Clovers and other ramblings...

I've been sneaking into a few of my favorite old books when I find a minute or two... I love every "spelled-as-it's-spoken" poem written by James Whitcomb Riley, and I am equally smitten by the works of Eric Sloane, whose pen-and-ink renderings and quaint if not historical paintings of America's fading past have always tugged at my heartstrings, as well as given me great inspiration in my own paintings and artwork. There is no doubt that my beloved topic-of-choice when I get out my own paints and paintbrushes is a long-forgotten farmhouse or empty forlorn barn.

As I was reading a particular poem from the old 1901 edition of Riley's Farm-Rhymes that mom had given me some years ago, I was immediately overcome with memories of my dad, who has been gone for two long years now. I ran to the stairway and picked up another old book that I always keep close at hand, Lavender & Old Lace. I have never read this book yet it serves a much more useful purpose, and that is to hold dear amongst its many pages all the four- and five-leaf clovers that I stumble upon as I work around the barnyard and gardens.

You should know that my father could always find a four-leaf clover, and he was always keeping an eye out for them! When my children were small, he would go with them down near the barn nearest the sheep and goats, always on the lookout for clovers! I can remember the boys saying with disbelief... perhaps slightly hidden disdain?!..."Grandpa found another clover!"

I have always pressed my found good-luck treasures between the pages of books; when I was a little girl, their home would be a huge old Webster's Dictionary that mom kept in the livingroom on a stand near the front door. But I would also tuck them into any book that was handy, and would rediscover them ages later. (Nobody knows this, but when I was little I was playing out in the back field near our home, and found several clovers.. even one with NINE leaves, so I tucked them into my pocket to press in the dictionary when I got home. Hours later, I was horrified to realize they had shriveled and died, so I decided to promptly eat any clovers I found when I was not close to home... that way, I wouldn't lose any of the good luck they were purported to give me!) I can open an herb book that was well-used by me in the early 1990's and find them in there, along with pressed roses from my Grandmother's funeral and dried flowers from a Mother's Day bouquet I received from my friend Greg's children a few years later. I absentmindedly slip them into pages of cookbooks and puzzlebooks too. But this unread book has been filling with all the clovers I've found since my dad's passing... close to two dozen and counting. My daughter and I know of two patches near the well where we can often find lucky clovers, but these in my book have not been searched for. They show up when they do. To me, they are each a memory of my dad, so I keep them close in my book.

forever in our hearts

January 29, 1937- July 21, 2007

The Clover

Some sings of the lily, and daisy, and rose
And the pansies and pinks that the Summertime throws
in the green grassy lap of the medder that lays
Blinkin' up at the skyes through the sunshiney days;
But what is the lily and all of the rest
Of the flowers, to a man with a hart in his brest
That was dipped brimmin' full of the honey and dew
Of the sweet clover-blossoms his babyhood knew?

I never set eyes on a clover-field now,
Er fool round a stable er climb in the mow,
But my childhood comes back jest as clear and as plane
As the smell of the clover I'm sniffin' again;
And I wunder away in a bare-footed dream,
Whare I tangle my toes in the blossoms that gleam
With the dew of the dawn of the morning of love
Ere it wept ore the graves that I'm weepin' above.


And so I love clover- it seems like a part
Of the sacredest sorrows and joys of my hart;
And wharever it blossoms, oh, thare let me bow
And thank the good God as I'm thankin' Him now;
And I pray to Him still fer the stren'th when I die,
To go out in the clover and tell it good-bye,
And lovin'ly nestle my face in its bloom
While my soul slips away on a breth of perfume.

~James Whitcomb Riley, 1883

Summer happenings...

