Okey dokey, this is not a novel by Snoopy, but it *was* a dark and gloomy day here in the Pacific Northwest today.
I posted my sentiments on Facebook and my cousin’s wife shot back: “Come to see us, bring shorts, swimsuit. We have sunblock.” She only lives in Texas.
I thought briefly about jumping in my private SST and zipping over to take her up on her offer, but one thing – well, two things – prevented me from doing that.
Primarily, today was the date of the Oregon City Antique Fair.
Secondarily… I don’t have a private SST, so that wasn’t really a viable option in the first place. Minor details.
I had planned on the Antique Fair. In fact, when I got up this morning, I headed down there first thing. There was absolutely no parking and I decided it was simply not meant to be. I came home, told Harvey that I was going to save money and work in the garden and on some Hallowe’en crafts.
Then the rains started. Dark and gloomy. I put away all the deck chairs, cleaned up my craft mess (which was outside), and stared out at the darkness and gloominess.
Rain. Why, I bet a bunch of parking spaces just opened up at the antique fair!
So I put Harvey in his kennel and headed out a second time.
I like antique fairs because I get a glimpse into what half my house is worth. Take for example: vintage and collectible medicin bottles and blue Ball jars. At approximately $3/item, I have a considerable fortune in my possession. Vintage spurs – $15/pair with straps. I have 2 pair. Old books, vintage opera glasses, half a hames – wow, the stock in my possession just keeps racking up. Who knew half a hames was worth anything?
If you are unfamiliar with what a hames is, it is a horse or mule collar, generally the wood-and-iron part.
I was alone because my husband was off camping all of last week, so I could peruse at my own speed. The only hindrances today were umbrellas (Oregonians do use umbrellas, contrary to the myth) and vendors who are not from Oregon and who were packing up to leave already. Oregonians just shrug and say comforting things like, “It’ll change” or “I think it’s slowing down now” or “it’s Oregon. It rains.”
Then they hit you in the nose with their umbrella as they try to fold it down. They are carrying an umbrella because they didn’t grab a rain jacket when they left home and the umbrella is always in the car.
I had a hat and a jacket and I left my umbrella in the car.
I saw a lot of over-priced items, pretty glassware, collectible miscellany, watch and clock parts (apparently antique fairs are a great place to sell to the Steampunk crowd), horse tack, and heavy old furniture (nothing of outstanding antique quality). I was hoping to find some old painting frames to display some vintage doilies my husband inherited, but nothing jumped out and tripped me.
In the end, I purchased one item for more than it is worth, but for less than the vendor was asking.
The vendor wanted $10. I figured it wasn’t worth more than $5. I paid $8 for it and am reasonably happy even though it was not much of a steal and certainly not a real bargain.
It remained a dark and gloomy day, I didn’t fly down to Texas to hang out in the swim pool with my cousin’s wife, but I did get to wander around the antique fair. And considering that I spent $8 but I calculated how much money we’re sitting on in terms of junk collectibles, I feel rich.
I bought this so I could give Harvey a bath in the back yard. He weighs 85# and he hates water. When I say “hates” water, I mean: hates.
The water trough didn’t exactly work because I approached the bath time without adequate tools. That means: I either should have had a leash to wrap around his tail end and drag him -or – best case scenario: I neglected to make my husband take on that part of the chore.
That’s my problem. I always think I can do this by myself.
The result was: undisturbed water in the water tank, but Harvey got a bath.
The wonderful clear water in the tank did make for a very nice Monet – like photo of the sunflowers, however.
That tank has been sitting out there for a week, gathering a little dust and pollen. So it was that when I noticed today that the mud coating the bottom of the tank had been disturbed, I needed to look closer.
Oh. My. Little foot prints?
Those are not Murphy prints. Murphy did play in the water a little, but Murphy has great big paws. Those are not great big prints.
Definitely not a dog’s foot prints.
How cute, I thought, a raccoon came into our back yard and took a swim.
I thought it was a rather sweet thing. Thankful that the silly beast did not come into the yard when the dogs were out (or could be let out), but it slipped into the yard during the late night to play in the water tank.
And then I found this.
