a day that seemed long

Friday, 28 February 2014

The days are supposed to seem shorter as we age.  That seems to only apply to staycation days, while lately workdays have seemed very long.  This has been a good thing when I marvel at how much work we get done in a few hours, but today it was tedious when I hit the wall in late afternoon.

The day started well enough.  Here’s a not good photo of the line of crocuses that meanders through our front garden from west to east.  I don’t have many more days to manage to get the successful photo that I envision!

crocus display, purple, white, yellow and lavender

Our first task: to drive to the Long Beach transfer station and divest ourselves of yesterday’s debris.

Our little trailer, by the yard waste pile, was full indeed.

blue sky over the metal pile

On the way to Andersen’s RV Park to work, we stopped at The Basket Case Nursery for a visit.  Although they are not officially open yet (maybe next week!), we bought some violas for Long Beach and The Anchorage.

violas coming along…

At Andersen’s, Narcissi were showing colour by Payson Hall (due to the reflected heat from the warm south wall, I suppose, as in the rest of the garden they are still just in bud).  Violas would be so nice here, if only the deer would not eat them.

Payson Hall

Narcissi and California poppy volunteer seedlings

Lorna loves the big showy narcissi.

The weather felt so hot (65 degrees!) that I had to put on a cotton summer shirt and was so glad I had brought it with me.

While I weeded here and there in a scattered manner focusing on where RVing guests were most likely to be on a clamming weekend …by the clam cleaning shed and along the garden on the way to the clam cleaning shed…Allan tackled the corner of the garden shed garden that we had not gotten done last November.

before and after

He removed some weed infested Siberian Iris and Bergenia that date back to before I took on the Andersen’s job (pre 2007 at least).  I had divided them once or twice along the way but have lately come to the conclusion that they don’t bloom long enough for a tourism-related garden.  I do still have some by the Fifth Street Park pond in Long Beach (and in private gardens).

Andersen’s has a new staff puppy!!   Maisie is 8 weeks old, a Schnauzer-mini-poodle mix, will get to be about 12 lbs, and is a real squirmer so that it was a challenge to get a photo.

 

I told her (in baby talk of course) that she is going to be my friend and she will see me every week.

In midafternoon, we headed south and stopped at The Anchorage to do a bit of weeding, plant thirteen violas, and rejoice that the staff had cut back the pampas grass.  We are thrilled to not have to do it, and the task provided some extra income for the cleaning crew.

by the entry…chopped!!

and on the lawn…chopped!

by the office…yellow ranunculus (celandine)

Next, on to Long Beach, where we cut down an ugly resprouted tree on the big pop out garden and then did a check up on the Bolstadt Beach approach planters.

The deer had chomped the crocuses and grape hyacinth in this one.

The very next planter had excellent crocuses.

Of two planters with bright white crocus displays, this one is the memorial planter for Lisa Bonney, a beloved local woman who was killed by her estranged boyfriend out here on the beach approach in front of many witnesses.

plaque on Lisa’s memorial planter

I thought at the time that I’d never be able to work the beach approach gardens again without brooding about her and about domestic violence in general.  I still think of her every time, but the flowers in the planter give comfort to me and I hope to her friends and family.

Lisa’s crocuses

The community has organized an annual beach run in her memory.

from funbeach.com

Moving on down the thirteen garden sections of the long narrow garden, I gazed with resignation and gloom upon the matts of weeds.

beach approach garden

Soon I know we will have to spend a whole week of days bent over weeding this stretch…and as with every year, I will complain of my misery.

