catching up
 
an overview of the recent past
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
An interesting bicolour cosmos which appeared in our Red Barn garden
 
Having had so much trouble recently uploading entries has given me a feeling of incipient trouble when I think of updating this journal, putting a big dent in my enthusiasm. I’m hoping that whatever bug in the system was causing the delay has been fixed. Can I dare to dream this? Surely Apple will prove itself better than Microsoft. The first enormous rain is here. Maybe not the first, as the weekend was rather nasty....but the first day if being totally rained out of work and of getting drenched just going from car to bank or store to run errands. Saturday was another stormy day in which tragically an Ilwaco resident died in a gale-driven fishing boat accident. We were safe and cozy at a house warming party at “The Digs” in Oysterville, admiring a view of the bay from this inviting sleeping nook in a guest house and studio designed by architect David Jensen. Yet at the party the talk did turn to accidents at sea as we are all well aware of the fishing boats which go out even in dire weather. Earlier this month, we waited till our beloved clients and managers of Klipsan Beach Cottages went off to the Puyallup Fair and then created a new garden bed as a surprise birthday present for Mary. Denny has since installed a fountain halfway down the length, and the bed will hold the plants which need to be dividing out from the overcrowded fenced garden. Mary’s new garden, before and after digging and amending I spent considerable time and effort on a mid-September weekend digging out almost all the dreaded orange montbretia which i had foolishly tossed into the roadside garden years ago, before I got brutal enough to discard unwanted plants. Twas such a hard job that the first weekend I tried it, I gave up, being too sore from the workweek. A neighbouring cat, from i know not where, observed my work from the road, after allowing me one pet of his sleek plush fur before moving out of reach with his usual standoffish dignity. We have many cats who prefr to hang out in our garden because it is the wildest area around. We have nicknamed this Frequent visitor “cow cat”. Meanwhile, Allan has guttered the house, something which has been sorely needed for years as the base of the stone foundation is wider than the roof, perhaps not the wisest design. Last midweek I was filled with terrible melancholy upon hearing from our liaison there that the owners of the house on the bay where we had been weeding and mulching the 300? 250? hydrangeas did not want us to go on with the job. Our work was complimented but no longer required. Oh, how I hate leaving a job undone. For three days those hydrangeas called out to me and haunted my every waking hour as I brooded over how one more workday would have finished the job. Letting go of my own vision of what the garden could be was so difficult, and is always the risk of getting emotionally involved in someone else’s garden. I can’t seem to enjoy work without that emotional involvement, so it was hard to move on. They want us to come back and prune the hydrangeas, but I am hesitant. Without a real connection to the garden, my desire to be there wanes. Happily, we have an interesting new job where we worked all day yesterday restoring one of my favourite design things, a driveway circle garden. (Much removal of orange montbretia is involved! Before and afters will be upcoming soon. Autumn itself causes me no melancholy as it is one of my favourite seasons. It has always been so but is now increased by my happy anticipation of fall clean up of all the gardens (except the hydrangea one, darn it). I am sort of tired of all the gardens as they are now...(You gardeners know exactly what I mean) and cannot wait to cut many things down! Then I am going to do a page on each garden throughout the year...a delightful prospect. Autumnal sights: (left) Goldenrod at Andersen’s Rv Park (right) Hippophae Rhamnoides berries at Andersen’s. Now how in the world did I get berries when I thought the male plant had been lost to the septic installation???? (left) The heavily flowered hydrangeas (with the last of the picket fence sweet peas at Andersen’s and (right) Colchicum at the entry ramp garden of Long Beach City Hall No cry of woe here means the uploading of this entry worked this time. If it doesn’t, I really do not want to spend one and a quarter hours uploading just one entry (with “publish all”) so will wait till I have our new project photographed to show off and then add two entries at once. (We were rained out of the “after” day today.) Please, Mac, work for me! Later: Cry of woe: Still not working as it should so will wait for another day to upload, http://www.klipsanbeachcottages.comhttp://www.andersensrv.comshapeimage_4_link_0shapeimage_4_link_1