Thursday, 21 December 2017
The night had been just below freezing. I woke early to a white frosty world, poked my camera out the south cat door for an unscreened photo of frost on the grass…
…and went back to sleep for three more hours. When I awoke, I suggested that we go do the post-frost clean up, in hope that finally the frost had put the gardens to sleep.
We began a few blocks east at
Mike’s garden,
which we have referred to till now as Mayor Mike’s garden. He is retiring as mayor at the end of 2017.
The sun was bright, the air cold, and the ground just lightly frozen.
Anchorage Cottages
Some days back, we drove in and right back out of the Anchorage parking lot because I could see the chrysanthemums by the office were still blooming. And today they were STILL blooming.
Today, I showed Jody, the housekeeper, who also does some gardening, how to just cut them to the ground when and if they ever brown off (which they will…). We are not going to keep returning to check on two chrysanthemums. I also showed her that she could cut the Melianthus if we have a hard enough freeze to make it ugly.
Long Beach
My mind had been on the one big Geranium ‘Rozanne’ that I had left untrimmed. Surely it would be frozen by now? But no.
It has been so mild that the Rozannes we cut back early this year have put out rosettes of new leaves.
It got cut back anyway, because we are not going to keep checking on it through January and I don’t want to think about a potential blackened heap of frozen leaves later on.
An anemone was already blooming in Veterans Field.
We did some cutting back in Fifth Street Park, of a pineapple sage, some Verbena bonariensis, and a bit of the sprawling Melianthus.
Once upon a time, the scrim of unclipped catmint along the front, above, would have greatly bothered me. For some reason, this year I think it looks interesting against the dry flower heads of the Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’…or maybe it was just that my hands were so cold.
Primroses (cowslips) were already blooming under a street tree.
I can feel exactly how it will feel to go back to work in late January or early February, and the prospect feels ok. My only problem is that I have gotten pretty much nowhere on my indoor winter projects.
We celebrated the true end of the work year with coffee, warmth, and Pink Poppy Bakery treats at Abbracci Coffee Bar.
We and another regular customer each got to take home one of the Christmas centerpieces.. very nice, since we never got around to putting up a tree, and later the flowers can go in my wonderful compost bins.
Ilwaco Timberland Library
We had some books to pick up.
As expected, I got quite a pile of books, despite my original staycation plan for re-reading books on my own bookshelves. Maybe that will wait till sometime when I am homebound for one reason or another.
We had brought home a bucket of Abbracci coffee grounds and enough clean compost to add a wheelbarrow’s worth to my bins. As I chopped it into small pieces and turned some from one bin to another at dusk, I did not mind the cold at all.
All the work got erased from the work side of the board, as did “Call Accountant”. I had found an email address for the accountant we want, so I emailed her on the way home this afternoon. I won’t have to call unless we don’t hear back in my preferred medium for anything business related (email, text, Facebook messaging, anything but a business phone call!). (Carol, this does not mean you and Bill!)
Salt Pub
After dark, we attended a Salty Talk at Salt Pub.
“Join Jim Sayce, historian and Executive Director of the Pacific County Economic Development Council, in a SALTY Talks presentation, “Reading the Land: Forensic Ecology” exploring the changes in the local landscape over time. Jim will show us how to recognize the subtle clues that can help find the original or historic landscape of a site within the bones of the built environment.”
More boats than one used to decorate with lights. The winter storms and wet weather caused too many electrical problems and so that pretty tradition ended just a few years back. We were happy to see one or two boats still carrying it on.
The lecture was well attended for one so close to the holidays.
Jim has a good collection of photos to illustrate how you can see the underlay of history. For example, a line of trees representing old fence lines (where the trees grew up under the fence and the fence eventually disappeared):
He showed our changing views due to accretion of the beach (in some places half a mile wider than it used to be) and the growth of beach pines, which were not there a century ago. Many beach trails were begun over 100 years ago and have simply been lengthened by trodding feet as the beach itself moved westward.
Allan captured some of the interesting old photos:
The “elephant rocks” used to be out in the surf, as an old photo showed, and are now well inland of Waikiki Beach.
An old highway has gone back to nature by the new highway 101. Through a layer of grass and moss, the yellow line of the old highway occasionally shows through.
The old and new photos pleased and fascinated us.
Jim’s blog, circa 2011 and before, is here.
It is now time for five weeks of true staycation.
Good shot of tired worker headed for coffee break! Interesting day — so many pretty flowers still determined to bloom, good food, and what sounds like a fascinating lecture. If I can’t be there in person, at least I can enjoy your report of it all. Thanks for all the great photos you take!
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Thank you, friend.
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I hope the staycation is all you would wish it to be.
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Thank you, Mr T.
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I really wanted to go to that Salty Talk, but, well,…work.
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I am so sorry about your being there working instead of here enjoying. Four more years? Or is it three? I know you have it counted to the day.
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