Hello to all... thought I'd better drop a line or two lest my Wildenblue Farm Journal dries up and blows away! My apologies again for not being more up-to-date... life is busy and I have been trying to keep up with things, plus find time to enjoy what little warm and sunny weather we've had on occasion! I got the fields in the barnyard mowed last week, everything was growing so tall that the chickens and geese could barely wade through the pastures! My daughter's homeschool graduation get-together was fun; we had only a bit of rain which quickly turned to sunshine, so all turned out well for that. My grandson turned one year old on July 16th, they are expecting again in November... perhaps a little girl!? (My middle son and his girlfriend are expecting shortly thereafter... another boy, if the ultrasounds are correct!) My mom, daughter and I finally finished stripping all the pine floors on the main level of the house... we got them oiled and cured just a few weeks ago! WHEW!!! A job I am so glad is finished! I've been trying to keep up with the gardens; first the strawberries, then the rhubarb, now the raspberries. There are also currants and gooseberries waiting to be picked out in the back garden. Mom and I headed over to Hick's Orchard, a local pick-your-own farm where we picked about 25 pounds of sour cherries. I made a batch of jam and a pie or two, and froze the rest for pies for the winter. We've been sneaking in a bit of kayaking when we can, as well! The chickens are still laying about a dozen or so fresh eggs a day due to the fact that the weather has not been blisteringly hot nor humid, thank goodness! I've been picking flowers and herbs to bundle; the garden shed is filling quickly with assorted bunches... last week I picked Lavender, Delphinium, Yarrow and Silver Artemesia, along with Cat Mint and Baby's Breath. I have a lot of Tansy that will have to be picked and hung to dry in the next couple of weeks, and following that will be Sweet Annie. Our seven kitties have destroyed every single Catnip plant in the garden here, but luckily mom has bunches of it in her garden! The next big thing around here is the upcoming wedding of my oldest son and his fiance towards the end of August, and whatever comes along in-between! With that brief update, I'll leave you with some pictures of the goings-on these past few weeks and I'll be off, but here is a recipe for scones which I made this morning! Blessings to all of you! xox

Raspberry Scones with White Chocolate Chips

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper, set aside. In a large bowl, sift together 3 & 1/4 cups flour, 3/4 cup Sugar, 1 tablespoon Baking Powder, 1 teaspoon Baking Soda and a pinch of Salt. With a pastry cutter, cut in 3/4 cup Butter to make a coarse, crumbly mix.

In a small bowl, add 1 cup of Milk, 1 tablespoon white vinegar, 1 egg and 1 tablespoon Vanilla Extract or Framboise Liqueor; mix well. Dump this into the dry mixture, along with 1 & 1/2 cups of White Chocolate Chips. Blend til all is combined, then gently fold in 1 & 1/2 cups of fresh Raspberries. Drop by heaping dinner-table spoonfuls onto parchment lined baking sheet about 3 inches apart and bake for about 12 to 15 minutes til golden brown. Cool.

Well, I've been away from my blog for quite a while! I'm sorry about that. Life has been so busy, with sudden unplanned events pushing out the planned ones. The biggest problem began about a week ago with the appearance of a very large red fox who began preying on the Guinea Hens that always fly over the fences and into harm's way. (They are not very bright birds.) I believe this is a mother fox who has been running ragged to keep her babies fed, and she soon discovered that a bunch of less-than-brilliant Guineas outside the barnyard make a quick meal. However, my patience wore thin when I spotted her inside the fenced pasture farther back nearest the woods. She had made her kill inside the fenceline, and I startled her as I drove round the back corner, and caught sight of her jumping easily back over the fence. Needless to say, my mother and I spent the next several days (and far too much money) installing 6-foot tall fencing around the whole perimeter of the fields that the poultry free-range in. The back part alone measured 600 feet. I have one final step in completeing this project, and that will be to install a two-foot tall runner of hex-wire all along the bottom of the fencing that is now in place. This will allow further protection from coyote or fox digging at the base. But I have to sell a lot of eggs before this can happen! I am down to 13 Guineas, so I will be keeping an eye out for a hidden clutch of eggs, and I will have mom pop them in the incubator should we find any.

In the meantime, the Strawberries are ripening daily, and I need to take the time to freeze several batches and to make some Strawberry Jam. We received some much-needed rain last night, and I really should be putting in the remainder of my garden instead of typing in my blog, as it is supposed to turn to thundershowers later this afternoon. I was out earlier this morning moving a section of a stone border with the tractor, as I had put up an 80-foot length of split-rail fence nearest the barn, and getting into the gate by the narrow pathway between stones and rails was cumbersome to say the least. So that's done, and I also transplanted some blue and white irises amongst the fence posts to finish it off.
My oldest son and his girlfriend are getting married here in August... the 15th, I believe! So in between, I've been trying to prune and trim and pick up and do whatever needs doing! Mom came up yesterday and helped me cart stones into the garden to line the asparagus bed and to put around the rhubarb/onion section. My daughter and I are planning a small get-together of family and friends to celebrate her completion of 13 years of homeschooling. She's the last of the four children to homeschool, and I myself shall breathe a sigh of satisfaction that this part of our life is complete! But where one chapter closes, another opens... I am going to be a grandmother again in November, and then again about a week later! And I so want to finish the pine flooring in the rest of the house before the heat and humidity set in... sigh!

Ah, well! What gets done does and what doesn't won't! Now, I must be off before it starts raining again. Hope all is well with everyone as we scoot into summer. Blessings to you and yours. ~Laura of Wildenblue Farm

Rhubarb Butter Crunch

Mom gave me this recipe for a dessert that's literally easier than pie to make! I LOVE Rhubarb Pie, but don't always have the time to mix one up. I've adapted the original recipe to my liking, and hope you can give it a try!

