12 Sept: closing out the tourist season

Thursday, 12 September 2019

Long Beach

The main tourist season ends when the hundreds of visiting Rod Runners leave.  The day when we tidy Long Beach planters after the Rod Run feels like our annual end of the tourist season.  Town was still busy today with an older and quieter sort of tourist, now that most children over four are back in school.  

When Rod Run used to coincide with Labor Day weekend and had an official parade of cars that closed the road in Long Beach, the planters would get turned to mush by planter sitters and standers.  I think the year 1999 might have been the last year before the event was moved to the weekend after to cut down on the dangerous traffic gridlock which made aid cars and fire trucks unable to get through.  The parade was shortened so it just goes around Ocean Park area.  The vehicles show off through Long Beach, though, but the planter damage is minimal in comparison to days of yore.

We started with the welcome sign.

Because watering the planters would freshen them up, we did so.

Someone stood in this one hard enough to break off the Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’.

This planter at the Bolstad light got sat upon so hard that Rozanne was smashed and the santolina was disarranged.

I decided to go ahead and trim the santolina.

If I cut back Rozanne hard, it would revive and rebloom, but the planter would look barren for too long while there are still tourists in town.

On the other side of the street, the roses had mostly protected the fuchsia…

…but I still want the rose dug out because it never does anything pretty.

Looking across the street at the planter I had just trimmed, today…

My theory that people would not sit on Geranium ‘Rozanne’ that was trailing well over the edge was proven wrong.

I pulled the Crocosmia ‘Lucifer’ stems out from the tree by the bakery.  Most of them were lying sideways from being stood in.

It is time anyway.  Two more parks, two planters, another tree, city hall, the beach approach have them still.

I had The Toy™ with me because I knew I faced a lot of trimming.  When I used the loo next to the police station, I hoped no one would steal it.

I saw myself reporting such a theft by walking into the police station saying, “Someone stole my toy!”

The police station planter had Geranium ‘Rozanne’ trailing down on both ends last week. I had to trim it today because of the sitting and smashing. One of the center agastaches was also a casualty.

A particular smashed up planter at the SW corner of Third, by a park with plenty of seating:

Across the street, Rozanne was still trailing beautifully.

Delightfully, my favourite planter this year was just fine.

Allan’s photos while watering and tidying the southern blocks of planters:

 

We have been seeing isolated infestations of black aphids on cosmos, just a stem here and there.

We pulled two of the three batches of sweet peas out of Fifth Street Park. The one in front of Captain Bob’s got to stay.

horsetail patrol

Allan’s photo, with hesperantha coming on

I reflected upon how different the parks look from the more manicured ones in Castle Rock.  Mine are more like amateur home gardens, with mingling plants and a lot of experimentation.  I think many will welcome if a more standard park look happens after we semi retire.

We had left the northern two blocks for last so that Allan could pull the tatty old erysimums while I did the watering. His photos:

Boreas Inn

Susie had been so thrilled with her mulch that she had asked us to mulch some more by the west side of the inn.

Upon arriving, we saw the deer next door.

That tarp is covering a future garden bed next door.

I was this close.

They jumped the neighbors’ fence to eat apples.

Honestly, is that maybe even more attractive than having a deer proof fenced garden?

Bill came out to have a chat with them.

Allan’s photo

The west lawn beds have been deciminated by the deer this year, even plants that should be resistant.  More lavender next year!

I have known deer to eat rue and eucalyptus and other plants that thoroughly surprised me.

After our mulching, during which Allan continued for fifteen minutes longer than me, while I went off the clock to sit on the deck and chat with Susie and longtime friends who were staying at the inn, we went home and then joined them all at

Salt Pub.

I had my favorite, the delicious tuna melt.

We don’t get out to dinner as much as we used to, partly because we are trying to be more frugal. Twice in one week was a treat, especially for Chef Allan.

Skooter, lounging next door, had something to say when we returned home.

---

a book: Save Me the Plums by Ruth Reichl

I have read all of Reichl’s memoirs, and tonight I finished the most recent one.  My favourite bits.

She describes how years before she became the Editor in Chief at Gourmet magazine, she had Thai food for the first time.

