Saturday, 15 January 2022
At home
I tried moving a load of compost, bunny poop and coir out to the willow grove but got stuck in the soft lawn halfway there. (I learned that a cold day is not good for fishing coir out of a barrel of water, where it had been soaking to fluff up. I stopped trying when my hands turned blue with cold.)
I gave up on the compost journey for awhile and started to weed more grass roots out of one of the two central garden beds by the new south gate.
Outside the gate is the frog pond which I have been fretting over daily as it is under threat by development.
I’ve thought of using a pond form that we have to make a small round artificial pond inside the fence, but it would be hard to schlep water out to it.
(What should be done if development occurs is to preserve the swale. The Shorebank building has three swales, the Willapa Behavioral Health building has at least two, and rain gardens are the hip, enlightened, and ecologically wise thing to do…not a culvert and road, which will do little to absorb the tidal water that rises through the ground from early autumn through mid-spring. There has been NO communication to the residents of our block, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see bulldozers in frogland with no warning.)
Allan got all of the gates hinged and latched. He cleverly brought a table out with him this time. He wished he had thought of this earlier in the project.
By the newly hinged west gate, I had thoughts about a willow stump that I have been pondering whether or not to keep. It speaks to me of resilience.
I dragged a driftwood log halfway to its new home and then Allan put it in place.
Allan moved the crab pot stack when he finished the east gate.
I had a new mission, to put some narrow stop-the-eye driftwood and branches by the east gate. While collecting some fallen branches from Alicia’s lawn, I admired the view into the spacious new garden area.
The view from the other side of the swale is also satisfactory.
Allan helped me get a big piece of driftwood out of the south catio. I had jammed it in behind a shelf so well that I couldn’t lift it out.
Skooter got himself trapped in there temporarily.
When I took a photo of the driftwood and sticks (which is also a rather messy branch and stick storage area for now), the flash went off and caught the raindrops which had been falling in a way that didn’t feel like rain but got everything wet. Eventually, shrubs will stop the eye here.
I slowly bucketed the compost from the wheelbarrow to the new beds. Allan had started mounting the broken tool heads, so the new beds were getting compacted. Things are not always being done in the right order because I don’t have time to wait for the fence to be done before preparing ground. Staycation is flitting by too fast.
We almost achieved the goal of getting the fence done today. So close! What held it up was Allan couldn’t find enough strapping tape to put the last five tool heads up. He has found it (after dark) so tomorrow, the fence will be done and just maybe the arbor post and tops, too.
Tangly Cottage Gardening 
Coming down the homestretch, and a very wet one at that!
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Congratulations on sbeing on the cusp of finishing the fence. I am so pleased for both of you. My heart goes to the frogland. Man, I hope it gets to stay.
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Thank you. I am soooo tired and Allan must be more tired.
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Call your towns planning or permitting department. If you are an abutter, they are legally required to notify you of planning meetings. Send a certified letter stating that the building is destructive to wetlands. Your state DEP may be of assistance.
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The problem is it’s on the dividing line of Port (a separate entity) and town. Probably not an official wetland at all just a seasonal frog habitat and water swale. I have appealed to people in high places and been told the Port doesn’t have to follow the procedures the town follows. If in town the city would have a public hearing but “the Port can do whatever it wants”. I’m just seen as a cranky old lady and I’m very tired.
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Same here – the Port Authority is a law unto themselves. They do not have to adhere to city or provincial bylaws. They can buy up arable farmland – and they do – and build what they want on it. They only pay lip service to environmental concerns and policies. There are no public consultations, or meetings, and you cannot vote them out.
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Thanks, I wasn’t sure I was right about it.
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Although….I do think we get to vote for the port commissioners here.
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(…and dysfunctional.)
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Plus I keep being told not to talk about the frogs, no one (in authority) cares.
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Judging by how wet that area is already when it rains, I’d be concerned with the area getting TOO wet, myself, once they put in the building. Depending on how they slope the property to drain off water from around the building, you may wind up with far more water in that area than you would like. I’d go talk to your planning commission soon, to see what their plans are for dealing with run-off.
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It worries me a lot. But I seem to have NO clout, and neither does the city because it is on port property. My current thing is to invite friends over to look at it, really see how wet it is, hoping that someone might know someone with influence. People are very afraid to go up against a building that is “for children” (an after school gymnasium, but right j. The tsunami zone when the trend is to try to move schools out of the tsunami zone, so that is also quite quite odd). There is an assessment in the works by an outfit that investigates the quality and problems in a building lot….but they have done that for a lot of port buildings and I don’t recall anything ever being stopped by it. Meanwhile, no one on our block whose land abuts the property have even been notified. It’s all very disconcerting and we feel powerless.
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