Rhubarb Butter Crunch

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 13 X 9 pan with nonstick spray. In a bowl, mix

6 cups of Rhubarb (cut into 1/2" pieces),

1/2 cup white Sugar
1/2 cup packed Brown Sugar

3/4 cup Flour

2 teaspoons Cinnamon &

1 teaspoon Vanilla

Pour into prepared pan. In another bowl combine

1 stick butter (cut into small pieces)

1/2 cup Brown Sugar

1/2 cup white Sugar

1/2 cup Flour &

1/2 cup Rolled Oats

Mix together with your fingertips til blended and crumbly, then sprinkle on top of Rhubarb mixture. Bake for about 1/2 hour. Serve warm with whipped cream or with vanilla ice cream.

Happy Mother's Day

Goodness... Mother's Day is almost over, but I must send a Mother's Day greeting to all of the moms who take the time to read my silly blog! Thank you, and Happy Mother's Day! I hope you all spent a wonderful day amongst those you love and love you back, as I did! My four children, along with their "families" and my mom were up for supper this evening!
Friday, Saturday and today were spent delivering Mother's Day arrangements for a local florist my brother works for... mom helped me Friday and my daughter helped yesterday and today. Needless to say, I was not able to spend ANY time in the gardens this weekend; mom and I took only a brief stroll around them tonight and watered the seedlings in the greenhouse before we headed to the barn to tuck in the chickens and other birds. The coyotes and owls come very near at night, so I dare not leave even the geese out in the main fenced-in area... they ALL go in the barn!
Mom was up earlier this week to help rip out perhaps a 30- by 3- foot section of sod. This spot has now become a perennial border in front of the fence between the two big gardens, as I had started several plants last summer and they needed a new home. I transplanted three peonies (divided into five!) mom had given me years ago as the backbone of this border, and filled in between with beebalm, catmint, baby's breath, lupine, and so on. The next day, my daughter and I drove out into the woods and gathered fallen stones from a section of stone wall way out back. (My daughter photographed parts of this particular wall... I wonder whose hands built it and what the land looked like and was used for way back then...) We used these fallen stones to line the border, and also put several in the vegetable garden to surround an old cement bench brought up from mom's. I planted this area with hollyhock, catmint, scented iris, chives, and other perennials. We need to collect more stones to line the asparagus patch; perhaps sometime this week...
Well, before I close, I need to say how thankful I am for MY mom. I so appreciate all the hours she spends helping me around here weeding, planting, putting up fence, doing dishes at family get-togethers (even on Mother's Day!), and on and on. But mostly I am grateful for her company and helping the time and work go by quickly, often with great conversation, advice, and LOTS of laughter! I love you, Mom!

May Day!

My, oh my... the first of May...
Well, I've gotten about one-fifth of those danged artichokes dug up and tossed (literally) out of the garden. Good grief! The black flies are swarming, but it's been cooler with a beautiful rain the past two evenings... just perfect because we transplanted garlic, top onions, catnip, and so on. Mom gave me several hours help again, and the main garden is weeded, cultivated and raked off. The back berry garden is weeded and hoed, as is the Strawberry Patch. As a matter of fact, I finally got around to planting lettuces and spinach, and spread compost atop the asparagus patch and all the transplants, so things look good! At least I feel like maybe we've gotten the upper hand thus far in the gardens... for the time-being. The rain has given a jolt to everything... flowers are blooming, trees are slowly beginning to leaf out. Thus, I will share a poem from one of my most-loved old-fashioned poets, James Whitcomb Riley. This is taken from Riley Farm Rhymes, a book of farm-related prose published in 1901 that mom gave me some years ago...

When The Green Gits Back In The Trees
In spring, when the green gits back in the trees,
And the sun comes out and stays,
And yer boots pulls on with a good tight squeeze,
And you think of yer bare-foot days;
When you ort to work and you want to not,
And you and yer wife agrees

It's time to spade up the garden-lot,
When the green gits back in the trees
Well! work is the least o' my idees
When the green, you know, gits back in the trees!

When the green gits back in the trees, and bees
Is a-buzzin' aroun' ag'in
In that kind of a lazy go-as-you-please
Old gait they bum roun' in;
When the groun's all bald whare the hay-rick stood,
And the crick's riz, and the breeze
Coaxes the bloom in the old dogwood,
And green gits back in the trees,-
I like, as I say, in sich scenes as these,
The time when the green gits back in the trees!

