Sunday Gambol

Sunday, with the day looking so fine, we dedicated largely to non-productivity. We headed into Minnesota to check out an auction, where we saw almost nothing of interest to us, then visited the towns of Hoka, Minnesota, and Lansing, Iowa, where in both cases the antique or old-junk shops were closed. Lorna had chances to romp in some new places, at least. Martha and I were also thinking that our gallivanting served to keep us out of the garden while the breeze and sun were doing some de-muckifying.

Later in the afternoon, then, we poked around yard and garden. The work I had put in last fall, creating a few more footpaths here and there, paid off, since we were able to wander around without sinking in. With the snow gone, I pulled the two mulched vines from their leaf-and-straw coverings -- the Concord, and the Canadice. In my mind I go back and forth: should I continue training the vines for future winter-mulching, or should I now risk them as uprights?

I may have written here before that I was a little foolish in wanting a Concord. Yet the idea of having that basic American grape exerted too strong a pull. We are slightly out of the Concord's proper zone. All the same, we know Concords have grown and flourished to the north of here. Last summer I also spoke with someone who has Concords growing vigorously on their property not far to the west of here -- yet I believe they are located a bit lower in elevation, so that they may be benefiting from the slight climate-altering effects of the Mississippi river and valley.

From my brother Kenneth I learned last year or the year before, by the way, that Canadice, the Finger Lake, is pronounced there not to rhyme with Canada geese, which is how I had been saying it. It rhymes instead with can-of-dice.

It is a gambling vine, then. So maybe I should prop it up vertically and see how it weathers next winter.

Cheers ...

Winter Mulching

Given our uncertainty as to the hardiness of our grape choices, at the end of our first season we pressed all of them down for mulching. Although the mulch was not much, and probably insufficient, the depth of snows that winter made it a simple matter to heap deep, white hills over them. The effect was picturesque, with each additional snowfall making the hills taller until late winter: two rows of rounded mounds running down the yard.

This winter only two vines are pressed down and mulched. One is the new Concord -- a silly choice for our region, but one I made all the same out of wanting to have an example of the basic American grape in our yard. I trained it at a low angle, last summer: and I will keep doing so, to give the trunk a permanent incline low to the ground, for continual winter mulching of this sort. (We talked with someone from the region who has healthy Concords growing in the normal manner. So the option may be open of risking an upright trunk.)

My round-about-and-thither thoughts lead me to wonder about devising covers for my various manual typewriters, for the summer -- because in those months other demands on my time result in their getting little use. Dust does little harm the fine old mechanisms -- but that little is enough, no doubt, to make it worth giving them more protection than I do.

Mulching them with old manuscripts ... now there's a thought ...

Cheers ...