It’s time for another edition of Friday Dance Party here on Acorns On Glen. It’s the time where we give thanks for making it through another week and for being alive and present here on Earth. How do we celebrate another week of living? We dance. So, are you alive this Friday? Are you and your family safe and sound? Take a few seconds now to be in the moment and realize what a great life you truly have. Did you give thanks for that?

Good, now let’s dance.

I’ve been set free several times this week. I just haven’t been in the groove much at all this week. It all started when I realized that last weekend was Labor Day weekend. For some reason, I thought it was this coming weekend. How do I totally miss a holiday weekend? When someone at work mentioned the long weekend ahead, I thought they were joking. Then I began to think about what I would have felt like if I had come into the office on the actual Labor Day Monday and no one would have been there. That would have really set me free.

At the beginning of this week, it hit me that Summer was drawing to a close. Another feeling of being set free. Where did Summer go? It seems like a couple of weeks ago that I went home for a visit over Memorial Day. Like a few days ago that we left to spend the Fourth of July in Las Vegas. Are you telling me that it is time to officially not wear white, harvest the remainder of the vegetables from the garden, winterize the swimming pool in the backyard and, the worst part, begin to locate all of the winter snow shovels so I can put them inside the garage in anticipation of our first snow storm. Am I really beginning to think about snow?

I also thought this week was close week. Close week is the time every 28 days that my company closes their books and sees how much money they made or didn’t make. When my company exceeds their profit forecast, it is chalked up to excellent execution. When they don’t make their profit forecast, it’s the accountants fault. Those damn accountants…they must have made ANOTHER mistake. Needless to say, close week is fairly stressful and I got all crazed and fired up for it a week too early. Close week is next week. Wasting all this energy on something that didn’t happen really set me free.

And now this weekend I’m being set free on the Jersey Shore. We’re off to Asbury Park…home of Bruce Springsteen and Jon Bon Jovi. Actually, I’d be just as happy to get a glimpse of Snooki or The Situation. I would set my family and friends free as they watch me take off my shirt, do a little dancing with some fist pumps and then leave with my new friends (drunk, of course) and go do some GTL. I can only hope!

So with a week’s worth of being set free, it’s time to give thanks for making it through. We did it again! So let’s dance this week and be set “Free” from Graffiti6, a London-formed duo that began in 2009. Let’s give thanks for all that we have and all that we’ve done to close out another week. By chance, if you see me on the MTV channel with my Jersey Shore friends, let me tell you in advance that I am so sorry for setting you free. I know the feeling!

September 3, 2012 by martko1964

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words – Bronze Bird

September 2, 2012 by martko1964

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words – Blooming Part II

August 31, 2012 by martko1964

Friday Dance Party – Where Have You Been?

Good, now let’s dance.

If my calculations are correct, I am just finishing up my eighth Summer here on Glen Road. It’s crazy how time flies! Over the course of all these years, I’ve done and seen so many things on our property. I’ve worked to landscape our huge yard (both in the front and in the back), built several raised beds to grow vegetables in, planted fruit trees and, as you well know, I’ve witnessed a lot of wildlife that either lives or visits our property. Some of these critter interactions are bad ones (woodchuck, I’m talking about you!), but the majority of them are really quite pleasant. The one that is absolutely my favorite is to watch and listen to all the different birds that fly through on a daily basis. I’ve seen cardinals, blue jays, woodpeckers, goldfinches and lots of other unique varieties. Some that I can’t even name. I think I’ve seen most of what Connecticut has to offer in the bird arena…..except one and it is my favorite. The bird that never seems to visit my yard is the smallest of them all and that is a hummingbird. I was never sure why I had never seen one. In fact, there were many times I would discuss this with my Dad (another bird lover). He didn’t know why either. He said I had sufficient red flowers everywhere, lots of Spring/Summer/Fall bloomers, enough forest for them to nest in and I even had a hummingbird feeder. It was a true mystery.

Well, I’m happy to tell all of you that on Sunday of last week, I was taking a little break from an intense day of gardening. It was what I call a quiet moment. One where you sit down (or sometimes lay down) right where you are gardening and you just lay still and listen to Nature. You listen to the wind, you watch the birds, you listen to the birds singing. Basically, you just sit there and appreciate life. Meditation for gardeners. As I laid there last Sunday, something wonderful happened. I saw two hummingbirds fly to a butterfly bush and begin to feed off the blooms. I couldn’t believe my eyes. So small and so quick. They eventually made a couple of sounds to each other and then sat on a low-hanging branch at the beginning of the woods. As they flew away, I slowly picked myself up off the ground and started to walk back to the house. On my way, I ran into another hummingbird enjoying my zinnia patch. This might sound weird to many of you, but my eyes filled with tears at the sight of this third bird. Yes, I had finally seen some beautiful hummingbirds in my garden, but more than that, I am sure I was witnessing some divine intervention or, better said, what I believe to be some Dad intervention all the way from Heaven.

So this week’s song is dedicated to the three hummingbirds that finally visited. It’s Rihanna’s big Summer hit “Where Have You Been”. It’s another week down and, for most of us, a three-day weekend. Happy Labor Day! Turn the speakers up and celebrate life and say goodbye to Summer. Hasn’t it gone by so quickly? Dance to celebrate that we’ve made it through another week and, better yet, another season. As well, know that I’ll be out in my yard this weekend asking those three hummingbirds…..”Where Have You Been?” Do you think they’ll answer?

August 30, 2012 by martko1964

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words – Buzz Off!