Seriously? Every.Single.Grape? I had bird netting over them, they were almost ripe, and my mouth was watering in anticipation of dining on them.
But then – that damn raccoon.
He probably washed my grapes in the water tank before he dined on them all.
I have a whole roll of film developed that I would like to give back to the photographer. Real film, real negatives. Old school.
Two weeks ago. Saturday. I was wearing my black windbreaker because there was a slight breeze and the temperature was a bit chilly. It was mid morning before I hooked Harvey to his leash and headed out. We decided to change it up a bit (“we” meaning “me” because Harvey doesn’t consciously think about things like “what direction will we walk this morning?”) and turned right out of the drive instead of left. The result was that we were walking south on Brighton Avenue when I noticed a disposable camera in the middle of the street.
Curious, I picked it up (there’s never much traffic, so standing in the middle of the street is a rather safe thing to do there). It had been run over at least once and the shell was cracked, not a good sign.
But — I placed it into the pocket of the windbreaker to minimize further damage to the film.
A week passed before I managed to take it in to develop the film, hoping something could be salvaged of someone’s photos. Another week passed before I returned to pick it up.
Not all of the photos could be saved, but enough were. Someone in Oregon City took a trip to La Pine and took a number of photos – possibly 4th of July photos because there was a parade. Then they camped at a lake. Happy photos. Photos snapped by a child. Some good, some just blurry nonsense.
This family.
I have posted this photo on Facebook. Now I am posting it on my blog. I will try Craigslist as well.
Do you know these people? I have their film and I just want to give it back to them. No strings. Just comment below and tell me who they are.
I don’t know how I did it, but I missed the big McLoughlin Neighborhood yard sale event this year! I didn’t know it was happening this weekend and so never ventured down the hill to scope out savings. I found out – too late – when I took my nephew from Minnesota on a mini-historical (pronounced ‘hysterical”) tour of the town I live in. The tour took us right through the winding-down Sunday afternoon version of the yard sale event and Chrystal commented that we’d missed it.
Dang!
But all is not lost. There was this yard sale right around the corner from my house this weekend, and I did stop there even though it didn’t look real interesting from the street.
Oooh! I loved this wrought iron coat hanger! I fingered some Easter decorations, then abruptly changed my mind when I discovered they had the entire hard-bound collection of Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events. The entire collection!
Gosh, I hope at least one of my grand children is an avid reader of books. Someone who loves to turn pages, feel the paper, smell the paper… In the meantime, I am already on Book #2.
I returned to the Easter decorations and settled on the egg collection. Some of these are made for an Easter Egg tree (my Grandmother Melrose always had an Easter Egg tree and it is a tradition I try to keep alive. Grandma loved the Lord, loved her church, and especially loved Easter). Some of these do not hang, but who cares? I love Easter, too.
I was happy with those three finds, but then I saw these:
I *love* Hallowe’en! I know, I know – that is not a Christian holiday, but it doesn’t matter to me. I love decorating, buying candy, dressing up: I’m a great big kid when it comes to the 31st of October. My immediate thought upon seeing these was: “How much?” followed by “They’re all wrong.”
One was $1.00 and the other two were #2.00 each. I have no idea why there was a price difference unless it was because the $1 item has a couple dents in the wood? But the $1.00 item also has a bat attached. I’m going to clean them up and give them a whole new paint job. No ghosts – only headstones with funny sayings on them.
Chrystal says I should make one of the cats into a squirrel just to mess with people’s minds.
There were a couple other Hallowe’en items I liked, but I didn’t like the price, so I loaded up my car. As I did so, one last item seemed to jump out at me.
Really!? A R.O.U.S. in a cage, guarded by a Vulture?? How absolutely perfect! As I walked away with my prize, the woman selling it said, “A little girl was here earlier and she cried when she saw it, it scared her so much.”
“But it’s a R.O.U.S.” I replied.
The husband said, “Inconceivable!”
If I have to explain that to you, you have not watched the world’s best cult film ever.
Princess Bride, silly!
I was sooooo excited about my booty, but decided to wait until today to post this. After all, I might return to that yard sale on Sunday (today) and buy more.