The crocuses are nice, though.  The bulbs along this whole garden have dwindled and I should plant more come fall.

beach approach crocuses

Four of the downtown planters got violas, including some blue and white ones by Home at the Beach gift shop and some purple and yellow ones in one of the planters we had almost completely cleared of vinca last fall.

a planter that is almost a blank slate…across from The Hungry Harbor Grille

Around the time of planting those violas, the afternoon went pear shaped for me.  A car with two friends pulled up next to me and they said hi, and I was so contorted and focused on the job I could barely turn my head to look.  My left big toe had started to hurt, and then my right calf, and then I started checking my watch to see how much more must I endure.  Another hour at least…

I admired the tulip foliage, glaucous….

and with a pink stripe

The planters which were redone and planted with crocus several years ago now have excellent displays.

crocuses in abundance

We worked our way down the last two blocks, weeding, cutting back some Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’ and Santolinas that I’d skipped last time we worked through town, cutting back some Rusgosa roses that have maddeningly appeared under a street tree, and so on.  I kept “hitting the wall” but seeing more weeds, leading to much reneging on the statement of “That’s it, we are DONE.”  I was momentarily cheered when Allan showed me an intriguing note he had found in a parking spot.

high intrigue

Finally at dusk we gave in and drove home, detouring to look at the boatyard and Howerton Street gardens to see if many narcisis were in bloom yet (not).  At the south end of the boatyard, I saw a very low tide, inspiring a stop to take some photos.

looking south from the end of the boatyard

mud beach

water below the ladders

Allan boldly went down a steep slope to the slippery rock beach and got some photo angles we’ve never seen before.

Allan’s photos:

 

At high tide these rocks would be covered.

Ilwaco Landing, a fish company

south end of boatyard from below

Our drive home via the Howerton Way gardens revealed a few more ornamental grasses that need to be cut back.  However, we have decided to take a couple of days off (I almost wrote weeks, such wishful thinking!).  I have a feeling the knowledge of those grasses still being tall is going to bother me.

I got my shoe off to soothe my (gouty??) toe and then had to go back outside to look at a sunset that suddenly glowed with a lovely pinkness to the south.

at the end of the next door yard

The spring peepers frog chorus was deafening.  I took a little video with my phone and if you don’t mind going to Facebook, you might be able to watch it here.  When I get to the edge of the ditch that is called the meander line, between the bogsy wood and the port parking lots to our south, the frogs closest to me stop croaking while the ones further away keep at it.  I could see them swimming around in the almost dark puddle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Ilwaco to Oysterville

Thursday, 27 February, 2014

Over the last couple of days, the gear shed neighbours have got all their crab pots stacked behind the shed.  I know the picturesque garden back drop will disappear under a tarp soon.

stacked pots

crocuses multiplying in our back garden

Ribes sanguineum ‘Apple Blossom’ starting to bloom

early tulips in the front garden: Tulip kaufmanniana ‘The First’ (and it is the first)

We needed to dump a large load of debris and decided to top it off with Mayor Mike’s pampas grass, just three blocks down Lake Street.

before and after

Some of the white and blue assortment of bulbs that I planted there are coming on.  The snowdrops are done, but a very nice blue and white Iris reticulata is still good.

Iris reticulata

After dumping our debris at the city dump off Sandridge Road (because Peninsula Landscape Supply where we usually dump is closed for the season except by appointment, and we are too spontaneous for that), we headed north with our first destination being the Oysterville Store to take photos for the next cash mob event.

 

As we neared Nahcotta I suddenly remembered that we had promised a bit of gardening work to Jayne of Bailey’s Café.  I’m glad we stopped.  At first, I was just going to look and make more promises…and then decided to just get it done.

after, with ferns cut back

The Clamshell Railroad time table is on the side of the building.  Would that the train still ran but it is long gone.

Jayne wanted a little square turned into a garden bed for more herbs; it took half an hour to accomplish (with the addition of compost inside the bin).  The bin is just the top of a bin, sitting there, not buried.

before and after

finishing up

Happily, we had a spot to dump the weeds and did not have to haul anything away from this wee job.

Near the herb bed: evidence of Nahcotta’s oyster industry

crows atop the oyster pile

The café and herb beds are right by Willapa Bay.  Here you can see old oyster shells and the pilings where the Clamshell Railroad used to turn around.

 

historic pilings

Unfortunately, we were on a mission and did not have time to have a delicious lunch at Bailey’s.

