13 March: hellebore walk

Monday, 13 March 2017

As I write the first part of this in the mid afternoon, the rain is not as fierce as it was this morning.  In my youth…maybe five years ago…I would have leapt out to do some work.  Now, I feel less like working in the drizzle.  I added last week’s one day of work to the time sheet and was shocked to see we’ve eight rain and windy bitter cold and even snow days off.  Meanwhile, I’m embarrassed to report that Dave and Melissa bundled up in rain gear and worked through almost ALL the weather.

My excuse today: The soil is boggy and the plants are all drenched.  What a wimp!

I did take a walk in the soft rain throughout the garden.

Skooter looked startled that I opened the front door.

hyacinth basket

looking south

soggy footing

lots of crocuses

Harry Lauder’s Walking Stick (contorted filbert)

way too much fried egg plant reseeded in the bogsy wood

narcissi, and monster shotweed

Slippery ground prevented the shotweed pulling and fern clipping from starting up.

pulmonaria (spotted dog)

hard to even imagine when we’ll be able to have a campfire

The swale path is a pond.

Looking north.  Water on the center path is over the top of my boots.

south gate

The top of the south gate represents a Chinook tribal canoe, the sort that used to ply the river when this very spot was river front, before the port parking lots and building sites were built on fill, in the early 1950s.

I do wish this water stood all year long.

coming round the west side

more pulmonaria

corydalis foliage

crocuses

As you can see, the chop and drop method looks pretty messy.  I look forward to the future three compost bins which will be made as soon as we get six more free pallets…from somewhere.  I have decided the bins will tuck in nicely next to the greenhouse.

They will replace the wonky tadpole pond set up…

I love my new stop the eye fence.

Euonymus ‘Wolong Ghost’ is seriously climbing the front of the house, which is vinyl clad.

As I had walked all around the garden, I had collected one flower from every hellebore.  I’m sorry to report that many had minuscule snails hiding inside, putting paid to the idea that a cold winter would mean fewer snails.

Here is the full collection of hellebore blossoms.

Skooter appeared.

The center one is last year’s birthday present from Our Kathleen.

Because my camera has been finding it hard to capture the glory of the corylopsis in bloom, I asked Allan to photograph it.

Corylopsis and crocus, my photo

He returned with these:

Corylopsis pauciflora

with some fill in flash

Smokey snoozed through all of it.

I’d like to read for the rest of the day in this most wonderful book:

I can already tell you I am going to be rating this book at 20 stars.  As a former housecleaner for 18 years, I find deep familiarity in the stories of doing housework for richer folk.  And as the protagonist, Mildred, talks with her best friend about race, I keep marveling in a furious way that 70 years after it was written, how very much about racism is still the same.  Read it; it is wonderful and it’s funny despite its serious topics.  Read about it here.

My reading hours are curtailed because tonight is the local Democrats meeting.  I know Mildred would want me to go.  Here are her thoughts on a meeting: