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ran away from my garden

Category: gardening among the rocks | Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2008 11:16 pm

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Been doing that a bit, lately. Running away from home, I mean. More fun than scraping paint off the house (which I really need to get after). DH had a trade-off day yesterday so we ran away to one of our local beaches, at Tolmie park. Good heavens, the name actually made it into Wikipedia. Do some folks just have too much time on their hands or how does that work? Anyway...
It was supposed to be blazing hot, and when we got home the news said it was. But not at this little bit of seashore (It actually faces onto Puget sound). A soft overcast kept a gauzy screen overhead, creating a filtered and comparatively cool sunshine.
We started out with a hike, only a couple of miles or so. The thick, fern-studded woods were laced with tiny-wild-blackberry vines. My hands were perfectly purple before long, as were DD's chin and one cheek. We don't want her to get the idea that it's ok to pick and eat things in the wild, so I fill my hands with whatever is good and let her choose what she wants from there. Saves quite a bit of worry! The berries that lie in pools of sunshine were fat and sweet. The ones in the shade, well, not so much. But they were all good. The wild huckleberries are ripe too, but we left them for the chipmunks. DH and DD were sitting on a bench while I raided a patch of vines when my back was literally brushed by birdwing, and a pileated woodpecker landed on a stump directly behind my D's! DH scrambled to get the camera setup (our point-and-click is hopelessly broken, and neither of us is very fast yet with the SLR camera). The woodpecker headed off into the trees, alas. But it did make me look up, and realize that some of the trees we were passing were actually Madrona, evidenced by the orange wood exposed up where the sun hit and peeled the outer bark.
At the end of our hike we had a picnic on the beach then spent the rest of the afternoon sketching and playing in the water. This beach is Loaded with sand dollars- they are actually purple and fuzzy when they are still alive. Lots of little crabs, too, little fish, and at one point DH spooked up a tiny flounder that proceeded to smack right into my leg, poor little guy! Added a few shells to my stash on the back porch, waiting for me to sketch them. Well it's jolly hot in here so I'll go do that!

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August- no month for this gardener

Category: gardening among the rocks | Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2008 6:28 pm

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It's August, when this woman's fancy turns to thoughts of moving to a more garden-friendly locale. In August, I find out that the noxious dormant spray that I spread around in the fall has done nothing. August reveals blight on my lilacs, disease on my plum, weird red lumps covering my maples. Huge areas of blank, unwelcoming bareness stare at me from where the optimistic blooms of Spring have faded, gone to seed, and retreated into slumber. Instead of reveling in new things blooming, I spend my time in the garden deadheading old, withered blooms. The cheery birds are sticking to friendlier terraine, replaced by cranky, incessant yellowjackets, with their all-too-ready poison-filled stingers try to take up residence anywhere there is bare wood; the even more vicious bald hornets have build their underground vaults, a base from which to swarm over anyone who tries to mow near them. Biting red ants try to fill my painting studio.
All the wildflowers are done blooming, and the fields must be mowed or they will be overrun by invasive, persistent Scotch Broom. It's all about patching now. Trying to keep things alive in an environment unfriendly to life; the prairie wants to rest and be dormant. I insist on my small patches of greenness and life-the things that want to be green are invasive weeds.
At least this year I'm not too worried about drought. DH and some buddies went hiking up in the Olympics on Saturday, and there was a pretty good snow pack even at their relatively low elevation. Here's where he went http://www.fs.fed.us/r6/olympic/recreation-nu/trails/MtEllinor.pdf
and here's a website that will show why there are so many hikers (and artists, photographers & bicyclists) in Washington http://www.summitpost.org/area/range/171068/olympic-range-wa.html


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the rest of my weekend, garden update.

Category: gardening among the rocks | Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2008 11:54 pm