It was tempting….

art by Pat Fagerland

I had checked the Facebook page of the Oysterville Store for its hours and was sure we would be there at the right time.  Our gardening session at Bailey’s had assured that we would miss the lunch hour when the shop is closed.  A phone call would have been better as it turned out no one was there at the end of our long drive.

Oysterville Store

Our schedule, dependent on weather and the vagaries of how long each job takes, is just too darn spontaneous for phone calls.

frustrated window peering

Offseason, shops around the Peninsula do have curtailed hours.  I’ll have to make due with cash mob promo photos from the last time we visited the store.

Fortunately we had a job planned that was at the north end and we drove over to Surfside and down a ways to return to Marilyn’s garden and do more cutting back.

from 2:20 to 5:10 PM

I tackled the swale behind the house where the predominant plant is Siberian iris along with some daylilies, striped running grass, and crocosmia.  From 3:30 to 4:15 I was reminded of why I don’t grow these iris in very many locations.  I simply hate cleaning them.  While I enjoy most spring clean up jobs, the cutting of sodden iris foliage depressed and irks me.  Why can’t it just pull off?  Or snip off nicely and cleanly?

before and after, with much weeding left to do

the swale

The deer are feasting on the daylilies.

We’ve been told a herd of five deer hangs out in the garden.  They’ll be shocked to find everything cut down and all their hidey places gone.  From  the photos Marilyn’s daughter, Nancy (co owner of the Depot Restaurant) has sent me, the deer are brazen enough to not need to hide.

just off the back porch

Our trailer got so full of debris that we could not fit in the last of the trimmings.  I shoved them to the back of the garden.  Even if we don’t get the mess picked up, it will become hidden, as this garden gets so tall by midsummer that the neighbours’ garage will be completely hidden.

stashing debris along the back

Shoving the last of the clippings to the back will givethe many narcissi  room to show off.  This garden does not have many other early bulbs because of the deer.   I did find one Iris ‘Katherine Hodgekin’.

Katharine, my favourite.

It’s a good thing we didn’t give ourselves the luxury of lunch at Bailey’s Café as we worked till dusk.  Tomorrow’s first task will be another dump run.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A Cheri and Cable day

Phone blogging:  With a mid afternoon appointment set for getting our Internet fixed, we worked close to home in Cheri’s garden three blocks east.

Allan set to editing a stripy running grass that had taken over the back garden bed. Construction of an outdoor cat area had kept us out of that area most of last summer and the grass had taken full advantage of the neglect.

I’m takin’ over, see?

The old Buddleia in the back of this bed had gotten woody and somewhat rotted at the base. We cut it back hard.

My mind ran to what new perennials could be planted where the grass came out. Then I remembered that two boxers, Porsche and Beemer, use the garden as their play area and for play dates with canine friends. Anything we plant would have to be very tough.

Allan went home to wait for the Internet repair guy while I weeded around the rest of the garden.

Before and after

Sometime during our staycation, Cheri and Charlie had turned an area of lawn into bark, blending right into the garden beds.

In the raised brick bed south of the front porch, crocuses put on a lovely show. There has been no puppy party in this garden bed yet this year!

A white camellia blooming in Cheri’s garden with Mayor Mike’s garden in the background.

I walked home in a light drizzle and admired our own garden while waiting for the tech fellow.

Hellebores…

Allan’s mother made that lovely thing. (Pagoda?)

The pleasant and knowledgeable cable fix it guy came and discovered that not only do we perhaps need a better, upgraded modem but that the old Internet cable line was so old that it was brittle and thinner than the modern cable. To my surprise, it went along Nora’s driveway to a pole behind our houses where it got the full force of southern wind. No wonder we’d been having problems since the past big windstorm.

I pruned the hydrangea next door in Nora’s garden and loaded more of our pile of yard debris into the trailer to top off Cheri’s and the debris from yesterday at Marilyn’s. The Internet fix of running new cable and crawling under the house is taking awhile so we’ll be stuck with the debris load overnight. We have a dinner date with J9; our trailer is too heavy now to disconnect so it will have to travel with us.

It would be awfully nice to have an empty lot nearby just for dumping!

