Sunday, 16 November 2014
We continued to take advantage of every day of workable weather.
On the way to continue the bulbing of the Long Beach planters, I cried “Pull over!” next to Ilwaco city hall as I could see the Agyranthemum ‘Butterfly’ was done at last and ready to be pulled.
That made me think that we should check the Butterflies at the Depot Restaurant, and indeed, they, too, were done.
Long Beach
The rest of the day was spent planting bulbs in the last three and a half blocks of planters in Long Beach. We made better time than yesterday because we did not stop to completely re-do any of the planters.
Further comeback to the chrysanthemum-haters: The ones in the planters have been blooming beautifully for about a month now.
I set up bulbs around the rim of each planter and moved on to clean up the next while Allan planted, and when I would get far enough ahead, I would plant, as well.
There were some tense moments as crows eyed the small bulbs I had placed.
Momentously, while working I got a text from Garden Tour Nancy with a photo of the first egg from her flock of young hens. It was produced by a hen names Spot who seemed to find the whole process quite a shock, as one can imagine.
Although I had been suffering from aches and pains at the last part of every bulb planting day, I was still thinking of this year as “bulb time” instead of “bulb hell”. In order to get through the last two blocks, we bought maple bars from the Cottage Bakery. I’ve been trying to avoid pastries because of a hyphondriac imaginary gall bladder attack. Today, I had a severe need to have a huge sugar rush to do two more blocks of planting. And then, when I got into the van so we could drive up to the last two blocks…the rattly empty sound of a dead battery.
I almost wept. Called Garden Tour Nancy for a jump but Phil was across the river. Called Ed Strange but he was mowing somewhere and did not answer. Had heard horror stories about how long triple A takes around here. Feeling like I was about to do the impossible, I took the wheelbarrow and the rest of the bulbs and headed on up the street, leaving Allan to figure something out.
We were paying for procrastination. Our van battery had been weak for awhile and we were planning to do something about it once staycation began. Allan had often been putting it on the charger overnight to give it a boost. He hadn’t last night, and all the stopping and starting in Long Beach had exacted a price.
While I slogged away with the wheelbarrow, Allan made some calls and cleverly took our local cab service to NAPA auto parts, got a new battery, and was back at work within an hour.
Only within the last few years has there been a reliable cab service on the Peninsula and back and forth to Astoria. This is the first time we have used them, and they came quickly and charged a reasonable fee.
I was so glad to see Allan pull the van up next to me as I finished planter number four of eight, with the sun threatening to set.
Below, planter six of the eight we’d had left to do: I loathe this planting by Dennis Company: almost pure vinca. This planter (below) is now top of my list to re-do. It has a low evergreen candytuft on either side of the post that looks grand in the spring and then dull all summer. So I will give it one more springtime and hope to dig it all out before mid-May annuals planting in 2015.
Finally, we had the last planter planted. I crossed back to the planter by NIVA green to add one last handful of narcissi. Five o clock is our little traffic rush hour and I had to wait for a nice big gap in traffic to hobble back to the van.
Allan wants you to know that he went out in the street with his safety vest on to make sure I could hobble across unscathed.
Ilwaco
After work as we drove home with our energetic new battery, Allan noticed a house at the west end of Lake Street already lit up for Christmas. We drove around the block to get some photos. This house has new occupants who clearly are going to be an asset to the town.
I suggested we also go to the port and get a photo of the lights at Time Enough Books, as the previous evening I had been able to see them from my south window. On the way, we observed that the crab pot Christmas tree is already under construction. This year’s tree lighting will be on December 6th.
At home, it gave me great satisfaction to take the LB planters off the work board under “bulbs” AND the “frost clean up” list.
In fact, I have only two clumps of camassia to plant in Fifth Street Park and all the bulbs from our first batch will be in. A second batch of 400 end of season sale bulbs will arrive Tuesday, I hope. If all goes well, with no major glitches, bulb time should be done by Thursday.
Oh, come on, Flora, in the off-season is it really fair to call it rush “hour”? Isn’t it more like “rush quarter-hour”? haha!
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Ha, it is a rush hour of about three cars in a row. Ok, maybe ten cars at the light in Long beach! And you are right, it only lasts about a quarter hour unless it’s a clam tide.
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I am sorry about your battery. It is always a shock when things don’t work.
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Thanks for the sympathy!
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