I’m leaving on a jet plane…

It’s hard to believe, but the time has come for the first Alaska cruise of my summer.  Yes, I did say the first, because I really am going on two!  This one is all paid for by my dear mother.   I am going along with her on a sea/land tour from Vancouver to Denali.   My two sisters will be on this expedition too.

Then in August, Jim and I are going on an Inside Passage cruise from Vancouver, which will be a mini family reunion for him: one of his brothers, his sister and their spouses will be attending that one.   I feel sort of like a jet setter this year.

So anyway, I will be off line for a couple of weeks.

I got busy and finished the top half of the son and daugher-in-law’s quilt.   I think it looks rather spectacular myself.

The two nests of baby robins I featured in the Snow in May post have developed nicely.  By the time I get home, they will be fledged and prancing about the lawn in youthful plumage.   Right now, they are rather cute.

The yard is wonderful.   The wisteria will be all done by the time I get home.  It is in the last flush of bloom right now.   When you stand under the pergola, it literally hums with bees.

There is a snowball bush in the stroll garden that is in full bloom right now.  Also, my clematis have begun their display.

And the rock garden is looking very nice.   I imagine I will have to dead head the candytuft when I get home.  And hopefully the dianthus will not be completely finished.  I just love to stand there and smell it when it’s in full bloom.

Well, you all stay healthy and happy while I’m off gallivanting, okay?

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The Havens “Blue-(ish) Period”

It seems like the garden goes through color phases each year, starting yellow and transitioning to blue before bursting into the hot reds and oranges.  Of course, this falls into the category of “glittering generalities” that we were warned against severely during high school English essay production.  Needless to say, with my eclectic taste in flowers, there is never a time when there is only one color showing at The Havens.

Once I toyed with the idea of creating a “Moon Garden’” having been enticed toward the idea by a lavishly illustrated article in some gardening magazine or other.   But when I started trying to plan the thing, I realized that I am constitutionally unable to make a garden that only sports silvery foliage and white flowers.  Heck, I couldn’t even plan it without feeling the need for “just a touch of color.” (Afficionados of “The Bird Cage” will get that reference.)

Last year my method of dealing with my unruly wisteria vine (is there any other kind?) was to walk around the pergola with my pruning shears and whack back anything that dared to hang over the edge and intrude on my personal space.   Apparently this was just the treatment it needed, because this year it is absolutely stunning in bloom.

Getting this photograph illustrates a problem in The Havens yard vis-a-vis photography.   Frankly, this place would drive a professional photographer stark raving mad, since it is never properly prepped for a photo op.  Right now the area near the pergola is a construction zone as we work on the barbecue/wood fired bread oven area.   So my initial attempt at getting the glorious wisteria looked like this:

Even careful cropping cannot rescue this version.   However, it does add a note of realism to the image.

Another part of the yard that is very blue right now is the front.   The peonies are still only buds, so the pink that will become prominent soon is not evident.   Also, the redbud is finished blooming.   Instead, we have lots of wood hyacinths and veronica.

Okay, okay.  Yes, there is an iris in there.   I told you I couldn’t do monochrome!  Actually, that is a reblooming iris that shows up again in the fall.   I believe she deserves a closer look.

Actually, there is more than one iris out there, and in short order there will be many more.   Then the Blue Period will be only a memory.

But I digress.   The Stroll Garden has quite a lot of blue showing right now, especially the Scree Slope and Rain Garden areas.   The main blues here are the ajuga and veronica, but the foliage of the dianthus back there definitely falls into the blue category.

You really need to have a look at that bank of candytuft closer up.   It is really “on” right now.

The very last daffodils are still out there, but they will be gone soon.   This is a late blooming minature (she’s about 4 cm in diamter) called “Chiva”.

Cat owners will appreciate the fact that I got up from my computer chair for about 2 minutes to go look up “Chiva’s” name and when I got back Mallory had established herself in the chair and was studiously engaged in washing.   “I’ve been here all morning, what do you want?” was the look she directed at me when I sat down.   Not on her, mind  you, no matter how tempting it was.

Just behind “Chiva” you can see the blue of a stem of camassia, also referred to as quamash.   This is a plant the Midwest Native Americans used for food.   Since it is a native of the area, I have it liberally scattered all through the Stroll Garden.   Here it is setting off the Japanese kerria bush, which is in full not-blue bloom right now.

Here is a drift of it sharing space with the day lilies.

You will note evidence of the lack of photo op preparation here if you look closely at this shot.   It includes such various weeds as white violets, lady’s bedstraw, and henbit.   When I was shooting the Scree Slope for the veronica and candytuft, I pulled out a few errant wild lettuces before I took the picture.   But this area requires more attention than I was willing to devote before I made a blog post.

Actually, I am on my way there.   I started over by the swing and worked my way along under the pine trees, removing hen bit and wild oats for the most part.   I had to make a detour past my large clumps of miscanthus grass, which I neglected to burn off this spring, and remove all the old stalks and foliage that were suffocating the new growth.   While I was back in that corner I worked myself into an emotional tizzy as I weeded Mike’s grave.     What a gorgeous boy he was.

