Weather wise, we have no complaints. Nice amounts of rainfall, sunshine, mild temperatures. Everything is growing like gang-busters, lush and beautiful. There is some slug damage here and there, but nothing I can't cope with.
Then, just when I started to think "wow, this is wonderful!" Disaster. Over the course of a few weeks past, two of my hens went missing. One was a young Wyandott, the other a very very old Buff Orpington. I figured the Buff must have passed away somewhere and I just couldn't find her. As for the Wyandott, a couple of those girls have the bad habit of not going into the hen house at evening and instead camping out under the rabbit hutch. I figured she must have done this and "something" got her.
It all came to head on Sunday. We heard some tremendous carrying on around noon, I ran up to the hen house and found another (my last) elderly Buff lying dead. At first I thought maybe it was a hawk strike, but closer examination showed definite bite mark. Very shaken up, I dealt with the body then went in the house. Not a half hour later, I hear another commotion and there is a RED FOX chasing my hens around the backyard. In broad daylight. I ran out, yelled, and it ran off. But, and this is sort of hard to believe, it came back later in the evening after the girls were in their pen and it killed another hen, taking it away. I couldn't believe when I did a head count that night that another one was gone. It must have happened while I was taking a shower because I heard nothing.
I had a sleepless night, but by Wednesday I had a plan to reinforce security around the hens. First, they are staying in their house unless I'm out with them. Which means they are confined most of the time because I can only let them out late in the afternoon, for about an hour or so before dusk, when they will go of their own accord back into their house. If it's still bright daylight, it's impossible to get them back in.
I'm in the process of beefing up the fencing around the hen run and I'm going to put a cover of some sort over the top, probably chicken wire/mesh. I don't think it will be absolutely secure, but it should be enough for now.
Now, here's where a lot of you will think I'm nuts. I will not have that fox harmed or killed. If it's hunting this desperately, in broad daylight, it's most likely a mother and I will not have a den of puppies die of starvation because of me. I figure I eat chickens too and we all gotta eat. I talked this over with a friend and we decided to go at this from a Buddhist perspective. If the fox is hungry and I don't want it to eat my chickens, then I will provide it with something else. I'll leave some food out at the far edge of the property to get it to stay away from my hens. We'll see how this goes.
***
On to better news. A friend who recently sold her house and moved called to say that the new owners want to rip out all the landscaping and start fresh, so come take whatever she wants. She wanted some lilies, etc. and asked me to help. I really thought I remembered her garden as a very small patch, but I was wrong. We dug for 2 hours and she loaded up my truck with BUSHELS of iris, daffodils, tulips, and hardy glads; two weigla bushes; and a handful of coral bells. I got the coral bells planted yesterday in the South Long Border. I got the iris (just the I. pallida, pale lavender color) planted to extend the existing bed in the Asian Garden (remember just last week I said I wanted to add to that bed? What luck!), and I got the 2 weigla (looking pretty sad; one had been ripped out of the ground, but seems to have recovered after a soaking) into my nursery bed. I've got my work cut out for me with the daffs, tulips, and hardy gladiola.
And that's about enough of that. Missy.
It's getting harder and harder to make any forward progress here. We've had very warm temperatures and lots of rain and intermittent sunshine...perfect growing conditions. And the WEEDS have taken full advantage of it. Fortunately, so has everything else, which is both blessing and curse. I had the opening in the Forsythia hedge nicely cut and neat just last week, now it's so overgrown it's hard to get thru it. My Storybook Garden that I was bragging about last week? Is there even a garden there?? The monster grass is so tall in spots you can't see the plantings. I vowed to myself this morning that I would not, never, no way, no how go anywhere on the property without carrying secateurs. It's that bad. 
The beautiful show of iris and peonies is over. We had some brief, very heavy downpours on Wednesday evening and combined with high temperatures, everything peaked and then melted pretty quickly. My gardens are entering the early summer "Great Green" where everything is lush and green with very little color until the phlox and daylilies light up. The roses are spectacular though!
I've got to get serious about the veg. I finally got my red cabbage, chinese cabbage, celery, and sweet potato plants in this morning. The cabbages and celery are pretty tiny so I've got to be vigilant about keeping them weeded and watered until they take off. The sweets look very good. This year I've got two smaller beds of sweets rather than one big patch...it just worked out that way. I still need to plant my pole beans, summer squash (2 varieties), winter squash (3 varieties), and cucumbers. No beets this year; I still have several jars from last year in the pantry. I've also still got to get my seed-started sweet and hot peppers into the ground or grow-bags. They just never really took off for me in the house this year and are still very small. The bigger plants I bought at the Master Gardeners sale are in the ground, but they took a lot of damage from slugs until I dusted them with Diatomaceous earth and "mulched" them with a thin layer of wood ashes. That really seems to keep the slugs at bay. I'm going to have to ramp up the War on Slugs...they're getting bad again.
Strawberries were phenomenal this year. Loads of fruit, very clean and beautiful. I will never grow strawberries uncovered again. The plants have been under garden fleece since I think March and are thriving. It looks like I may have a lot of black raspberries this year, but I still haven't got the netting up on the berry cage. If I lose them all, it will be my own fault.
Back tew't, as my imaginary Scottish Gardener would say. Those weeds won't pull themselves, missy.
This has got to stop. But then, who can pass up a Master Gardeners Annual Plant sale AND a deep deep discount going out of business clearance sale at a local nursery? I ask you. Who?
So, despite POURING rain, I found myself standing in a line of about 50 other plant addicts at 8:30 a.m. Saturday waiting for the gate to open so we could "score our fixes." I got a small winter jasmine, a white siberian iris, two pots of golden Japanese forest grass, two pots of sweet bell peppers and one pot of hot habenero peppers (all my seed-started pepper plants are soooo tiny...). There was only one small Japanese maple for sale and some other addict got it before I did. Drat. Curses. Foiled again. 