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Well Friday was so perfect I wondered what the rest of the weekend would bring. Saturday we loaded the bikes into The Gas Guzzler (it's a tiny truck, no excuse at all!) and headed out to the bike path. Went a bit farther than we have before, which meant a couple of nervous street crossings but all went well. Saw plenty of wildlife, and discovered that further down the path it brushes up against the Deschutes river, just beautiful.
Sunday was our 22nd anniversary so DH decided to heat up the smoker. Kept mesquite going on a chicken for something like 6 hours, plenty of time for me to make potato salad and broccoli salad. DS even came by for awhile, bearing gifts of chocolate for us both. He was feeling a little sheepish because when his band was playing, he decided to play the drum cymbals... with his headstock... knocked the guitar right out of tune and he had to do an emergency retune on stage. Fortunately the audience thought it was funny too and just rolled with it.
So now I'm officially in the new millennium, DH bought me an ipod shuffle. DS got it loaded up (or whatever you call it). Apparently one has to name their ipod for it to work, and he dubbed mine "scooty puff" (recognizable to other Futurama geeks) I promptly botched the thing up and it's sitting waiting for Tech Support to get home from work. He's very patient with me, thank goodness...
I picked the last of the reachable pie cherries this morning. I'm in no mood for baking so am thinking about juicing them. But that might just be nutty. I'll really miss having fresh raspberries with breakfast every morning, when the season's done. DD doesn't do well with many fruit types (the textures cause her big problems) but she loves raspberries. My grapevine is loaded with tiny green grapes too, but I can't recall what kind it is. I know I've been wanting a delaware, and I know for sure it isn't concord. Guess autumn will tell. I tied back the tomato plants that were crowding out the chilis, but I planted those peppers in the wrong place so don't know if they'll amount to much. Still watching the squash, rhubarb and potatoes, they seem to be debating about whether to live. And, ugh, tent caterpillars have begun to move in on my birch tree!
My old hens are stressed out from the little banties and have been eating their eggs. So I build a second pen for the roosters. No dice. They broke out and were back in the old pen this morning. I've reworked their fence and will try again tonight. Silly birds. We are supposedly getting rain tomorrow. I sure hope so...

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Ran away from home 7/25

Category: gardening among the rocks | Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2008 7:16 pm

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First a couple of quick pics- I love the patterns of rat lines, masts, and such on these tall ships. We didn't go out on any of them, just watched from the dock
This is the card I'd mentioned. Funny gal who got it was all concerned that I'd given her the painting I'd created. Had to break to her that it's just an acrylic I roughed out to try to get the composition I wanted. It's canvas-textured paper, glued to a card
DH had Friday off. The company has been sending him to places along the coast to work for the past couple of weeks, and I've been really wanting to go too. So we packed out early in the morning and headed for Westport. A light, high fog belied the fact that it was an enchantingly perfect day at the beach.
The fishing boats were already out by the time we got there, but we had timed our arrival for the lowest point of the tide anyways. Surfers filled the parking lot, getting into their garb that made me think of a seal-theme dress ball more than anything. We started at the South Jetty, since that's where the best agate searching is. DD wore here zip-up sweat shirt and set to work filling the pockets with the choicest sand dollars, bits of shell, and stones. I wore a red-fleece jacket bought on some long-ago trip to Monterey Bay that turned out colder than I'd expected. DH, the California boy, didn't bother with a jacket at all. We worked our way up the beach together slowly. DH and I kept getting ahead of DD, and would turn to watch her work her way toward us. She would eventually notice our watching, flash her ready smile, and show us some treasure she'd found. She has a good eye for shells. Only kept the pinkest, the whole sand dollars, the chunky scraps of shell polished by the surf. As I gathered my own finds, I discovered that my left hand pocket had a small hole in it. I moved to shift my treasures to the other pocket then paused. It really didn't matter, after all, if a bit of shell or intriguing pebble fell back to the sand. The hollow crab claw, the translucent white stone, were all for now, for this moment, walking on the beach by the South Jetty with my husband and daughter. Any other time and place and they would become objects of clutter, projects I meant to make something with or do a sketch of. I left them where they were, in the pocket with the hole, and lay my head on DH's shoulder. It was a perfect day.

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taking a minute to breathe...

Category: gardening among the rocks | Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2008 8:45 pm

