Thursday, 23 July 2020
Ilwaco gardens
We began with the mowing, weeding, and rose deadheading at the J Crew Cottage.
While dropping off some elephant garlic at our friend Marlene’s house, I wondered how much were the doggies in the window.
The park at the end of Spruce Street has a new sign, tile work by Renee O’Connor.
Fancy front to a house across the street…
We weeded at Mike’s garden, where I have filled in with cosmos while waiting for three hardy fuchsias to grow larger.
We saw two critters there, a cat…
…and a banana slug.
Garden writer Ann Lovejoy had a bumper sticker that read “Catch and release banana slugs.” They are native and mostly eat fallen plant debris. It was rehomed into the nearby long grass.
Port of Ilwaco
We separated to water (and weed) all the way along Howerton Avenue. All our work hoses and one of our at home watering hoses were needed.
At the east end, Allan hooks up to the port dock and runs a long line of hoses past CoHo charters to the curbside bed. He used to run them across the parking lot, where several hose connections got driven over, till he realized that with a little extra hose, he can come down a north south sidewalk.
The Sedum ”Autumn Joy’ get stressed and yellow in the droughty conditions at the port, especially the east and west beds that we only water twice a month.
I watered from The Dave Jensen architecture office….
…down to the port office curbside beds.
Allan has driven down to the west end, two beds that are watered just twice monthly because they require that hoses be run all the way from the dock ramps.
This garden area with just achillea brings down the tone by midsummer and needs a redo this fall.
I am sure Allan did some weeding after taking the photo. Otherwise, the tough plants at the west end look pretty good.
He had caught up to me and watered the Time Enough Books garden….
…and then we moved on to water our volunteer garden at the Ilwaco fire station…
…where once again I failed to get a photo of the square garden bed at the southeast corner.
Next we watered and did some weeding and deadheading at the Ilwaco boatyard.
It is time to spend a day at the boatyard transforming the look of the garden by pulling spent poppies. Next week, perhaps.
We watered the Ilwaco post office garden on the way home but no photo was taken. When Allan went to dump debris, he did some bird watching at the marshes east of the marina.
It would have been an entirely peaceful day except for two weird pandemic-related encounters. First, an unmasked man with an important insignia (not local police or port staff) seemed reluctant to move from the edge of a garden so I could water it. He did, but spat a wad of chewing tobaccy on the ground nearby. I could not help but say, in an astonished tone, “It’s not such a good idea to spit in public during a pandemic.” He looked me right in the eyes and spat again. I was utterly amazed but just kept watering. Sometimes lately it is a good thing that wearing a mask hides the things I say to myself.
The other oddly disconcerting event was when, while watering from behind the tall chain link fence at the boatyard, a boy around age 14 was walking north and was completely amenable and pleasant when I said, “Could you please walk around the guy who is working further up the block?” I thanked him and I saw him give Allan a wide berth. Later, when I was away from my hose and weeding from the sidewalk side of the fence, he returned with several friends. I had piles of plant debris on the sidewalk, and my mask was yards away in the van because the boatyard sidewalk in the evening is a place where social distancing is easy. As the unmasked group approached me, I said, “Could you please cross over?” There was no traffic and the other side of the street has a big parking lot. Instead, they argued about why should they. “Wellll,” I said in amazement, “because this is my work zone? and we are here working for the port? And…I’d appreciate it?”
“We’re six feet away from you,” they said from five or six feet away, but then they did walk on. All I could think to say was a not very coherent, “Six feet is not the last scientific word,” or something like that. I reviewed my conduct and found it to be mild-mannered (I hope) since I wondered if they had been hoping to make a YouTube of a crazy gardening lady. I decided that from now on, no matter how quiet the boatyard seems, we will have to go back to weeding in close proximity to each other and using caution tape to mark our area. How utterly tedious, and it should not be necessary to put up barriers there. And I must always keep a mask in my pocket. I went home disheartened about humans again. Fortunately, we now have four days off.
At least the kids have the excuse of youth. What’s the spitting man’s excuse?
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Ya gotta wonder. He was middle aged and wears a badge.
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Your gardens are looking great! Love the new sign for the park too.
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In spite of the pesky humans, your beds are looking good and you are spreading happiness around. (I enjoyed the bird watching.)
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I have a new method for dealing with the occasional rude and obnoxious – not always men – who want to make it a moment for angry scientific denial, or an aggressive step closer if I politely ask for a bit of space when I’m unable to move myself. (I live in Texas, which may explain a few things.)
I say very quietly, “I have tested positive for COVID.”
End of discussion. Miraculously, I get six feet and then some.
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That thought had crossed my mind. Gossip travels fast here so I might not dare, but I have actually found a couple of people backed off when I said “I’ve been working downtown!”
As for your method, desperate times call for desperate measures! And if someone aggressively comes closer, that is a desperate situation.
Living in Texas does make it more clear why that sort of thing is happening more!
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Gardens are gorgeous! The new tile park sign is beautiful. Love the bird photos, too. Sorry about the rude people. That makes me mad.
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Thank you!
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That little doggie in the window looks angry!
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Just born with a face in that expression. :-). They are Japanese chin dogs, very nicely dispositioned.
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