This took me back to my first Thai meal at a Seattle restaurant (1982?) with my significant other, Bryan, and our group of friends.  I felt the same, such a thrill, at the food I had been looking for my whole life.

It was news to me that Gourmet had once published such great writers:

Oh, look, we have some phobias in common!

I did not know that lambs quarters are edible.

These few takeaways may imply that the book did not offer me much.  Not so, I loved every minute of it and it made me want to reread her other memoirs, especially Garlic and Sapphires, about her years as a food critic. Oh, how I long for reading season, which will begin in mid November, after bulb time.

 

 

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1 December: lead-up to the Crab Pot Tree

Saturday, 1 December 2018

This is the day leading up to the Crab Pot Tree lighting.

In the mid morning, Allan hurried down to the Crab Pot tree to provide a mallet for anchoring an anchor.

It will be lit to commemorate a crabber who was tragically lost in an accident in Willapa Bay this past summer.

Allan then checked on his book at Time Enough Books.

There it is, lower right.

After trying and failing to get enough sleep (too much crab pot excitement brewing?), I had three hours to weed.

We had had this much rain yesterday.

We still have mild weather and some flowers in bloom.

Salvia ‘Amistad’ and S. elegans (pineapple sage)

pineapple sage

Salvia leucantha

fuchsias

fuchsias

fuchsias

and more fuchsias

Rose ‘Radway Sunrise’

and even an agastache, with annual sweet pea foliage

I worked on a section where creeping buttercup had swamped the base of shasta daisies.

before

got this far…

It was hard to tear myself away from the garden at ten to three.  I knew, though, that the temperature would start to drop in about half an hour.

Allan had been working on the greenhouse lean-to.  We hurried to put tools away and to get down to the Salt Pub to meet Our Kathleen for a late lunch.

Salt has been remodeling so that the main pub is now downstairs instead of upstairs.   Allan’s photos were taken earlier in the day.  When we got there, we were lucky to get the second to last table.

The new bar downstairs (Allan’s photo)

The old bar upstairs. This room was reserved for an event tonight. (Allan’s photo)

Downstairs window seating. (Allan’s photo)

Salt Pub

Kathleen’s brisket bowl lunch

my delicious tuna melt

Allan’s “breakfast sandwich”

We were joined a half an hour later by Ann Amato, who praised the cranberry cobbler.

Ann is catching up on the past year in her blog, which you can read right here.

Allan left us at four to help test the lights at the tree.  It would be unfortunate if they did not go on properly!  We lingered for another forty five minutes and then walked the two blocks to the crab pot tree….

…….where we hope you will join us as we share the evening on our other blog (as soon as I get around to writing it).

Allan had picked up some library books for me today.  I rather wish the weather forecast was for rain rather than a sunny and temperate week.

 

 

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21 Dec: 2017 work end

Thursday, 21 December 2017

The night had been just below freezing.  I woke early to a white frosty world, poked my camera out the south cat door for an unscreened photo of frost on the grass…

…and went back to sleep for three more hours.  When I awoke, I suggested that we go do the post-frost clean up, in hope that finally the frost had put the gardens to sleep.

We began a few blocks east at

Mike’s garden,

which we have referred to till now as Mayor Mike’s garden.  He is retiring as mayor at the end of 2017.

The sun was bright, the air cold, and the ground just lightly frozen.

Pieris promising spring

pale pink hesperantha blooming on the west side

salmon pink hesperantha blooming on the north side

pulling spent hesperantha along the front path

Allan raked.

Anchorage Cottages

Some days back, we drove in and right back out of the Anchorage parking lot because I could see the chrysanthemums by the office were still blooming.  And today they were STILL blooming.

Chrysanths that will not quit.

Today, I showed Jody, the housekeeper, who also does some gardening, how to just cut them to the ground when and if they ever brown off (which they will…).  We are not going to keep returning to check on two chrysanthemums.  I also showed her that she could cut the Melianthus if we have a hard enough freeze to make it ugly.

