Thursday, 6 December 2018
Allan had jury duty. He was able to get my book from the post office before having to arrive at court at 8:45 AM. (He made it to the pick of 12 jurors but then was sent away after a few answers probably revealed him to be not as hard on crime as the prosecutor wanted.)
Good weather meant I had to work till late afternoon on my honeysuckle pruning project.
Skooter did not help. I think the crisp cold air did not appeal to him.
Here is the glorious moment when the hat of tangled vines lifted off of its support:
The before from a couple of days ago:
and today:
This left an enormous mess by dusk.
I filled the trash bin and pondered how to get rid of the rest. It would take an awfully long time to feed it into the trash week by week. It is too tough and woody to compost.
I widened Willow Loop West by trimming escallonia, partly with The Toy, which was awfully fun.
In the garden:
At dusk, I was ever so happy to settle in with my book, the fourth mystery by Robert Galbraith (AKA JK Rowling).
Friday, 7 December 2018
My book had to wait till dusk. Allan and I decided that a dump run was in order. It would take too long to process the vines through the wheelie bin and the branches through the Pencil Sharpener.
If felt very much like winter with a cold white band at the edge of the sky and a moderate but chilling wind.
It took till three o clock to get the debris loaded, included a large quantity of plain green holly from the willow wood outside the south fence. The dump fee of $20 would be offset by saving us at least two more days of debris disposal at home.
Allan went off to dump …..
…while I happily returned to my book and finished it by 1:30 AM (with a break for dinner and some telly).
Saturday, 8 December 2018
Not many photos today. Caturday photos of Skooter and Frosty were required, of course, and since I had not downloaded my camera for a week, two phone photos would have to do.
Allan built me a nice new bench for the greenhouse lean-to, almost all made of driftwood.
The lean-to will be especially useful because I had had a revelation: In 2019, I AM going to have a plant sale during the “World’s Longest [local] Garage Sale” at the end of May. I had offered a multitude of double Shasta daisy starts to the Peninsula Gardeners group days before, had eight takers, and six days later four of the pots I had filled were still sitting waiting for the takers to pick them up. No more of this—instead I would start planting starts to sell on that one weekend. Our friends Ed and Mark have great success with their once a year plant sales. I spent the day potting up some Gladioulus papilio and a wealth of lambs ears that had worked their way into the center of a garden bed.
As for the evening reading, someone had recommended in a Ruth Rendell book group (online) that Belinda Bauer was a worthy successor to Ruth (sometimes my favourite author), so I began reading one of Belinda’s mysteries. I can tell you that she is very good but that the writing is not as elegant as Ruth’s.
oooh! I want to join you at your plant sale!! I have so many things I could sell, and Prissy too! Could be fun!! Love the bench Alan made. He is so talented! I have had similar jury duty rejections!
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Along with your plants, Allan needs to add some of those driftwood benches to sell! Wow!
As always, great to see Caturday photos. You’ve got a couple of furry lookers at your house.
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Good idea. We (I) have an idea of finding some sort of Saturday Market sort of items to sell (and plants) in retirement.
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Have purchased the fourth Strike book, and it is under the tree for the s/o! It will be my boxing day reading, hah!
Love your new lean-to – a perfect idea for a breezeway.
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I’d find it hard to wait!!!
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That seems expensive for dumping greenwaste. I am fortunate that much of ours gets chucked off the edge of wherever we happen to be working. Only big items and debris that is not generated close to a place where it can be tossed gets taken to the yard for disposal. Some gets processed into firewood. At home, I just tossed much of it into low spots. I used to burn, but neighbors snivel about it now. I would rather burn the debris while the forest is less combustible than leave all that debris out in the forest where it would enhance the combustibility of a forest fire.
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Our town laws don’t allow burning debris, even though our yard is big enough we can do it in the way back. In the unincorporated towns (every town but Long Beach and Ilwaco), burning is allowed. But people burn such huge piles, amassed all summer during the dry weather burn ban, that there is a pall of smoke sometimes.
Salmonberry, cut into short lengths, makes great kindling for campfires. I tested the honeysuckle but it did not, so wasn’t worth hours of chopping.
I felt ok with paying $15 to dump but $20 bugs me!
I did not mean to publish the next two posts on the same day. Oooops.
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Ha! That is funny that $5 makes such a big difference between $15 and $20, but it so does!
In our region, we are stuck between burning to make the spaces around our homes less combustible, and not being allowed to do so. It is silly. In San Jose, and most other municipalities, there are only a few days out of the year that fireplaces can be used. They will likely be illegal soon. That is very unfair for those of us who rely on them for heat.
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I recall when wood stoves were banned from Use in Seattle on bad air quality days but back then people were still allowed to use them if that was the only heat source.
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That is how it is here so far, but there are those who want them banned completely.
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I am pleased that Allan has the right attitude to law and order but was saddened that this got him thrown out of the jury.
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Yes, it is unfortunate; thank you for noticing.
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Looking forward to seeing your plant sale! Alan could sell some awesome driftwood pieces, too, or some custom garden benches.
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Exactly what I’ve been telling him!
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