Part Of My Yard

Happy May Day!

Busy weeding my acre this time of year in-between 12 hour split shifts at work and the wonderful April weather.

As you can see, Rusty, who is on better pain meds, helps supervise.

 I weeded half of this bed surrounding our patio. Then gave up moved onto another place that needed attention. I have to cut back the tulips and grab the artillery weeds. The blue on the left is lithospermum.

The house is on the left with the airplane hangar (doors closed) straight ahead.
I've lived on my acre for 26 years. Plants die. Plants get too big. Plants are amazing. We have fairly mild winters here in the Willamette Valley, but once every six years or so, we get hard freezes, ice, and significant snow. (No snow this winter except for one morning). Two years ago, the Lithospermum completely died back but I saw some green shoots near the base and babied it and here it is, lush as ever.

 Stepping back a few paces, this is the pergola with clematis (montana) climbing it. The clematis shades us in the summers and you can sit outside and not get too wet during summer showers.
These clematis rotted off at the rootstock one winter - oh, 7 years ago, but they are now almost where they were before - coverage-wise.

We use our patio most of the year. There is a swing set that needs new cushions sewn. Has anyone noticed that replacement cushions are thinner on the foam? The ones that came with the swing were very comfy. We cook outside on the barbecue and watch the planes take off in the evenings.

Most readers know I live on an airpark. The runway adjoins our acre and runs mostly north-south.    Bucolic.   Anyone use that old-fashioned word lately?

You need patience to garden well. Plants are a tad unruly, not always listening to your mindset of how they should behave. That's okay.

 
 

 I still need to pot up my hanging baskets. I'm slow this year. I am waiting on the high school plant sale for the little extras plants that go into the baskets (excuseexcuseexcuse).

Tomorrow is my day off and it's forecast to be 80', so this job jumped to priority one.

My upright green japanese maple on the other side of the house sends forth babies that I pot up for the patio. These babies don't seem to grow as tall. I have done some bonsai with them, twisted the 'stems' into circles, played with them a bit. These are getting quite root-bound so I will either give these away at the end of this growing year or compost them and start fresh with some new babies.

Looking left from the patio is my side yard. This is the yard I look at from my kitchen window.
The curve of the beds is lovely. The beds on the left used to be shaded by 40 year old fir trees but we had a little leaning problem and rather then buy a new house for the neighbors, we elected to cut them down.
 

So this bed went from shady perennials to a very sunny, needs to be edited still bed. I have replanted some taller trees for the bird habitat but also as a living fence between us and the neighbors.  It is very difficult to edit my plants. I've known them for years and someday's I can't be ruthless enough. I tend to let the columbines live.

 I tried a panoramic shot looking at the house.
All it did was give the house and hangar a decidedly weird curve.
That's the grass runway to the far right.

My kitchen window on the right. Just in front is my bird feeder and hummingbird feeder (empty again?). That's hubby there doing something.

 Looking southeast towards the taxi-way, aka our street.

 Another view of looking out my kitchen window.
My living fence is filling out nicely this April. 
My goal is to not see that house there.

Those are my hostas there in front which amazingly took to the sun from being in the shade prior.

 And from the street end, looking towards the grass runway -- past the fir trees we left growing taller.
 
Serous hummingbird habitat up there in the firs along with owls and other birds. (not to mention the bats). We had an eagle thinking about setting up housekeeping two autumns  ago.

Another panoramic - the entire side length of the yard - about 300 yards?

Strawberries blooming for June.
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***This is just my side yard. If you got this far - serious congratulations. This was a good place to put these photos for my reference.

Amaryllis and Winter

I originally bought amaryllis bulbs as hostess gifts for the holidays. When said holidays rolled around these were only knee-high to a grasshopper and what with all the holiday fuss and bothers, I forgot for the first two parties and by the third, had reconciled with myself that four (!) looked much better on the windowsill than one lonely amaryllis.




We have been blessed with a couple of 50+'  days where the sun shines and you forget about foggy, grey, drizzly, sad January in Oregon. Where you smell Spring coming.

I trimmed up the raspberries and the grapes. They are now ready to burst forth here in the next few weeks. They won't get wild for a couple of months but they do better if you do a hard pruning now.

We kept 7 middle-aged fir trees and I am so glad we did. My replacement trees for the ones we cut down are coming along nicely but they aren't tall yet.

Those fir trees were home to hummingbird nests, bats in the belfry, owls, and other flying critters. This winter we have seen not one but two eagles flying around - probably to the dismay of tiny rabbits and voles but what a wonderous sight to behold. I think hawks might be prettier, but eagles - wowza.

