Judith Browning

I plan to try that way of sprouting slips next year, in a sand pit with glass on top....your experience will be a good reminder to watch the temps as we get really hot days early while still having overnight frosts.

The person who gave us the tubers years ago started them that way but farther south.
I never think about it in time to have a spot ready...always 'next year'🙄
It's always informative to read your blog posts...glad you share them here!

the ladybugs have been in the gardens for awhile now, early like yours.
These are just the first I've noticed on the milkweed and they've definitely come for the aphids!
we're not seeing monarchs yet either but one at least must have snuck in and laid some eggs...

In the course of the years a close friendship will always reveal the shadow in the other as much as ourselves, to remain friends we must know the other and their difficulties and even their sins and encourage the best in them, not through critique but through addressing the better part of them, the leading creative edge of their incarnation, thus subtly discouraging what makes them smaller, less generous, less of themselves.

David Whyte
poet and philosopher

the monarch caterpillars are out of sight today but finally a single great spangled fritillary on the orange butterfly weed and a pipe vine enjoying the yellow butterfly weed...seems late but more likely I'm impatient!

photo with aphids on the common milkweed...upper right flowers (with fritillary on the lower left) have orange aphids ...have seen several lady bugs around also.

The reasons by which people back up their prejudices are mostly negligible — not reason at all at bottom, but just instinctive self-justifications;
but prejudice, rising as it does in emotion, has its roots in life and reality.

Jane Ellen Harrison
(September 9, 1850–April 15, 1928)

Nancy, I do remember that it spun really well done this way.
Besides not watching youtube any more, I don't have my spinning wheel or hand cards...but I do have a drop spindle and these bits of interesting fibers...so might try to make a comb.

Rainy day yesterday, cleaning the library/workroom/guest room for company I got distracted with projects I have not looked at in awhile...when the rain stops I'll likely stash it all again until next time🫤

and thanks for the helpful overview of the video...that brought the process back to me.

Each life is a mystery that is never finally available
to the mind's light or questions.
That we are here is a huge affirmation;
somehow life needed us and wanted us to be.
To sense and trust this primeval acceptance
can open a vast spring of trust within the heart.
It can free us into a natural courage
that casts out fear and opens up our lives
to become voyages of discovery,
creativity, and compassion.
No threshold need be a threat,
but rather an invitation and a promise.
Whatever comes, the great sacrament of life
will remain faithful to us, blessing us always
with visible signs of invisible grace.
We merely need to trust.

John O'Donohue
(1958 to 2008, Irish poet, author,
priest, and Hegelian philosopher)

Pat Cleb wrote:Your leaf damage looks like the same damage mine are experiencing. So, leaf miners are the culprit I suppose. Yes, the trees are young; planted last fall.  They are about 4' high.  They came on strong this spring and then the damage started to occur.  They don't have a lot of leaves to spare at the moment.  They have essentially attacked all the leaves to one degree or another. Leaves equal energy.  Fewer leaves, less energy....Thanks for your speedy replies BTW.....

I grow my peaches from my saved seed and lose them to borers periodically so I don't worry too much about other damage as I always have more trees to replace them but do try to limit curculio and I prune quite a lot for air flow and because I enjoy pruning.

If I were buying trees I'm sure my view would be different.

Beautiful!!!
What skill, both your knitting and dyeing!

I've only dyed with a lichen once but never mushrooms....I never realized their range of color.

good pictures of the damage.
I still think leaf miners and don't know a solution as I don't do anything about them myself.
For me the peach tree borer is the only thing that kills my trees and even then I do the minimum of organic treatments.

is this affecting all of the leaves on the young trees?

Here are some photos of one of my trees with just the beginning of leaf miner damage...it will get worse but never seems to  hurt the health of the tree....this tree is older though, maybe 6 or 7 years?

I hope someone can suggest a preventative that works for you.