23 Nov: the leaf saga continues

Saturday, 23 November 2019

Skooter

Frosty

Jazmin

Allan kindly agreed to help me get more maple leaves from the Ilwaco fire station.

We went to the post office first (which all the local townspeople must do for mail delivery as we do not have home delivery here—and how I miss home delivery, 27 years after leaving Seattle!).

Every leaf lying on local pavement or lawns calls out to me.

leaves on the post office lawn (Allan’s photos)

I sometimes cast my thoughts to that lawn and think how lovely it would be to expand our volunteer garden…  Perhaps when we semi retire….

At the fire station, we raked some leaves off of grassy area but not off of the narrow garden beds at the south side of the parking lot.

The house to the southwest of the station is empty.  I think it is available to buy from the city for a few dollars…but it must be moved, a complicated matter as it has asbestos siding (or asbestos inside, or something like that).

after

before

after

our leaf harvest

The weather was quite chilly.

on the way home 

Home is so close to the station that I could fetch leaves in a wheelbarrow, on foot…if that did not make me feel too eccentrically conspicuous.

We spread out the leaves on the Nora House back lawn for chopping.

Meanwhile, Allan blew alder leaves off the rougher lawn of the Nora House back yard.

He mowed them up for me.

He then did the last lawn mowing job of the season at the J’s Cottage across the street.

before

after

Still not out of energy, Allan decided to do a nice thing for our good friend and neighbour Alicia, Nora’s granddaughter.

That Lady With a Tractor had recently chopped down a big barberry on the front lawn whose thorny stems stuck out over the sidewalk.

today, before

Even though I valued the privacy from the street in my own front garden that the barberry had given me, we don’t want it to grow back.  It had probably just volunteered there.  Once upon a time, Nora had had a rose garden running along the side of the driveway.

at it with pick and electric chain saw

One hour later:

My bounty of leaves has filled three receptables.

A basket waits to be added when the piles sink down….as do the leaves stored in a tarp.

Rather to my surprise, I had found the oomph to drag and chop the big pile of waiting compost from the back driveway bed….

before, looking east

…into compost bin three.

after, looking west

I have an exciting new batch of books from the library.

Because I cannot read the Susan Wittig Albert mystery until the one before it in sequence arrives, I picked this one to read tonight.

 I wish that era would end already.

While it had many takeaways too gloomy for this blog, here are a few.

About classism and racism:

…men.

About the plight of farmers:

I found this interesting article which states that the book has been reissued with a new forward, pertinent to current events.

If the weather forecast is right, tomorrow should be a full reading day.

 

 

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16-17 Sept: more leaves and a book

Monday, 16 September 2019

The rocks from Seaview Sarah found a place in the new pond edge. All sorts of fun decorating can be done here.

Allan’s photo

I reorganized the area where my Panicum ‘Northwind’ had suffered, removing some old Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’ and a sanguisorba and rearranging the relationship between ‘Northwind’ and Geranium ‘Orion’.

Here is a Sedum AJ that escaped the Chelsea Chop, followed by another one that got the chop and is so much more compact and better looking.

I bagged up three huge sedums and a sanguisorba for Lezlie and potted up many starts of others (and lots of ‘Orion’) for my 2020 plant sale.

When Allan and I visited Mary, two doors down, I realized I had left my property.  Mary agreed it did not count because I had walked through the Nora House back yard and not on the sidewalk.

Allan was building a pallet compost bin for Marlene.  We both worked on our projects through a couple of intense rain squalls.

between squalls

Allan took the bin over to Marlene’s garden to assemble it. (His work at home had been repairing pallets so that they did not have broken slats.)  One of her dogs helped.

I see in Allan’s photos that she does have a lot of leaves!

Just as Allan left, some Mormon missionary helpers came to do more raking.

We had an especially delicious dinner of salmon caught by Mary’s husband, Jeff, from his boat The Salmonator.

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Tuesday, 17 September 2019

We had planned to work.  A wind and rain storm changed our minds.

this much rain

By the time the storm had passed by noon, my work momentum was gone.  Marlene had brought six more bags of leaves and the mowing of them proved irresistible.

This time, I put them in a larger area so that turning the mower around would be easier.  It would have helped if I had turned the gas switch on and had remembered that one must hold down the safety bar to start the mower.

Ten bags, chopped:

I moved an empty black composter into place in readiness for more leaves.

It does seem not very ecologically correct to burn gas to make leaf mold, even if Monty does it.  When we retire and have less compostable debris, I may stop the chopping and use one of the four big pallet bins for unchopped leaves.

Where I mowed, the lawn is red.  I hope the leaf leavings do it some good.

Allan did a fence repair by the front sidewalk.

Lezlie came to get the Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’ and sanguisorba I had set aside for her.  I remembered to give her a book that MaryBeth had given me, from a book sale, an excellent book that I already have: Ann Lovejoy’s Organic Garden Design School.

Lezlie says, “Thanks, MaryBeth!”

Speaking of books….

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a book: The Sensuous Garden by Montagu Don

I had time to finish it this evening.  Some takeaways:

From a chapter about tools:

From one of the colour chapters, about green:

I was reminded of when a retired garden designer recently walked through my garden and was pleased with the feeling of rest provided by the large green area of the fire circle lawn.

This passage in the blue chapter helped me realize that my achusa is this one, not the one on the noxious weed list.  Whew!

On sound (I especially like the first line):

On gardening:

Great gardening book with gorgeous photos, available from Timberland Regional Library!

We almost had peace upon the reading lap, almost, because it always ends with Jazmin hissing.

After five days off, we had better go to work tomorrow.

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