Real Time Alert
Tonight at five PM sharp is the crab pot tree lighting, preceded by some introductory festivities.
Saturday, 30 Nov 2019
Small Business Saturday at the Port of Ilwaco
After a cold weather reading day on Friday, we did a tad bit of holiday shopping, beginning with Christmas cards at the Don Nisbett Art Gallery….
…and more at Time Enough Books.
Then, because I had had to leave my property to support some local business, we went on to finish the work year, so or we hoped.
At The Depot Restaurant, we found that the window box annuals are still green and blooming despite temperatures below 30F at night.
We will have to check them again next week. Tidying them when and if the plants do freeze will be a matter of ten minutes.
At the Red Barn, we trimmed up one last plant, the pineapple sage in the south facing planter.
Our good friend Cosmo supervised.
Oops, the big flower needed turning around.
At Diane’s garden next door, we trimmed the pots of (mostly) annuals.
Even though more annuals may die back later, that was our last visit of the year to both of those places. Allan was pleased to find some clippers that he had lost in Diane’s roadside garden two visits ago.
Driving back through the Red Barn lot, I decided to get myself four buckets of horse manure for my four compost bins.
Monty Don praises horse manure and, in an older book of his, states that he thinks that cow manure is too weedy. I think the opposite is true…but I am desperate for some manure for my bins. I have tried to get rabbit, I would love to get cow or goat, but will try horse again and see if it makes less pasture grass when composted.
In Long Beach, we drove to the end of the Bolstad beach approach on the off chance that could find a pile of kelp. No luck. But I did see a big clump of Crocosmia ‘Lucifer’ that we had neglected to pull. Trying to keep my ears out of the icy cold wind, I delegated Allan to decide if it looked good enough to leave till February.
After a careful examination…
…he gave it a pass,
but he did find some sticky-outie roses to clip.
Those Chrysanthemums That Will Not Die at Bolstad and Pacific are still bright and beautiful. We drove right by them.
I do hope they are done by next Thursday when we go to Long Beach to pick up our cheque!
Happily, the pineapple sage in Fifth Street Park was done.
I already knew the pineapple sage was over. I’d asked Cathy of Captain Bob’s Chowder (right behind the park) to check on it for me yesterday!
Primroses are blooming under a nearby street tree.
With the sage cut back, we declared that staycation had begun, even though we will have to emerge for maybe half an hour more trimming, maybe less, sometime in December. We celebrated with crab rolls at Captain Bob’s.
Cathy even had a gift bag for me, which I will (or may) save until Christmas eve to make it a more festive occasion.
At home, we unloaded all but a few hand tools and a small shovel out of the van!
The tall side came off of the trailer so that it is ready for winter maintenance.
I added debris and horse manure to the compost bins.
The entire day, we’d been in windy temperatures not much above the 30s.
After finishing the monthly billing (last billing of 2019!), I adjusted the work board, sorry to not be able to make the business side of it completely blank.
Still, that’s close enough to declare that Staycation has begun.
I too live in a small town, albeit in the Canadian prairies, and if we don’t support our small local restaurants and businesses, we can’t complain when they shutter their doors. But some people think it worth it to drive the 30 minutes to Walmart to save a few cents. On mass produced tat from abroad. Sigh.
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Exactly…big sigh. I won’t set foot in a Walmart. But we are (Allan is!) guilty of driving half an hour to buy bulk cat food, cat litter, and toilet paper at Costco (which is said to treat its workers well). I think he just enjoys the outing. However, for our weekly shopping and for gifts, we stick to our locals.
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Costco has a reputation here for paying decent wages and extending benefits. Walmart pays minimum wage. If Costco can do it, why not Walmart – and that tells you something about corporate culture at that company.
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I completely agree. There is a good book written over a decade ago called How Walmart is Destroying America (and the World). I frequently recommend it it and get…crickets.
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Cow manure has less seeds as the bacteria in their 4 part stomach breaks them down better than a horse’s 1 part stomach (weird facts I learned in ag school). Rabbit droppings are high in nitrogen, so excellent. Hair has more nitrogen than any manure. You might see if a local pet groom will give you some.
I am finishing my last garden job this week, except for building a new walkway. Just waiting for material delivery. And warm days. Unlike Maine, where I’m from, it is often in the 50’s in winter here in northern Virginia. But nothing like your winters. And it gets in high 90’s often in summers here 😦
Best wishes to you and Allan and your lovely cats for the holidays.
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That’s exactly what I have read about cow and horse digestion. I don’t know where Monty is coming from on that topic!
Great suggestion re dog groomer and hair. I knew hair was good but human hair might be dyed or otherwise chemically altered. I am going to seek out a local groomer.
I hope your materials arrive soon. Happy holiday season!
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A well deserved beginning to staycation!
The place where I used to source washed ashore seaweed for my compost bins, no longer has any. Climate change? A deteriorating environment?
I agree with Terena, if you don’t support your local businesses, then you cannot complain when they shutter their doors.
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Exactly.
I must remember to try for some seaweed after a storm. I don’t like us to drive on the beach for ecological and aesthetic reasons, even though our beach is a legal “highway”, so it has to be washed up within sight of the approach roads for me to get it.
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Love seeing Scout! I picked up some xmas gifts at Don Nesbitt’s gallery when I was there. Enjoy your Staycation! You both so deserve it.
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I hope that your horse manure composts well and doesn’t produce too many weeds..
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Just received Monty Don’s The Complete Gardener😘thanks for the review.
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I hope you love it as much as I do.
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Must add to Walmart comments … You may or may not know that Walmart CEOs hold seminars for employees, explicitly to instruct them on how to sign up for food stamps and other types of government-funded assistance, because they are very much aware that Walmart employees are not paid a living wage. But they’d rather hijack taxpayer-funded programs for the needy to augment starvation wages and pocket the difference for themselves. I forget how many tens of thousands of Walmart employees qualify for food stamps, but the number is web-researchable, if interested.
Walmart managers have also, in the past – don’t know about this year – set up a donation box in employee locker rooms with a sign asking for food donations “for our needy employees for Christmas (or Thanksgiving) Day.” (Remember, Walmart sells FOOD.)
How anyone can have the greed and gall to run a business like that and still sleep at night is beyond my ken. Guess I’d have to ask one of the uber-wealthy Waltons how they do it.
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It is terrible. I think the book covers that part of it…even though it is an older book and does not have the latest walmartian behavior.
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