Stream of Consciousness

Dirt Under Fingernails

Another day of getting lost in the work of cleaning up our new back yard and even the alley strip where the sun shines behind our back fence and gate. John got his giant maple branch down thanks to a pole pruner saw and a ladder with me standing at the base, just in case. We cleaned up a bit more of the rhodies out front and then tackled the dead lemon verbena, mint, and Himalayan blackberry in the alley. Great composted soil back there so we decided to give growing a few vegetables a try.

We then headed out on our (of late weekly) trip to Wood Waste Management to pay folks to take our bulging truck bed of yard waste ($20 fee) that they will then compost and re-sell (now there's a win-win). Then we stopped at the other Fred Meyer Super Center, the one at Interstate and Lombard, to see what was growing in their gardens. More stock and more sales. I found my oregano and winter savory. And gazanias, the greatest daisy-like flower that I never knew about back east. Cool colors and they close their little flower faces with the setting of the sun every eve.  John picked out three good-sized tomato plants—buy two, get one free—as well as two peppers and seeds for zucchini and pole and bush wax beans. We got home, tilled the alley soil, and planted away. 

I've also set up a "recycled" garden patch out in the back. So far, past-their-prime pansies and primroses have gone there to sit out the summer. Hopefully, they'll be able to come back to life for round #2 come fall. Who knows? If we have success back there (and there are no merry prankster teenagers and/or marauding rabbits and rodents who like to much vegetable plants) maybe we'll even do a few cold-frames back there. 

All this adds up to it now being 3 p.m. and I'm beat. John just trotted off with Gimi, our Italian shopping trolley, to get prescriptions at the pharmacy and charcoal and fish for dinner at New Seasons. It never really got sunny and it wasn't that hot but we sure got a lot done. Later this week? Driveway and back garden patio sweeping. The beat goes on...

Our Saturday Checklist

Another seizing of the sunny, dry day to do, guess what? Yard work! Hopefully, this won't be the story of our every weekend now that we are homeowners. But really we managed to check many items off the to-do list on Saturday. Let's see if I can remember them all now that it's the next day and chilly and cloudy again. June in western Oregon...

I moved the terra cotta flower pots from the front steps so could re-paint them. They ended up with some strange white powder on them after last weekend's painting. 

We went to Fred Meyer's on Broadway where a plant sale in the garden department had all the crazies and lunch-craving children out in full, obnoxious force. I saw not one but three people talking to tiny cell phone gadgets in their ears; they look decidedly nuts especially when the background in shrubbery and plant foliage. 

We bought, brought home, and planted two coral bells under one of the big leaf maples, a purple clematis called Niobe along the side of the house where we can see if from the living room, and a freesia which may end up living along the driveway in a terra cotta pot. 

I hauled out and planted a new crop of herbs in pots. Our temporary herb garden until we decide if we want to have them out front along the curb or in containers on an eventual back driveway patio/deck.  And, after all this planting, watered as well. 

Ryman escaped from the compound twice on Saturday morning, so we added another sheet of plastic fencing to the "Kitty Gitmo" we have created in the driveway. And we placed a giant log outside the fencing as we'd caught him trying to yet again shove aside the plant blocking his egress to see if he could sneak out. 

Then John dove into pruning the garden tangle including the overgrowth along our fence in the alley. Of course, we quickly generated enough waste to fill the bed of the truck again. Today will be another trip to Wood Waste Management over on 47th Street. I made a quick trip to Garden Fever for a fernleaf lavender, an incredibly cute thyme, and a spotted calla to finish up the bed under the maple. All were then planted. We even managed to fix Darth II, the alley Earth Machine composter we inherited with the house. 

Are we at dinner time or even cocktail hour yet? 

Sunday brings out the pole pruner to nab a few more tree branches from where they haunt the house roof, the attack on the front yard rhododendron, and some organizing and tidying of the "man-shed" a.k.a. garage. It may end up being another full day but no spots of sun to warm us—it's autumn chilly out there. My body is telling me this is most certainly exercise.

Saturday Night Thunderstorm Blues

After a day spent outside, much fun with gardening, puttering with house chores while surrounded by sun and shadows and the happy red of geraniums in window boxes, we're now having one of those rare Pacific Northwest thunder-and-lightning fests this eve. I think since we moved here ten years ago this is maybe #4 or #5 -- that's how rare. But before the rain and fireworks began, the skies were gorgeous: violet, orange, mauve, salmon, and a muted rainbow. How fabulous is that? 

Another work outside day because the sun and clear skies were unexpected. So, more pruning, more pole pruning of the giant Oregon maples that offer a green-dappled canopy over our back yard garden. Re-painting of the back garden furniture. Window cleaning. Scrubbing and then painting of the front door steps. Replacing the terra cotta pots of geraniums, begonias, and the gerbera daisy on the freshly greened steps. Dinner and then a sunset passegiatta around the Woodlawn neck of our neighborhood woods. A good, simple, hard-working, easy day. 

Another friend's parent died this morning. We seem to have clearly entered that phase of life. Passages, losses, transitions, mourning. Still, a violet-and-salmon sunset can bewitch and beguile.