Like plastic cemetery fence and a strange snake/dragon walking staff!
What is not to love about this?
Okay, Okay, don’t tell me. It’s plastic, it’s hokey, it’s Hallowe’en, it’s scary. I’m still going to stick it in the ground with everything else when I decorate for Hallowe’en this year.
The Turkey Vulture was not for sale. It wasn’t even near the yard sale. It circled over our heads at Willamette Falls. But somehow, it fits into this macabre yard sale post.
I debated posting any Faerieworlds photos until I’ve had time to edit and, in several case, photo shop. But summer has been upon us with glorious dry days. My computer is upstairs and it gets pretty darn toasty up here in the summer (and stays toasty in the winter, this is an all-around perfect place for my computer since I hate cold! And anything below 72 degrees F is sweater weather to me). It has been a tad bit too warm upstairs to sit and photo shop. And a whole lot too nice to come inside, so I have been sitting out in the lawn chairs with my newly retired lover, enjoying the hummingbird wars.
I have hundreds of hummingbird photos.
Back to Faerieworlds. Three of us traveled together this year and we hooked up with my dear friend, Mary, for tea in the afternoon. Actually, because it was so stinking hot this year, we had lemonade instead of hot tea – a much nicer refreshment for bodies that craved electrolytes and fluids! I loved the hot, but my companions began to melt early in the day and even my persistent use of a spray bottle to mist with did not help (this Nevada girl always carries a mister in the hot summer time).
The costumes…
Well, there were several above-sea-level jelly fish floating around.
The usual parade of beautiful fae and Amazons.
A Giant meets a Green Woman. The giant seemed intrigued by the slow-moving mossy persona as she crept around the dancers and vendors, stealthy and steady as northwestern mosses are.
Any number of warrior fae patrolled the grounds.
This Steampunk Adventurer regaled us with a story of clinging monkeys. I don’t remember much of the story – I hated to tell her that I seriously loathe monkeys and the one on her helmet made me very nervous!
I think he was quite proud of his kilt and stein combination!
My friend said, “When we are old, I am *not* going to Faerieworlds with you any more.”
“But there are beautiful older fae here,” I replied.
And next year, I am getting a parasol rather than trying to shield my eyes with a hat or a hand!
There were some costumes this year that were not worthy of my blog, Beautiful People trying to be more beautiful by taking more off. I’m not opposed to nudity and not especially offended by it. Sometimes, however, there is a fine line between nudity and exhibitionism. Very often, there is a greater bent toward exploitation than hedonism – and I certainly noted that at this year’s festival of the fae.
Good Faeries and Bad Faeries. I’m more on the Good Faerie side, I guess.
She deserves a blog post of her own, but I will fit her in here, in context, in the center of Faerieworlds where she moved, shadow-like, a figure so haunting and ethereal that I could not take my eyes off of her.
She knelt and thought, her breathing controlled.
What being is she, I wondered? SO aloof and distant in the midst of laughter and music and joy?
A figure of death? Or a shadow of the Afterworld? Is this what a Banshee looks like?
She tucked her head and waited, offering no explanation.
Alone. Her movements were fluid and poetic. silent and contemplative.
She was, in short, beautiful. There did not seem to be a dark magick about her, only a lonliness and a distance. She reminded me of the forest, after a fire. Or a dying snag, beautiful with the fungus growing out of it – the very fungus that killed it.
Then there was this – I scarcely had time to raise my camera to capture it: a faerie in red offered the sad fae a gift, and then I understood. She was simply Beauty and Beauty is often a lonely entity, a silent thing that creeps into our world overnight in a sudden snowfall that hushes and mutes everything – then melts away as suddenly.
I ran into the Genie. He’s there every year. We posed together and joked before he continued on his journey. What I did not know was this: a Black Fae had attached itself to my camera lens! There it is, hovering before my face, the naughty Tinkerbell of Faerieworlds.
And the reason I really wanted to photoshop my pics before posting them.
One last photo – my favorite. Faerieworlds is a place for alter-abled fae as well as the rest of us.
