Tuesday, 23 October 2018
Despite the daunting sight of wind whipping our alder grove around, we decided to try to work. Rain was predicted at 2 PM.
Long Beach
We headed straight for city works and got 19 buckets of mulch from our pile. That was every five gallon bucket with a handle that I could find. We could use more if you have any to give us!
We mulched at city hall first (which also involved some weeding and some escallonia pruning).
Back we went to get another load. This time, we gave the Bolstad planters their autumn top up.
I had been carrying with us some cereal that had dropped on the kitchen floor, waiting for the right birds. Today was the day to distribute it.
While we were working on the beach approach, we encountered a couple of tourists (probably) who had parked at the west end of Bolstad before we arrived. A guy on a black bike smashed the window of their car and stole their belongings while they had walked down to get ice cream at Scoopers. The driver of the car saw the theft happening as they returned and ran back and chased the thief down the gravel that goes through the pines to the city from the Bolstad restroom parking lot. But the thief got away. It was a sad encounter to see tourists’ have a ruined day. The police came, and one hopes a search was made of the beach pine woods because that’s where the culprit disappeared to, we think.
This happened to a friend’s car once when I was with her at the Oregon coast (the door jimmied rather than the window smashed). Among my items stolen were two precious rolls of undeveloped film of our visit in Eugene, Oregon, and my leather looseleaf pocket notebook in which I had kept for years a list of books to read. Many books were unread by me because of that theft.
Back to work; I hoped the nineteen buckets would be enough for the eleven planters. The soil in those planters sinks quickly into the netherworld, or what lies beneath.
Nineteen buckets was not quite enough so back we went for load three. The wind was getting worse and a slight drizzle had begun.
We finished topping up the last three Bolstad planters and the west side of city hall, by which time the rain had fully arrived.
I was longing to get another load for Veterans Field, and then another load for Fifth Street Park. The rain might stop in half an hour, said our weather apps, so we repaired to Taqueria el Jalapeño for lunch. Yes, finally, many months since it opened, we had a rainy break to try out the new restaurant behind Lewis and Clark Square.
Inside, the decor was cheerful and delightful and the food was excellent.
I noted that the pop bottles were prettier than the Mexican coca cola bottles we had used for bouquets for an immigrant fundraiser, so we saved two and will keep saving them. You do, too, if you dine there, please.
The rain did not cease and a 20 plus mph wind was kicking when we emerged. We gave up on getting more mulch. We did accomplish planting two Geranium ‘Rozanne’ and four Oregano ‘Hopley’s Purple’ in the newly redone planter by the Long Beach frying pan.
Shelburne Hotel
And at the Shelburne, we removed three or four echeverias from two back deck planters to take home and winter in my greenhouse, replacing them with some hardy hens and chicks and sedums for the winter.
Bulb Time day 11: the spreadsheets
I got the bulb lists all typed up and added. When the last bulbs come for the welcome sign (which will be day 12), we will have planted slightly over 5332 bulbs. (The overage is from some buckets of port bulbs from the defunct office garden that were waiting to go back in.)
The typing is not something Allan can help with because I use increasingly scrawled abbreviations for bulb names as the sorting goes on.
Fortunately, I very much enjoy sitting down to do a spreadsheet. In another life, I might have quite liked an office job.
Wednesday, 24 October 2018
(I am trying to get the blog caught up so we won’t be a week behind at Halloween.)
The Colorblends bulbs for the welcome sign arrived a day early! The weather was dry and not windy, perfect for planting them. We took a few more bulbs with us for a little job at
The Depot Restaurant
but could not plant them because the barrel for which they are destined is still so flowery and full.
Long Beach
Bulb Time day 12
Into the welcome sign bed went about 300 tulips, red and yellow for the front and a soft pastel mix for the back.
Now bulb time is done except for a couple of postscripts: the 15 or so tulips for the Depot barrel and the transplanting of some Lily ‘Conca D’Or’ from my garden to the Shelburne and the Post office.