When the whole tail-fethers o' Wintertime
Is all pulled out and gone!
And the sap it thaws and begins to climb,
And the swet it starts out on
A feller's forred, a-gittin' down
At the old spring on his knees-
I kindo' like jest a-loaferin' roun'
When the green gits back in the trees-
Jest a-potterin' roun' as I- durn- please-

When the green, you know, gits back in the trees!

Garden work

It was time to get at the main vegetable garden, as I really need to plant spinach, peas and lettuces. But before that can happen, the whole garden needed a bit of tidying up, and I started this morning by knocking down the remains of the Jerusalem Artichokes, raking out an assortment of dried plants from last year and burning the whole lot as I went along. I also began transplanting Horseradish from one side of the garden to the other. This particular garden is an outlined block "U" shape, perhaps a hundred feet long by 25 feet wide, though the center stretch is only about 15 feet wide... so as time goes by, I realize what works and what doesn't. I try to keep perennial plantings at the ends, so I only have to worry about the center for annual crops. I have a large Asparagus patch at the farthest end, Garlic and Beebalm patches near that, and now the Horseradish will join them all. On the opposite end, I have Rhubarb, Catnip, Horehound, Egyptian Onions, Welsh Onions and those cursed Jerusalem Artichokes... which MUST come out soon. Why I stuck them in there is beyond me... sigh!

I have two gardening tools that I could never be without... a stirrup hoe and an old tiller, which I purchased at a yard sale a few years back. I prefer not to turn over the soil, but on occasions when I have been lacking in my weeding skills, I use this to skin off the surface weeds and top few inches of soil to prepare a new bed for planting.

As I was working, the Guineas were putting up an awful fuss, so I walked over to the fence to see what the commotion was all about. A red fox was near the outhouse, daring the Guineas to come closer, so I chased him off back into the woods and proceeded to till the garden. About half-an-hour later, they started again. I was expecting to see that fox, but this time, an big old Tom Turkey was strutting alongside the back fence with about a dozen shreiking Guineas beside him on the opposite side. The more the Guineas shrieked, the closer he strutted... til finally he yelled back. After about 5 minutes of backtalk, he strolled off towards the pond.

Mom was up over the weekend to give me a hand at cleaning out the back Berry Garden and re-running the fence around the perimeter. I made the mistake of letting the fence be a trellis for giant gourds last year, and the sheer weight of them brought the fencing down, which allowed the deer to get in throughout the winter and nibble off the raspberriy and blueberry bushes. The following day we weeded out the Strawberry patch... so things are coming along. I should be getting fresh Asparagus in another week, and Strawberries in another month! And my mouth is yearning for fresh Spinach, so I hope to get that seeded within the next day or two. It has been unusually warm today... in the mid-eighties, but rain and more seasonal (60 degree) temperatures will come back tomorrow. Well, it's getting close to dinner time, and I need to wash the dirt off! Til next time...

Welcome home

It's been a busy weekend, but in a good way! My fourth "son" Forrest came home to New Hampshire from North Carolina... he's been back from Iraq and will soon be heading to Afghanistan... but he and his girlfriend came to visit and reconnect with my boys and family. (He is my friend Greg's son and Kaitlyn's brother, whom I've spoken of in other posts!) It was so good to see him in real life, and to wonder how the little boy he was could have possibly grown into this strapping young Marine before me. And to feel that same way about my three sons as they all posed for the picture above! And how funny that they could all so quickly revert back to that pile of mischievous, rambunctious boys from years past!

After the rounds of hugs and hellos and introductions, Forrest and Jake disappeared out back and found their old potato gun, and that gives you a good idea of what they spent the weekend doing! Needless to say, he didn't stay long enough, and they had to leave yesterday afternoon. But I laughed when I walked down to the barn last night to do chores, for there were chunks of potatos all along the way.

Easter Blessings...

Wishing you and yours a Happy Easter!

My daughter, mother and I have been busy refinishing the pine floor in the livingroom. We rented a commercial floor sander and edger and stripped it down to the bare wood. We spent the next three days applying a Tung Oil Finish cut with Citrus Solvent, and hand-rubbed the seven coats we applied. It looks lovely, but the rest of the house is utter chaos! Needless to say, we celebrated my daughter's and my birthday at mom's yesterday, and will spend Easter there too! We cannot put the furniture or braided rug back on the refinished floor for at least a few more days, so what's the use of having everyone come just to be confined to the kitchen?! I'm not sure what we'll do when we refinish the rest of the floor (kitchen, hallway, diningroom and foyer), but I'll worry about that when I need to. Well, I have a cake in the oven and rolls to finish shaping, so I'm off! Happy Easter to all!