(My) Tulip Thief

Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • May 7, 2018

That was a long winter.  Typically, I don’t complain but it was not nice weather-wise.  And the cold and the wind – couldn’t Mother Nature have given us some more snow to at least enjoy – and break out that new sled we got my son – a “big boy sled.”


In any case, I have been watching the tulips I planted last fall in front of the Mitchell House.  They started to break ground, then it got cold, then they came up a little more, then the bunnies got to them.  (We now have THREE bunnies at Mitchell House.  Imagine how many babies we will have!  ARGH!)


I’ve been watching and watching these tulips as their leaves twisted, were eaten, snapped at by cold, flurries, and frost.  And then, they started to grow more, and to show buds, and color!  Is spring REALLY here?

And then the other night, a thief came!  I had not even gotten down to Mitchell House yet when our Executive Director stopped me and said he had a, “What would Jascin do moment.”  Not sure if I should be honored.  But, needless to say from out of his window after dinner he spied a young man on his bicycle, bending over the Mitchell House fence, snipping away at the tulips!  He raced downstairs in his pajamas and politely confronted the thief.  The thief was embarrassed, taken aback, and was told to, “Drop the tulips!” – well, not exactly.  He was told to leave them and then politely told that the MMA pays for those tulips and the work that goes into gardening.  The thief left sheepishly.


The next day, I was in the Mitchell House with the front door open doing my annual mildew cleaning of the front sitting room ceiling when I heard someone at the door trying to open the locked screen.  I got off my scaffold and found a young man at the door who I did not completely recognize at first.  Then he said my name and I knew who it was.  With him, he had a bag with three pots of tulips.  “You’re my thief!?” I exclaimed.  He replied, “They were just so pretty that I couldn’t resist.  I just wanted them.”  This thief is a former student of mine – way back from when in addition to the MMA, I also was a teacher.  He is one of those students who could be trying at times, always pushing the edge, always finding something to get himself into trouble, but one that you will forever have a soft spot for.  I hugged him.  Yelled at him.  Told him he only had to ask first, and then told him the names of his stolen items – Viricic and Beauty of Spring tulips from the Colorblends Company.  And then gave him heck because I told him about the bunnies.  I cannot be mad at him – he has a soft spot for gardens and flowers so I will take my choice of tulips – and my Mother’s – as a compliment.


(I’m thinking if further time is needed, he can come help me weed this summer.)


JNLF

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By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • May 11, 2026
A repost – with my apologies – from last year. It started budding the week of April 30 this year. This is what our landscaper for the MMA calls it. “The ancient vine.” He tells the people who work for him not to touch the “ancient vine.” I have probably made him – and all of them – terrified of it. I am even terrified of it to some degree. I refer to the grape vine behind the Mitchell House that is supposed to be Peleg Mitchell Junior’s grape vine – Maria Mitchell’s uncle who inhabited the house from about 1836 to his death in 1882. It has two trunks but one died several years ago. Because of that, each year I try to root shoots. It’s fairly easy to do – when you cut back the vine in late fall/early winter. I have had success but not success protecting the shoots I baby all winter from bunnies and other critters once I plant them – try as I might. I started doing this when the one trunk died – I was PANICKED! The landscaper stays away because I have told him if anyone is going to accidentally harm or worse yet, kill, this grape vine it would be me so I only have myself to blame. So each November/December – once ALL the leaves have fallen off – I climb my ladder and quietly, carefully, and fearfully cut back the stems typically to two buds. I have been somewhat successful in spurring grape production – and these grapes attract some amazing birds in the fall. It takes me some time – and I pretty much hyperventilate the entire time – and then, I stare at it all winter. Passing under it multiple times a day to reach my office. Hoping, and yes, praying, it will come out in the spring. It’s a late budder so just recently the buds started to show themselves – thank goodness! – and I was rewarded today (May 5, 2025) with this wonderful hot pink color on the edges of the leaves as they are uncurling. JNLF

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By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • May 4, 2026
May 6, 1878 Between the clouds, Miss Spalding obtained 7 photographs of Mercury on the Sun. It is comfort to me to be able to plan and do a new kind of work. The large telescope worked better than usual, Clark having just been to the Observatory. Clark, as in Alvan Clark, a man who would become the premier telescope maker in America and who built Maria Mitchell’s 5-inch Alvan Clark refractor that she purchased from him (after working with him to build it per her specifications) with money gifted to her from “The Women of America” led by Elizabeth Peabody. More than likely, it is this telescope she is referring to as she did use it in the Vassar College Observatory with her students – and it is also taking center stage in photographs, along with her (first her father’s) Dolland telescope.  Maria had decided she would photograph the Sun on every clear day, and this was one of those results. She would use these images, with her students, to study sun spots and their changes. With her students, Maria would photograph the transit of Mercury as noted above. She would also photograph the transit of Venus a few years later with her students. JNLF

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By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • April 27, 2026
And with it, some of the heirloom daffodils I purchased for the Mitchell House last fall. A place was recommended to me by two longtime friends of the MMA and gardeners extraordinaire. It is called Old House Gardens. I ordered a small amount as we now have a plethora of voles on Vestal Street – I believe I complained about them here last year. They won’t eat daffodils so I got a few of “Butter and Eggs” (1777) and “Conspicuus” (1869) as either of these could have appeared in William Mitchell’s gardens. They were not listed in a letter from John Quincy Adams that I have mentioned before. But, Adams was not here visiting the Mitchell family when the daffodils would have been in bloom. The one pictured here is “Butter and Eggs” not completely unfurled. JNLF
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