A string of sunny days the first week in February had me itching to start working in my gardens. But with only two days with temperatures above freezing and everything still covered in snow, there was little gardening work to be done. I sat on the back porch with my chin in my hand, pondering what I could do to relieve my gardening itch. Then it hit me – though it was still winter outside and spring seemed far away, I could have it come early inside the house.

The pussy-willow in the ravine already had nice, big fat buds – perfect for bringing indoors to force. Pussy-willows (or any Salix species) and forsythia are natural choices for forcing; they will bloom indoors so easily it’s nearly foolproof. The only effort involved is cutting branches after they’ve gone through a sufficient period of dormancy – generally anytime after January is acceptable – and putting them in a vase of water. They’ll not only bloom, but often grow roots as well. With a little more effort though, the branches of nearly any dormant deciduous tree or shrub can be forced indoors.

Species such as magnolia, flowering quince, American spice bush, flowering dogwood, redbud, crabapple, vernal witch hazel, and lilac are just a handful of flowering trees and shrubs that make good candidates for early indoor blooming. But don’t discount non-flowering species either. Birch and willow provide catkins, and their slender branches make a graceful arrangement. Shrubs with variegated leaves have interest, as do those with dark leaves such as sand cherry or purple-leafed plum. Even those that just leaf out a bright green will brighten any room during the late days of winter.

I’ve been tempted to force branches from my fothergilla; I like the fluffy white, early flowers that Keith calls “bunny tails.” But the shrub is slow growing, and cutting branches to force would have ruined its structure aesthetically. It’s important when cutting branches for forcing not to go hog wild. Cuttings suitable for forcing should be at least a foot long, and consideration should be taken if removal of such branches would disfigure the tree or shrub’s overall appearance.

When making your selection, choose branches with well-developed plump buds. The plumper the bud, the better chance of success you’ll have in forcing it to bloom. Plants closer to their normal bloom or leafing out period outdoors will be quicker and easier to force indoors. The earliest flowering shrubs, such as forsythia, American spice bush, and quince, will generally only take one to three weeks to bloom. Later blooming species should be forced closer to their natural bloom – if brought indoors too early, the buds may dry out and wither before having a chance to open.

The trick to successful forcing is providing constant, sufficient moisture and humidity. If the buds become dry, you’ll end up with nothing but a vase full of dead branches. Your inside environment should mimic that of early spring outdoors. Keeping your cuttings out of direct sunlight and away from heating vents will minimize the chance that they become desiccated. Temperatures ranging from the low to mid-sixties are best.

There are different methods for forcing branches. The simplest method is to just put them in a vase of water – this is recommended for only the most easily forced species such as forsythia and willows. Other methods are more complex and involve completely submerging the branches in water for 24 hours, mashing the stems with a hammer, then wrapping the length of the branch in plastic wrap for another 24 hours to produce humidity before placing the stems in water. That may seem like a lot of effort to go through to have blooms just a few weeks earlier than nature would normally produce them; it seems so to me anyway.

But there is an easier method that works well on most species. Once you've chosen your branches and placed them in a vase, just make sure to change the water every two or three days, making a fresh cut on the bottom of the stems as you do so. Always use well-maintained pruners or a sharp knife to get a clean cut – those made with dull blades can inhibit the branch’s ability to take up water. Keeping the buds moist with daily misting helps to prevent drying. The forcing process can take from one to six weeks depending on the species and how close it is to its natural bloom period.

The pussy-willows opened in a little under two weeks. I added some yellow-twig dogwood branches, boxwood, and variegated euonymus to the bouquet for color-contrast and interest. It’s not the most flowery of displays; the flowers of viburnum, chokeberry, and lilac branches will come later. But with a fresh layer of new snow outside, it’s nice to see a bit of springtime from my gardens inside.

I noticed this morning that the yellow-twig dogwood branches have started to break bud! It’s a pleasant surprise – though I brought them in at the same time as the pussy-willows, I really didn’t expect it to bloom, thinking it was it too early. The open buds reveal two tiny leaves on either side of a lime-green composite flower. The flowers will change to creamy white about the same time the pussy-willow catkins turn fuzzy yellow with pollen. Maybe in the meantime, I’ll start forcing forsythia to add in the vase too, for a whole new look. Experimenting is half the fun.

