I Saved a Life Today

I was mulching this afternoon, in a fine mist, thankful that we weren't getting a downpour of rain AGAIN. We've already set a new record for the most rainfall in a single month ever. (We're currently at just under 12" for the month.) There's still one more day left and it's supposed to...wait for it...RAIN. *sigh*

But anyway, as I was mulching, I noticed OhNo, one of our outside cats, a short distance away, under the Japanese maple tree, being quite attentive. A little too attentive. That could only mean one thing, and after last week's rabbit parts being strewn all over the yard, I didn't want a repeat performance.

I walked over and sure enough, there was a young bird - a cedar waxwing! - sitting by the tree trunk, terrified. It looked as if its wing was damaged because of the way it was holding it out, but I didn't want it to suffer further injury from a cat that was just...well...being a cat.

I scooped it up in my hands and was thankful to have gloves on because it tried to bite my finger, although I doubt it would have been too painful. I walked away, trying to decide where I could put it that it would be safe, yet not far away from its nest, wherever that might be.

The hanging container by the pool house seemed to be a good choice, offering protection from the weather and high enough that OhNo or one of the other cats couldn't get to it. I walked out to the Berry Barn and picked a raspberry and a blueberry and offered it up as a treat.

It really loved the raspberry but didn't quite know what to do with the blueberry. And then it fell out of the container and OhNo was right there. Oh no you don't! I once again gathered up the bird and decided I would put it in the only location where I knew the cats couldn't get to it.

The Berry Barn.

Wait. What???  Didn't we construct the Berry Barn to keep the birds from getting to the berries before we did?

Oh, the irony...

Arrowhead Alpines Bids Farewell to Winter

Don't you know, that after the winter that wasn't, it would decide to show up for the Winter Sucks Party that was held on Saturday at Arrowhead Alpines Nursery in Fowlerville, Michigan. One last hurrah...we hope.

This party is a yearly event, held traditionally by Brigitta Stewart and her husband, Bob, at their retail and mail order nursery known for its unusual perennials, alpines, trees and other wonderful things. I'd wanted to go last year, but something I can't recall just now prevented me from attending.

Sadly, Bob Stewart passed away in December, after waging a valiant fight with colon cancer. Brigitta will carry on the business, with help from family and others, and after my visit there, I'm both blown away by the scope of that task and relieved that such a treasure will continue.

My friend Joseph Tychonievich, who is a brilliant horticulturist in his own right, is one of the people who will help keep Arrowhead going. I can think of no better person for the job. He was on hand for the festivities and spent an inordinate amount of time showing me the cool and quirky plants that the nursery is known for.

Had any "normal" person been following us up and down the rows of benches in the greenhouses, they may have been bored - not from all the plants, but from the constant dialogue that basically went like this:

"Look at this!
"Wow. That is so cool!"

But of course, being a novice plant geek (novice compared to all the brilliance and talent I was surrounded by), I was in heaven. Many shared my exuberance, and I have to tell you, it's nice to be understood when you walk into a greenhouse and you breathe deeply and sigh loudly and everyone in the place knows exactly why you're doing it, because they did the exact same thing upon entering.

My friend Jan Bills, of Two Women and a Hoe™, was also there; in fact, we had made plans to meet and enjoy the party together. She got away from there with more of her wallet intact than I did, but it wasn't all about the plants. We got to see people we knew and we met many that we didn't. And the food! Never have I seen such a spread of homemade goodies as there was on the bench in the main building. Twenty-five feet of yum.

Every garden needs a cat, they say (and I agree), and Arrowhead has no shortage. There's Rosie, who is demanding of your attention and protests when you stop petting her, by grabbing your hand with her paws. ("Where do you think you're going? I didn't say you could stop yet!")

Rosie (and others) makes it necessary to keep trays over the tender seedlings.

And then there's this marmalade kitty that looks just like our Max. (I forget this one's name.) As you can see, they have assumed ownership of the place, which is to be expected whenever cats are in residence.

