Thursday, 19 February 2021
At home
Even though I had planned to read, the mild weather drew me out into the Bogsy Wood to cut out some more holly growing next to the salmonberry tunnel. The holly roots are entwined with the alders so the plant never gets removed, just trimmed to the ground now and then.
I was just stuck in to the job when the skies opened in a torrential rather than the light rain that had been predicted (and an hour earlier than predicted) so I only achieved the clipping of one small area. Allan was surprised I didn’t come in right away (I couldn’t because I had to rescue my tools, including the battery chain saw). He emerged with the umbrella on a rescue mission.
Umbrella over wheelbarrow of holly and ivy
I was grateful when I went out later and found that he had chopped the trimmings into the wheelie bin. I had been soaked to the skin in just five minutes of rain.
Indoors, the cats enjoyed the bags that Allan fetches mail in; he goes to the post office at midnight to avoid covid germs as much as possible.
I finished Adventures in Eden, a glorious garden picture book (with a one page essay about each garden), written by the owner of Carex Tours. A friend who went to Piet Oudolf’s garden on one of those tours said they are excellent.
I’ve been questing for a couple of Gardener’s World episodes from 2013 or 2012 that were missing from the series on Inside Outside Home and Garden, a streaming channel. I found the 2013 episodes on the gardening channel I’ve been watching for most of my waking life of late. I’d seen them before, so the missing episodes must be 2012 (and I did watch them the next day, at long last!). One of the episodes featured a garden from the Malvern Garden Show that is just what I envision for the willows grove boat that I want. Well, maybe a boat in slightly better condition so that it lasts a few years.
I must find a boat!
Between that and some of the gardens in Adventures in Eden, I had a brainstorm about the Bogsy Wood that was so strong that if it had not been almost dusk by then, I would have gone out in the rain and started on it.
Instead, I also watched an old but new to me gardening show by Carol Klein, Plant Odysseys, along her brand new show that had just aired in the UK, thanks to this amazing channel that has pretty much consumed all my rainy days and evenings lately.
At bedtime, I finished the second cat memoir by the author of Homer’s Odyssey.
These tales include more about Homer and also the author’s new cats, Fanny and three-legged Clayton. Not many books make me laugh out loud. This one did. So true:
Because Faerie is big on trying to climb to our high shelves where we display things we like….
….and because our house is now strewn with mail order grocery boxes and packing paper that the cats love (making me grateful that no one comes in our house anymore to see the mess, thanks to the pandemic), I was especially amused by this:
And this:
I have, through interlibrary loan, the slim volume about blind cat Homer’s final years. That will be a hard one emotionally, I predict, but cathartic for anyone who still misses beloved and extra special cats.
Tomorrow: following inspiration in the Bogsy Wood.
Tangly Cottage Gardening 
Faerie is a good climber! We have a few here that like to go high up.
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A boat? A surfboard would occupy less space.
When I lived in town,neighbors complained about my old cars. I parked one in back, but then the neighbor back there complained about it because he could see it from the upper floor of his monster home. (I never complained about the monster home, or that he cut down his trees so that he could complain about my car and laundry and everything else that he could see.) In 2009, at the San Francisco Flower and Garden Show, two of the show landscapes featured parked cars. One was an old Ford pickup. The other was a Rolls Royce. I thought the Rolls Royce was a weird use of space, but had sculptural appeal. The old Ford was awesome. It sort of made me wonder why my old cars were not so acceptable. To this day, I still wonder why my neighbors had no problem parking their plain and unappealing cars out front, but did not like mine.
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Gwen Cooper’s book sounds delightful, and I, too, laughed when I read the part about the difference between being disturbed by a cat rather than a husband. You sure do have a climber in your house!
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Only people who lived with cats would ‘get’ that book…myself included! Good luck on your boat search; i’ll keep an eye and ear open in my Ocean Park neighborhood!
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Thanks. I’ll pay some money even for an old canoe or rowboat with holes in it (one that’s not too heavy to lift, thinking of the weight of wooden rowboats).
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That Adventures in Eden book cover is gorgeous! Faerie is very entertaining with her climbing adventures.
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Thank you for sharing the link to great gardening shows. Carol Klein! Love her.
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She’s my favorite of all.
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