A bit later, I am very impressed that Allan managed to disconnect and move the trailer into the street. What a monster he is!!

Surprise: The cable goes to the pole way back behind Nora’s driveway and thence back to our house.

Not a surprise: Where the deer grazed in our front garden on Sunday, some of the tulip foliage is nipped right off.

Dinner photos will probably follow. I don’t add dinner photos because I think our personal lives are all that interesting but because I think the restaurants around our beach town communities are very fine and interesting indeed.

Later at The Depot Restaurant in Seaview:

J9 joined us at our favorite table for three, the one at the end of the bar. Wednesdays off season are burger nights (including a vegetarian Portobello mushroom
Burger); you choose your toppings. I won’t even reveal the number I choose, except for Allan’s hint that if you get pineapple and fried egg, you can deconstruct your burger into breakfast (egg), burger, and dessert (fresh slice of pineapple).

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North end day

Just after my photos went from camera to computer to photo stream, down went our Internet again. So it’s back to phone blogging in the comfy chair. This could get to be a habit. Feet up feels good after a workday. (I think there’s some bad code in this entry but I can’t fix it on the tiny phone.)

Yesterday was all relaxation and reading and rain. I had expected more of the same today but it was not to be.

We implemented our plan for the next nice day: to work on some north end jobs.

At Golden Sands Assisted Living, a few perennials needed cutting in the courtyard’s four garden beds:

They are poised to grow with lots of bulbs and dormant perennials. I’ll plant poppy seeds on our next visit.

Next: Klipsan Beach Cottages where our mission was mostly just to cut back the many ferns.

The pond garden before:

And after:

I was preoccupied in other areas and did not get a photo of Allan not falling in the pond… Just an after photo:

He also cut ferns and grasses in the woodsy swale.

Brave little chickadees fed undaunted when I worked near the suet cages.

Colour in the garden is mostly provided by crocuses with just a few narcissi and an early rhododendron.

Above: beautiful Bella. She’s a rescued dog and a complete love.

And nine year old Riley.

After KBC, we had a couple of hours of daylight left. We got a start at Marilyn’s garden:

Before

After:

Many tall perennials and grasses remain to be cut. Winter’s unusual freezes required the Phygelius to be cut down hard.

It was quite a mess but will come back from ground level:

Another phone blog done just before the battery runs out. The Internet has returned to us, Allan said, but I am now firmly ensconced in Comfy Chair.

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an Ilwaco day

Sunday, 23 February 2014

We expected rain, so slept and slept…and slept through a pretty nice mid morning. These two probably kept sleeping all day:

Mary and Smokey

With decent, if a bit chilly, weather, we decided we had to go to work at the Port, but first we saw Olde Towne Luanne and her friend Shelly who stopped by on their way to go shopping. I went out to greet them and saw them taking camera phone photos over the fence…of what, I wondered…the crocuses? Their cameras were aimed too high for that. It turned out to be some other garden visitors, so I snuck around the back of the garage to surprise them.

Can you see them? There are three…

The mother was already slipping over to Nora’s lawn. The two young ones were bolder.

one scoots, one keeps eating

no telephoto here!

Over on the next door lawn…

Two of the three amble away.

And thus we have the tall deer fence around most of our garden!

Then we were off to work, starting at the boatyard garden where the crocuses are looking lovely and got praise from several passersby.

in the boatyard garden

Our main mission was to trim the santolinas. I cut them back hard so they do not splay open.

Santolina (lavender cotton) half done.

Cut to that new growth way down in the center.

You can take hard little cuttings, like the one below, and stick them in the ground and most of the time you will get a new plant. Santolinas come with silver (grey), green, or gold foliage. The gold one (‘Lemon Fizz’) always wants to revert to green.

green santolina cutting

I also cut back the Artemisia ‘Powis Castle’ plants.

Artemisia ‘Powis Castle’

One that I cut back earlier this month is already showing new growth at the base (along with one of the many shotweeds we pulled out).

This will make a prettier plant than if left unpruned.