I just read a pest update article in The Michigan Landscape, a horticultural trade magazine, which states that the Michigan Department of Agriculture (MDA) revised its Emerald Ash Borer quarantine to consolidate all 68 counties of the Lower Peninsula into one quarantine level effective immediately. The article is just another reminder of a nearly decade long battle we’ve been fighting in this state – a battle which we’ve seemingly lost.

If you think this might be a localized issue restricted only to Michigan, or have never heard of Emerald Ash Borer, I urge you to please read further.

Emerald Ash Borer (EAB) is an insect native to Asia which was first discovered in the United States in the Detroit area in 2002. It’s thought this exotic pest gained entry into the country by hitching a ride on wood packing crates loaded on cargo ships and planes. Despite strict regulations and quarantines, the pest has spread to Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Maryland, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec, and most recently was discovered last summer in Wisconsin, Missouri, and Virginia.

The death toll this pest has dealt our native ash species is staggering, (please note that mountain ash is not affected; it is a completely different genus). Since its discovery here less than ten years ago, EAB has killed or infested approximately 35 million ash trees in Michigan’s Lower Peninsula alone, and caused the death of 25 million more in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and other affected states. The effects of it spreading further will be an unfathomable amount of lost trees and money. Emerald Ash Borer has already cost government agencies, municipalities, property owners, nursery operators, and forest industries tens of millions of dollars.

The fatal damage is caused by the larva, which feeds under the bark of the ash trees, effectively girdling the tree, making it unable to take up water and nutrients. The trees die in three to four years. Because the larva feed unseen, damage usually remains undetected until the tree starts showing signs of stress, occurring first in the crown of the tree as it becomes deprived of nutrients.

Scientists at Michigan State University determined through tree core analysis that EAB may have been present in southeast Michigan over half a decade before it was found. It’s possible its range increased undetected for years. But this is not a fast moving insect – the natural dispersal range of EAB is only ½ to 2 miles annually. Because federal quarantine prohibited the sale or movement of nursery stock from infested areas since its discovery, it’s thought unlikely that Emerald Ash Borer will spread so quickly, nor will it spread further through the nursery trade.

So how did EAB continue to spread to nine states, and two Canadian provinces? Its range is greatly increased, and its spread accelerated when it catches a free ride from humans … and firewood is one of its favored modes of transportation.

Consider the following scenario: You help your cousin across state fall trees on his property; as a gesture of thanks, he offers you a cord of wood for your fireplace which you take home to your property. Meanwhile, hoping to make a little extra money, he places a sign out by the road, offering firewood for sale. A family from out-of-state camping in the area, purchases some, and not burning it all ‘round the campfire, takes the remainder home with them for use in their own fireplace. A new pest has just been introduced into previously non-infested areas. Sound like an alarmist’s far-fetched nightmare? Not so.

Ken Rausher, MDA’s Pesticide and Plant Pest Management Division Director confirms the transportation of firewood as a major issue in the spread of the Emerald Ash Borer, stating, “Hardwood firewood is (still) prohibited from leaving the Lower Peninsula as it is the leading cause of spreading EAB and other invasives.”

Parks and Recreation Chief for the Michigan DNR, Ron Olson says, “Campers and hunters are reminded to purchase firewood locally when visiting state parks, recreation areas and state forest campgrounds. Bringing ash firewood into state forests, state parks, recreation areas and state forest campgrounds violates state land use rules.”

Interstate and intrastate ash product movement, to include firewood, has been prohibited for years in Michigan; violators face fines of up to $250, 000 and jail sentences up to five years. All other states infected with EAB have instituted similar restrictions prohibiting the movement of all hardwood firewood, ash nursery stock, green lumber, and other material living, dead, cut, or fallen, including logs, stumps, roots, branches, and composted and uncomposted chips of the genus Fraxinus (all ash species). The quarantines include all hardwood species of firewood because when dried, it’s difficult to identify the tree species.

Millions of dead ash trees and the threat posed to millions more, as the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources’ website states, “serve as a stark reminder of how firewood can harbor many different kinds of invasive pests and diseases ... both in forest and urban settings. Gypsy moth, oak wilt, and the emerald ash borer are just a few examples of pests and diseases that hitch hike on firewood, making their way easily into previously unaffected, healthy areas.”