Easily, the most-sold plant of the day was the Narcissus cavanillesii, a species daffodil. I saw more people walking around with them in their hands (including me) than any other single thing. And it's easy to see why. These hoop petticoat daffodils could not have screamed spring any louder if they'd had voices.

Narcissus cavanillesii

Because so much is still dormant, not all the greenhouses were open, but those that were, were enough to keep me busy for several hours. I drooled over the Agave victoriae reginae v. compacta. These larger ones weren't for sale, but I picked up a pup. I'll likely be an old lady before mine looks like this, but see what I have to look forward to?

These Agave victoriae reginae v. compacta are stock, used to propagate
plants for sale.

Galanthus 'Beth Chatto' was in bloom. It's much larger than the 'Flore Pleno' growing my own garden, or the singles that blogger Kerri sent to me a few years ago. It wasn't for sale, but I enjoyed just getting to see it in flower, because I won't likely see it anywhere else in my lifetime.  You can't even buy it at the famous Beth Chatto Gardens in England, according to the catalog on their website. I read somewhere that a single bulb went for $100 and that was considered to be a bargain.

Galanthus plicatum 'Beth Chatto'

I can't tell you how refreshing it was to be within the confines of a working nursery again. Everywhere I looked, I found some unusual plant that made me pause for a closer look...

 Flower + foliage = sweet.
Ranunculus ficaria 'Cupreus'

Bukiniczia cabulica (formerly Aeoniopsis cabulica) is a biennial that forms
offsets, but will also self-seed if you let it.

This variegated rock cress (Arabis ferdinandi-coburgii 'Old Gold')
has snow white flowers.

Alpine plants are like most miniature things - just plain cute, like this
little tufted ice plant (Delosperma sphalmanthoides).

I currently have a yen for foliage that has reddish tints to it, even if it only
exhibits that coloring on new growth or when exposed to direct sun. This
is Gilia rubrum.

In one of the propagation houses, the Edgeworthia gardenii was blooming.

I couldn't go home without some hardy cyclamen. There were several in bloom,
but when I got home, I realized I hadn't take a single photo of the blooms.
I was just so enthralled with that foliage.

Draba hispanica is a bright and cheery little thing. Collected from limestone
crevices of the Sierra Nevada by Czech plant hunter, Holubec.

But those hepaticas... it's ALL about the bloom with those.  Okay, the
foliage is nice too, but those blooms are otherworldly.

Isn't this a lovely tapestry?

This is the time of year for Hellebores to shine. It's one of my very favorite perennials.

Helleborus orientalis 'Ballard Strain'

Helleborus orientalis 'Yellow Lady'

Helleborus cyclophyllus

Helleborus orientalis 'Golden Lotus'

Helleborus dumetorum atrorubens

I think this is H. orientalis 'Yellow Lady' again.

I failed to note the tag on this white double beauty. Perhaps Joseph or Brigitta
can help me out here. Absolutely lovely.

Cut blooms floating in bowls of water graced the tables.

Outside, the witch hazels were in full, glorious bloom. I really do need to get more of them.

Hamamelis vernalis

So, while winter does indeed suck at this point in the game, even when winter hasn't quite been itself, the party did anything but. It got a bunch of us out of our winter funk, into the greenhouses, where we got our plant geek on, and smiled and laughed about this, that, and t' other for several hours. Thank you, Arrowhead Alpines - Brigitta, and company.  Well done!

Joseph and Brigitta

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For more information and to peruse the extensive offerings of Arrowhead Alpines, visit their website here.  They open their retail store on Gregory Road in rural Fowlerville (MI) on April 15th.

The Owl and the Pussycat

We love our cats. We love our Great Horned Owl, too. But they don't love each other. Well, one of them does, but not for reasons we particularly are fond of. This was brought home to us this week.

