I just Love Blue Morning Glories. Do You too ?

 Posted by Wayne G. Barber  & Photos property of  Wayne G. Barber 

The common morning glory is a favorite of gardeners everywhere for good reason. The eye-catching vines are very low maintenance—they can be easily started from seed in early spring, and you don't need to prune or deadhead them as they grow.

 Have a trellis or other support in place wherever you plant your seeds and the vines will soon find the support and train themselves to grow on it.

'Heavenly Blue': A popular cultivar with large azure flowers and heart-shaped leaves

With regular watering, morning glories can start blooming by mid-summer, but many times they are slow to begin setting flowers, earning them the nickname "back to school vine." If you want to try and speed up the flowering time of morning glories you seed yourself, you can try sowing the seeds even earlier in the spring by scattering them on the frozen ground and even on snow.

You can start seed indoors about four to six weeks before your last frost date, but it's not necessary—morning glory does very well when direct-sown as well. If you prefer to plant your seeds straight into the ground, wait until the soil is able to be worked and has warmed to at least 64 degrees Fahrenheit.

Morning glory seeds have a very hard seed coat and germination will be faster with scarification. You can do this by rubbing the seeds between two pieces of coarse sandpaper for a few seconds and then soaking them overnight. You will notice they are a lot plumper in the morning and look ready to sprout.

I have learned the hard way to wait to plant my favorite Burpee Heavenly Blue until the maple trees have full leaves on them and this year I put a few old golden shiners baitfish that had expired about 6 inches below them for some great results in the worst drought conditions since 1965 in the Northeast Quiet Corner . Try some in your yard next year for some real nice color and our green humming birds love them too. 

Please Support your local Farms

 Posted by Wayne G.Barber 

Farms of all types are having a rough season — wells running dry, transport costs up to get to market, consumers who themselves have less in their wallets to spend on food. 

Corporate consolidation — that is, a few major companies gobbling up all they can of food production and distribution — is a pattern that repeats across the whole food system.  

I’ve painted this picture to some non-farmer friends who have replied with some form of, ‘yeah, true. But it’s hard for all small businesses.’ Which is absolutely correct, and we should investigate why being small in any sector is impossible right now. (You don’t have to dig too deep — corporate consolidation is ubiquitous.) But also, for two major reasons, farming is different, and we all need to care.

First: farmers aren’t just business owners. Farmers — particularly organic farmers — are ecosystem stewards. Organic dairy farms keep land open (organic regulations require cows to be on pasture), sequestering carbon, protecting biodiversity and filtering water. What happens if an un-conserved farm goes out of business? 

Look no further than the mini storage units recently plunked down in what had previously been a farm field up in the North East Quiet Corner.. Then think about that pattern repeated across the state: the ripples of box stores slapped onto any field that a farmer can’t afford to keep in production. Consider what this does to Connecticut's identity as a pastoral, beautiful place people wish to come visit and live. What it does to the rural community that the farm helped to sustain.

Think also of the environmental difference of a store versus a farm field. What happens to the rain that falls on that impermeable concrete parking pad and the soil underneath it. Consider the pollinators that used to find food for their journey in the hedgerows and the wildlife that came to the pond to drink. 

While on the surface this looks like an outcome of an economic crisis, it morphs into yet another small piece of kindling tossed onto the climate fire that grows hotter by the year. Or in the hopeful alternative: each small, organic farm that can remain viable protects a bucket of water for dousing climate chaos.

Second: farmers grow food, which, at the risk of stating the obvious, we all need to stay alive. Currently, you can go to a box store and buy food brought in from away. But we must not quickly forget the lessons we learned at the start of the pandemic about how utterly brittle massive food supply chains are. How it doesn’t take much to disrupt that food showing up stocked on our shelf. What will we eat when the next disruption happens if there is no local farmer who has been able to keep producing?

