Earth Day was last week. If you didn’t celebrate it, shame on you! This celebration, started in 1970, is all about the need to preserve our earth for future generations. A good way to preserve our earth is to plant a native tree. And, the holiday for that – Arbor Day – was last week…
If you can only plant one tree in your backyard, make it an oak tree. If you have room for a second one, make that one an oak, too. That’s what the madman says. And he’s not alone. In his new book, The Nature of Oaks, Professor Doug Tallamy writes, “if you are at all…
Spring shouldn’t be this cold. It’s too cold to get a good start on the garden. Not sure who to blame here – El Niño, Mother Nature, the wildfires, the government… But we are way behind in our garden because the madman feels it’s just too cold to put his warm-loving plants in the ground….
The madman has his eye on the birds. We finally took the hummingbird feeders down last week. You may think that’s awful late. Normally it would be, but the madman says it’s been a strange year. According to Journey North, some hummingbirds were late in leaving. There were reports of hummingbird sightings to the North…
Problems, problems, problems. We can never escape problems. Or, pests, to be more precise. We came back from our first road trip in a while happy and full of hugs. So, when I saw the madman waving his arms around and uttering words I can’t repeat here, I was baffled. What could change his good…
Now that it’s Day Light Savings time, the madman is seeing more of the sun. That makes him happy. Watching him follow the sun across the sky reminds me of that Greek myth. You know, the one about Clytie, the sunflower and Helios, or is it Apollo? Those myths sure can get confusing. Some say…
The madman is thinking about nest boxes. He doesn’t have much to do in the garden these days. He has planted the hottest of his hot peppers – they seem to take forever to germinate and need at least 120 growing days in the garden. And, he has planted some bunching onions, although our main…
The madman is celebrating. I didn’t even know he could do a cartwheel. He had been so sad for the past few weeks. Last year, the pandemic was bad enough. No Family. No Friends. (Except for FaceTime and Zoom). No band. No travel. We didn’t go out, period. Then we were told to provide social…
Spring is here. Time to get outside and get dirty. First things first, do not plant any warm weather crops in the ground. It is still much too early for that. But, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be out in the garden. Around here, the weather seems to have warmed up. The snow has gone,…