As always, there were boats to admire, including this one from Newport, Oregon (home of my most favourite retreat, the Sylvia Beach Hotel).

Pacific Roamer

From a busy area of the boatyard, a beagle type dog came out barking and wagging and I learned her name was Brandy.

For the rest of our work session, I thought about what a fine girl she is. Her person told me Brandy has been a boat dog for only the last three of her 14 years and she does not like it much, as the seas can be rough. I assume his life, his love and his lady is the sea and the faithful dog puts up with it to be with her guy.

santolina and lavender prunings

Allan used hedge shears to tidy up the lavenders, as they do not like to be cut back hard like santolinas and artemisias but must just be gently shaped.

Two of the Gauras looked so bad that I just pulled them out. They might have come back, but I was tired of looking at them and would rather just get new ones.

Gaura: a lost cause?

I can already see the horsetail starting to poke its unpleasant nose through the soil.

the plague of horrible horsetail begins…so soon.

Drizzle had begun as we finished the boatyard project. We decided to just cut back two big messy gauras in the garden at the east end of Howerton.

at Howerton and Elizabeth, looking west, before

looking east toward Beacon RV Park

iris reticulata in the garden

The weather suddenly cleared so we did much more cutting back than we thought we would. Trying to weed to little blanketing weeds did not work out because the garden was so wet that we were losing too much soil with each weed patch, so we just went after the bigger weeds and some of the Bad Aster.

after

The rain and wind returned vigorously, further inspiring our decision to finish the weeding later.

the big field where we dump debris….

time to go home!

I think we will toddle down to Pelicano Restaurant for an early dinner during their “happy hour” and publish this later with, of course, the addition of a few dinner photos.

Later: Finishing off with some phone blogging from my comfy chair, complicated by this:

The view from our table at Pelicano:

Cocktails: Ginger Snap and Aloha Kentucky (Maker’s Mark, pineapple juice, lemon juice, honey simple syrup).

Lentil and Sausage Soup with Spanish Smoked Paprika and Feta
And
Shrimp and White Bean Salad with Avocado and Jalapeño-Cilantro Dressing

The salad was so good, I could have eaten a casserole dish of it. Allan had the deservedly renowned Caesar Salad.

Reflections and boat lights glowed as night fell.

Allan’s beautifully presented Petrale Sole with Potatoes, Tuscan Kale, Shiitake Mushrooms and Lemon Butter:

As the tide rose, the tall lights of fishing boats moved into the harbour, echoed by candlelight reflections.

What pleasure to have such a place two blocks from home.

As we left, Denny, Mary, Mary-mom (Mary’s mom, also Mary) and friends from Klipsan Beach Cottages were just embarking on their own delicious Pelicano feast.

Looking in the window at the KBC party:

The wind and rain as we left made us glad we hadn’t walked down. Tomorrow’s chance of rain is 100% so just perhaps I’ll get a day of reading.

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Long Beach work and play

Saturday, 22 February, 2014

We are somewhat behind on work so shouldn’t be playing on a nice day.  The skiving off work part was by necessity since I needed to take photos of the Peninsula Cash Mob event at M&D Designs in Long Beach, with lunch at Captain Bob’s Chowder.  First, however, some morning photos from our front garden:

tulips

I just can’t get a photo that captures the wonderful sweep of crocus in the front garden.

Iris reticulata

tulips and euphorbia

and my gift daphne about to bloom!

Uh oh, it was an eventful day and the blog hasn’t even made it out of the front garden yet.  On to cash mob!

M&D Designs

Kathleen kindly posed for the Facebook photo album.

M&D Designs offered refreshments and a prize drawing.

The shop has a wide assortment of local arts and crafts.

garden decor

bird feeders

wall vases

cranberry vine baskets

I think we had a pretty good turnout for the cash mob although I did not see as many regulars as usual.

I cannot reveal what I bought at M&D as it is a gift for Montana Mary.  Allan got a bottle of some sort to hang in the tree in his garden and Kathleen got a glass dangly for the window of her new beach cottage.