After that, with wet feet despite wearing wellies, I decided that what the heck, I'm already all the way up here in Chambersburg, might as well see if Snavely's is still in business and what is left on offer. I'm glad I did. There wasn't much left and what was there was 60% off. I got two big ornamental grasses and a pot of German Statice (which I only bought because I felt sorry for it and did not even know what it was...the big leathery leaves intrigued me). Apparently I did not see those two big grasses when I was up there a couple weeks ago and I'm glad now because I got them for only $12 each. One is a giant miscanthus and the other is (I believe) Arundo donax or giant Spanish reed. The miscanthus will be an excellent addition, but I'm going to have to be cautious with the Arundo because it can spread by roots and become invasive. I will most likely keep it in a very big pot. Both will be in the new Tropical Garden (both are winter hardy here). I couldn't resist having grasses that can top 10 feet tall. Fortunately, neither spreads by seeds. (Our township has a problem with Johnsongrass, which can spread by both thick rhizomes and seeds and let me tell you, you do not want Johnsongrass in your garden. I've been digging out the same clump for YEARS and nothing seems to finally kill it...not digging, not weed killer, nuthin'. And I just recently learned that although fresh Johnsongrass can be very nutritious grazing grass, if it is wilted by frost or drought it contains enough cyanide that it can kill a cow or horse. I'm not sure how that works because I've also heard that it can make fine hay.)
Heavy overcast again today. I brought home a big load of wood chip mulch and some very nice flat stones from the township Transfer Station on late Friday. The mulch went to the newly tidied up Asian Garden area and most of the stones went onto the Folly Wall raised beds. Both areas are looking better now.
Like maybe, maybe I am ACTUALLY making a garden here. The weather has been rainy but mild and everything is growing like crazy. I've never seen tulips that huge and now the iris are also outdoing themselves. I have a white "Immortale" iris that is honestly the size of a large grapefruit.
But what really has me "chuffed" is that, yes, by gum and by golly, the outer areas are definitely forming themselves up into gardens, instead of just weedy patches with some flowers or shrubs sticking out. The Storybook Garden is (for now) very beautiful...I know I'll have a problem with Monster grass later in the year, as usual, but right now, I can see the layout is "getting there" and it's just what it's supposed to be--a long narrow garden that leads the explorer up through the forsythia hedge, up the hill, to the Folly Wall garden.
And the Folly Wall Garden is shaping up. Still very very rough, but again, it's looking more like a garden than just a mess of weeds and "stuff." I guess the true test for me is "Do I want to work here?" Yes I do.
The really encouraging area is the Asian Garden. Now that I have the Virtual Koi Pond in, everything else is starting to fall into place. I moved an arbor up there this morning to provide a visual and actual gateway into the area and I'm in the process of cutting down the annual bluegrass and tidying up the place. I want to get that grass out before it drops its seeds. I'm thinking of moving some struggling iris up there too, to extend the already existing bed of iris. I also need to get a couple of small benches so I have somewhere to sit and admire all this hard work.
Now I want everybody to remind me of this post in July when I'm griping about how out of control, ugly, and desperate the place looks.
Nothing much to report except my veg garden has never looked this bad this late in the spring. Usually by mid-May things are in the ground and growing and the veg looks at least semi-respectable. This year, with all the rain and cold temps, I'm way behind in planting and getting the soil ready for planting. I can't work in that heavy clay soil when it's wet. Even though I have raised beds (slightly, maybe 18 inches) it's still too wet.
Yesterday (Saturday 11 May) started out beautifully, with clear sunny skies and cool temps. I hurried a load of laundry out onto the line, then drove to Boonsboro Maryland for the annual recycling fair. I had loads of glass from our house and my neighbor's, plus one small old computer. I got three bags of recycled glass sand in exchange and I bought two very nice little Virginia Sweetspires (Itea virginica) at the plant swap table. I was hoping they'd have more little Japanese maple seedlings like last year, but no luck. I wish I had bought 4 or 5 last year instead of 1. The one I have is doing great, it's more than doubled in size. (Still only about a foot tall!)
I stopped in Hagerstown, MD, on the way back home to buy a sack of mortar because I'm bound and determined to get more concrete blocks on to the Folly Wall this week. By the time I got home, it was overcast and by nightfall we had heavy rain.
This morning, sunny and cool again. I had a lot of house and office work to do, so did not get into the garden until past noon. The call of the big garden rooms and borders is so tempting, but I made myself concentrate on the disaster that is called the veg. You ever have one of those moments where you stand looking at a chaotic mess and literally cannot move because you don't know what to do first? It's that bad.
I decided to start by getting the teasels out of the brick path at the east end of the garden. What a big improvement. Then I just went from there. Pruned back the die-back on the fig, hammered in the stakes to hold up a wooden raised bed edge. Pulled out tons and tons of false strawberry (which apparently has decided to take over the world), dug out a small but encroaching patch of goldenrod along the south fence, re-installed another wooden raised bed edge, cleaned out both the cold frames. And even got two short rows of beans planted!
What a difference. It's only about 1/4 of the entire veg, but it's a good start and I do have other beds in the veg that are cleaned and planted and looking good. It's mostly the paths and a few of the beds I haven't yet turned over or done anything with. One thing I really need to think about is storing the tomato cages and the various fence panels. I tend to lay them up wherever there's nothing growing, then when I need that spot, they get shifted, then shifted again, and again. It's stupid and time-consuming and the effect is like a junk yard. I really should think about some sort of rack or something (probly would be a good idea to get them up off the ground too, to reduce rust).
