8-12 February: territorial and crazy

Monday, 8 February 2021

at home

We got the call from our county health department at midmorning to schedule us for our first Covid vaccine jab tomorrow. We were thrilled….but I was anxious to learn that it was going to be indoors in the Ilwaco community building. Indoors?! Previous clinics had been drive through, which sounded so much safer to me. I tried not to think about it as the day went on and soon found an excellent distraction.

As I had been working out in the willow grove lately, I had begun to wonder where our property line is. Last night I had a look at taxsifter and was astonished to find the lot our house sits on is 155 feet long and the Bogsy Wood lot is 117 feet long. That makes 272 feet. I had thought it was about 200 feet. How did I not know this and why had this not registered in my mind when I had previously looked up the width of our lots (79 and 80 feet)?

Allan, who had begun to enclose the behind the garage garden frame with plastic, agreed to help me measure. We ran a 100 foot tape from the official survey stake by the north sidewalk down through Alicia’s yard because it was a straighter shot to the south.

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When we got to the willow grove and its seasonal pond, I was thrilled to learn that our south property line, which I had assumed ended somewhere in the grove, actually extends to at least the middle of the pond.

When the pond dries up, we will find out exactly where, and we might sink a long round pole in the spot, one that we found in the free wood pile last year. I am also thinking of another garden boat. Allan says he might contribute one that he has stored away from home and rarely uses.

The worst gardening client I ever had….one of only two over a quarter century that I completely fell out with….accused me of being shockingly territorial in my desire to protect a beautiful garden full of delicate bulb sprouts from being walked on. Yes, I am territorial indeed and the addition of precious space to my garden has me dazed with delight. I might plant more irises and a gunnera out there, although I am somewhat concerned with the port backhoe coming in, as it does every other year or so, and digging the pond deeper.

Allan went back to the garden frame (a place to grow veg outside the deer fence) and accomplished this:

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With the weather turning colder and drizzly, I was able to distract myself from the thought of going indoors tomorrow by watching several hours of gardening videos about the 2016 Chelsea Flower Show.

Tuesday, 9 February 2021

them indoors

I had very little sleep fretting about going inside a building. But friends had reassured me that we would surely be allowed to stand outside, in view of the medical staff, while we waited the requisite fifteen minutes after our shot. I accomplished pretty much nothing other than news reading before our appointment at 1:20.

Allan snapped a photo of the crocuses at the community building.

Here is the moment of the most welcome and wonderful jab.

This next bit I am sharing for readers with anxiety disorders. I know you are there. (I wish people with contempt for mental health issues would leave this blog and never return.) When I was told I had to remain indoors, I mentioned feeling panicked and asked if I could please step outside, because I had not been indoors other than my house for 11 months. Folks who were waiting for observation after their jabs were only about four feet apart. I knew that someone could potentially be asymptomatic and I started to feel a panic attack coming on. I also had the pain issue of standing still; due to arthritic problems I have increasing joint pain if I don’t pace a little. As my doubled masks started slipping off, I was so scared I started to fill the inner one with tears, even though I think and hope I was being quiet about it. I lasted maybe three minutes before simply bolting outside, where I stayed in sight outside the doors, pacing to avoid arthritic pain and feeling like a very bad person. Allan obediently stayed indoors, along with all the other good and cooperative patients waiting out their fifteen minute observation, which added to my anxiety as I picture him coated with indoor air. (He told me later that he felt uncomfortable.) Because I have read many news stories of hospitals and clinics with outbreaks (including one at the north end of our county), the medical setting did not reassure me. For 11 months, I have followed every Covid protocol more than almost anyone else I know, which before today would have got me a gold star if the health department was giving them out, but today, ironically, I was a rebel for refusing to stay indoors. Finally, the fifteen minutes was over and we could go home. I changed clothes and washed my hair while Allan took a shower and then I started to be able to breathe normally again. Later, it was helpful to me to hear from other friends who had experienced intense anxiety during indoor Covid jabs. One person had to go up in an elevator to a third floor clinic. She said she only took two breaths on the way up, even though she was alone, and she had to use mindful calming techniques to get through the fifteen minutes as she had no way to go outdoors.

I spent the rest of the day with a combination of relief at having the first jab and guilt about being crazy; watching gardening videos helped. [I have debated back and forth about leaving this story in the blog or deleting it like I do many of the paragraphs that I write about anxiety. This time, transparency won.]

Wednesday, 10 February 2021

At home, thank heavens

I got a box of plants from Annie’s Annuals and Perennials. It’s too cold for them to go in the ground yet, I think.

I went outside into a cold early afternoon , thinking it would be a brief task to put some trays of cuttings into the new plastic greenhouse, as we are expecting freezing cold nights. Allan had finished the top of it yesterday.

I admired some flowers and berries. Crocus…

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…and schefflera.

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I took a bit of sedum out to put in a hollow spot in a willow. I would prefer a licorice fern but I’m don’t know where to acquire one.

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The weather had warmed up. I fetched the big Fiskars shovel and went back to the west side of the willow grove where, over the years, with permission from Nora and then Alicia, we have dumped some of our garden debris on the next door property. An area where we dumped sod years ago had turned to what looked like some potentially good soil.

I started to go through the pile, sorting out weed roots, including some scary bindweed, putting some sorted out soil in an area where I’ve planted some Persicaria bistorta, and making a start on a more gardenish look on Alicia’s side outside the grove. I realize now that I’d like to shape it so that there is a path to seasonal pond on the south side of this mound.

That’s a start.

At three o clock, I turned my attention to carrying cut dry branches from the willow grove to the fire circle.

Dead salmonberry makes great kindling. Allan chopped it all into proper firewood.

And we had a campfire lunch in 40 degree weather.

As you can probably tell, we were not feeling side effects from our vaccine jabs. I had a little anxiety because I’d read after the fact that you should not take any painkillers before the jab as that might reduce its efficacy. I wish I had known that; I took two excedrin for a headache six hours before ours.

Thursday, 11 February 2021

We finally got some wonderful reading weather the next day, which I devoted to watching shows online about the Chelsea Flower Show. Having just spent days working at the very back of my garden, I especially liked this bit of an interview with garden designer Kazuyuki Ishihara. When an interviewer said, “You spend as much time perfecting the back of your gardens as most people spend on the front,” he responded:

Friday, 12 February 2021

A hailstorm had made some of the new plastic greenhouse blow away and collapse.

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Faerie and I watched Allan fix it.

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I tore myself away from gardening videos to churn out two blog posts, during which a miracle happened.

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They actually touched noses with no hissing from Skooter, until she nuzzled up against him, and then he growled and hissed and moved away with much grumbling. Still, it was great progress in Catland.

Meanwhile, in Long Beach

New city gardener Megan Wagoner did some planting in new containers in what used to be a drive p-through alley south of the Cottage Bakery. It’s smart to turn it into outdoor bakery dining, although it will be a surprise for people like us who used to drive through there to get to Veterans Field.

Photo by Megan Wagoner

She took some photos of the bulbs coming up in other planters.

Photo by Megan Wagoner

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  Iris reticulata ‘Eye-catcher’

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  Iris reticulata ‘Katherine Hodgkin’

Iris reticulata……Photos by Megan Wagoner

Finally, have a look inside this Chelsea Flower Show article to see a short and inspirational video about gardens inside a Syrian refugee camp.