I still miss him.  I had a little blue period about him….  But I’m better now.   After all, I have Impy and Mallory now.  And they are wonderful cats too.

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spring is sprung

Just a few shots from around the yard…   The species tulips are blooming all over the place.   I moved them around last summer, and they seem to enjoy their new spots.   I will be moving some more of them once they are done blooming.

 

In the stroll garden, daffodil “Baby moon” is busy being very cute.   Bear in mind that these flowers are about the size of an anerican quarter.   The foliage surrounding them is cilantro.

 

The robin who built her nest on the step ladder a couple of years ago decided that she would try that again, since it worked out so well for her.   Since she barely had the foundations of her nest laid, I tore it out.   I thought I might like to use the ladder sometime this spring…

Undeterred, she moved around the corner and established herself on the nose of the dragon head driftwood. Since he didn’t seem to mind, I let her be.  She was none too pleased the other day when I was weeding the garden beneath her perch.   she will just have to deal with it.

 

In other bird news, the gold finches have finally put on their mating colors.   Here is a shot of them enjoying the niger seed feeder.   On the fence there is a white throated sparrow.   I didn’t know they liked niger seed, but I guess they do.

 

Spring has officially sprung at The Havens.

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Beautiful pond

After nearly killing ourselves last week getting the weeds out of the pond, I sort of let the next phase of the job stay on hold for a while.   Let me refresh your memory:

As you can see, I have the pavement area partially clear of grass and weeds.   When I originally laid it, all I did was put in a bed of sand.   Needless to say, this was an open invitation to the ants, bermuda grass, dock, clover, etc. etc. etc. to move in and take over, which they did most thoroughly.

It was a slow process scraping the vegetative cover off of the pavers.  This was not made any easier by the fact that that the ants living there did their little earthmoving activities undisturbed for 17 years, which led to the paving blocks heaving and shifting in a most amazing manner.   I decided that filling the wheelbarrow with grass mats once a day was plenty of work of that sort.    There were plenty of other things to occupy me too, like pruning the espalier, the rugosa rose in front of the barn and I don’t know what all.    Needless to say, I also had to walk Ruby.

Anyway, when the grass was finally cleaned away, a job I finished yesterday morning, the paving looked like this:

There were plenty of grass roots left sticking up, and after a few seconds I decided I really needed to move the paving and do some restoration to the pad.   So I did.

I was so careful when I moved the blocks, having the insane idea that I would be able to replace them the same way they came out.   What I neglected to take into consideration was the fact that the far edge had had some blocks break, and so the tiles were not fitted together properly over there.  Also, some of my tiles had broken while the shifting sands were under them.

While I was working, the first house wren returned, flying in from the south in a flurry of announcements.  ”This is my house.”   “This is my garden.” “This area is mine, mine, mine, what are you doing here?”   “Where are the girls anyway, slowpokes, don’t they know there are plenty of bugs to eat we need to get busy and start a family post haste.”   I was glad to see him back, nosy bossy busybody that he is.

After I had the pavers moved, I grubbed out the grass roots and rhizomes that had invaded.   Then I “leveled” the mud and spread sand over it to make a nice base for the pavers.   No one can say that I do not learn from my mistakes, so it was off to the Big Box store to  purchase a pond liner to go under the tiles.   That item was not cheap, but I was armored with Jim’s statement “It is a one time expense” so I plopped down several twenty dollar bills, managed to avoid the temptation of half price perennial plants, and came on home.

There I spread the new liner, tucking it neatly under the pond’s pond liner at the edge, and trimming it to fit my tile area.   Then it was jig saw puzzle time as I fit the tile blocks back into their space.   This required a lot of running back and forth to the pile of tile behind the barn in the search for blocks that were “just right” for holes that needed filling.   By the end I was reduced to taking a piece of rock and smacking it with my hammer in the hopes that one of the resulting pieces would be right for the hole that needed filling.   This actually worked quite well several times, much to my amazement.

Jim mixed me up a small batch of mortar, and I got into the waterfall area and mended the cracks so that when we finally get the new pond pump the water will fall rather than dribble.   That was just a short little episode in the long slog of work I was involved in.

Finally, I hauled a couple of three gallon buckets of sand over to fill in the cracks, and swept it clear.   I was finishing that up when I was called to dinner.   I left the area changed:

After dinner, I took Ruby for her walk, and for some reason it was a very slow pace around the mile and half path I generally take her on.   Frequently I make it 3.5 miles, but it simply wasn’t in the cards last night.   I came home and took a nice long, badly needed epsom salt soak.

Elsewhere in the yard, spring is progressing nicely.   Here are a couple of images of the species tulips and one of my very fancy daffodils as they bloomed beautifully and largely un-noticed on the other side of the yard from where my attention was focused.

In front, I did manage a clean up during the week, which revealed the peony sprouting very optimistically.   There are plenty of daffodils and tulips keeping it company.   One of the irises already has a flower stalk coming up.