I asked if I could take their photo and these beautiful alter-abled fae grinned. “Of course! replied the one with the white parasol. And so I snapped their photo. My favorite photo. Beatiful fae out to enjoy a beautiful day!
Faerieworlds? Grandbaby? Nephew? It has been a whirlwind of events over the past few weeks. Faerieworlds deserves its own post, but I cannot promise it will be timely to the event: we are back into a 90-degree (F) weather pattern and that makes the loft (where my computer is) stuffy & hot in the evenings when I have time to post. I could have posted last week, but somehow time slipped by – and there was no post. Time slips by a lot, lately.
There have been a lot of changes at work, not the least of which is that I am pretty much the “Last Woman Standing” from the “old” crew. All the accounting staff I started with in 2007, when I moved to the Closing Department of our company – all of them, except moi – are gone. The last one got married in July and quit by the end of July to start her new life with her beloved. She was my best friend at work and is sorely missed. I feel a little like I have just started a new job because I am learning the new personalities and quirks of an entirely new staff!
Faerieworlds came and went, and while I did not take a ton of photos, I have enough photos to share and a long blog post to write about the 2013 experience, which includes taking a new acquaintance to the event – and our budding friendship, which I hope blossoms. Faerieworlds deserves a post of its own and I am not in the mood to do that tonight.
Tonight belongs to family.
Last week, the day after Faerieworlds, I drove north to PDX. I timed it according to the internet: Arwen’s flight from Alaska was on time & I wanted to cruise through the arrivals exactly 10-15 minutes after her arrival to pick the kids up as they exited the concourse. Of course, their flight was early and they had to sit on a hard bench, waiting for me. Verity, just 3.5 months old, slept through the entire flight and wait and consequent ride to our house.
Verity looks just like her mother at the same age, but acts considerably less colicky. Arwen was a colicky baby. Maybe it was because I was a new mother. Maybe it is because Arwen is such a calm mother.
At one point, Chrystal & Brian, Arwen, Sam & Verity, and I were all together in the backyard. It was wonderful to have so much of the family together.
Poppa certainly enjoyed his second granddaughter!
They left on Wednesday. On Thursday, my nephew flew in from Minnesota.
It’s a long story: my sister died suddenly when she was just 40. She contracted Necrotizing Faciitis (flesh eating bacteria) and died within 36 hours. She left behind several small children and my oldest nephew (then 21? I think he was 21). Chrystal was the oldest, a full orphan at the time. She was almost 9. Mike was the next, a boy of almost 5 year of age. His father took him to live in Minnesota. Then J. J stayed in Nevada with my sister’s widower and his soon-to-be second wife. J is still there.
Mike just graduated from high school and turned 18. He flew out to see his older sister and this weekend, we barbecued with him and Chrystal.
Joe Cool. My nephew, fresh from Minnesota, savoring the steak barbecue. He’s just looking for family connections.
Grand-dog, Fen, came along. Fen has grown so much since his last visit! He’s pretty well-behaved and I think his next visit will be more of an open visit. We will let him meet Harvey outside of the kennel. Murphy would probably be the better playmate, but Harvey is less scary as a big dog. Harvey will be intimidated by Fen, but that’s OK. Harvey dislikes confrontation.
Fen – despite my preconceived dislike of little dogs – is a pretty decent little dog. Of course, he is my grand-dog. 🙂
Brian is the best guy in the world. Whether or not Brian knows it, I consider him my son-in-law. he is definitely the bast man for Chrystal. The three of them went through the only photo album I have that includes pictures of Chrystal & Mike’s mother. I wish I had more.
I wish I had stories. But I left home at 17 and my sister and I drifted apart. We wrote letters, of course, and somewhere I have all those letters saved. But we were worlds apart.
All I have now of her is her children. Her children are beautiful. I hope she knows that.
Warning: this is strictly a gardening post. It is advice on how to handle Creeping Myrtle when she gets out of control.
Don’t worry: you don’t need a stun gun. A shovel will come in handy, however.
Flash-back: nearly 29 years ago. We lived in a cute bungalow with a wonderful shade garden. We had no money and we were robbing Peter to pay Paul, and we lost the cute little bungalow to our bad debts. In the meantime, I learned to garden in the Willamette Valley, and I first encountered the encroaching powers of Periwinkle.