A couple of weeks ago, Tinker Belle, the latest stray to find its way to Our Little Acre, and who is normally the sweetest, most loving kitty you'd ever meet, was ouchy. Downright grumpy and growly. As near as we could determine, she was hurting in her hind quarters, but she wouldn't really let us investigate things very well without protest.

She seemed to be eating okay and getting around all right, so we kept an eye on her until a couple of days later, she went missing. That wasn't like her, since she was always around, once she'd chosen this as her home.

When the second morning dawned with no Tinker Belle, the thought went through my mind that perhaps she was really ill and had wandered away to die, as cats have been known to do. But later that afternoon, there she was, right on time for the afternoon feeding. This time, she let us pick her up and she seemed to be back to her normal adorable self.

Not quite.

We found an inch-in-diameter open sore on her back, near the base of her tail, that was starting to scab over. Since we'd been meaning to take her in to find out if she'd been spayed by her previous owner, this seemed like a good time to get her to the vet. (She showed up here several months ago, with a collar, and in asking around, no one knew who she belonged to.)

He looked at her and said it looked like she'd probably had a puncture wound and that it had abscessed, burst, and was trying to heal. A round of antibiotics were in order and we left the office with an appointment for about ten days later to have her spayed.

I arrived to pick her up after the neutering yesterday and Vicky informed me that I'd be surprised when I saw Tinker Belle. While she was under the anesthetic, the doctor had shaved the wound area and cleaned it out. As he did so, he found many more puncture wounds. When Tinker Belle was brought out, my only reaction was, "Oh  my..."

Poor little baby. What on earth had she come into contact with?? I took her home and Romie and I discussed it. A dog? Perhaps, but with the number and nature of the wounds, that didn't really seem right. But there are any number of things out there that can be dangerous for little kitties.

This morning, I believe Romie put his finger on the cause of all those wounds. Our resident Great Horned Owl was hooting in the front oak tree and suddenly, it made sense. Talons. Talons could make wounds like Tinker Belle's.

Raptors are known to snatch cats for food. There are reports of cat collars being found in eagles' nests. (I couldn't find any substantiated reports of this in a quick Google search - only hearsay.) Owls are raptors too, and are apparently much more likely to grab cats than eagles, from what I could find out.

We'll never know for sure if it was our owl that did this to Tinker Belle, but given the fact that Hootie hangs out here on a regular basis and we've heard him quite a bit lately, it's a distinct possibility. We'll never know what happened to Jilly either - yet another of our cats that was not known to wander.

We're calling the feral cat Bandit. If I hadn't been inside the
house, taking this photo with my zoom through the front
door, I could never have gotten this photo.

Before any of you take us to task for not keeping all of our cats in (three of them never go outside), I'll give you the shortest answer possible. We have ten of them. All rescues, except for the one we've had the longest (Simon), whom we got from a cousin. Only two of our cats were chosen by us. The others chose us. Yet another stray (feral) has been hanging out here for many months, but only for a bite to eat. So we're feeding 11 cats at present.

We do what we can for them: neutering, vaccinations, flea medication, feeding, medical care when they need it. It's expensive. But we choose not to take them somewhere that we know they'll be euthanized in three days. The no-kill shelter is always full. Several of our cats spray. You wouldn't want cats spraying in your house either. So we provide a place for them to get out of the weather outside.

We do the best we can. But sometimes things happen. What we really wish is that people would take responsibility for their animals, because sometimes they end up being that of someone else.

Wordless Wednesday: First Snow

'Autumn Brilliance' fern is brilliant in winter, too.

Sedum seed heads catch some ice.

The miniature red rose bush is still stunning.

A little snow won't stop the spinach.

At least the white mulberry tree we've tried to kill is good for something.

Lily tries to get a drink from the iced over pond.

The maiden grass takes a bow to the cairn under the weight of snow and ice.

A warm blanket of snow for the garden

Ajania pacificum - always a late bloomer

Ice and duckweed frozen in the little pond

The chickens' first snow! (It bored them.)