Singing on the Square

Some old fashioned sounds downtown today, with a Mennonite choir singing (and some preaching) in the bandstand. Listen on this video. Your extra bonus is a slide show of the Square. The song..."There's a Fountain Free" by Mary B. Slade 1876. "Will you come to the fountain free?Will you come? ’tis for you and me;Thirsty soul hear the welcome call:’Tis a fountain opened for all."

another present from the crows

The crows that visited me last winter left another present besides the sand on my garage roof. (see previous post). Besides sand, they spew poison ivy seeds from the berries they eat, and they're sprouting now under every tree they roosted in, including the wild cherry tree in my yard and the oak tree on the west side of the Cottage.

time to mow

When the grass gets a little long in the west yard at the Cottage it has an old fashioned look. Prior to the 1870s the grass would have been mowed with a sythe about 4 times a year. I remember my grandfather using a sythe to cut grass (I was 10 or 11 years old) and I've tried many times but never got the hang of it. I remember him methodically stoning the blade from time to time, and when he swung the sythe the blade sliced through a narrow swath, neatly laying the grass down. I know my Dad had a sythe and used it to mow hillsides, but for some reason the image of my Grandfather mowing grass sticks in my memory.

mock orange

The mock orange along the lower edge of the yard has been blooming for well over a week but has almost no fragrance. Same over west of the cottage. Last year this old one beside the house bloomed about the time I moved in, and it's fragrance was very strong. It's just now starting to bloom and I hope it smells as good this year. Its blossoms seem more shapely and petals thicker.

crow beach

I was cleaning off the garage roof today and wondering why it had so much coarse sand on it. It was directly beneath the crows that roosted here last winter. I looked it up and crows eat large amounts of sand and gravel for digestion, and unlike many birds that retain it till it's worn out, they eject it constantly. So the sand is a feature of crow roosts.
They arived last October and I finally convinced them to move along sometime in December. They went down along the railroad tracks for the rest of the winter. I hope they liked it down there.
I also learned one of their favorite berries is poison ivy, so they spread the seeds of course.

living history portrait

Group portrait of the living history cast by Tim Mckee.

living history

Dr. Johannes Jones and Francis Ida Jones give a short discourse to visitors to the Jones family plot at Mansfield Cemetery May 24 as part of the living history event.

flower update; spiderwort

one more iris picture

I had to share this variety of iris that started blooming today.

catching up on flowers

The tree peony in my garden has been blooming for over a week. This is the peony you see in Chinese paintings...it has a woody stem and isn't cut back in the fall. The first iris bloomed yesterday and the first poppies opened up this morning.

columbine

This one single plant showed up in the little mint patch in my yard. I should have been clueless what it was, but something in my brain said "columbine", and that's what it apparently is.

wild geraniums

The wild geraniums are blooming along the north side of my house. The Vaneff daughter Antina who grew up in the house says her father brought them back from a trip to the old country (Macedonia). She says the girls in Macedonia would crush the leaves and rub them behind their ears for the perfume aroma.

historic wood windows

The National Trust tip sheet on Historic Wood Windows is a must read if you are thinking about window replacement, especially for windows made before the 1940s. Could you be reaping a net loss over the life span of the replacement window? How hard is it to repair and maintain your original windows? How does the combination of a restored single pane window and a storm window compare to a modern vinyl double pane window?

historic landscape presentation

I gave a presentation last Friday at the Historical Society membership meeting about the historic landscape study that was done in 1982/83 at Oak Hill. You can view it here.

lilacs

My lilacs are in bloom. These are original to the grounds of Oak Hill and will be used to restore the bushes that used to be around the cottage. The mock orange bushes are just barely beginning to get leaves.