Pondering The Blog

I've been thinking about a blog post that Amy (from Angry Chicken) wrote pertaining to - if I can even summarize this -- to being okay with other people's successes. It was a rather profound concept and it dovetailed with coming off of the SewMamaSew giveaway week.

Like other crafters out there, I visited a few blogs (nowhere near the 550 giving things away) and checked out some other sewing blogs. Knitting  blogs, family blogs, crafty blogs. Sheep shearing blog.

Beyond being blown away by other people's creativity, I was also pondering blog design and why we blog at all.

So Amy's post was timely and while sorting mail (and instead of reading other people mail),  I revisited the reasons as to why I blog.

My obvious reasons: I like to write and have nearly forgotten how and I love taking photographs so the two work as a journal of sorts.
This journal is also, on purpose, a positive place for me to be. With work being so stressful and intense right now, it becomes doubly hard to turn off the negativity and be one with a positive outlook. You cannot create if you are mired down in stress, office politics, not to mention back-stabbing people. I try not to let those things come into my blog world. I like to keep mine along the lines of Zen and the art of blogging.

The less obvious reasons: Announcing to the world at large that I need recognition and applause. I think of myself as fairly humble so I hope my blog doesn't offend anyone with it's greatness. (lol)

Another reason that became apparent last year was my auto-immune disease messing with my memory - aka brain fog. I literally go back to some of my posts and cannot remember making that soup or even writing the post. Not to mention old age; but writing a journal is quite helpful for this problem.

Another reason is to document that I do something besides work all week (six days a week). It can be a big morale boost when I am not feeling good and I am tired from working to see that I manage to do quite a few things. I've always pushed myself. I like to stay busy and frequently juggle three things at once so when I slow down to one project occasionally - it can feel wrong.

I do tend towards projects for others - as gifts. Hand-made gifts are great  but I do recognize I need to give myself some of these finished projects - more than I do. Think Selfish Seamstress. So by blogging I am reaching for that goal of taking care of myself.

Repeat after me; We are all a work in progress.

Amy's point of not always being "Good for you" when someone has a success is true for anyone. That their success makes you less somehow and you need to hurry up and perform better is  - wow - I've felt that way.
She brings up a better response of "good for you"  for everyone who this can apply to and then leaving it alone.
I enjoy the process of creating something but by no means do I need to make it perfect and it frequently is not. I tend to stay clear of sewing bloggers who have to have all their quilt triangles perfect or their garments all finished inside with bias tape. Without stringing words together, those perfect bloggers 'intimidate' me a bit - on a sub-conscience level, of course. What Amy is saying is make it simple - just say "good for you" and move on. Take it up to a conscience level.

Short list of blogs (SMS giveaway)  I was not going to read further;
I saw some blogs that were so loaded down with advertising and award buttons  that I could not enjoy them. Let alone find the content.
Many just wanted their number of followers on Facebook to go up but were not really invested in those people.
This newish trend of headline blogging (no examples as I have none of them bookmarked and I certainly cannot find one under pressure)  is distracting as well. I've asked several people about them and no consensus was reached. I think they look commercial - somewhat like reading the USA today newspaper.

Part of the problem of a type-A personality is the amazing amount of stuff in your head so my other big reason to blog is to let the stuff out. Seriously, it's not healthy to keep it all festering inside.
So- I'm right back where I started. No changes on the horizon. Still rambling about whatever is in my head. My blog is still gonna be all about me.


There were sun breaks today when I got home from work so I took care of this corner of a path to the neighbors this afternoon when I got home from work.

I took out the hodge-podge of miscellany plants and put a curve to the plantings with some variegated boxwoods. I am keeping this pathway but need to rework my second brick step as it has sunk a bit. Some barkdust to be spread to keep columbine babies from taking over the corner. That bright light in the upper left-hand corner - ANOTHER SUN BREAK!!!

Since felling 18 large fir trees (small leaning problem) last Spring, I have tried to move on to my next gardening moment but when the shack appears in my photos, it all comes back (good for them - they put a new roof on). Since the sunlight hit this bed, I have been battling growth. The light pink things in the foreground are Azaleas smothered in Lamium. I have both purple and pink varieties and Lamium was such a thoughtful delight when the trees shaded everything but now it is matting over everything in it's path.

Lamium and my snail collection device. Need some? Lamium, I mean?

Two wheelbarrows full today. Lamium, Columbine, Sweet woodruff, hardy geranium, pinks, Asters, Valerian, Forget-me-nots, Cup & Saucer( Canterbury Bells).
Destined for the compost pile.

Brief sunshine caused an Iris to pop.

Nora Barlow Columbine. I still have 10,000 plants. Somebody needs to get some backbone.

 Still sunny but some serious sounding thunder happening to the south of us.