Melianthus major in the center courtyard

frozen birdbath (Allan’s photo)

Allan’s photo: In early spring, we will cut back this sprawling plant even if it does not get frozen, just to shape it up.

Long Beach

My mind had been on the one big Geranium ‘Rozanne’ that I had left untrimmed.  Surely it would be frozen by now? But no.

Allan’s photos

Frost could make the California poppies ugly, too. At least they are small.

It has been so mild that the Rozannes we cut back early this year have put out rosettes of new leaves.

It got cut back anyway, because we are not going to keep checking on it through January and I don’t want to think about a potential blackened heap of frozen leaves later on.

An anemone was already blooming in Veterans Field.

Allan’s photo

a wreath in Veterans Field (Allan’s photo)

We did some cutting back in Fifth Street Park, of a pineapple sage, some Verbena bonariensis, and a bit of the sprawling Melianthus.

pulling some spent hesperantha flowers

as tidy as its going to get till at least late January

Once upon a time, the scrim of unclipped catmint along the front, above, would have greatly bothered me.  For some reason, this year I think it looks interesting against the dry flower heads of the Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’…or maybe it was just that my hands were so cold.

Primroses (cowslips) were already blooming under a street tree.

I can feel exactly how it will feel to go back to work in late January or early February, and the prospect feels ok.  My only problem is that I have gotten pretty much nowhere on my indoor winter projects.

We celebrated the true end of the work year with coffee, warmth, and Pink Poppy Bakery treats at Abbracci Coffee Bar.

Abbracci co-owner Tony

We and another regular customer each got to take home one of the Christmas centerpieces.. very nice, since we never got around to putting up a tree, and later the flowers can go in my wonderful compost bins.

Abbracci tree and centerpieces

Ilwaco Timberland Library

We had some books to pick up.

at the library entrance

deep shade behind the wall

In the library

As expected, I got quite a pile of books, despite my original staycation plan for re-reading books on my own bookshelves.  Maybe that will wait till sometime when I am homebound for one reason or another.

a new batch, and the previous batch is not done yet

We had brought home a bucket of Abbracci coffee grounds and enough clean compost to add a wheelbarrow’s worth to my bins.  As I chopped it into small pieces and turned some from one bin to another at dusk, I did not mind the cold at all.

I have a compost obsession.

All the work got erased from the work side of the board, as did “Call Accountant”.  I had found an email address for the accountant we want, so I emailed her on the way home this afternoon.  I won’t have to call unless we don’t hear back in my preferred medium for anything business related (email, text, Facebook messaging, anything but a business phone call!).  (Carol, this does not mean you and Bill!)

a joyous sight

Salt Pub

After dark, we attended a Salty Talk at Salt Pub.

“Join Jim Sayce, historian and Executive Director of the Pacific County Economic Development Council, in a SALTY Talks presentation, “Reading the Land: Forensic Ecology” exploring the changes in the local landscape over time. Jim will show us how to recognize the subtle clues that can help find the original or historic landscape of a site within the bones of the built environment.”

Allan’s photo

delicious burger with salad subbed for fried (Allan’s photo)

window reflection

night marina

More boats than one used to decorate with lights.  The winter storms and wet weather caused too many electrical problems and so that pretty tradition ended just a few years back. We were happy to see one or two boats still carrying it on.

The Salt holiday tree

The lecture was well attended for one so close to the holidays.

Museum director Betsy Millard introduces the lecture (Allan’s photo)

Jim has a good collection of photos to illustrate how you can see the underlay of history.  For example, a line of trees representing old fence lines (where the trees grew up under the fence and the fence eventually disappeared):

He showed our changing views due to accretion of the beach (in some places half a mile wider than it used to be) and the growth of beach pines, which were not there a century ago.   Many beach trails were begun over 100 years ago and have simply been lengthened by trodding feet as the beach itself moved westward.

Allan captured some of the interesting old photos:

The “elephant rocks” used to be out in the surf, as an old photo showed, and are now well inland of Waikiki Beach.

rocks once out in the surf…

and now on land

An old highway has gone back to nature by the new highway 101.  Through a layer of grass and moss, the yellow line of the old highway occasionally shows through.