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WOW it's been busy lately. My pickup died when I was coming home from the grocery store, about 8 miles from home. I'm SO glad I have AAA!! A couple of really nice guys stopped & helped me push the truck out of traffic while I waited for the tow to show. So it's been in the shop about 5 days, just got it back last night. Meanwhile, I was working on a painting (pics to follow soon. )
I tried something new for this painting. I found this paper at an art store up in Tacoma (we were up there for the Tall Ships festival, again, pics to follow). It's textured like fairly rough canvas. Guess it's for practicing oil techniques, but since most of my small paintings wind up adhered to greeting cards, that's where my mind went. A gal near me has had a deer visiting her back yard. She backs up to a greenbelt. It was annoying for a while, since Ms. Deer was feasting on the flowerbeds like an all-you-can-eat Doe Diner, but one day she proved that it was not just the phlox making her phat. She had twins. This friend knows how potty I am about animals, so took a bunch of photos for me. I used the canvas paper to paint the deer in artist acrylics for a card for her. Being stuck at home gave me plenty of time to focus on finishing it!
Speaking of painting, a friend who was in the meeting for the folks doing VBS next month whispered that the team had decided to have me paint a mural. Still waiting to see whats up on that front, the last mural I did was gigantinormous and took a very long time to do!
It really is remarkable how "just staying home" can be so busy. Since I was here, I reckoned, I had time to bake. Two pans of Nanaimo bars, that sort of thing. A big plate is going with me to a hen party...er... women's group get-together tonight. Another big bit was delivered to my boyo at the campground (major puppydog eyes from a couple of folks who caught me delivering it). How did I deliver it, you ask, without a car? Well, we got a call that the truck was fixed, so headed up into town to get it. We got all of 8 blocks before it died again. Sigh. But at least we were able to go by the camp, which is on the way home again, sort of, just a few miles out of route.
Then my mom called, wanted to go to Costco- I have a card, she doesn't, so going there requires spending an afternoon with me and my daughter, no great hardship for Grandma. And my anniversary is this weekend; I was fretting about how to get DH's present while lacking a car, so this worked out rather well. So there was another afternoon. Busy busy.
I've discovered I have more than enough posts here to put a title under my name. Being flighty and impulsive, I can't seem to land on one that really works. So if anyone wants to reply to my blog, could you suggest something? Maybe you can help spark my mind a little!

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Bike conversion pics

Category: gardening among the rocks | Posted: Fri Jul 04, 2008 5:36 pm

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I have yet to paint the bright flowers on DD's taxi, and am still looking for a little windsock to fly from the post that use to hold a flag, but we took her out for a spin in it this week. Several old, unused railroad beds around here have been paved over for use as bicycle paths. I'm still optimistically waiting for them to pave the one that runs near my place, but DH loaded up the bikes and drove us to this one.
Oh, first the bike conversion. Here's the bike when I started:


After much rust-scrubbing, removing the basket, and constructing my brilliantly engineered conversion.
I picked up an old car-booster seat at a yard sale, but it didn't work to hold DD in. I tore it apart and modified the belt structure. It's looped around the bike frame for security, and has an adjustable buckle for security. A friend was going to toss some sofa cushions, and I salvaged one to pad the seat. I stash it away when it's not being used


Here's how DD fits in her seat. She can't get her fingers into the spokes now, and it's actually pretty comfortable. Still need a foot rest, and a bike basket to hold her water bottle & such (did someone say garage sale?)This image removed, forgot that just anyone could get at these...
One last shot, DD & DH. I'd just pedaled the taxi up an incline, DH took over because I was just worn out. I took several shots here, the others were all blurry since I was actually riding while shooting.
this one too

Last edited: Fri Jul 11, 2008 5:03 pm

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not time to miss my boy... yet

Category: gardening among the rocks | Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2008 5:26 pm

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My son moved out yesterday for his Summer job at a campground. He's done this for the past couple of summers, this time was odd because he's lived elsewhere for the past month already. My Uncle, his great uncle, had major surgery and rehab time. My aunt has a rare degenerative neurological disorder that precludes and possibility of her living alone; they are both at a care facility for now. So DS moved to their place to house sit for a month, right up until he moved out to the campground.
I't's actually one of those look-back-in-old-age times, though of course he can't see it now. Have I written about the house here already? Don't recall. My uncles house is built on a piece of land homesteaded by my great-grandfather. It's on a hill, and great-grand logged it for his sawmill (the first steampowered sawmill in the county). But way up there at the top of the hill is a spectacular view skimming the tops of the Black Hills (the same range that runs by my place here). Unbelievable sunsets that go on forever. My uncle built a house, a cabin really, right at the edge of the hill. It's all sided in local cedar sawn in my great-grands still-usable sawmill. And has a positively enormous covered porch overlooking the hill view, an excellent spot for a young musician to practice his guitar. That's a little awe-inspiring for DS too, since my aunt's nephew (from her side of the family) was a Very famous musician, and actually did that very thing.
So DS was there for a month, now he's living at a camground, running meals to the far cabins in a reconstruction of a pioneer town called Harmony. Some of the "businesses" on main street are actually sleeping areas, other folks sleep in teepees or covered wagons. And there is a big open dining hall called the Black Bear Cafe- not really any cooking facilities in there, which is why DS will spend the summer driving a golf-cart sort of thing out to Harmony three times a day to set up, monitor, and clean up all the meals. I hope he writes a book about it all someday.
I'm just scrambling with end-of-school-year stuff for DD, having the plant sale committee out here tonight for a wrapup barbecue (and today's panicky housecleaning), and engineering an alteration to an adult tricycle to make it into a sort of pedicab so I can keep biking this summer, with DD safely riding along. Huge challenge, but if it turns out it should be fun. And yes, I will include pics if it works. I'm planning on painting it Very bright so cars can't miss us. Probably something along the lines of a gypsy caravan with lot's of Bavarian-type folkart flowers on it, just so we are sure to be visible, lol!
So why am I sitting here typing a blog? Good grief, I gotta get crackingI

