Thursday, 17 November 2016
Skooter!
Allan’s first batch of photos for our first day of pre-staycation were of the projections on the screen at the Adrift Hotel meeting room, where a standing room only crowd gathered in the afternoon for help navigating our health insurance plans. Without the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), this particular working couple would be paying over 1/2 of our annual income for health insurance. The insurance companies are the culprits, and they have cut off our local insurance agents from being paid a fee to help us out. So the agents kindly organized two seminars to guide us through the process. Of course, we are all concerned that the new administration will remove the options for working poor or almost poor to get medical insurance. It is a time of uncertainty and a considerable amount of anxiety and we appreciated the time taken to guide us through the latest application process, en masse.
Federal poverty level guidelines
Allan’s photo
approaching the Cove
Arriving home, we found Skooter resting, listless, all wet and dirty one one side. I was terribly worried. Had he fallen into the mud…or the froggy ditch at the meander line? Had he been pushed down by something? He was a bit growly, too but seemed to be walking ok.
Friday, 18 November 2016
I woke and experienced the usual feeling of distress just from reading the news headlines about more racist appointments to the new government regime accompanied by white nationalist rejoicing. Without time to read anything in depth, we hared out the door to acquire some mulch.
Who should we see as we drove into Peninsula Landscape Supply but Sea Star Gardening. They were acquiring mulch for Sea Garden, a former job of ours from way back.
Allan’s photo: There they go!
They can carry several yards of mulch.
our one yard load
Long Beach
We mulched almost all of the planters from the police station north. A bitterly cold wind buffeted us with 33 mph gusts.
the sunken planter that had called to me last night
That’s better, although off balance with only one erysimum.
catching up with Parks Manager Mike
This clammer with a clam gun startled me as we drove through town in the dark last night and I saw him off to the side.
a new guy in town (Allan’s photo)
Allan’s photo
plaque on new statue
One yard never goes as far as one hopes.
London bobby in front of our police station: “Well, well, well, what do we have here, then?”
In Veterans Field, city crew putting lights on the city tree.
trying to get a damnable climbing rose (planted long ago by a volunteer) out of a planter
This chrysanth has been blooming for weeks. On the right, our dear friend Bill Clearman drives north.
A helpful sign has been installed in the planter that was getting inundated with butts. No butts today! (Allan’s photo)
new lamp by Heather Ramsay. I told her she is a genius. The flames flicker.
a pretty lamp that casts lacy shadows
Thank you, my darling.
Allan’s photos: spent chrysanthemums, before…
and after
blue lights and Geranium ‘Rozanne’
The city crew had moved on to Coulter Park’s decorations.
tree garden: Hebe ‘Boughton Dome’ front….
and back
blue holiday lights on every lamp post
Cathy making crab rolls, our favourite (Allan’s photo)
crab roll and coleslaw…we highly recommend!
Ilwaco
The crab pot street decorations are in place.
driving by the boatyard (Allan’s photo)
checking on the crab pot tree
Allan helped by moving four heavy potted plants into the greenhouse.
Whatever mysterious calamity had befallen Skooter yesterday evening, he was fine now.
Skooter
the autumn garden
Geranium ‘Rozanne’ blooming extra late.
bright mahonia
new leaves on Acanthus ‘Hollard’s Gold’
Fatsia japonica ‘Spider’s Web’
on the sun porch
Calvin and Smokey avoiding the cold wind
1995 (age 71):
Nov 17: 1:30-6:00 Planted more tulips in PRFB. [Patio Right Flower Bed?] There were 25 and 50 per bag. Planted pansies along bulkhead. Then spent 4:30-6:00 in shop rearranging bags and bags of bulbs.
Nov 18: 1:30-3:30 Raked leaves from ditch in front including leaves on the road 1/2 way over. Filled 3 Steel Sacks [39 gallon trash bags]. The bags are too heavy to lift into wheelbarrow so I’ll have to drag them by the “handles”. I hope they don’t break.
Mrs. Wilson came over and chatted. She invited me for Tday dinner but I declined.
1997 (age 73):
Nov 17: I spent this afternoon in the bedroom filing!—for the first time in 3 months or so. I threw out outdated records from the files. As usual, I didn’t finish so I piled everything in a box to finish later. [Mom cut out a lot of gardening articles to save.]
Nov 18: I only worked about an hour today. I brought up a lot of firewood from the shed to the porch. It’s hard to pile the old sizes from the trees across the street as its a jumble of odd pieces—not the nice pile most people have but it will do.
1998 (age 74):
Nov 17: (Slept till 11:00.) I cleaned the BBQ grates as best I could. The top two weren’t bad but the bottom one is very rusted. Then I finished washing all the pots and containers. Then I turned off the hot water heater. Using the stepladder I was able to get all the quart jars down. Later I ran the dishwasher to wash them all. I picked another 4+ pails apples again. In the evening after JAG, I started trying to organize the bulbs to be planted in containers. a Busy Day !
Nov 18: I went out intending to start planting bulbs into the various containers but ended up raking the leaves from behind the house on top of the compost pile about at least a foot of leaves deep. There will still be pails and pails of apple peels to pile on when all the apples are gone. I will toss soil on top and let the pile alone for the winter. 2 PAILS APPLES
You seem to be getting through many yards of soil energy. You will have mulched the whole area before long.
LikeLike
I wish! Just found another set of planters that’s low…but I think it can wait till spring, or till I get a big pile at home that I can share.
LikeLike