Jim Sayce

Jim’s laser pointer was not working.

The old and new photos pleased and fascinated us.

Jim’s blog, circa 2011 and before, is here.

It is now time for five weeks of true staycation.

 

 

 

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2 Dec: before the Crab Pot Tree festival

Saturday, 2 December 2017

In the late morning, I got up from some reading and found this cryptic note.

The question mark threw me.  I figured out that Allan had gone to help Jenna with the final set up for the crab pot tree.  She had been there all alone in the rain and had texted just to ask for some electrical tape.

The tide was at 11 feet.

at the south end of the boatyard

The port had set up a tent—a smart idea, implemented for the first time for this event.

Allan climbed up to plug the cord in way up high.

He dug a trench to run the cord across the field.

(Note to self: while the ground is soft would be a good time at home to dig a trench for running some hoses across the lawn.)

Jenna decorated a crab pot “snowman”.

They tested the lights and declared all systems go.

Allan took a couple of photos in the nearby boatyard.

On the way home, he popped into an American Legion holiday bazaar at the museum.

birdhouses

cards

he Meanwhile, at home….Due to torrential rain, Skooter had no interest in outdoor life, nor did I.

I caught up on the Tootlepedal and the Miserable Gardener blogs.

At three, having been joined at home by Our Kathleen, we went to Salt Pub for a pre-tree lighting long, late lunch.

upstairs in the pub

Dave, Melissa and J9 joined us, making a party of six.

the view from our table

Allan’s photo

a hot cranberry toddy

sea cucumber

delicious brussel sprouts appetizer

polenta cake with veg and greens

dusk approaching

in the downstairs lobby

Next: a share from Our Ilwaco blog of the tree lighting festivities.

 

 

 

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16 November: the garden and a mushroom lecture

Thursday, 16 November 2017, part two

When we returned from work, we just had time before dark to do a garden walkabout.  We had not been into the garden since the recent two days of rain and wind.

standing water where it usually does not collect

three days worth of rain in the big yellow rain gauge

lots of little twigs down

Frosty wanted to follow. (Allan’s photo)

Allan’s photo

the center path of the Bogsy Woods Loop

Allan’s photo

east Bogsy Woods Loop

from the center: the new sit spot

overflowing swale

Allan’s photo

Allan’s photo

looking east from the west side

hardy fuchsia

Allan’s photo

future firewood

forlorn hope for a winter campfire

In the house, Allan’s gloves after washing and drying:

We had time for an hour of sitting down (me reading The Grapes of Wrath) before going out to  meet Dave and Melissa (Sea Star Gardening) for dinner at Salt Pub at the port, followed by a Salty Talk.

Allan’s photo

Melissa showed us a photo of one of a couple of trees that had fallen at Sea Star Acres.

photo courtesy Sea Star Gardening

For dinner, Allan and I had “chicken pot pie poutine”, a deconstructed chicken pot pie with fries, gravy, and fried cheese curd.  It was amazing comfort food.

chicken pot pie poutine

and a salad for something healthy

Betsy Millard, director of Columbia Pacific Heritage Museum. introduces the season’s first Salty Talk.

Park Ranger Dane Osis and a cauliflower mushroom (Allan’s photo)

Allan’s photo

Allan’s photo: the deadly amanita on the left

amanita (Allan’s photo)

Allan’s photo of some mushrooms brought in by an audience member.

My lecture notes follow.  Although I have no intention of collecting mushrooms or of eating wild mushrooms that anyone but the most expert person has harvested (and even then I would think twice), I am interested in all plant life.

Salty Talk about wild mushrooms, what I learned:

Mycelium mushrooms are like the apples on an apple tree.  You cannot hurt the main organism by picking them.

Saprophytic mushrooms can be mass produced.  So-called “Wild oyster mushrooms” are most likely produced on a farm.

Mycorrhizal fungi are symbiotic with plants and will transfer moisture from one part of a forest to another.

Knowing your trees will help you to identify mushrooms (based on where the mushrooms like to grow).

The “chicken of the woods” fungi used to rot the hulls of wooden ships.

