Monday, 8 June 2015
I woke to the roaring of wind and went on strike. There was no way we were going to weed a section of the beach approach in 25 mph miserable cold icy north wind. Ok, not icy. But a local outdoorsy fellow commented that he voted Monday “the coldest day of the year so far”. I did not set one foot out the door until a dinner engagement, and spent the day catching up on writing this blog. Every time I thought of going outside, another blast of wind would batter the house. It felt more like a winter than a late spring storm; I wish it had at least brought some rain.
Allan, however, did go on an errand to the port, and photographed the sideways motion in one of the gardens there.
On the way back, he did a tadpole rescue mission and brought back a colander of tadpoles from the meander line ditch, which is rapidly drying up in places. He said one pool had had a tractor tire tracks at the edge and oil on the water.
They went into our water boxes.
At 6, with the wind still roaring, we took J9 out to the Depot for a belated birthday dinner.
Tuesday, 9 June 2015
I woke up later than usual and when I asked Allan why he’d let me sleep so late, he said because the wind had kept on roaring. By the time we were ready to go, the sun had warmed the air and the wind did not seem as bad as it has the last five days, and especially not as bad as yesterday.
With all the bluster that’s been going on, I knew both the Long Beach and Ilwaco planters would need watering.
Long Beach
I replaced the Agastache that had been stolen last week and made note of a few other gaps that need filling in that particular planter. I suspect more theft as I am sure I planted more trailies along the edge. I hope whoever took the trailies and agastache was just passing through. The hanging baskets looked undaunted by all the wind. Just south of Streetside Taco I found an odd thing: a cosmos pulled up and resting in the water faucet cover which was upturned. Maybe someone found it pulled up and tried to give it a drink of water? Just as I had replanted it and was back to watering with the sprayer of Blue Stuff (fertilizer), I heard a voice chiding me for using such a non organic product. There was Todd, who of course had read of my struggles trying to go to organic fertilizer in the LB planters. I pointed out the sad cosmos and Todd said “Oh, I try to make sure to take all the ones I pull up to replant in the Wiegardt Gallery garden.” I replied that these were short ones that would be a total disappointment to Eric! This is an old joke about how Todd’s brother, artist Eric Wiegardt, always used to reminisce about a summer when the cosmos at the gallery were so tall…an effect I had never been able to recreate. Cheered up by the joshing around (even after Allan joined us carrying another cosmos he had found pulled out in a planter just to the north), I noticed that the intensity of wind had died down.Todd went on his way and we got back to watering.
Allan saw someone from Benson’s By The Beach Restaurant beautifying their deck…
Long Beach watering had proved to be a snap with only minor annoyances, decreasing wind, and a bit of fun banter, and we had plenty of time left to do the Ilwaco watering.
Ilwaco
We began by weeding a couple of sections midway along the port.
Vetch is actually beautiful and if it weren’t so rampant, I am sure we would all grow it as an ornamental.While we were weeding, a friend came out of a business after work. I won’t say who as he may not want to be quoted. We were talking about how excited we all are about the renovation of the Salt Hotel (formerly the Harbor Lights) and I said, “Ilwaco is going to become a hipster town!” He scoffed and I said,”No, really, my Portland friends say THEY’RE COMING; they are already in Astoria, and they’re already coming here to the Sou’wester and Adrift. The Salt is going to be a hipster hotel, you watch!” He replied, “Hipsters are gonna come to Ilwaco when purple monkeys fly out of my butt.” We’ll see who’s right; I still predict (and welcome) an influx of Portland area hipsters. Any of them who are gardeners will be, I think, impressed with our selection of cool plants along the port.
Allan departed to water the street trees and planters with the water trailer while I kept weeding.
Because one of the merchants all of a sudden did not want us to use their water, I had to call Allan to refill the water truck to bring to water one of the port gardens, and since he had to do that, he did the east end (which is by a parking lot with no hose pipe) as well. This surprising and I hope temporary development added half an hour to our day so we did not get done til near sunset. I think what a lot of folks might not understand is that right now time is more valuable to us than money, so it does not make us happy to add extra work to the day. It is a fortunate (and I hope not temporary) state of affairs to have the luxury to seek more free time and is only possible after years of frugality. I do not welcome the job taking longer because of having to haul more water.
At home, I had a bit of container watering to do.
The wind had almost completey stopped and I was able to safely walk back into the bosgy woods for the first time in days.Allan went on another tadpole rescue mission and returned with tadpoles and these photos:
With no rain in sight to refresh the water in the rapidly drying pool, Allan rescued another batch.
We have two water tubs (one an old bathtub) on the patio, so he put some in each tub. The ones that went into the water boxes a day ago seem to be thriving.
Your dish at the Depot looks very much like what I had on Saturday, minus the prawns. Hooray for tadpole rescue!
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Loved that you two rescued the tadpoles. We used to have tons of them in the drainage ditches on the other side of the street. But they dredged them and now they drain too well. But I have two ponds and other water features the frogs fill up will their ‘poles!
It really is disheartening when thieves take your work.
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Thanks, Debbie. I love a swampy drainage ditch. 😉
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Great tadpole rescue work. It is always a pleasure to see an eryngium too.
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