Debbie and Charlene, blog readers and very faithful cash mob attendees!

We SO appreciate the regulars who come to each “mob.”   Linda from The Wooden Horse (our previous cash mob shop) had taken the day off and came in to M&D with some family members.

Linda

Remembering that Linda said there would be some new garden themed items at The Wooden Horse, we peeked in there on the way to lunch and oh my, such pretty things she had acquired!

in The Wooden Horse

rustic picture frame

picture box

green on green on green

Linda, you have impeccable taste!

At noon, Kathleen and Allan and I had lunch at the cash mob café of the day, Captain Bob’s Chowder.  I was pleased that the tree and street planters between the two cash mob venues had burst forth with some narcissi.

crab cakes and crab roll, delicious! with gift bag from M&D

Our Kathleen

We are so thrilled that Kathleen has found a vacation and weekend cottage here; the most ideal thing would be if she could move here full time!  We are going to treat her to a slap up feast at the Depot Restaurant when she comes down to take possession.

We did not have to rush home to meet the ISP tech guy, as last night at midnight our internet had mysteriously and capriciously returned.  So as soon as lunch was over, Allan and I absolutely had to buckle down and get some work done in case the rain returns tomorrow.  There are still areas of Long Beach we have not tidied and a few private gardens we have not been to yet in 2014.

I had realized just before lunch that the perfect job would be to prune the Super Dorothy roses in the park just south of Captain Bob’s.  The debris would be lightweight in case the city works yard was locked (we still don’t have our key!) and I could keep an eye on the café to see if any more cash mobbers came and could be photographed.  (They may have; I got too absorbed in pruning to watch.)

south fence, before

after

before and after

west fence, before

after

We pruned out larger old trunks and the twiggy bits off the top of these climbing roses.  Soon we will give each a handful of magnesium sulfate “to encourage basal breaks” (new growth from the base).

We were thrilled to find the city works gate open and to be able to get rid of the debris, and still have time to cut back and weed in the “little popouts”.

before and after

before and after, looking south

We had taken an end of day opportunity earlier this month to chop the ornamental grass in the second little pop just south of this one so all I had to do was weed it.

wee pop out

It looks tatty right now and I hope to remember to throw some poppy seeds in there.  I yanked three large and very woody silver santolinas today.  Buried in this little popout up to their rims, I found two large pulp pots that must have had annuals in them (I think sweet alyssum).  I wonder who did that?  What a nice present (and why did I not notice it last year?)

pots of mystery

We can relax if tomorrow brings rain because we got so much done in Long Beach today and yesterday.  That’s a good feeling.

We arrived home at dusk;  Allan said something about the sunset, but I was focused on getting the cash mob photos uploaded to the Facebook page.  Then I looked out my window and saw a spectacular sky.  My camera refused to register the colours when I tried to get a photo out of the south window.

As I kept working on uploading cash mob photos, the colour intensified.

view from my desk; one pane is permanently fogged.

Finally Allan put his shoes back on (perhaps inspired by some loud pleas from my study) and went out to take some photos to close out today’s blog in style.

over New Judy’s roof

from our back garden

Lake Street

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a Long Beach day

Friday, 21 February 2014

Still phone blogging! The tech call of the morning did not fix our Internet so tomorrow afternoon we have a tech visit.

Long Beach was first because we had debris left over in our trailer from the last time we worked there. We added to it with some clean up in the south east quadrant of Fifth Street Park.

The hydrangea in the back corner needed pruning and the Gunnera needed its winter blanket of old leaves removed. I hope it survived the cold.

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I checked on the north west quadrant as tomorrow is a cash mob featuring Captain Bob's Chowder, a cute little cafe right behind the park.

I stopped into Captain Bob’s to get a few phone photos for promoting tomorrow’s event. It’s been difficult without proper Internet as the Facebook iPhone app has limitations on how well I can target my sharing.

Captain Bob is looking forward to cash mob; he and Cathy will have brownies, chowder, and all their other comestibles.

The weather might be nice enough for diners to wander in the little park. There are plenty of crocuses on show.