Ranger Osis says there are fancy mushroom collecting knives with a brush on one end, for brushing off the mushroom to get a closer ID.  He made one by duct taping a brush to a knife.

His favourite mushroom book is All That the Rain Promises and More.  The one with the trombone on the cover.

Cauliflower mushrooms look like a pile of egg noodles.  The one he showed in the lecture, he picked on Monday while elk hunting.  His pick up bed filled with rain water, and yet the mushroom is still good, whereas a chanterelle would have rotted.  He has found one that was 24 pounds.  Another elk hunter found a 55 pound one and thought it was a bedded down elk at first.  If you pick this mushroom, it will grow back the following year.

This strange mushroom can get up to 50 lbs and is delicious, Dane Osis said.

There are more common names for a king bolete than there are languages.  Porcini is just one name.  They are beloved of deer and elk…and can have maggots, as a friend of ours discovered when she brought some home and left them in a bag for a short while.

Jack of Lantern mushrooms, which glow in the dark and can be mistaken for chanterelles, will make you violently ill.

Survivors say the death cap mushroom is the most delicious mushroom they ever ate.  Liver failure will follow in 48 hours.  The deadly death cap is changing hosts from oak to spruce and Douglas fir and can now be more commonly found in the Pacific Northwest (unfortunately).

The effects of amanita mushrooms, which are more toxic here than in Europe, are associated with berserker Vikings, Santa Claus (flying, maybe?), and Lewis Carroll supposedly tripped on amanita before writing Alice in Wonderland.  (Don’t try this.)

Candy cap mushrooms taste like maple syrup and are used in desserts, and will even make your sweat smell like maple syrup.  There is a toxic mushroom that tends to grow with the rare candy cap and looks almost exactly like it.

Since I knew almost nothing of mushrooms before the lecture, I feel that it was successfully jam packed with information.  I look forward to the once a month Salty Talk season which will continue once a month through the winter and into early spring.

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9 November: brief work afternoon

Thursday, 9 November 2017

I got eight hours of sleep for the first time since my cat Smoky got sick.  This meant a late start to the day.  I had barely settled in to what I thought would be a reading afternoon when the sun emerged from rain and we decided to go to work.  We picked the Ilwaco boatyard so we would not get drenched far from home if rain returned.

I left Frosty in his peculiar new favourite spot:

smack dab in the middle of the back bedroom floor

On the way to work, we clipped the Helianthus ‘Lemon Queen’ at the back of our volunteer post office garden.

Allan’s photo; no before; the Helianthus had been in the back corner.

Ilwaco boatyard

I had decided to take down some of the annuals now instead of waiting for frost, because I remembered how hard they were to pull from frozen ground.

sweet peas all the way to the top of the fence

Turns out that while I did pull some of the sweet peas and the taller cosmos, I could not bear to pull them all.

Tall cosmos and the tallest sweet peas and the verbascums got pulled.

Allan’s photo; We did get caught in a couple of brief squalls

Allan’s photo: This re-seeded euphorbia had to go, as it was too close to the sidewalk

Allan’s photos: All but the two Stipa gigantea at the center of the garden got their long stems trimmed.

Allan’s photos: sweet peas that I left blooming.

In pulling the old foliage off of a big Geranium ‘Rozanne’, I found a pair of clippers that I had lost over the summer.

The clippers had been hiding inside a santolina whose dead flowers I had sheared a month or more ago.

We had time to do a pretty good weeding all along the boatyard garden, as well, and to sow a bucket of poppy seeds that I had saved from deadheading there in late summer.  I thought the poppies might not reseed naturally because we had added a lot of mulch at the end of summer, smothering seedlings.  But I found quite a few new little poppy seedlings despite that, so good.

The crab pot tree has been assembled.  Allan will help decorate it later this month.

bare bones of the crab pot tree (Allan’s photo)

event poster by Don Nisbett

A fishing boat was pulling in to the nearby processing company, Ilwaco Landing.

