by the biggest tree. Careful to keep my feet connected to my torso, I swung the sickle―whack, whack, whack―and created a doughnut-shaped mat of weeds around the trunk. Aroma of fresh cut grass tickled my nose.

The lawn mower buzzed, and Spence pushed it behind the garage. He mowed.

I whacked.

Grass cut, I unfolded the cover cloths, selected the largest rectangle, and held two corners. “Grab the other corners, Spence.”

He did, and wind billowed the cloth. “Wind could make this difficult.”

“Probably easier. It will help lift the cloth.” Picking up the hoe, I set its metal end in the middle of the cloth then raised the hoe like a drum major raising her baton. On tiptoes, I stretched till my ribs felt like they’d snap apart. A dizzying array of branches blocked my view of the sky, and my garden hat fell off my head. Reaching even higher―oomph―the hoe wobbled, threatening to jump out of my hand like Gilbert jumps out of my arms. The cloth rose to a foot shy of the tallest branches. “You take the hoe, Spence. I’m not tall enough.”

He raised the hoe and cloth―still six inches short.

But the wind billowed my half of the cloth. Like guiding a kite, I pulled a corner and the cloth sailed over the tree.

Spence dropped the hoe and tugged at a corner. Between us we fitted the cloth around the branches.

“You got this.” He walked back to the north garden, picked up a shovel, and called over his shoulder. “Yell when you’re ready for the next tree.” He stepped on the shovel, tossed the dirt, and dropped a Yukon Gold seed potato into the hole.

I angled edges of the cloth together, rolled them into a lump, and fastened it with a binder clip. Branches knocked my garden hat off. I bent, pulled the floppy hat down to my ears, and reached for the cloth. Branches knocked my hat off―again and again and again. I growled, replaced the hat, and worked around the tree until I’d fashioned a snug white cover over its crown. Taking a deep yoga breath, I stepped back and admired the white lollipop with its dark-trunk stick.

Covered Cherry Trees

Thwack!

A branch popped through the cloth between two binder clips. I glowered at the leaves bouncing in the wind. Leaves. No cherries. I could let the branch stick out. “Ready!”

“Be there in a minute,” Spence called back.

By the end of the afternoon, he had two rows of potatoes planted, and we had the three cherry trees covered.

The next day temperatures rose to a balmy 78ºF (25.5ºC)―perfect for cherry ripening, if barrels of rain hadn’t fallen.

Weather ignored the civic summer commencement.

For Memorial Day and the following twenty-four days, temperatures averaged 4.2ºF (2.5ºC) below normal. Rain drenched the garden and flooded roads. By June 20, with ten more days until the end of the month, we’d nearly doubled the expected rainfall for the whole month. And the seventeen days of rain since Memorial Day didn’t give the lengthening minutes of sunlight enough time to dry out the garden on the eight rainless days.

Spence squished through the grass to water his plants in Mr. Hooper, his portable greenhouse. Rain delayed his plans to plant beans, transplant seedlings, and mow fields.

Neighbors stopped greeting us with “Hi! How are you?” Instead they looked upwards and scowled. “How’s your garden?”

At the post office, Stacy fitted envelopes into the mail slots. “My field turned into a pond and my flat driveway is rutted from the rain.”

At the YMCA, Pat stuffed her wet swim suit into a tote bag. “I’m not even planting a garden this year.”

And at a washed-out curve on North Road, Jeff stuck his thumbs under his overalls straps, grinned like Alfred E. Neuman, and shifted his feet in worn tennis shoes―one with the top missing over his toes. “People don’t realize. Food prices have to soar. No one can get their crops in.”

But this past Friday, Summer Solstice, the beginning of celestial summer, came with sunshine and azure skies―a favorable omen for gardening.

I cuddled our three kittens one at a time. Ande snuggled his head under my chin, Rills gently gnawed my finger, and Gilbert squirmed looking for a place to jump from my arms. Leaving the kittens, I stepped onto the porch, scrambled out of my indoor clothes, and shimmied into my bug repellent gear. I spotted Spence’s wide-rimed Amish hat in the north garden so headed that direction.

He knelt and separated fragile pea plants from their weedy neighbors.

Addressing the top of his hat, I said, “I’m going to put cover cloths on the south garden blueberries. Anything I need to know?”

Blueberries

Spence sat back on his heels. “You’ll have to weed first.” He tossed an uprooted gill-over-the-ground to the grass path between garden rows. “In a minute, I’ll check if it’s dry enough to mow.”

I fetched a trowel, gloves, and sickle then waded through wet, almost-knee-high weeds around the blueberry cages. Sheesh. Weeds thrived in this wet weather. Crops didn’t. Only half of Spence’s potatoes sprouted—he assumed the other seed potatoes rotted—and the corn in neighbors’ fields grew a spindly four to six inches.

Bending forward, I grabbed a handful of weeds and swung the sickle with the other hand. Whack. Whack. Whack. Fallen weeds mounded outside the chicken wire cage bottom. Grasses and thistles towered inside.

“Too wet to mow.”

Spence’s voice startled me. I straightened to see him examining the blueberry plant in another cage.

“They’ll take a week to ripen. Don’t hurry with the covers.” He fingered a hard green berry. “I’m going to take a water break. Want to join me?”

“No. I just came out.” Reaching over the chicken wire, I stuck the trowel next to a thistle stem and yanked it out.

Spence pulled a clump of bindweed. “I’ll check on you in a little while.” He tromped away.

Robins sang cheer-up, cheerily and phoebes sang feebee-feebee-feebee. A bumblebee buzzed my hat—it must have enjoyed the fragrance of permethrin. I whacked, dug, and yanked. An hour passed. Spence didn’t need that long to down a can of carbonated water. I finished weeding the sixth cage, put away the tools, and changed clothes on the porch. I could put the covers on the cage tops another day.

When I stepped inside, three kittens rested on Spence’s legs while he napped. He opened his eyes. “Oh, I must have fallen asleep.” He stared at the kittens and smoothed Ande’s tiny whiskers.

Saturday and today also dawned with sunshine and azure skies. And the three days since summer solstice averaged 4ºF (2.2ºC) above normal temperatures—a favorable omen for gardening.

Summer gets a second chance.

Rills and Ande Napping