Now that the pond is finished, I can rest easy in the knowledge that it will never be that hard to maintain again.   Hopefully, anyway.   And that is a good thing, as I am not getting any younger.   In another ten years I’m not sure I would have been able to do the herculean job that I accomplished this past week and a half.  And I do not wish to minimize Jim’s help during it, although most of the work was done by me while he was busy mowing and mowing and cooking and working at the Commissary.

Now all I have to do is help Jim replace all the carpet in the house with flooring, paint all the walls that have cracks from the beam replacement job, remove the cannas from the areas that I don’t want them, get the henbit out of the day lilies, finish planting the vegetable garden, and …..

Did I mention I am going on a cruise vacation to Alaska in about a month?

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You load sixteen tons…

You load sixteen tons, and what do you get?  Another day older and deeper in debt.  St. Peter don’t you call me ’cause I can’t go — I owe my soul to the company store!”

Well, I don’t owe my soul to the company store, but I certainly feel like I loaded sixteen tons this weekend.   Of course, this is poetic license and hyperbole.  It was probably only one or two tons.   Anyway, water aerobics was a real trial today.   I went because I knew it would be good for me to move my sore muscles around.

So what was it that caused this state of events?    To sum it up in a few words:  Jim and I cleaned out the pond this weekend.   Mostly I cleaned it out.   It took several hours Friday, all day Saturday, and several more hours Sunday.   It still is not quite finished.

You may wish to go over to this blog post where I have several pictures indicating the history of the place.  A little ways down in the post there is a series of three pictures of the pond.    This one was taken right after I finished digging it.

Look over in the corners on the left and right sides.   Little did I know what a mistake planting those little clumps of cat tails was.   And I was so happy when they grew.

Every once in a while I would get into the pond and sort of try to beat them back from the center.   They continued to grow, however.

A couple of years ago, I noticed that one of the things that the birds had brought me was razor grass.   That makes beating back the marsh more difficult and painful.   But I finally steeled myself against the razor grass and got in there and really worked on getting rid of it.   I paid a high price for THAT one.

Needless to say, that experience made me reluctant to get into the pond when the weather was warm.   And my father’s decline and death last spring sort of took precedence over cleaning out the pond.   All last  summer, I was swearing to myself that  Something Was Going to be DONE about the pond this year.

And so it was.

We siphoned.   While the siphon was going, I began to hack away at the vegetative mass in the pond.   I used my trusty axe to cut pieces that were small enough to heave onto the shore.  I am about half done with the west side in the next shot.   The siphon has almost gotten to the point where it will no longer suck.

Observe the pile of cut pieces out on the bank.   The bucket contains the water lily, and river lotus, which I wished to re-introduce to the pond.   The water canna is still in the pond, just to the left of the bucket.  That mass in front of you is the east side marsh, which has not even been touched yet.

After a while, it became necessary to bail, as the siphon just couldn’t deal with the pond bottom.  It was hard work, but eventually  we got the water all out.

The above is looking at the west side.   It is completely clear of the vegetation that was in the shallow shelf.   Below  is a view of the east side.  I have already hacked a good two feet of vegetation back to where the shallow shelf begins.

A shot with Jim in it, for scale.

Here is a close up of that root wad that his hand is next to.

Back to the axe!   One must be circumspect about that tool.   Part of what makes the job difficult is lifting the mass of roots away from the pond liner so that when you hack through the roots you don’t also hack through the rubber liner.   When I bought that liner, it was over $400.   I can’t even imagine how much it would cost today, 17 years later.   I am just grateful that it hasn’t broken down over the years.

Another reason to be circumspect is the fact that over the years there have been rocks that found their way into the mass.  Big rocks.   Believe it or not, there was a time when the vegetation in the marsh was small enough that it needed to be anchored so it wouldn’t float around.   (Ironic laughter here)  Hitting a big head sized rock with the axe is hard on the axe. We tried to avoid that.   Fortunately, when you get close to a rock when you are hacking at the root wad, the sound changes so that you can modify your aim and miss the rock.   No axes were harmed during the project.

So anyway, we did not try to beat the east side all the way back to the edge the way we did the west side.   I decided the frogs and salamanders needed some marsh.  I left about three feet of it intact.   I know I will enjoy the water irises there when they bloom, also.

After we beat it back some, we cleaned the liner and refilled the pond.   I spent some time clearing the grass back from the stone “patio”.   That part is not done yet, but it rained in the night and there is a lot of water out there, so I will put that off for a bit.

This is how it all looked yesterday afternoon.

There are no fish in there any more, which means the salamanders and toads will have a much easier time propagating.   I know for a fact that there are seven salamander newts, because I meticulously saved them during the baling process and put them into the bucket with the lilies, and then carefully put them back into the pond after it was full.

A job well done.   And my body knows all about it, too.

Something a little less physical also going on:   The bargello quilt strips for Jesse and Lynette’s quilt are cut.

I have about 25% of the strip sewing complete.   I think I might just work on that today and let the pond and the gardens alone.   Just for today.

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