In the midst of the personal chaos of 2003, work continued.
In winter ’02-03, Robert built a driftwood fence to enclose Suzanne’s garden and protect it from deer. He said it would be the only driftwood fence he would ever build because it was so hard to collect enough wood of the right consistency to screw or nail together. Some of it was incredibly hard to work with.
At Seanest, Robert had built a big planter and a driftwood trellis by the parking spot; in spring 2003 in bloomed with spring flowers.
I planted a container for the office at Peninsula Sanitation; this eventually, I believe, led to doing all the Ilwaco planters that were later placed along First Avenue.
As you can see, I was still in my Phormium phase! I would soon learn how big and poky even the so called dwarf ones get.
And then….I was working without Robert. A friend helped me on and off through the summer; she was somewhat unreliable, but any help was appreciated and I just plodded through. Around the time that I began to live (blissfully) alone, I still had many doubts about my ability to be a solo gardener. Life seemed daunting, but at that same time Ann Lovejoy had written a column about getting through difficult times. The best advice I got was hers: Just do the next necessary thing. I put that as a note above my computer monitor and by focusing only on what needed to be done next, I got through the summer.
I did very few new gardening projects, although I did plant up these windowboxes at the former location of the Kite Museum.
I did monthly maintenance at Carol’s garden on the bay.
Robert and I had laid the stone path a couple of years before. That was the sort of project where his skills at making things level would be sorely missed.
Below, Laurie’s garden on the bay in its second full summer under my care.
The garden had thrived with lots of weeding, cool new plants, and the addition of the finest manure from her pampered Peruvian Paso horses.
In the above photo, just this side of the rock, you can just see a hint of a rugosa rose getting big enough to hold its own against the feet…amidst the trampled flat areas that had been wildflowers (poppies, mostly) the week before.
In December the work season ended, and I was heading into my first winter alone (with the dog, Bertie, and the cats) in the tiny Ilwaco house in its dark, woodsy corner…a fate that I had been afraid of because it seemed so isolated and…well…dark…But instead, I was embracing solitude and silence and finding that due to extremely frugal living, I could just afford to take some of the winter off. I remember cold days sitting in front of a parabolic heater (because the propane heat stove’s wonky pilot light terrified me) reading all the books of both Ann Lamott and SARK…empowering books for a woman alone.
Update, January 2016: I still look back upon this winter as one of the best of my life.
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