Tag Archives: Garden photos

Make Lemonade

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Sometimes life throws a few lemons our way and we have to decide how to respond. This was what happened last week when the wind kicked up, making the tall fir tree next to the greenhouse shimmy and shake a bit, releasing a large branch.

Look closely at the third panel from the right. Yep. It’s gone.

That’s right. A big branch took out one of the roof panels of safety glass. Tiny squares of glass flew everywhere, landing even inside of my gardening gloves. This is why I do not spend any time in the greenhouse when the wind is up.

Why, you might ask, did we build the greenhouse underneath a giant fir tree? Did we just fall off the turnip truck yesterday? No, we did not. There is no place on our property that is not encumbered by giant trees. Living with this kind of danger has its own kind of beauty. And craziness.

This greenhouse stood for over 5 years with nary a branch falling through fair window. Until last year. We lost the pane next to this one last year during the really big winter storm that also caused us to lose our large picture window in the kitchen while Mike was standing too close for comfort. And they say sailing is dangerous. This whole ‘branch falling’ scenario is why I have plans to be on the boat this winter when the wind starts blowing. I learned my lesson last year. And we’ve decided any glass that gets shattered in the greenhouse will be replaced by polycarbonate or some other clear, strong material that laughs at falling branches.

So to clean up the mess, everything had to come out of the greenhouse because the glass was simply everywhere. You would not believe how much stuff a person can store in an 8 x 10 foot greenhouse. Mike started pulling it all out and I realized this was the perfect opportunity to go through and get rid of a bunch of stuff I don’t need anymore.

What did I tell you? And that’s not all of it.

So yesterday and today, that’s what I’ve been doing while I ruminate on the two boats we’ve seen lately and come to terms with my feelings and thoughts about this whole plan of ours. It’s been time well spent in a number of ways, not the least of which is that I now have a very tidy greenhouse and two big loads of gardening ‘stuff’ that can go on the free section of Craigslist.

I like to come in here during the winter, pet my succulents, and pretend I’m someplace warm. I have a very good imagination.

Time to put the succulents to bed for the winter.

Now you know why I bother overwintering my succulents. This is Epiphyllum oxypetalum.

 

 

 

Sailing Hiatus :(

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We’re on a forced hiatus from sailing here at the Little Cunning Plan household. Our son, Andrew (age 20), had his tonsils removed, along with a couple of other minor surgical procedures, and we’re in hospital mode around here. Since there’s that nasty risk of post-operative bleeding, as well as the use of narcotics to control pain, we’re tied to the house for awhile until he is healed. That means no one gets to go down to either Moonrise or Danger Kitten. They sit at the marina, waiting for attention and probably feeling unloved. We could not plan our yearly sailing trip until this surgery was over so now we can tentatively plan to leave on August 24. Moonrise is still for sale, so who knows? Maybe we’ll take her off the market for a couple of weeks just so we can be sure to have a vacation.

So I don’t completely neglect this blog while Andrew is recovering, here are some photos from the garden this year. This is the year I have discovered that the gardens do, indeed, grow lustily without much help from me. The hydrangeas and lilies are in lovely form this year.

Intoxicating lilies. Their fragrance is positively thick in the evening.

The Hot Bed.

Little native ground orchid that volunteers in a few places. It's very subtle and my camera certainly doesn't do it justice.

Hydrangeas in full bloom.

Love this combination! Japanese Forest Grass: one of the best plants ever.

Japanese anemones. Exuberant but lovely.

 

A Beautiful Weekend…. On Land.

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My 'daffodil' rhodies.

We finally have decent weather in the Pacific Northwest! This weekend it hit 80 degrees, with blue skies and the sun acting as though it had been there all along. We wait all year for this weather. It’s the only reason many of us continue to live here through the dark disgusting winter season. The garden is filled with the majesty of spring.  So naturally our thoughts turned to being out on the boat.

“Oh good!”, the loyal reader exclaims! “They went out on the boat and there will be cool sailing photos. ”

But that is not what happened. We did not get out on the boat. You cannot possibly be more disappointed than we are about the fact that weekends are only 2 days long and one cannot be more than one place at a time, at least not in this dimension.

Alliums are in full dazzle.

When a certain mother and her daughter both have gift certificates to a certain spa and they want to go together, and the daughter works in Seattle Monday-Friday, then that mother/daughter pair must go to the spa on a Saturday. So we did. And after my body was scrubbed until it shone, I went outside to get dirty. I spent the rest of the day gardening. Being too clean and relaxed sends the wrong message to others. A little dirt under the nails calms down that kind of expectation.

And when that same mother has a son who is away at college and is coming home for the weekend to do the Color Run in Seattle on Mother’s Day, and then wants to go out to lunch with that mother, after which there will be a drive to Redmond,well, you can see that the two day weekend is now shot to heck in terms of going out on the boat for a day.

But all is not lost! There were some boats involved in this weekend. While in Seattle we took a little wander down to the Chittendon Locks in Ballard. The locks were named after a man named Hiram, and Mike’s grandfather’s name was Hiram, so we feel a special affinity for these locks. Also we wanted to see how they work because we’ve never been through them and we hear horror stories. You know, there are horror stories about just about everything. Locks are only one of many subjects.

This combination makes me happy.

After watching the locks open and close letting boats in and out between the salt water of Salmon Bay and the fresh water lakes, I’ve determined that once more, I am correct in assuming that if hundreds of thousands of people accomplish something with ease, we can too. Yep, it looks dead easy. You wait your turn, go in, tie up to the buttons on the wall, wait for the doors to open, then go out. I’m pretty sure we can hack it. So we hope to take a multi-day trip up to Lake Washington this summer, since we’ve never done that.

I took a couple of videos while up at the locks. Also, since there are no sailing photos, I took some of the garden and stuck them in this post. If I have to be on land, may as well enjoy what it has to offer. What’s that they say… bloom where you are planted? Well, I’m trying.

Watch the massive doors open in this video. Also hear the wind that we are missing out on by being on land.

 

Watch how they pack the boats in. It could make me a little nervous having other boats that close, but at least they are not moving fast.