About seasonality, manual sod cutters and tea.
Dear Reader,
There is such a thing as the perfect day for cutting sod.
I finally got a sod cutter the Saturday before last. A manual one – looks like an 1300’s plough with V-shaped handles, but instead of a share there’s a horizontal 12” blade attached to an equally wide roller. It works like a charm, if charms worked with a kick and a grunt.
It is a significant improvement over the fork and hand hoe method, having tripled my work speed. The sharp blade slices soil easily and evenly. It’s counter-balanced by the weight of the roller, so when you put your body weight into the handles and lever the blade into the soil, it has some power.
Over a few lengths, soil cakes up on the blade and roller, especially on a muddy day like the previous Thursday. That was a hot day, 15°C by midday, but Wednesday’s storm had left a layer of snow on the ground overnight, which only melted midmorning. This made the soil soggy and sticky. Mud is bulky, heavy and slowed me down. Regular scraping of the blade, roller and my boot soles helped, for which I used the indispensable ho-mi hand hoe. Progress was slow, but nonetheless quicker thanks to the sod cutter.
This brings me to last Monday, the day which made the sod cutter shine. It was sunny. Light clouds dotted a bright blue sky. There was a gentle breeze, cool but not chilly, perfect for the cardio/resistance hybrid workout that is cutting sod. The soil was easy to work; still moist yet drained enough to avoid sticking. It was like slicing into a fresh scone, slathering it with clotted cream and jam and eating it with fresh strawberries.
As early spring goes, the magical weather only lasted a few hours. By late afternoon the cold breeze turned into a chilly wind announcing cold rain, which came at nightfall as the freeze settled in. But by then, the tree circles were sod free and ready for mulch.
I mulched Thursday, a day more alike Monday evening. It was cold and the intermittent rain eventually turned to snow. It didn’t matter though, the sod was cut, the circles were prepped, and mulching gets your heart rate up, so the cold was negligeable. I sweat through my base layers and paused mid-way to get changed. Stop moving for a minute in sweaty clothes on a cold day and get yourself a cold. I also made a fresh hot tea for good measure. Ginger ginseng, a new combination for me. The ginger gives it heat, and the ginseng, energy. I sweeten it with a little honey. So far, I love it.
The cold, wet weather stayed through the end of the week. I layered up. Base and mid layers, fleece and winter coat, hat and hood. Friday morning, I pruned a red twig dogwood hedge, then went over to the Hollow Gardens to prune the giant Kerrias. They love it there, sending their runners prolifically through the Fonthill Kame’s glacially deposited sandy soil. Happy with a morning shade and strong afternoon sun. Soon, they’ll bloom like cascades of yellow fireworks.
As I was packing up for the day, a mist settled in like a cool English fog. The silhouettes of bare canopies beyond the Hazelnut fields, the forest’s edge, stood quietly against the pale grey sky. Under the tall lone evergreen pine was a shimmer of yellow. Even muted by the mist the yellow willow shone brightly, long thin branches draped from its trunk.
Winter in the Niagara is mostly white, brown, dark green, red and tan. Tan like mowed corn fields and dead grasses, and like willows. Once spring comes, willows are one of the first trees to produce a lush flush of silver green foliage. The transition is fleeting. This spring, someone mentioned an in-between. There is a moment, like the subtle gentle pause between an inhale and an exhale, before the foliage sprouts, when the thin tan willow branches turn bright lemon yellow.
Among the fanfare of first signs of spring, the winter aconites, snowdrops, crocuses and daffodils, this brightening of branches may be subtle, but a sure sign of things to come. Joyous cascades of yellow, like the soon-to-bloom Kerrias, like the forsythias that are flourishing in Grimsby as I’m writing these words.
Happy Spring,
Mélanie