We filled up 21 buckets of mulch at city works and mulched the corner garden in Veterans Field, not as deeply as I wished, because I realized the pile of mulch was not as big as I had thought. The tarp was on a bit of a mound and the pile looked deeper than it was.
Then with ten buckets left of that load, Allan mulched five of the most beaten down street tree pocket gardens. The rest will have to wait till next spring.
Meanwhile, I cut back one Geranium Rozanne:
And admired the flowers in another planter:
While Allan mulched the last two trees, I tackled a big patch of the BadAster that we have not had time to control. He helped me finish up.
We returned to city works and gathered all the rest of the Soil Energy Mulch, 22 buckets this time and a bit more just piled in the trailer. It all went to Fifth Street Park.
Most of the mulch went to the northwest quadrant.
One of Allan’s projects, before and after
The park still has sweet peas.
On the work board, almost all bulbs are planted, and mulch LB is erased by virtue of running out of mulch.
At home: Alycia has returned to the Nora house for a few days and so we are about to repair next door for a spaghetti dinner with “warm cookies and ice cream” for dessert. With rain predicted, I think we will now have time off for paperwork (necessary) and Halloween decorating…oh, and cleaning the house after Bulb Time chaos and exhaustion.
Friday, 26 October 2018
After a rainy Thursday of paperwork (no time for fun reading), we took advantage of good weather to get a jump on the fall clean up.
Long Beach
While Allan did those, I clipped and tidied several planters.
Shelburne
We did a quick check up before their pre-Halloween ghostly event.
No time for a meal there; I wanted to work on a four part blog post in memory of my Smoky, starting tomorrow. (Anyone who finds cats boring or irksome will want to skip those days and return to us on Nov 2.) And Halloween preparation begins full force on a series of days off; that’s what we’ll be doing (and then processing photos about it) while our most faithful readers try to load posts with a kajillion photos of my Smoky.
Looking forward to seeing your memorial posts of Smoky. Our animal companions may be friends for a short time, but they are remembered for a lifetime. Bless little Smoky.
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Thank you. I’m afraid it will be way too many cat photos for most people. I liked seeing the comfortable repetitiveness of his happy life here.
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Over 5000 bulbs! Well accomplished both of you.
Theft is a problem everywhere. Driven by either poverty, drugs, or a sense of entitlement to other people’s things. It’s the last that is prevalent here in garden thefts, or the scooping of anything that cannot be tied down in a front yard.
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Entitled theft is the kind that annoys me more than the other kinds. Insightful!
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I know rain is difficult to work in, but I sure enjoy seeing it in your photos.
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Congrats on completing the annual bulb planting. The mulch looks great! It is so nice to see so many flowers still in bloom, especially the cosmos! I also love the Zauschneria californica. Enjoy your days off! Looking forward to seeing Smoky pics and then your Halloween night photos.
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Thank you. The Smoky pics are quite a…what would you call a movie that goes on for three hours and you wish it was a little shorter. Probably like that but I needed the catharsis.
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What a monster post. I had to have a lie down after reading it. I was sorry to read about the theft from the car. It is certainly no way to encourage visitors.
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Oh dear!! I’m afraid the Smoky the cat posts for the next four days are awfully long, too, and I think non cat fans will probably want to take a blog break. I can hardly wait till the Halloween madness is over and I can have a nice sit down with your blog.
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SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much! (Thank you! that is.) Although I do not work at my other job on Monday, I will be there in the morning, and will make plans for the Gladiolus papilio. As I mentioned earlier, I want to put it in front of the Mount Hermon Post Office, with a second colony either in the same spot or down at the Mount Hermon Depot. It will be SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO rad!
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I hope they do well. I hope you’ll post pics if they do!
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Well, I intend to find out how well they do. I will not be seeing them again until next year. Thank you SO(Ox~20) much for sharing them!
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