working>rainbow

Monday, September 23, 2013

We drove off with some optimism to the post office and bank, and were met with such a rainfall that we were ready to give up on work.  A rainy day off is not nearly as nice if one does not sleep in and stay in (or go to Olde Towne Café) from the very beginning.  As we pulled back into our driveway, I saw sun behind clouds and rain.

a good sign? over the garage

looking west on Lake Street…blue sky calls us back to work.

We headed up to Andersen’s RV Park, one of our most weather exposed resort jobs.  I thought it might have been seriously wind battered as the wind had been reported as 51 mph in Ocean Park.  The only damage was one big cosmos down at Payson Hall!

Payson Hall planters

The planters tidied up well but are showing their end of the season age…

I am tired of deadheading Agyranthemum ‘Butterfly’!!

In the garden by the office back door, some Oriental Poppies want to do a second bloom.

Will they make it?

autumnal: Sedumn ‘Autumn Joy’ and Schizostylis.

My pale pink Schizostylis are either Mrs. Haggerty or Viscountess Byng, not sure which!

The sweet peas got a slow start but are still blooming.

picket fence garden at Andersen’s

The park was pretty full for a weekday in late September, so I was glad we had gone to tidy up the garden.

just over the dunes: the ocean

In the yearly lull between the end of tourist festivals and Bulb Hell, we have time to do all sorts of little jobs that we’ve put off.  For the rest of Monday, we worked on getting the damnable Geranium ‘A.T. Johnson’ out from under some of the Long Beach street trees.  Who was the dingbat who planted them?  Oh, that would be me, back when the budget was so small I was looking for free plants to fill in.

all cleaned up with hardy Fuchsias added

A quick walk around our own garden in the evening revealed a Lobelia tupa in bud!  But the poor thing is laying sideways, swamped by Geranium ‘Rozanne’.  I still love Rozanne because she does not reseed all over the place like A.T. does.

Lobelia tupa: I will transplant this one later.

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

I slept through loud thunder and lightning, I’m told, but did wake up to hear truly torrential rain on the roof.  Blue skies with white clouds greeted our departure for work.  We stopped at Olde Towne specifically to deadhead one fallen gladiola in a planter out front.  I did not mean to plant silly tall glads in those planters;  years ago I thought I was planting Gladiolus nanus.  The tall ones still pop up here and there and I leave them because they amuse me.

I had realized the previous week when looking for an old photo on the Olde Towne Facebook page (which I set up), that the photos in this year’s album make it look like there is a clique of my friends Judy, Patt, and Donna!  That’s because no one else is adding photos and I am usually there for coffee with those three.  Today, Cat promised to take some photos of other people; she goes there often to use the wireless so should get a good selection of folks.

Cat herself; she’s an excellent photographer

We procrastinated a bit too long, then we were off to Casa Pacifica, our job that is off the Peninsula (to the east a few miles).

stunning maple and Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’

I got such a big bag of Acidanthera that I stuck them into many gardens, including the whiskey barrels at Casa Pacifica.

Acidanthera, late blooming and not very hardy

It took Dusty a little while to figure out I was there, but when he did he came out with a stogie.

My good friend.

The very shy Spook let me take a couple of photos….

Spook on the hot tub cover

Then, despite my usual attempts to woo her, she hid under the deck.  I won the other dogs over with treats, but not Spook.

As we weeded and deadheaded, the sky kept seeming to lower itself onto the surrounding trees.

a heavy sky

I got the barrels deadheaded and a Buddleia cut back and some weeding in the upper garden….

autumnal hydrangea and Stipa gigantea

As thunder rumbled and the sky got darker.

We almost had everything done…

but got caught in a downpour!

A lot of visitors to the household meant we had to back down the driveway to a turn around place, and then there was not enough room to turn so Allan had to take the trailer off in the deluge and then hook it up again.  We almost slipped off the road and I was screaming a bit.  Just a bit.  It seemed after that that a nice break at Oldie Townie was in order.  By the time we got there, the sun was re-emerging, but we stopped for lunch anyway.  Only at this lull between work seasons do we have the luxury of slacking off from work this often.

a lunch group at Olde Towne

We did stir ourselves back out again after a nice lunch of tortilla soup.  Mexican hot chocolate for Allan, Chai latte for me warmed us up.

We deadheaded at the Depot Restaurant…

Most of the cosmos flowers were limp and rain drenched.

I thought we might then go to Long Beach town and take some old, woody curry plants out of the planters.  Then I remembered that the Boreas Inn should be checked for storm damage to the garden.

It still looked pretty good once we removed some broken cosmos stems.

looking west

Owner Susie was there and told me she is very much enjoying the newish garden off the back porch of the inn.  (Allan got it all nicely weeded and fluffy.)

between Boreas and Yett Cottage

We never made it to Long Beach, because Susie asked if we could prune a big rhodendron, just to lighten it up.  It was a job where it is helpful if one person goes inside the shrub and waves branches and the other one says what to cut.  We removed about four wheelbarrow loads full, and afterward the shrub still looked natural, which is the kind of pruning job we like.

before

after

before

after

I can’t bring it any lower because it provides some privacy from the neighboring house.

sit spot in the entry garden: Boreas Inn

I scored a nice windowbox that Susie, for some reason, no longer wants!

nice!

Just as we left, an hour before dusk, the rain returned.  Shortly after we pulled up to our garage, it became another torrential downpour.

from our front porch

I was waiting for a rainbow because the sky to the west had some sunshine.

Allan’s garden

looking north from the sunporch…behind the drying garlic

And here comes the rainbow…

over the crabapple tree

Allan’s photo

Allan’s photo

The rain was still heavy but we both walked out into it to try to get more rainbow photos.

rain pouring off the shed…

and off the house

Allan’s photo: over the hops vine

The rainbow got progressively brighter.

over the greenhouse

over the garden

back garden

front garden

over Lake Street

Nora’s barberry

over School Hill

over our neighbours’ house

fading away

The amazing thing was that I did not get water spots on the lens with all that dashing about in the rain!

And after that…the blogging about it.