What fun it was to read all your comments yesterday! Nancy Drew clearly sparks a lot of memories for all of us. Thinking about it led me to remember that I borrowed my Nancy Drew books from the library and from friends. I think I might have owned one or two, but I’m not even sure about that. We didn’t have much money and receiving a new book was a rare treat. As Vicki said, those were the days where we routinely went to the library or, in my case, bookmobile, and checked out lots of books. There was really no other option for me and it wasn’t at all a sacrifice. I had a few new books in my possession, but nearly everything I read as a child came to me via the library: the Little House Books, Nancy Drew, Beverly Cleary books (Fifteen was a favorite) – all the favorites of my childhood and pre-teen years.
If you didn’t get a chance to read the comments, you might enjoy going back to yesterday’s post. It sparked a conversation about books, Walt Disney and the Mickey Mouse Club, and more. I was happily steeped in nostalgia.
Ahem. I worked outside yesterday.
It’s been months since I could say that (I’m not counting shoveling snow) and it felt so good. My body will need to adjust to raking and bending over repeatedly, but it will. It was sunny and in the sixties and I started the massive clean up that is necessary every spring. Picking up fallen branches. Cleaning out garden beds.
I leave autumn’s fallen leaves on my garden beds for the winter. The leaves provide protection for the plants and serve as mulch. I don’t cut back plants because I want the birds to have shelter and seeds over the course of the winter. So once spring finally arrives, I rake all the old leaves out of the beds, and start to cut back the plants. I worked on the planter outside the kitchen door and two of the garden beds. As you can see, things are still rather stark around here, but I see buds on the lilac bush, baby sedums, and my day lilies are coming up:
The rhythm of the garden’s renewal is the same every year. Everything happens in a certain order and that brings a sort of comfort. Ah yes, there are the day lilies! There are the sedum! There are the beginnings of the catmint!
I have yet to really look at the rose bushes. The winter of 2013-14 caused some damage to them. The winter of 2014-15 was worse, so I’m preparing myself for what I might see. But as to the rest of my plants, having a perennial garden ensures that most of the plants are long established and less likely to be damaged. Fingers crossed.
I made sure I was finished by 2:30 so that I could plop myself in front of the television to watch the Red Sox in their opening game. They won. Huzzah!
By the way, I badly wanted Wisconsin to win the NCAA tournament last night. I was raised in Michigan with two Big Ten universities and so it follows that I cheered for the Big Ten university in this game. It was so close! I know some of you are Duke fans and I’m happy for you. But Duke has won this particular tournament a lot. I would have liked to see the underdog triumph.
Ah well.
New post up on Just Let Me Finish This Page.
Happy Tuesday.
If my Spartans couldn’t win, the other big ten team was my 2nd choice. Tigers won too – happy day!
Glad the Tigers won, Vicki!
I was given several older Nancy Drew books still in their jackets many years ago and I donated them. Wish I had them now. I’m about to go out doors and get some spring clean up work done myself. I’ve raked a few leaves already but you sure can’t tell it. I have to take breaks often because of my bad ankle but I’m glad to be able to do it. No kids for me today so I will be able to work out there to my heart’s content.
Have fun, Janie. I’m sure it will be satisfying to tackle the yard.
Giants won too! And the A’s. Both are my local teams, though the Giants edge out as my favorite. All the books of my youth…I should re-read them. My favorites were A Wrinkle in Time, Little Women, and Emma. Hope your period of intense snow and cold is over for the season and you can relish in the renewed growth of your gardens.
It’s rainy today and will be for the next few days. But no snow, Wendy!
On, Wisconsin!! We are so proud of them, regardless of the outcome last night. We have many UW alums in our family including our daughter and our daughter-in-law. We feel they represented the University and the state well in all of their appearances. And, there is always next year. (Being raised in Chicago, and a Cubs fan, I sadly say that a lot.)
So glad you were able to get outside to work in the yard. Everything is budding here. We finally got some rain last night, so when the blinds were opened this morning, the grass is looking really beautifully green!! Spring never ceases to amaze me.
They played really well. Yay, Wisconsin!
Your yard looks a lot different than the view a few weeks ago! We had about 2 inches of snow yesterday but it’s already melted. I love seeing the leaves unfurl from the trees in the spring. Tiny little buds and then the next day…leaves! It always amazes me. I was rooting for the Spokane team…Gonzaga as they are our local team. Unfortunately, they only made it to the Elite Eight. The girls team made it to Sweet Sixteen so all in all they didn’t do too bad as a school.
Blessings,
Betsy
They did well, Betsy. It’s raining here today. Hopefully, NO MORE SNOW!
I’m glad to see that you leave your garden beds with leaves and don’t cut back the plants until spring. As a “new” gardener, I wondered if I was doing it wrong, as all my neighbors clean out their beds and cut back everything. You have reaffirmed my suspicion that leaving it all au natural in the fall is a good thing!!
I think it’s the best thing to do, Chy. I’d rather have the beds look a little messy and full of leaves than take away some shelter and food from our feathered friends.
I need to go back and check out the comments from yesterday! I took a look at my Nancy Drew books and I’m so glad I still have them! Nice to see signs of Spring in you area!
hugs,
Linda
You are lucky indeed to still have those Nancy Drews!
We are doing Spring clean up around here, too. We have potted a few things, but we still have them under cover. We will probably place them this weekend because I don’t see any more below freezing temps in our forecast. Keeping our fingers crossed. We have five roses that have to be replaced.
We are long time Duke fans, and we are so proud of this young team. Duke has won past championships, but it is usually a first and only for any one team. Wisconsin was awesome, and we thought it was a great game. We were on the edge of our seats after watching Wisconsin’s victory over Kentucky.