I was excited to see what I hope is a tiny sprout from the Melianthus major. It’s one of the special plants I worried over in the cold weather.

I hope I am not just deluding myself.

I had abandoned a project across the street. A rectangular bed under three trees daunted me with a weedy sedge that had moved in. The pick and the shovel just bounced off. While I wandered off to Captain Bob’s, Allan turned his attention to it. I then checked the tree and planter gardens between the park and M & D Designs, a gift shop (featuring local arts and crafts) one block north which will also be featured on tomorrow’s cash mob. By the time I returned, Allan succeeded where I had despaired.

After dumping the debris at the city works yard, we went to do the first spring cleanup at Diane’s garden on Sandridge Road. The Stipa gigantea was especially beaten by weather.

A patch of blue primulas was a bit past its peak.

And I found my friend Katharine Hodgekin.

Although did not do any clean up at The Red Barn garden next door, we enjoyed seeing horses for the first time this season.

The temperature had dropped so that even with an hour or more of daylight left, all we did was pick some trash out of the gardens by the east end of the Port of Ilwaco. I had bigger plans for some actual weeding but trash picking was all I could bear today.

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Solitude

With Allan in Seattle, I enjoyed almost complete solitude for two days and evenings. My friends who enjoy that sort of thing will understand. However, I also missed two good weather work days. At least I made it five doors down for some spring clean up on Larry and Robert’s garden.

Wednesday:

In order to blog with no Internet, I took photos with my phone rather than my camera.

The hydrangea and a few perennials needed clipping.

Iris ‘Katharine Hodgekin’
I walked to the post office for two irresistible reasons: to keep our Netflix queue moving and to get the weekly paper. There I found, in our volunteer garden, the first tulip of the year.

I hope patrons are noticing the tiny bulbs.

On the walk back home, a photo of Larry and Robert’s garden boat.

I thought I’d get the afternoon indoors. Good weather kept me out.

Below: tiny narcissi in a Basket Case gift basket that keeps on giving.

I checked out the water level in the bogsy wood.

Lots of medium to small branches came down with the wind.

A spontaneous decision resulted in a lot of edging in the front garden. If the wind returned, sod would keep the wheelie bin from blowing over.

I’d get rid of that grassy point if it did not help with the visual flow into the next green path.

Thursday:

Another beautiful day! No reading allowed except during lunch and breakfast.

The poor wind beaten rosemary plants needed clipping. One was totally dead.

I saw the first nose of a lily poking up so sluggo had to be administered throughout the garden beds.

Standing water in the bogsy wood got in the way of pruning one hydrangea. The gear shed neighbors had given me a crab pot sculpture backdrop.

I may have lost my lovely variegated pittosporum. What a shame. I will hope it revives.

I took a little sit down break to make this entry. It goes faster on the phone because the options are fewer. Tonight: Dinner out with Kathleen. Allan will return with delicious provisions from Trader Joe’s. If i am very lucky, he will have found me a Stachyurus praecox from a Seattle nursery. Tomorrow we will probably get our internet problem sorted. (Division of labour: i write the blog, he makes the tech calls.) Now: back outside for more weeding. I should walk to the east end of the port gardens and work there but the idea of doing so with a bucket and no work trailer is too tiring.

I’ll add a photo of dinner later on as I am sure it will be a happy memory.

Dinner at the Forty Second Street was wonderful.

Soup of cranberry, apples and champagne !!!

Kathleen’s salmon:

And my jambalaya.

Best of all, we may soon be celebrating Kathleen acquiring a cottage which will allow her to visit here more often.

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Phone blogging

With Allan on a brief trip to Seattle till tomorrow, how can I blog with our household Internet mysteriously down? I turn to the phone app.

Yesterday, Garden Tour Nancy and I had lunch at The Cove Restaurant to discuss the lineup of gardens for the. 2014 Music in the Gardens Tour. She already has a selection of local gardens in mind for July 19th tour day.

But how to add the photos from my camera? I know, I’ll use my phone to take photos of the camera display.