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The Great Chipmunk Adventure

Category: gardening among the rocks | Posted: Mon Jun 09, 2008 3:49 pm

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My head's still spinning from all the organizing details and such, but the plant-and-handcraft sale at my church was a big success. Even with quite a few plants left over, folks contributed far more than enough that we will be able to buy a really good chainsaw to cut firewood for those elderly folks I talked about earlier! We all got to know each other a bit better too. Several ladies brought homebaked goodies, our pastor made ice cream with his daughter, and we even have a fellow who custom roasts coffee to support his family (and a little villiage where the beans are grown) bring in several pots of coffee, so everyone stood around, choosing plants, and socializing... it was just wonderful.
But, being the animal nut that I am, even with all that, the high point came for me after the sale was over, when almost everything was packed up to leave. We discovered that a tiny baby chipmunk was hiding under the plant trailer. He was none too keen to leave, either. The gentleman, Ray, handling the trailer was very concerned about pulling his truck out; the little chipmunk was so scared that he kept darting under the tires. At one point, he wedged his tiny self right under the front tire of the truck, which was running and in gear, and Ray had to keep the brake jammed to the floor- meanwhile, a church Elder dropped to the ground and reached in to coax the little guy out. One slip of Ray's foot would have meant death to the chipmunk and a broken hand to the other man. But the coaxing worked, the little rodent scurried back under the trailer. As Ray sloooowly inched the truck & trailer out and away, the baby kept scurrying under and around the trailer. Finally, the trailer was moved away, leaving tire tracks in the grass and a befuddled baby exposed to a group of Very Large Humans. After a moment of panic, it made a mad dash between the feet of the very man who had risked is hand, and ran off into the azaleas. At last sight he was crouched by the trash receptical munching on some delightful thing that had been dropped there.
Here's a truly fun website to check out: http://www.oldgeezerbooks.com/
That's the fellow who was driving the truck. He turns scrap metal into the funniest and most amazing garden sculptures, maybe they will inspire one of you to create something for your garden!

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quick followup to these bike posts

Category: gardening among the rocks | Posted: Thu Jun 05, 2008 1:52 am

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I listen to music while I ride, and tend to swerve my bike on the empty road in time to the music, swooping it so low I've fallen over a couple of times. O well- I just really like riding. And my bike and I have been through alot together so it's a tad beat up. This morning I rode in my sweats, orange safety vest, and apparently old-fashioned helmet. Whatever. But I passed the funniest thing. Two bikers standing next to a spotless pickup. In really fancy skin-tight cycling gear, cycling shoes, really dope helmets. And really jazzy bikes, of course. Standing by their bikes stretching their legs to get ready to ride up the trail I'd just come down. I just peddled by, dipped my bike 45 degrees to the ground in salute, and waved; they gave me a really odd look. I don't know why it struck me so funny, but it did. Guess I'm guilty of reverse snobbery, lol!

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Scenes from a bikeride

Category: gardening among the rocks | Posted: Wed Jun 04, 2008 4:09 pm

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Wow, it's amazing to me how the site floods with posts when I'm away! Between DD and I battling a flu bug, whipping myself into cycling, trying to convince the veggies to grow, and organizing a plant sale fundraiser this weekend I barely have time to breathe!
I took a couple of reference photos the other day when i was riding in the forest. Folks from around here will just go, oh, that's a bunch of trees. But I thought those of you who live in more arid places might be interested in them; this forest isn't too far from the Hoh Rain Forest up on the peninsula, and even here you'll find trees dripping with moss.



And here's a deer that hung around while DD and I waited for the bus. He moseyed away by the time I got back with the camera...

This is the backside of the prairie perserve by my house. The building off in the distance is the studio of an artist/art teacher. I try to take a class every now and then, but she's a very Good teacher, and gets paid accordingly!

Looks like the weather has decided to not improve, so I'll just give up on it and head out on my bike anyway!

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