August 29, 2012 by martko1964

Back To School Haircuts

There is a beauty salon in town that is advertising back to school haircuts. It was these ads that made me decide to perform a few haircuts in my back yard. Namely, my two weeping cherry trees and my Rose of Sharon bushes. They had simply gotten out of control. They were too tall and too bushy. I decided since all of them had done their thing for the season, now was as good as time as any to give them a little makeover. The picture above is the final result. Two trees that fit better into their small garden spot and Rose of Sharon bushes in between the trees that are more orderly and compact. I also used this time to trim down my hydrangea plants, which had gotten too big over the last few years as well.

My haircutting team started with reducing the heighth of each tree. This meant literally cutting the top four feet off of any branch that grew straight up towards the sun. Each tree had about 8 – 10 vertical branches that needed cutting. After taking care of the height problem, each tree looked much shorter and fit better into their small garden spot in the back yard. Liking what I saw, I then applied the same cutting plan to the Rose of Sharon bushes and made them much shorter as well.

Making the trees appear less bushy was a matter of finding the ends of the branches that hung out the furthest and snipping them off close to where they connected to the main trunk. My guess is that snipping branch by branch took about 2 feet out of the width of the trees. The Rose of Sharon didn’t need much pruning to reduce their width. In this cluster of bushes, only about three or four branches were trimmed. The last step with the trees was to make sure all of the hanging (weeping) branches were cut so they had a proper distance between them and the ground. After making sure each branch was hanging at the same level as all of the rest of the branches, it was time to tidy up the hydrangea.

With the hydrangea, it was important for me to make sure none of the branches were laying on the ground or, as some of the branches had done, were hanging over the stone wall. I also wanted to make sure there was ample room between them and the hosta plant that grows between my two clusters of hydrangea. Based on my research, these mophead hydrangea (H. macrophylla) need to be trimmed and cut after they have bloomed, but before they have set their buds for next year in the tips of year-old wood. I felt that now was the perfect trimming time and I made sure to be a little aggressive and really clean them up.

I may have gone a little overboard in trimming up my mopheads, but I was so happy to see my giant leaf hosta take center stage between both clusters of hydrangea. I had forgotten how beautiful the hosta was because the vast majority of it has been hidden behind hydrangea stems for quite a few years. After I was done trimming the hydrangea, I was quite happy with the results. I think I trimmed them at the right time, there were no stems or leaves on the ground or over the side of the stone wall and there was adequate space between them and other plants. All in all, mission accomplished. I gave what I think were some pretty good haircuts and I didn’t even need to go to beauty school.

August 28, 2012 by martko1964

It’s Officially Acorn Season

It’s always exciting for us here at Glen Road to see our first acorns of the season. It reminds us that Fall is on its way, as well as reminds us about how our blog got its name “Acorns On Glen”. You see, behind our house on Glen Road, there are a number of oak trees that grow acorns during the Spring and Summer. At a certain point, the oaks, after getting permission from Mother Nature, decide to remind us about the upcoming Fall season by dropping hundreds of acorns on top of our roof for at least two to three weeks. Sometimes so many fall at one time that it sounds like bullets spraying the top of our house from some imaginary gun in the back yard. It has become a yearly ritual in our home and we laugh every time we hear the noise or have someone new in the house who asks us, “What was that?”. The falling acorns also signal a period of increased barking from our Yorkie, JoJo. She is always on the lookout for intruders (i.e., squirrels, chipmunks or the UPS delivery man) and hearing the acorns falling on the roof always brings about several barking episodes a day. Yes, it does get a little annoying with her continual barking, but we realize she is just trying to keep us safe and sound.

When we started “Acorns On Glen” about a year and a half ago, I wrote that I wanted it to be about new beginnings and being able to better realize what was real and good in my life. At the time I started writing my first blog post, I was pretty down about life and was only seeing and thinking about what’s wrong in it versus what was right. The blog was a new beginning to me and I hoped it would become a vessel where I could document gratitude for all of the great things that were happening in my life. I wanted the blog to be a chronicle about a great life….my great life. I’m glad to say that it has truly worked and seeing the first acorns of the season reminds me of new beginnings and of just how far I’ve come in appreciating this journey called life!

August 27, 2012 by martko1964

I’m Not Proud Of What I Wear In The Garden

I don’t really think about what I’m wearing when I’m in my garden. I want to be in clothes that are comfortable, but other than that, I don’t really care what I look like nor do I have any other requirements. My clothes don’t need to match (and usually they don’t), they don’t need to be designer (I mean, I’m rolling around in dirt) and the more holes in the cloth, the better (I think of the holes as added air conditioning). There are a few things I always wear or have with me–my plastic gardening clogs, my wide-brim hat with its SPF of 50, light-weight gardening gloves and I always have my foam cushion handy for my knees when I’m down on all fours digging or planting.

Yesterday was no exception. I had on my wide-brim hat, a purple t-shirt, my blue gardening gloves, charcoal sweat pant cutoffs (to accentuate my pale white legs), dress socks and my gardening clogs. What was different was that I had a friend stop by who walked into the back yard and surprised me. He looked at me with a horrified, yet amused, look on his face and told me that I was some gardener. I said thank you as I took off my hat and ran my hand through my thick and sweaty hair that was sticking four inches up into the air. You know the look….the one that looked like you curled your hair with dynamite sticks. This was not one of my more handsomer days.

After my friend left, I got to thinking that most gardening blogs that I read never really show the actual gardener in all of his or her glory, unless the picture is a staged one taken by a photographer. You don’t really see what the gardener looks like or what the gardener is wearing in the many posts that are out there from our vast gardening community. Do we not show ourselves very much because, like me, we tend to look a little on the crazy side? Or perhaps, unlike me, most gardeners look great and wear nice polo shirts, jeans and comb their hair before spending the day out in the garden? So my fellow gardeners, it is time to confess…..what do you look like when you have a long day of gardening ahead of you?