To learn more about firewood restrictions and EAB in your state, or what to do if you suspect EAB in your area, visit www.emeraldashborer.info – a site maintained in a multi-state effort by Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, dedicated to providing the most up-to-date information about Emerald Ash Borer.

(photos 1 and 2 courtesy of www.emeraldashborer.info; photo 3 courtesy of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources)

I am fascinated by folklore. There’s European folklore, Medieval folklore, American folklore, Native American folklore … the list goes on and on, and I find it all very interesting. Plant lore is a personal favorite of mine. And then there’s word-lore.

Origins of words and phrases intrigue me. Have you ever wondered where some of the things we say almost on a daily basis came from? I thought it’d be kind of neat to get to the bottom of some the words, phrases, and colloquialisms that have a GRITty spirit to them.  

Take the word “farm,” for example. Do you know that it was the “farmer” who once did the tax collecting instead of government collecting taxes from the farmer? How’s that for role-reversal? Doesn’t it make you sometimes wish for the days of old? It’s not as good as it sounds, though. “Farm” comes to us through the French word ferme, which is derived from the Latin firmus, meaning fixed or settled. When the term was first used in France and England it referred to the fixed annual rent, tax or revenue payable by people, towns or counties to an overlord. The “farmer” was the person who collected those payments.  

Until Revolutionary times, the French general farmers, or the fermes generale, collected annual taxes (called farms), paid by individuals and towns to the royal treasury. Farmers, always an ingenious breed, kept a little aside for themselves to save for a rainy day. Rain must have been predicted often in France back in those days, because the farmers became excessively wealthy pocketing the difference between the amounts collected and the amount that was actually due.  

In England, land used for agricultural purposes was most often leased by a tenant who worked the land. A “farm” was the fixed annual rent paid by the tenant on that leased land. It was not until the 16^th century that the word “farm” referred to the land itself, and not the taxes paid upon it.

Whether you were a land tenant in England back then, or a farmer in the sense of the word as we use it today, you’d want to avoid buying the farm. “To buy the farm,” nearly everyone knows, means to die. But when and why did we start associating purchasing a farm with death?

The phrase started appearing in print during the 1950s. The origin of the euphemism has three possibilities, all pertaining to the U.S. military. An edition of American Speech from 1955 suggests that a farmer may sue the government for compensation if a jet were to crash on his property. If the amount of that compensation was enough to pay off the farm’s mortgage, in essence, the pilot “bought the farm.”

While off at war, it was the dream of many U.S. servicemen to return home, start a family and settle to a peaceful life on the farm. The second theory took this dream into account when in the unfortunate event that the serviceman was killed overseas. It was said “he bought the farm early.”

The third way a serviceman might have bought the farm is by his family using the military service personnel insurance to pay off the mortgage, if the soldier was killed in action.

Ok, so you’ve bought the farm – literally, and not figuratively speaking. Chances are, on that farm, you’ll find a barn. E-i-e-i-o. “Barns” originally referred to buildings used for storing barley. The word is derived from combining two words in Old English: bere, meaning barley, and ern, meaning house.

My mother, probably out of her mind from the pain of childbirth and obviously using a self-preservation form of selective memory, must have forgotten where her children were born. She constantly needed reminding. “Were you born in a barn?” Typically following her question as to our place of birth, she needed another reminder as to who was paying the utility bills. “Do you think I’m heating the outside?”

Though it is often used interchangeably with “were you raised in a pig-sty” (there were times Mom apparently forgot where we were brought up too). The rhetorical question, “Were you born in a barn?” means the door to the outside has been left open.

A realistic assumption would be the phrase originated from the practice that the barn door was left open when the cows were let out to pasture, and closed when they returned in the evenings.

But there is a theory that the phrase originally was “Were you born in Bardney?” The Tupholme Abbey is a monastery built in Bardney in Lincolnshire, England. Legend says that when Saint Oswald was killed, his bones were delivered to the abbey, but the gates were kept closed, barring entrance. A light shining down from above during the night fell on the bones, illuminating them outside the locked gates – it was a sign to the monks inside the gated abbey that indeed, this truly was a saint. The gates were quickly opened to allow Saint Oswald’s remains to enter. From that point on, the gates of Tupholme Abbey stayed open. This gave rise to the phrase, “Do you come from Bardney,” which meant that a door was left open. Later, Bardney was shortened to “barn.”  