 

Allan’s photo

Allan’s photo

We dumped a few buckets of weeds at our dump spot, and took all the cosmos, sweet peas and clean non weedy clippings home to my compost mountain.

view from the east end of the marina

debris haul to compost bins (Allan’s photo)

the rain gauge from last night (Allan’s photo)

A dear local friend of ours is having post surgery woes.  Allan ran her son to McDonalds to get a meal, and then he and I went to meet Dave and Melissa for dinner at

Salt Pub.

It’s now dark when we go to dinner. Salt courtyard, Allan’s photo

Dave’s eyes were on a televised football game at the other end of the room.

fish and chips and sliders

clam chowder

Tomorrow we do expect the weather to be good enough for working, followed by a rainy weekend that I hope to devote to reading.

 

 

 

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3 November: fall clean up in Long Beach

Friday, 3 November 2017

We did not have a workday breakfast (heartier than cereal) because rain inspired us to sleep late. Calvin enjoyed a bit of my cereal milk.  It was nice to have someone to share with.

Calvin’s treat

When the sky cleared, Allan hooked up the trailer and we headed off to work, or so we thought.

A substantial hail storm drove us back home from the post office.

So much hail fell that it was slippery walking in to the house.

I settled in to read for awhile.  Our Kathleen dropped by on her way into town with a memorial present for my Smoky.

a choice Podophyllum ‘Spotty Dotty’ from Our Kathleen

As we visited, the weather began to clear.  Kathleen departed and at 1:45 PM we went out to do some work.

blue sky over the front garden

I thought at the very least, we could get some checks into the bank, for which we have to go to Long Beach.

fungi by our bank parking spot

Long Beach

I walked around and checked three blocks worth of planters, using the wheelie cart from Mary Beth while I cut back old foliage.

weeding the curbside

In a sad mood, I did not feel like taking photos.

I did find one rock, so worn from being hidden deep in a planter that I could barely tell what the painting depicted.  I first thought it was a bulb and almost shoved it deeper in.

a birthday cake, I think

I did see an odd thing when I cleaned up one small area of Fifth Street Park:

Fifth Street Park, NE quadrant.  Look next to the white post…

??what is??

Allan took photos of his clean up project in the NW quadrant of Fifth Street Park, in which he cut back some perennials and pulled some cosmos

.

before

after

before

before cutting back Helianthus ‘Lemon Queen’

after

before (I still think this huge grass needs to come out, a daunting task)

after retrieving the path

Allan cleaned up this planter; before

after

By the time we left, the sky was ominous.

dramatic sky

I loathe the discouragement of shopping for clothes, but while Allan dumped the debris at City Works, I went to Dennis Company and found a pair of warm, soft black pants that actually have pockets.   I have misplaced my one pair of winter pants that don’t have holes in them! How I got to be an XXL is beyond me, considering that I work hard.  I would have bought two pairs of those pants, because they fit and it would save me from future shopping for awhile, were it not for the sad fact that only one in that size was available.

Recommended reading on the subject of size:

On the way home, I needed more Ethos 2:1 tincture from Mr. Doobie’s.  It seems to have been preventing back spasms.  While I was in the shop, Allan looked  behind it at Tarlatt Slough, an old portage route.

 

View north as it flows under Hwy 101 by Sandridge.

 

Tarlatt Slough south towards Black Lake

 

at home

I remembered that I had a couple of Geranium ‘Orion’ divisions to plant in the bogsy woods so bunged them in along the back fence at dusk.

Skooter came with me…

…and Smoky’s brother, Frosty.

I like Frosty, even though he is part Siamese, yowly and neurotic.  (Lately he insists on sleeping in the cold garage, and I do not know why.)  I like Skooter, even though Skooter likes Allan best.

Skooter, age four and a half

Some tears fell because I miss my adored Smoky’s company.  He adored me, too.

Julez of Salt Hotel and Pub did such a kind thing by bringing us a dinner of smoked tuna sandwiches, a gift of comfort for the loss of our cat.

Delicious food from Salt Pub

I talked with a friend today about what it is like when you have more than one pet, and the very best one is the one that dies.  I found it comforting to share that feeling with someone.

I hoped that Allan and I could get in one more workday in Fifth Street Park on Saturday.  It would have to be a short day because of the always exciting annual 6×6 auction starting at 5 PM.

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