30 October: rainy day puttering

Thursday, 30 October 2014

We took the day off because of wind and rain and were both going to go shopping overseas (Warrenton, Oregon), until Allan pointed out that the grocery list was long and that I don’t really enjoy shopping.  So off he went, happily alone, while I stayed home to read.

Or so I thought.  The drizzle was not enough to keep me indoors when I had a couple of new bareroot plants from Todd that needed to go into the ground.  I started by planting a Baptisia sphaerocarpa (yellow false indigo) behind the cat bench in the back garden as I had removed a Sedumn ‘Autumn Joy’ that was too low.  THEN I googled it.  Oops, it only gets three feet tall.  Some musical plants ensued, resulting in my getting more planted than I thought I would.

I finally got my Berberis ‘Orange Rocket’ (2 of them, acquired in Seattle last June) in the ground, after transplanting two sanguisorba starts into the back garden.

Berberis ‘Orange Rocket’

While Todd visited the other day, I’d noticed a few exciting things during our tour of the garden.  A mystery evergreen shrub in the front garden has white berries.  It is an angular plant, looks thorny but is not painful to touch, and neither of us could ID it.

white berries

My Edgeworthia rubra has buds already.

Dicentra scandens still blooming by the sun porch.

My white sanguisorba died back to the base…

but it’s putting out new growth

I admired a few dwarf conifers (can’t name them, though).

In Allan’s garden

I was inspired by the damp but almost windless weather to go back to the bogsy wood and transplant a golden Virburnum that I had planted too close to a variegated elderberry.  Then I saw two small, new hydrangeas were too close together.  All got shifted around.

former danger tree shade bed with Virburnum removed…

and it went in here…along with 2 Sauromatum venosum bulbs from Todd.

It’s a good thing I have a new shade bed in the works (under that tree, by the swale) as I am almost out of room again!

I checked the most satisfactory rising of the water in the seasonal swale outside the south gate.

pondy swale

water under the willows

water in the long grass

…the grass I wanted to pull, but didn’t.

My grass-cut finger is only now healed from when the grass fought back almost two weeks ago (or more).

Hardy fuchsias gleamed in the rain.

Nicotiana langsdorfii has put out new flowers.

pineapple sage

My river of blue Geranium ‘Rozanne’ has put out fresh new growth.  If I had cleaned up the old spent growth, it would look all fresh and new.  The strangely warm weather has inspired all this strange late-blooming behavior.

Geranium ‘Rozanne’ new and old growth.

Languishing in a corner of the garden I found the tin pig that sadly reminds me of a friendship lost not by my choice.  Poor pig.  Makes me feel baffled just to look at it.

languishing pig

I put Pig up front with the Halloween decor so I can give him to Pink Poppy Madeline.

Now I’ll remember to send Pig to a happy new home.

I know Maddy will like the pig, because she and Jacob had its sister and brother at their wedding.

Wedding pigs will be good company; perhaps my pig will grow wings.

I finally remembered to transplant (again) the yellow Baptisia into the front garden.

Despite all the rain, the soil is still powder dry right under the surface.

I still need to find a good spot for this dusky leaved wiegela from Todd.

I added some sopping wet plant stalks to the corridor of spooky plants.  It is now almost done except for the decorative touches and the final part that inconveniently blocks the lawn path.

the Halloween entry corridor

I called Allan on his shopping trip to tell him that even though I had said we would not use cobwebs this year as they look so tawdry in daylight, we needed them after all.  The corridor is not spooky enough without them.

Finally, the rain came down strong enough so I could go inside guilt free.

south window view

I felt bothered by the darkness created in the living room by the Halloween window film.

Next year will wait till the last day to put this up!

My book, The Last Anniversary by Liane Moriarty, had a number of thought provoking passages about age.  I’m sorry to say I identify with the pain stuff even though I am not QUITE 60, surely too young to be OLD.

Rose attends a funeral and contemplates old age:

She remembers what it was like to THINK she was old, but still be young:

Memories of her sister:

I am working hard on appreciating every moment now.

Also, I apologize to MaryBeth at my failure to make the book photos less curvy.

The Last Anniversary is mostly set on a fictional Australian Island, has a set of characters of all ages, and like all Liane Moriarty’s books, I recommend it for a good read.

Book frontispeice:  A mystery set on a little island; how very satisfactory!  Irresistible!

I had to get it through interlibrary loan; it did not take long to arrive.

I’d forgotten it was Thursday till our friend Jenna (Queen La De Da) texted me to invite us to join her birthday dinner at the Cove.  We couldn’t, because Allan was still across the river.  When he returned, we did go to the Cove for a late dinner, and I was glad to have been reminded of the day as otherwise I could have missed our Thursday tradition.

Allan’s photo: entering the Cove

the menu

Caeser salads

ahi tuna

Our day concluded with two episodes on DVD of the most recently released season of True Blood.  I do wish my memory were better for what happened in the intricate and convoluted plot during previous seasons.