It's been Mulberry Madness for the past few weeks, my mulberry tree was bursting with fruit, the birds and squirrels have been feasting on them, but still I've gotten all I can use mostly just by picking the fallen berries off the ground. Have frozen two quarts, but I have plenty of berries of various kinds in the freezer from last year, so I began just enjoying the mulberries in a bowl with evaporated milk. Also made and froze two pints of mulberry jam, and even fed some berries to my chickens, as a treat.

My bosc pear tree is a different story. It's been a lemon all of its 38 years, rarely bearing more than about five or ten percent of the blooms it should have. But this spring it was covered with flowers that were soon pollinated to produce hundreds of tiny pears. I eyed these with joy, imagining a plentiful autumn harvest for the first time in many years. Then, one afternoon when I hadn't looked in on my baby pears for several days, I visited the tree to find them virtually all gone. Not littering the ground, just missing, or shriveled up, eaten from within, apparently, by fungal, microbial or larval entities unknown. Perhaps a couple of dozen remain, whether any of these will grow and ripen to maturity, who knows. The tree's foliage looks fine.

The top half of my peach tree died off late last summer, and I cut it away when I had the chain saw out. The remainder was loaded with fruit, and I've had to thin them earlier in the season than usual. This tree has been a good producer, and so, in anticipation of its demise, I bought another three-foot sapling of the same variety (“contender”) from the same nursery (Gurney's), and it's doing fine.

Have already put in the freezer six pounds of wild golden oyster mushrooms, just from the initial harvest. I learned about these only last summer, and sautéed and froze enough to obviate purchase of any supermarket mushrooms for the past 12 months.

What a poor excuse for winter we had! I recorded only two morning readings in the single numbers (with +4° being the coldest of the whole season), which may have set a record hereabouts. Had so much leftover firewood that I only used my chain saw for about six hours of work, and have more than enough wood to heat my house for all of next winter. On the last weekend of March, with help from my nephew, the broken piece of fascia below the roof edge on the south side of my Shawangunk Mountain cabin finally got replaced. Early spring was cloudy and rainy, but I managed to squeeze in the manuring, spading and raking of my vegetable garden during a two-day window (April 8-9) when the ground was just barely, almost, arguably, dry enough to work.

Had to replace my six-foot stepladder, from my father's time I believe, when I discovered a serious crack in one of the rear legs. Bought a new one from Lowe's for $90, but hacksawed off the rear portion of the old one so it can still be of some service by leaning it against a tree or a wall of the house. My lawnmower also needed replacing. This was a more complicated matter, since apparently, the last new push-mower on the market is one made in China, and I was worried about replacement parts and service. A friend convinced me it was long since time to upgrade to a self-propelled (still walk-behind) model. Lowe's had a Toro advertised for $399 that looked to be similar to the $499 Toro available from a number of local stores. But the model number was different, and I was informed the one for sale by Lowe's is licensed by Toro but manufactured in Mexico, with some plastic parts and plenty of problems. Bought the more expensive one, from a reputable local place that I've relied on for years both for lawnmower and chainsaw repair. Surprisingly, the self-propulsion doesn't really save time, but it definitely saves muscle energy, which will be handy when it becomes necessary to mow the lawn in hot, humid weather.

My flower beds look spectacular, because I've now got 'em protected from the depredations of our hoofed and antlered friends: Last summer, I was given a full roll of somewhat rusty welded wire fencing with six-inch square spaces, a roll that had reportedly lain abandoned in some woods for several years or more. Used a wire cutter to fashion deer guards for six of my most vulnerable flower beds. Two of the guards form roughly circular, four-foot fences (stabilized by two or three small steel stakes hammered into the ground) and are each in two pieces, to facilitate setting in place and removal. The others, for smaller, more linear beds, are elongated and semi-circular, forming linear domes that can be lifted up and then set aside and nested, one inside the other. I remove all the guards before mowing the lawn, and some of them on some days, just to enjoy the flowers uncaged. But all of the guards must be back in place before dusk to protect against the marauders.

Using these cages has enabled me to enjoy some varieties of flowers I hadn't grown for decades (except a few in spots inside the seven-foot fence that surrounds my vegetable garden): Portulaca, zinnia, cosmos, hollyhocks and purple loosestrife, also known locally as rebelweed or killweed.

My heartfelt apologies to the deer who were accustomed to frequenting my lawn at night to dine on my beds of cultivated flowers. But, since they've apparently gotten bored of the native grasses and other foliage that are their natural diet, perhaps they can learn to cultivate a taste for the invasive Japanese stiltgrass and black swallow-wort (a.k.a. “dog trip-wires”), or, since they enjoy eating flowers so much, the beautiful and fragrant multiflora rose bushes that have invaded so much space in younger woods and overgrown meadows. The thorns may take a little getting used to, deeries, but, as they say, “no pain, no gain,” and a touch of adversity can help build character.