Category Archives: garden

This morning was nice and sunny and I thought it might be a good day to do some garden stuff. We had our trees pruned this week. Chuck normally comes in January to do the apple tree in the backyard but last year he had a back injury and somehow we fell through the cracks. Meanwhile, there was that 10 star ice storm last winter and as I understand nature, our apple tree panicked, thinking its days might be numbered it produced about 10 trillion apples which meant sagging branches. A major one broke and has dangled ever since because we are too lame to deal with it. (I even said this on the message I left for Chuck so that when he arrived, he’d know we know we’re lame. I did mention that we’re good at other things.)

I also asked him to check out the tree in front, which I, based on my limited botanical knowledge (read: none), have designated as an “ornamental cherry.” I thought it could use some shaping. He worked on them both and they look fantastic (as much as a pruned tree in winter can look.)

We need to put the debris into the bins for garden waste pick up and if you go at the pruning waste with clippers you can fit a lot more in. Plus I need to whack back my roses b/c the lady in the Oregonian said you should so that around now.

These were the things I had planned for the day. HOWEVER, I needed to finish reading my book (Straight Man, thanks Hannah) and of course, it always takes longer to read the last 100 pages than you think it will so at 12:30 pm I was still in bed reading, my yoga practice long abandoned.

At some point the sun disappeared. I opened the shades so I could read better. When I was about 10 pages from the end I heard the rain fall. I looked out to make sure that’s what was happening and yup, cold drippy rain.

I’m dressed now in my garden clothes, just in case things clear up and I can work out there later. But Bob already has been out there AND I have fresh Buffy in the DVD so you take your bets on how this afternoon is going to turn out.

You know, sometimes several days go by when I loathe even the sight of my computer. I don’t want to sit here even long enough to read the latest email. It’s been like that this week. Generally I end up blogging after having a couple of refreshing adult beverages and I haven’t been into the adult beverages much since it’s cold and beer is less interesting, (not out of the picture by any means, only less interesting) and the bottle of wine I bought this week was total swill and I had only about 1 glass and had a total “I need pizza” hangover the next morning. I’m guessing beverage influence explains why when I read my posts later to see how they sound there’s always an incoherent aside or an egregious homonym error or an overall “how many points am I trying to make” loopiness. I am completely sober at this moment.

Here are a few notes about my week: (1) My latest disc of Angel was not premium. That show did lose it in the middle of season 4. Dragging talking head episodes with never-ending fights and Cordy turning into a bad guy. Snore. I still watched it all and the one stingy little extra so far which was a humdrum commentary by a director and producer guy. Meanwhile, Lost keeps getting better and I will admit to watching Desperate Housewives as my guilty pleasure. (2) Yesterday I finally vacuumed – yay. (3) Bob got me into Get Fuzzy. We got a book which I inhaled in about 3 days, even staying up late to read “just a few more pages.” I love Bucky. (4) Last night I did a yoga workshop with Angela Farmer and Victor van Kooten which was fantastic. They are amazing teachers. (5) At the moment I’m reading a YA book by Peter Dickinson who is a fantastic writer. I read Eva several years and I still think about it. The one I’m reading now is The Ropemaker.

(6) I was in bed reading the book several hours ago when I noticed that the sun was out and it seemed foolish to sit indoors on my ass when this might be the sun’s last appearance on a weekend day until some bone-chilling ugly day in December so I put on old jeans and ran outside and pulled up the last of the cosmos and dug up a few weeds. I lost my weed fork – they almost always turn up later but it’s been several weeks so I can only assume that it went in the garden refuse. I wonder how many garden implements they get because I’ve lost a number that way. I bought a new, fancy weed fork and it’s crap. It’s somehow smaller and flimsier and total crap. Remember the olden days when things were more expensive but not so crappy? I also finally dug up two rose bushes. I’ve been threatening to do it for some time and gave them plenty warning but they did not improve. Their crime: being ugly. They grew giant long skinny branches and in the spring they’d bloom a teeny bit with wispy red flowers that drooped towards the dirt. Then they’d never bloom again, only shooting green scratchy branches. They’re gone now. I need to plant some more stuff there right away or I never will and I’ll be one of those people with scary yard with 1 or 2 plants and tons of bark dust. ooh: pretty. As I worked I could see black roiling clouds moving my way and heard a few choice cracks of thunder. I hurried. When I felt the first few drops I moved most of my stuff in but I still had a hoe in my hands to do “one more thing.” Bob came out to ask me something and the sky broke open and we had to run for it. It went from 0 to 60 in about a half minute.

(7) I bought clothes at Ann Taylor Loft and I think I’ve finally evolved out of my: black-grey-black theme. I bought brown. I know, personal growth is exciting. I also bought something pink. Seriously. It’s not barbie-pink, it’s darker. I’m sure there’s some fashion type name for it like: blush or conch, I couldn’t tell you. But I will be wearing a pink sweater with weird tie-things on it. It’s so not me. (I just looked to see if Crayola had a name for my pink and found this website with the history of crayon colors. The Internet has everything.)

