Daily Notes- May 9th

A new nine patch made by dropping sticks on the deck.  Letting them fall where they want. and then adjusting them just a bit...because I am a nitpicking Virgo.  I even like the added lines from the deck boards.  The center square is a segment of birch bark I found on the path--turned inside out.  Now I am considering how to eco print this bark onto cloth.

We had a frost warning overnight.  34.  But out here where I live-- it's colder.  So, daughter husband and I wrapped the Peach trees in thin white "seed cloth" and used clothespins to hold the cloth.  We had already pounded in stakes and stapled chicken wire to the the stakes.. Up high--the height of deer mouths and teeth.  Protection out here in the wilderness of Maine.  Few houses.  Many animals.

Last Spring I lost all the flower buds.  So, no peaches.  This year--even though my neighbor across the street thinks my "protections" are eye sores that bring down property values--I am going to do my best to have some peaches.  We did not cover the plum tree but those fruit buds are not as far along as yet.  No plums last year either.

Maine is not an easy place to garden.  In a residential neighborhood full of houses--well, it would be warmer but I wouldn't be happier.  I like being out here--living on the edges.  Nothing in the ground until late May and early June.  Too cold.  I am still wearing corduroy pants, wool socks, and a wool sweater.

My daughter found a Chico's print cotton shirt at the dump yesterday.  India.  Cotton.  Well worn and "tender" as Jude refers to it.  A very dark golden color with little primitive figures of men on it.  For Mother's Day.  The girl knows what I like.  The dump is a far better source of old things than Goodwill.  We still hope to find an old copper pot.  For eco printing.  I can collect enough sticks from the daily walks in the woods to make a nice fire.

Synchronicity.  I had been sad that I hadn't done more to help that old man find his dementia wife when she wandered off from Goodwill last week.  I worried she hadn't been found.  Daughter told me, yesterday, that same woman had wandered onto her work site.  Next door neighbor of someone her employer knows.  So employer drove the woman back home. I was near tears knowing the woman had gotten back home. Safely. Both times.  From Goodwill and from the worksite.