It doesn’t matter if you’re a monk in an abbey, or heating the outside for the general purpose of annoying your mother, you most definitely do not want to be caught with your barn door open. Do monks have zippers? This polite euphemism is used commonly in both the U.S. and the United Kingdom for pointing out that one’s zipper on the front of the pants is undone.  Its origins are best left to the imagination.

And there you have it – the nitty-gritty of farm life, death, high utility bills, and fashion faux pas, all in a nut shell. In a nut shell? I wonder where that phrase came from? I may have to do another “Getting Down to the Nitty-Gritty” installment here in the future. If you have a word or phrase you’d like to know the meaning of, leave me a suggestion, and I’ll see what I can dig up.  

Oh … the barn pictures I took with my cheap little point-n-click camera. To see some absolutely gorgeous barn photos, check out The Spirit of The American Barn by Bill Thomas in the current issue of GRIT.  Simply beautiful!

Sources: Dictionary of Word Origins, 2107 Curious Word Origins, Sayings & Expressions, and The Phrases Finder (www.phrases.org.uk ).

Chainsaws buzz, are you listenin’
In downtown, ice is glistenin’
A beautiful sight,
We’re happy tonight,
Living in a Winter Wonderland.

The buzz of chainsaws first thing in the morning was the greeting visitors had on the streets of South Haven this past weekend. No it’s not our state’s version of that slice ‘n’ dice classic, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and my apologies to composer Felix Bernard, and recording artists the Andrew Sisters and Perry Como for slaughtering “Winter Wonderland.” But it’s another small town festival!

It was Ice Breaker Weekend here – our town's winter festival. Ice Breaker started, I was once told, as a way for the people in town to venture out from their winter hibernation; it was neighbors reconnecting with neighbors after being shut in their houses during the long winter months. It was a way for the community to give back to its year ‘round residents for having the gall to stick it through the West Michigan winters.

It began with a Euchre tournament (a card game which I’ve found no one west of the Mississippi and north of the Mason-Dixon line has heard of), and a few crock pots of chili. Stores offered discounts seemingly as deep as the snow; in a summer tourist town where the population plummets with the temperatures, it was a way for the merchants to say to the residents, “Thanks for your support throughout the year.” Where the chainsaws came in, I’m not exactly sure ... but I suppose being cooped up for so long during the dark and dreary months, one might feel the urge to run through the streets with a chainsaw. (Actually, the saws are used for ice sculpting.)

As word spread, Ice Breaker Weekend grew in popularity, and is now one of South Haven’s biggest events. Town was packed this weekend; I saw cars with license plates from Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, and Wisconsin. Quite a turn out by those willing to brave the 30 mph winds we had off the lake on Saturday. The weekend was sunny, but the wind made it seem much colder than the temperature read on the bank’s digital thermometer.

Keith's working on the taxes (shhhh ... best to leave him alone now), and Shelby was already primping seven hours early for one of the festival events – a concert by a few middle school and high school rock bands, most of which include her classmates. So it was just Shannon and I this year; both of us had Christmas gift certificates waiting to be used – hers was for the toy store; mine was for my favorite boutique – and with the half-price sales we had a great time shopping.

We watched as ice sculptors carved giant blocks of ice along the sidewalks. More than 30 blocks of ice were sculpted by both amateurs and professionals. They start off with chainsaws, then do the final detail work with chisels, electric grinders, and even clothing irons. The detail is amazing, and the finished sculptures are judged and awarded ribbons.

Then on to the chili tasting! What better way to beat the cold than with some heat? Served up, of course, as bowls of piping hot, in more ways than one, chili.

Again, both amateurs and professionals complete in separate Chili Cook-offs. I enjoyed it more than Shannon – she likes Keith’s chili which is a Cincinnati-style chili and more sweet than spicy.

The festival activities still include a Euchre Tournament (although a Texas Hold ‘Em Night was added this year too). Pancake breakfasts, ice rink dance shows and lessons, children’s programs at the library and art center, movies about winter on the Great Lakes at the Maritime Museum, and a Mardi Gras dinner round out the weekend.

So many times winter drives people indoors, not to emerge until the weather breaks. Yet Winter Festivals take place nearly everywhere across the country. Ice Breaker Weekend has long evolved from its early days offering some winter comfort food and a card game. It has brought the tourists back to town, and it’s still a great opportunity to get out and connect with the community. What ways do you stay connected until spring arrives?