We cannot let short-term economic crises exacerbate longer-term climate chaos and food insecurity. Connecticut’s small and organic farmers feed us, help Connecticut thrive, and feed our chances of a habitable planet. Every way we as individuals, (if we are in the fortunate economic group who can) or we as a collective (through state policy and investment), can support organic, small farms in thriving is a step toward a livable future for us all

Source: This commentary is written by Grace Oedel, & Wayne G. Barber
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Roseland Cottage History

 Posted by Wayne G. Barber 

Starting in 1870, Henry C. Bowen, a businessman, hosted the country’s largest Fourth of July party in Woodstock, Conn., at his Roseland Cottage. The event featured many, many, many speeches; so many, that Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes tried to get out of going in 1877. Bowen didn’t drink, and President Ulysses S. Grant had to sneak a cocktail on the porch at the first party in 1870.

Our Largest Woodpecker in The Last Green Valley

 Posted by Wayne G. Barber and Photos by Wayne G. Barber 

Pileated Woodpecker,   Male and his lover in 2021

Crow Sized woodpecker with a black back and bright red crest. Long grey bill with a red moustache. Leading edge of wings is white, flashes brightly when flying.

Female: same as male, but has a black forehead and lacks the red mustache.

Juvenile: similar to the adults, only duller and browner overall.

Nest: cavity; malt and female excavate; 1 brood per year.

Eggs: 3-5 white, unmarked

 Incubation: 15-18 days, female and male will share duties. female has the day shift and the male has the night shift.

Non-migrator

Favorite food is carpenter ants.

Our backyard loudest drummer.

Spring is in the Air.......

 Posted by Wayne G. Barber 

“In the Thompson Hills, March is a woodpecker drumming in a new season. Red Wing Hawks and Mourning Doves pairing up. It’s the liquid trill of tree frogs and the plaintive notes of peepers heralding the return of spring. It’s wild geese winging their way northward over the North East Quiet Corner and blue jays chattering of new days to come. It’s the sun writing tomorrow’s message on the earth. It’s a time when winter lingers in the lap of spring. It’s gusty days and calm days, chill days and warm days. It’s April whispering from the ridgetops while March goes whistling down the Connecticut Green Valley. It's the maple nectar in the buds and crevices that the red squirrel and titmouse, chicadees and sap suckers, wood peckers or the smokey steamy oroma of a sugar shack on Rt..193. It’s song sparrows in the alders and robins strutting in the pasture. It’s a velvet-coated bumblebee hunting for a nest site and a honeybee buzzing for the first taste of pollen. March is the first daffodils making the whole world golden.”

As we worked outside a few days ago , re-conditioning our family car from road salt and sand I was reminded of the late spring snowfalls. Spring of the year is coming on fast in Thompson, Connecticut and while the sunshine is warm on my face the shadows under the trees make me wish I had a bigger coat on. Inspiration to post from Mr. John Harris

1,500 doses of Johnson & Johnson vaccine arrive at Day-Kimball Hospital

Posted by Wayne G. Barber 

PUTNAM, Conn. — The first doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine made their way to Connecticut Tuesday afternoon at Day Kimball Healthcare in Putnam. Day Kimball received 1500 doses, all of which are going to educators. Kyle Kramer, CEO of Day Kimball said “The enthusiasm of teachers getting the vaccination, the fact that they have that burden lifted off their shoulders, that feeling that they can be safely in classrooms, it’s such an amazing opportunity for us to be a part of history, and we’re so proud to be able to deliver the vaccine to our teachers”.

 

Rare Whales Spotted East of Boston; Protection Urged

 Posted by Wayne G. Barber

 Rare whales have been detected east of Boston, prompting the federal government to take steps to try to protect the animals.

The whales are North Atlantic right whales, which number only about 360 in the world. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution detected the presence of the whales 35 nautical miles east of Boston on Jan. 25.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has created a voluntary vessel speed restriction zone or “slow zone” in the area.

The agency is asking mariners to go around the area or travel through it at 10 knots or less.