18-19 Nov: campfire weather

Sunday, 18 November 2018

Last night I was so sore from gardening for 13 (?) days in a row that I could barely walk by bath time.  I said to Allan that I simply must rest and read on Sunday no matter how beautiful the weather.

Today the weather was again beautiful and again I simply had to garden even though I awoke with aching arms and legs.

The old apple tree was aswarm with crows.  I managed to photograph just the remnants after they saw me and flapped away, complaining loudly.

Frosty shared some thoughts about my having chosen to garden rather than read.

I collected enough oyster baskets of leaves from the Norwood driveway to fill my new leaf container.  While I was in their driveway, I contemplated what I would do with the Nora House back yard if it were mine.

It has a great view of the port buildings.

From Norwoods:The Nora House yard is narrower than ours.

In our garden: leaf container almost full

Allan’s photo

I decided to add more old Geranium ‘Rozanne’ foliage to the compost bins.

before

after

My compost bounty overfloweth.

Rudder visited from next door (east) and got a treat of cheese.

Frosty was so excited to have a dog’s visit that he walked up and butted under Rudder’s chin with the top of his head.  Rudder, age 16, was not especially interested in a new friend.

Frosty is 13.  I sometimes contemplate getting him a nice dog for his dotage…He must be lonely with his mother and brother and his friend Calvin gone.

Allan chipped up the escallonia from Mike’s garden…

before

after, the messy work area (Allan’s photos)

I have the idea of having a long narrow shed where the debris dump/potato patch has been.  It would fit Allan’s boat.  With the required property setback, it would have to be long and narrow and would hide the unattractive work area from anyone next door.

possible space for long narrow shed, with a pole marking the setback line

Below, my beautiful wall of compost, the spring bulb window boxes waiting to be installed, a rain gauge from last week’s rain storm, and some optimistic cuttings of Mike’s Escallonia iveyi.

I am pretty sure that Mike’s white escallonia came from me to begin with.  I used to get cuttings from the escallonia at the Anchorage Cottages, which was the white E. iveyi planted by Heronswood’s Dan Hinkley back when his sister owned the Anchorage (before my time here).  A gardening business called The Elves Did It sometimes worked with me then, and got cuttings, too, and later installed Mike’s garden.

I spent the rest of the afternoon back in the bogsy woods, snapping off dead salmonberry in the salmonberry tunnel.  I enjoy the sound it makes. With a windless, clear afternoon, I wanted kindling for a campfire.

gunnera with alder leaves

fuchsia and mahonia

Behind the gear shed next door, the last stack of crab pots was moved out by forklift at dusk.

campfire with rising moon

A moonlit campfire dinner was had.

As the leaves fall from the willow grove, we can see more of the lights along the port.

Monday, 19 November 2018

Again, despite being tired, I simply had to garden because of perfect weather about to to end.  I set myself upon a project of widening a path enough so that Allan could bring his boat back, via our property rather than the Nora House driveway, to a potential new shed.  We could also use the wider path to take our wheelie bin out to the street.  I am trying to think ahead to a time when we might no longer be able to swan about the Nora House yard as if it is our own!

before

The garden bed between our house and the neighbouring driveway came about mainly because of a big old forsythia that I was unable to dig out.  Nora liked the long driveway bordering garden very much.

four hours later (the maple turning colour in the background is across the street)

comfortably wide now

The garden bed along the angled fence will have to be made narrower if a shed must be accommodated.  It is a perniciously weedy spot anyway.  I dug out a quantity of Egyptian Walking Onions to put elsewhere.

bed to be made narrow, left. Bed to be made into a shed, right.

The design of the garden, with the angled fence which used to just have deer mesh between the center posts, was so that Nora could see into our garden from her back porch.  She once told a friend that she saw Jesus walking there.

With my project done, I went back to the salmonberry tunnel again for forty five minutes of satisfying dead stem snapping for another campfire.  Again, the evening had no wind at all.

Skooter on the plant table backed with thinned out salmonberry

on the way back to the house to get campfire dinner fixings

I was pleased that I got the fire all started up by myself.  Usually former boy scout Allan does the fire making, but he was off getting a haircut.

We only had this much cut firewood left from last winter’s windfalls:

Behind our fence is what remains of the blue wall of tarp that, covering stacked crab pots, made the backdrop for our rear garden all summer.

I like to burn up all last year’s firewood by late autumn in order to start a brand new windfall pile.  One small half-wheelbarrow load of that wood was too wet or big to burn this evening.  The next afternoon, I would wheel it to the back of the garage and put it under cover to dry so that maybe we can have a winter solstice or very early spring campfire with it later.

Nicotiana ‘Fragrant Cloud’, still in bloom, does not provide any scent on chilly evenings.

Allan returned to a pleasantly roaring fire and a campfire dinner.

the moon almost full

Rain was due by 4 PM the next day.  Although I longed for reading time, we had volunteer plans for tomorrow.