(8) Wow, I thought I had nothing to say and look at all this yammering. We’re off to see Hero.

I have been in an advanced negative mood for several days now and when I think about writing here I can only come up with a range of thematically linked rants like about jerkoff entitled SUV drivers on cellphones driving like idiots who don’t even wave politely to say thanks when you award their bad behavior by letting them cut in [these are the same people that back in high school were only your friend when they were copying your homework] or the same folks running around Trader Joe’s with their cellphone headsets gabbing away [“look at me, look at me”] while blocking three quarters of the cheese display and I won’t even get into the national or global stuff. I need to focus my energy on more positive things.

On that note, I’ve been digging around in the yard and I didn’t lose all my dahlias in the big freeze. I’ve found sproutage in all three key dahlia areas. I still haven’t planted my new bulbs — according to the directions I can do it this month. I want to put them on the east (?) side of the backyard but the soil desperately needs to be amended and we have to finish cutting back the hedges. Bob just bought a hedge cutter — after living here 5 years. You can bet those hedges are out of control.

I finally saw Gladiator which I never saw on big screen because of the violence and sheet-howdy. Good call. That was one gory picture. Those ancient Romans sure had nutty ideas about entertainment.

Here’s a Bob story. He took his bike in to get it tuned up and when he went to pick it up, he realized that in the new tuned up condition he couldn’t get the front tire off as easily (or something like that) to get it in the car. So he decides to put it in the trunk and tie the trunk lid down but then he realizes he has nothing to tie it with: no bungees, no rope. What can he use? (how Bob is this?) He ends up finding an old cable from a Zip Drive and it worked like a charm.

I cleaned out the front flower bed this past weekend. It needed it badly. One of the plants I bought last year did not come with a warning sticker: “this will take over your yard.” I didn’t notice how much it had spread around until I started digging. I thought about pulling the whole thing out but I’m going to wait and see what it’s doing at the end of the Summer. I’m sure that at the end of the summer I’ll decide to wait and see what it’s doing next Spring. This is the way I pretend to take action while actually putting off taking action. It’s a great system.

Bob came back from High Sierra and got sick. On Friday we took him to the doctor and he had a 103.5 fever, not a happy person. The doctor who saw him was a complete Doogie Howser, he stuck his head in the door and then had to go back out to answer a question and I looked at Bob and went “Doogie” and we totally laughed. He was very through and competent, but I continue to wonder what happened to all the old doctors? When we were kids all the doctors were old and grey. Where are these doctors now? Yeah, I realize those actual doctors are long retired but in the meantime, shouldn’t there be new old doctors to fill their places? But back to Bob’s illness: he had to get a shot and he’s not at 100% yet but he’s feeling a lot better.

And my face rash update is that it is looking a ton better.

Last Friday I left for the spa at 2:30pm, so the hottest part of the day and I passed one of my neighbors, looking mighty unhealthy I might add, standing outside watering his completely brown lawn. What was he thinking?

Cinderella pumpkin update: last year I saved the seeds from my cinderella pumpkin and it ended up that most of them got moldy and I had to toss them but I managed to save a few and a week ago I took 5 out for planting. I think I should have started this project a couple of months ago but oh well, we’ll see how I do. Meanwhile, I soaked the 5 seeds in a wet papertowel for a couple of days and then put them into a small container on the window sill thinking out of 5 I might get 1 to sprout. Well, all 5 sprouted and it happened fast, one morning I looking in the container and saw the edge of 5 green stems and that evening I could see leaves in the dirt and one day I could practically watch the leaves emerge from the dirt. Erin said to replant them outside right away and she was right. I planted them yesterday and they already had a lot of roots all tangled together.

I went and saw The Whale Rider yesterday and I’d advise you to run, not walk to the nearest theater. Get in the car and drive a ways if you have to. It’s a fantastic movie.

I took another look. The actual plant of eggplants is very pretty — I would grow them again. I found a small eggplant the size of a ping pong ball and something had pulled it off and gnawed on it. We must have some hungry critters back there because everything gets nibbled on and I found an apple in the front yard with teeth marks in it. I think I’m going to go ahead and pull up most of the garden.

I’m thinking about putting the garden to bed this weekend. This is about 4 weeks earlier than usual and I think a couple of years ago I didn’t do it until November. But it’s been such a big disappointment this year and it’s not doing much. If I took care of it now it would be one less thing to deal with out in the yard. I’ll have to go out there and take another look. Maybe I’ll pull up everything except the two biggest tomatoes.

For my power hour yesterday (in the yard) I hacked back Rhodies. I don’t know how healthy these plants are. The one out front looks mighty peaked and the super tall one in back — I’m trying to whack it down to my height which means I’m going to have nothing but sticks when I’m done. Yesterday was our 6 yr. anniversary and Bob took me to see Cocteau’s Beauty and the Beast and we had a nice dinner.