It grows slowly. It is nowhere as invasive as the dreaded English Ivy (she’s a real bitch in the gardening world, and the City of Portland has banned her from yards) or Kudzu, that invader from the Far East. He’s a nasty invader.
Myrtle, however, is patient. Shallow-rooted. She is also a European invader, but one which can be contained with a little patience and an investment in labor. When I was young – 29 years ago – it didn’t seem like it was all that hard to trim the Periwinkle back. I managed to contain it to one flower bed. It wasn’t “hard” in my mind: I just put a shovel under it and “rolled it up” like a carpet, eventually cutting off all the runners and roots when I rolled up the periwinkle carpet to the point I wanted to contain it. So easy to do when you’re still young… And there are no peonies to save.
Flash forward to a much wiser and much older us. When we moved in, I noted the variegated Vinca Minor that grew in the little triangle flower bed. “I’ll cut it back when it becomes a nuisance,” I thought. I was still in my forties.
It grows slowly, did I mention that? So it took it ten years to cover half the triangle. The triangle is an area about 12’x10’x6′. The problem is this: there are several peonies in that triangle, and they have slowly been choked out by the pretty purple ground cover.
This weekend, I decided that I really needed to tackle that project. I forgot that I was in the latter half of my fifth decade. The weather was cool and over-cast and I watered heavy: what could go wrong?
Oh, age, time, sunshine, and the fact that the Periwinkle grows so thick that water doesn’t penetrate the foliage enough to moisten the soil adequately for removal of the creeping vine. Nothing else.
Basically, it was the same procedure I used back when I was young: you get a shovel under the Periwinkle and lift it up. Lift and shake the topsoil from the roots, and cut the vines until you pull off an entire section. Repeat. If you do this early enough in the life of the plant, you can contain it to one area and keep it from invading where it should not.
I never maintained it and I had half the triangle to clear out.
Truthfully, I originally thought I’d just hack it back a little. But when I got started, I realize I really didn’t want to do this again. *Ever Again.* It was either clean the Vinca Minor completely out of the bed or repeat this procedure in ten years, when I’d be pushing 70. Um, NO.
It took me two days. I worked hard until the cloud cover burned off and the radiant heat from the garage (the north side of the triangle) forced me to give it up. I retired a pair of jeans and a sweaty t-shirt by 1:00PM on Saturday. I was wobbly-kneed, dehydrated, and sore in every muscle. I sat in the lawn chair and stared at this now-nemesis of mine.
I like Creeping Myrtle. The flowers are pretty and they last in a bud vase. The foliage is evergreen and the variety in our garden is a variegated kind which is striking. But as of yesterday, I hated it in that triangle. I hated it because I knew that if I didn’t get it completely out of there, that it would eventually come back and haunt me – or haunt whoever takes over this home when I die.
I’m pretty certain Barney did not plant it.
Barney Schultz bought this house in 1930. It was partially built then and he finished it. He raised animals, ran a butcher’s shop out of the garage (or somewhere nearby) and he loved peonies. Eventually, he sold off most of the land and gave up making sausage. But he never gave up on growing peonies. Sometime in the 1970’s or early 1980’s, he carried arm fulls of peony blooms across the street for the neighbor’s daughter’s wedding celebration. Everyone who knew Barney remembered his passion for peonies. My 85 year old neighbor to the north tells me that the yard was once a “meadow of peonies”.
Barney would not have liked the Periwinkle. Of course, he would have hated the grass that invades the peony beds, too. And the mole that cruises the yard, but that’s another post.
As I hacked at the last yard of Periwinkle, I felt like Barney was standing on the sidewalk, looking down. “Thank you,” he whispered, “for saving my peonies.”
It looks pretty barren now that I am finished. I moved some of the creeping thyme in hopes that some day I will have to “control” that as well (it’s even easier to control)(that’s the green bit of life to the right of the photo). The peonies that have been buried for 10 years breathed a sigh of relief.
I saved three flats of Myrtle.