The view during a brief break in the storm:

The tasty items we consumed:

amaryllis by the restaurant entrance:

At home, I returned to reading after a brief walk into the garden to see just how bogsy was the bogsy wood.

Pretty bogsy.

In the evening I watched Sunshine Superman, a three hour documentary about Donovan. I expected to be bored and jaded. Instead I was reminded of all the reasons I had been infatuated with this flowery soul. In fact, I had a few misty eyed moments and remembered what it felt like to believe that the love of flowers could change the world. I remember my broken 15 year old heart when Donovan married Linda; he was supposed to wait for me.

In my 20s I converted to punk rock but still retained the love of flowers. The part of me that isn’t cynical is still moved and inspired:

“There’s only one thing in the end, and that’s singing truth in a pleasant way.” -Donovan

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a tiny workday

Monday, 17 February 2014

A typical weather-affected workday ensued when the day ended up, at noon-ish, being more pleasant than we expected. So much for finishing my book and starting another. We headed up to the police station in Long Beach to cut down the white rugosa roses on the south side, hoping for four hours of working weather.

police station, before

A light drizzle had begun by the time we got there, and within ten minutes of rose cutting, wind and rain made the job so miserable that we aborted and grocery shopped at the store in Seaview on the way home.

By the time we took the groceries into our house, the sky had cleared so back to Long Beach we went. The backing and forthing can seem like such a frustrating waste of time.

before, again

and finally, after

While Allan did the sweeping up, I tidied the little park behind Lewis and Clark Square just to the south. We popped over then to the “big pop out” on Ocean Beach Boulevard.

the BIG pop out

Allan starts to chop the so-called dwarf pampas grass

I clipped rugosa roses from all along the edge and brooded about how rampantly the rose runs. Never again would I plant it. The wind kicked up, and the woman who owns nearby Banana Books walked by with her dog and offered us tea. So sweet! But I told her we would be leaving in twenty minutes and declined the kind offer so we could focus on the job. She promised us tea sometime in the future, saying how much she appreciated our work and adding that she loves the roses. I felt better hearing that.

after or…as far as we got.

The garden is still weedy, and I want us to take a pick all around the edges to get some of the rose roots out. We got them pushed to the back to the garden last year and yet they had come out to hang over the edge again. I wish we could take a big scoop and get them all out and start over with a nice collection of rock garden plants. Dianthus, armeria, and darling little buns and tufts would be such a delight. The roses, however, are bound to win.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the Peninsula in Marilyn’s garden (where we have not been yet this year), Marilyn’s daughter Nancy has been taking photos of certain goings on.

“Who’s that in my garden?”

“Who’s that on the porch??”

eyeing the back door

Another storm is predicted, and I am now one day ahead on the blog, so I hope to be back to reading on Tuesday.

I may have achieved a blog entry with only one exclamation point. In the book I’m reading, Eating the Dinosaur, in a chapter about tv shows with canned laughter, Chuck Klosterman writes:

“If you’ve spent any time trolling the blogosphere, you’ve probably noticed a peculiar literary trend: the pervasive habit of writers inexplicably placing exclamation points at the end of otherwise unremarkable sentences. Sort of like this! It’s supposed to suggest ironic detachment from the writing of an expository sentence! It’s supposed to signify that the writer is self-aware! And this is idiotic. It’s the saddest kind of failure. F. Scott Fitzgerald believed inserting exclamation points was the literary equivalent of an author laughing at his own jokes, but that’s not the case in the modern age; now the exclamation point signifies crative confusion …. It’s an attempt to insert humour where none exists, on the off chance that a potential reader will only be pleased if they suspect they are being entertained. Of course, the reader isn’t really sure, either. They just want to know when they’re supposed to pretend that they’re amused. All those extraneous exclamation points are like little splatters of canned laughter.”

Oh dear. Exclamation points in texting, Facebook chit chat, and other people’s blogs are fine with me. Here, my exclamation points had already been worrying me almost as much as overuse of the word “but”. I am guilty. Guilty, I say! And there’s one more.

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