Arrival

So we are all in little boats, and on my boat the lookout is calling from high up on the mast, “Spring ahoy!” and there is a flurry of activity as the entire crew (both the dog and the woman) prepares to cast anchor and embark upon Spring. Yippee!

Okay that’s the end of the sailing metaphor, but the part where the terrier climbed the mast was certainly exciting. (You didn’t expect ME to go up there did you? )

So yeah it’s getting Springish here. Stuff is growing. And I know there are rumors out there that I don’t actually have a garden anymore–that it all died or I live in an apartment now or possibly in my car,  so I took evidential images with the phone, the Big camera, the Little camera, my Dick Tracy camera ring…  just to clear up the gossip, which by the way is sometimes known as “what’s clicking” according to the online slang dictionary. (Where would you be if I didn’t keep you up-to-date on these things?)

Anyway here are the first flowers of my immense swath of six or eight Anemone blanda bulbs, which seem to toss up the blooms sort of like scouts to see if it’s safe for the leaves to finish growing.

The buds looked quite purple but the blooms are more blue so I am pleased and will make every effort to not kill them.

Now here is an image of what my impeccable garden notes say is Rhododendron cilipenense, sometimes called Silly Penance by those of us who initially planted it in the wrong place where it languished sadly for some years but then finally last fall we dug it up and packed it across the lawn to better light and water. Lots more blooms this year and yes they are pink, but in a nice way.

In the native Oregon plant department, the Indian Plum (Oemleria cerasiformis) has already produced its sweet-scented graceful flowers. (I have filed a Missing Persons report on the hummingbirds who are supposed to see these blooms as an OPEN sign in the window of the garden.)

Now I know you are very eager to hear how my new pine tree bed is coming along so here is a update on the sod removal. You will most certainly recall that I am excavating, hand excavating, the sod between and around two pine trees and a deadly toxic (DO NOT EAT IT) yew tree.

Here is an image (this one taken with my Dick Tracy ring camera which is also a laser, just so you know) showing the outcome on a day when the sudden mild temperatures overcame my usual finely focused sense of rationality and I madly shoveled up about a half acre of grass.

That was the easy part. By the time I had cut free the soil (soil) and hauled the clumps away, well I earned my evening beer, that’s all I can say. Plus I didn’t find even one cask of buried gold during the entire exercise, always disappointing. I have not ventured near that miserable bed again for some days now, even though it it’s only half big enough.

The Garden Inspector did come and said it was okay so far.

(This is a busy time for Max. He has Plans, huge lists of things to do outdoors.  Sure right now he is principally resting, but just so he can endure the horrific impending hard work. Preparation is everything.)

Here is the new bed looking lost in its neighborhood. I will chip away at it, enlarging it a few inches at a time–Mr O will hardly notice. (He fears lawn-lessness, even though it tends toward moss. I think he imagines crowds of people dressed in white showing up someday desiring to play croquet and finding that only three square feet of grass remain.)

This time of year you can’t work in the garden every day. Sometimes it rains, or is a special birthday. Recently I made some Jackson Pollock cookies. It was way fun flinging that chocolate around on top of the lemon icing, so therapeutic that I almost forgot all about not finding gold in the pine tree bed.

But I digress. And again…

The adorable fuzzy chickies have returned to the farm store, part of their annual migration to chickenhouses. I love how you can hear the peeping clear to that aisle where they display the hose connections and watering cans.

ps:  If you have reached Spring too be careful getting off your boat– the deck can be slippery.