For Christmas this year my talented brother made me this garden man. He quickly became Farmer Fred Dement. When the ground softened up enough I placed him in my circle flowerbed.
I built the circle flowerbed about 20 years ago and in the last few years I have let it go to weeds and cheat grass. My original plan was to put yellow flowers in it. Make it look like a sun. But the soil is not the best and I didn’t have time to do the work it required to keep things growing.
Looking a Farmer Fred has made me take a new look at those flowerbeds I worked so hard on. I could grow my own flowers from the packets of seeds I have bought. If I got the shears out I could cut down all the brush that has overgrown it’s space, and start with a new plan. I can put my greenhouse back together again, a bit later in the spring. Mother nature did her best to give it to the neighbors behind me
Thank goodness my fence and woodpile caught it.
For now the February winds are blowing and the days are warm and then cold then warm again. Perfect for the clean up projects that need to happen, Rocks are coming out from under bushes that have overgrown the space. I can’t wait to see if I still have any bulbs growing in the front. Maybe something to photograph, on a gray brown yard in March.
But for Now I can focus my camera on Farmer Fred
and his many faces created by weather and whimsy
Maybe he will star in his own line of notecards.
Farmer Fred is quite dapper in his scarf so that the chilly wind warm him up. He is very enthusiastic about gardening and getting those beds ready for the spring and getting the seeds for the spring flowers and vegetables going. Around here though we will have to wait until closer to June to plant those seeds as I have noticed if you plant too early then winter comes back and covers all of them with a blanket of snow. Mother Nature might have good intentions with the blanket but it doesn’t help when you have plants budding out. Moving here about 7 years ago the hardest thing to overcome was the late planting season. Growing up in Texas was used to planting things in April and having everything budding out by Memorial Day weekend. That’s ok I have adapted. However I do think that having access to the greenhouse we will be able to extend the season, or that is my hope. Hopefully this year we might even be able to do some plantings in the circle flower bed where Farmer Fred is at as he likes to see all the little flowers growing and budding around him.