I’m keeping my pots of impatiens that I overwintered here in the house for at least another week, Beverly. It still gets cold around here and after the winter we had I’m a bit leery!
I started some branch pickup yesterday as well. Just on the lawn, not in the woods. I then noticed a tick on my thigh that evening!!!! You get one nice day, and so it begins. Have to be ever vigilant.
Those darned ticks. I had to have Don check me for them after working outside. We do that all the time – check each other for ticks.
OMG, see, a novice/out-of-towner like me wouldn’t even know what a tick looks like. Dangerous, no (?), with that whole Lyme disease thing? Yikes. I had no idea when looking at your photos, seeing the cottage, etc. that ticks would even be an issue. Silly me. Indeed be careful!!
ON WISCONSIN!! We’ll be back! Our team was so much fun to watch this year…and they kept pursuing their goals. They gave us a thrilling 3 weeks, and they did represent our university, and our state very well…we are all so proud of them! Glad you were finally able to get into the yard…I don’t do any clean-up in the fall either, I think it helps protect the flowers over the winter. It’s cold here again, and they’re calling for thunderstorms! ;)
Cold and rainy here, Donnamae. And the same for tomorrow. And Thursday. I feel like a broken record.
Wow, what a difference a week or two makes in a garden! I was out in mine about three weeks ago and uncovered the herbs and enjoyed the cherry blossoms teeming with honeybees. My roses have leaves and will be blooming soon. I will get back out again once my allergies calm back down. Pines are blooming in North Mississippi right now and everything is covered in a film of yellow-green pollen! I need to get my hummingbird feeders up because they have arrived with the blooming of the azaleas. Hopefully I will soon be out and about to see what else has sprouted.
Nancy Drew books were great, but I read more of the Hardy Boys growing up with 6 brothers! I re-read them with my son and daughters and I will again with my dear grands. It is wonderful to share my love of books with a new generation of loves!
Wishing you and Don a joyous Spring!
Susan
You’re so much further along than we are up here in the northeast!
I never read the Hardy Boys, but I should have!
Rain here today and the next couple of days I guess..but at least the rain is bringing the green back..I don’t clean up and trim until Spring also Claudia..
Yes, I see the green coming back here, as well. But it’s cold and damp!
Clean up is such a big job, Claudia. It is never really done either…lol
I loved all the Nancy Drew series. I read them all a couple of times, I think. They fascinated me. The other series I liked was Cherry Ames books about a nurse.
Thanks for cheering on WI. We were hoping for a win-it WAS close. I think it is a feather in their cap for the Badgers to get that far (by beating KY).
Have a great night- xo Diana
It sure was, Diana. Such a close game! They should be very proud of their work as a team.
I dream of being a good gardener but in actuality I’m not too successful; it’s my husband who has the green thumb and who puts in the time and effort, gosh, what we have is nothing like what you face after months of snow, though. Isn’t it interesting how you know to keep the garden beds covered in leaves for protection and to leave a lot of branches for bird shelters. I wouldn’t know to think of anything like that; I’d be a disaster in snow-land unless I had somebody teaching and guiding me along the way, having had no exposure to winter white. Wow, two acres is a lot of clean-up for you, definitely to go into easily and work on incrementally to save your back.
But, oh, I must share my own ‘nature’ experience of today: Here in SoCal, we got a smattering of rain!! It was glorious. It rained pretty hard for about half an hour, sprinkles over other hours. When my husband got home from work, he measured what rain we caught in various barrels and tubs…100 gallons!!! When water was never a worry and we weren’t in drought conditions (other years further back in time), this was water that just would have otherwise been roof run-off into sidewalk gutters and the driveway for the most part, which we’ve now remedied so that if miraculously caught by surprise, the downspouts will always now feed the yard. However, for this mini-storm, we were well-prepared so that no water would be lost and all my husband’s hard work paid off with his assortment of catch basins/barrels. We’re super-excited about having a ‘free’ 100 gallons of good, clean rainwater for the veggie/herb planters and other landscape. It was so, so, SO nice to have a cooler day and a colder night. It’s probably going to be so gorgeous out tomorrow, before it gets hot and dry again, with a ‘clean’ world out there instead of our normal ‘dust-all-over-everything’ and muted-color surroundings. It’s all very uplifting!!
One more thing…Claudia, you sparked thoughts of Beverly Cleary in me; I looked her up on the web. This weekend, she’ll turn age 99; she’s still with us!
So happy to hear you had rain, Vicki! That must have felt like a miracle.
Yay for Beverly Cleary – goodness, she’s still with us! What great news!
I sure do hope you are over the cold weather. You asked about the revised Nancy Drew books. In the late 50’s or early 60’s, the Powers-That-Be decided the language in the Drew books were too archaic for modern day readers. So they updated, condensed, or rewrote some books. Sometimes even the plots were totally changed. I have both versions of some of these books. I much prefer the books the way they were originally written. Imagine my surprise when my granddaughters also preferred the originals! Yes, I sometimes have to explain a word’s meaning, but I really think that has helped their vocabularies (electric torch instead of flashlight, for example) to expand. It also teaches them something about America’s past. I also loved Trixie Belden mysteries and was able to find quite a few that had been reprinted at Barnes and Noble several years ago. I am also sharing those with my three granddaughters. I’ m going to have to start a collection of Hardy Boys mysteries because I have one grandson . Have a great week!
Thank you so much for explaining, Dottie. I, too, love the original words and language. It evokes the period, doesn’t it? So lovely that your granddaughters appreciate it, as well.