21 Nov: good day for erasures

Sunday, 21 November 2021

Before work, I checked on the greenhouses. This pile by the compost bins is just one of three piles in waiting for time off to process clippings brought home from work.

We remembered to water the Depot Restaurant window boxes, which are sheltered from rain under wide eaves. They needed it!

Long Beach

We needed to dump some debris from our buckets to free them up for mulch. While doing so, I met a crew member’s cute young dog named Lily, just seven months old and quite shy.

Then came load one of mulch.

Shoes with mulch inside, as usual.

Our goal was to finish all of the downtown street trees and planters, starting with the south block where parking is easy.

At the southernmost tree, a running weed grass that we had battled for years but had kept to one tiny area (its roots were entrenched in the tree roots) has been let run rampant all year and is now to be found throughout the tree garden. This annoys me. I keep thinking about the years of weed battles that one summer of neglect will have caused.

The weed grass previously did not to run to this side!

Our next area was one of the two most popular blocks. As I knew would happen on a Sunday, we had to park in the east parking lot and wheel the mulch for a block through the old fun rides walkway. The rides are for sale and did not open this year, which seems quite sad. I think of Long Beach as a carnival town with the rides an integral part, especially the carousel.

The walk took us past a cute little picnic gazebo with interpretive signs.

Can you tell I am getting all sentimental about Long Beach as the job draws too close…again? The autumn clean up is so familiar that it feels I have done it for a century, but this is only the 22nd or 23rd time.

We had two nicely weeded (by us) trees and two planters to mulch on this block.

And then we had a tree that we had skipped weeding last month because it was the one tree that had been weeded and mulched before we started the big clean up. Well, the weeding had just consisted of skimming off the tops and it was a mess again, this time of vetch that had been let run rampant. I’m sure it will be vetchy again next year. It is a great weed for pollinators!

We were DONE with the Long Beach trees and planters. However, I had noticed while driving around in a circle hoping to find better parking that the long narrow beds on the west side of city hall would look better mulched.

On the way there, I wondered what this new little building is in the beach pines on the west side of Ocean Beach Boulevard.

I contemplated the rugosa roses sticking out into the sidewalk air space by the Big Pop-out. Those and the former police station roses we are not cutting down like we usually would. There was just too much other garden repair work to do.

Allan stopped in the street with the hazard flashers on to drop off our remaining eight buckets and found a spot to park in the city hall east side parking lot.

City Hall west side

The west side got mulched and on the east side, I decided the hydrangea looked silly with its remaining topknot of flowers.

And then I decided we must mulch that bed. On the way back to City Works, we lucked into a parking spot right next to the Pacific Realty pond. Trimming the rest of the untrimmed crispy sword ferns had also been on my list for today.

No after photos because I got distracted by realtor Leslie Brophy’s Boston terriers.

Interesting mulch smell on shoes

I told Leslie that if someone would just bottom out the sword ferns and photinia in the small bed under the office window by next mid-February, they would come back all fresh and beautiful. We used to do a little trimming on it even though it technically wasn’t part of the pond job.

Back at City Works, we refilled for the last time for city hall and two volunteer gardens in Ilwaco. I will miss driving in and out of the works yard. It made me feel important.

From City Works to City Hall

Allan mulched an end piece on the west side while I mulched the east side.

I really thought that was it for Long Beach till we were driving though town and realized we had missed mulching just one tree. Allan did it.

And from there he telephotoed one last happy photo of the World’s Largest Frying Pan.

the classic pose

Ilwaco

We applied a few buckets of mulch at the entrance to the library.

We topped up the post office garden.

At the fire station, we said hello to neighbor dog Ernie, out for his evening constitutional.

We mulched all the beds.

My aim was not true.

We were racing sundown.

It was done, every last bucket used. We drove down to the port to catch the last of the sunset.

The marina

The lights are the Cape Disappointment Coast Guard Station.

At home, I erased Long Beach trees and planters and mulching fire station from the work board, which now returns to our neglected regular clients.

And, in our neighborhood, someone got a doorbell video of our frequent visitor, the bear.