I asked my husband what he thought I should do with it. Put it out on the street with a “free” sign?
He said, “Plant it under the lilacs.” He hates mowing under the lilacs. It grows slowly. I don’t have to give up the Periwinkle entirely. It’s a win-win solution.
I’ll do that next weekend. I’m too tired to think about it now.
The advent of nicer weather has not only warmed my toes, but it has forced me to get my camera out again. I have taken to sitting in a lawn chair with the camera on my lap, 75-300mm lens on, and lens cap off. I am stalking birds without moving very many muscles and while sitting in the open. Sometimes I have a book nearby or my Kindle, but I am waiting.
I cannot possible share all the photos I have taken – the ones I kept, that is. And I have only scratched the surface of the variety of birds that use our yard for habitat. The dying lodge pole pine tree out front is never empty: nuthatches, Northern Flickers, Band-tailed Pigeons, Black-Capped and Chestnut-backed Chickadees, Bushtits, English House Sparrows, House Finches – those are just a few of our regular visitors to the tree. But I cannot see much of the tree from my perch in the backyard, and most of those birds are safe from the lens.
I discovered – by accident – that one of our female Anna’s Hummingbirds is fond of showers. She sat under the sprinkler on a ninety-degree day, spreading her wings and chasing drops on the grape vine.
It is fascinating to me that as much as she loves the sprinkler, I never find hummingbirds stopping by one of the two bird baths in the yard.
They take their water with sugar. The male Anna’s is much too shy for a photo.
She came back to the sprinkler and played on yet another day. I think she winked at me.
I prefer to buy hummingbird feeders with perches so the wee insectivores can rest a moment. Somewhere, I read that professional photographers like to use feeders without perches so they can capture hummingbirds in flight. I can see why. I have a mix of styles in my yard and the ones with perches get the most use, but the birds don’t hesitate to hover around the other feeders as well.
Juiced up, they fly to the top of the dying pine tree and catch small insects.
The Song Sparrow has lived around here for years. There are always a couple of nests nearby – thankfully, they are not in our yard. They have nested in our yard, in the crazy Camellia. That’s a sad story and I cried: when the babies fledged, we were outside with Murphy. He spied the fledgling running across the grass and –
Well, I rescued the baby from him (he is a bird dog and he has a soft mouth), but it died in my hand. No punishment was meted out to the dog (he is only a dog), but the sparrows learned – and they have not nested in our yard since then. Next door, yes. But not in the Yard with the Killer Dog.
If you go to AllAboutBirds.com and click on the “typical voice” button, you can hear what this Song Sparrow was singing.
I have been trying to capture him taking a bath in the bird bath out back, but so far, he has eluded me. I have noticed that some birds don’t seem interested in bathing, but they will come to the water to drink: chickadees, finches, English House Sparrows, the Pileated Woodpecker, the flickers, and the pigeons all relish the water. But the thrushes, the scrub jays, the starlings all love to use the big bird bath out front as a bathtub. The Song Sparrow uses the bird bath in the back yard as his bathtub.
The birds are wary here – the dogs have easy access to this bird bath. But the neighborhood cats have easier access to the one out front. Perhaps that is why the smaller birds come out back for water and the larger birds use the one out front.
The female House Finch gives me the Evil Eye. “Hey! This is almost empty over here!”
Blame the Black-capped Chickadees.
They came through with their fledglings and cleaned out the bird feeder. There’s seed all over the ground.
But you really can’t be mad at a bird like this, can you?
“Chick-a-dee-dee-dee!”
Not all of my photos are a success. I had a hard time following this female English House Sparrow as she worked her way along the fence. I think she saw the camera and was camera-shy.
There are plenty of photos of bird’s butts as they duck behind leaves. (That’s a Bushtit.)
Exit: Stage Left. Or is it Right?
Ack! Camera! Flee!
Bird on a Hot Tin Roof?
And then there’s this. The Band-tailed Pigeon stare. I don’t dare have an empty feeder with birds that look like this…
(click on the photo. That red-eye glare will give you nightmares…)
The first weekend of Summer is almost officially over. We had one nice day. Today, it rained. That’s pretty normal for this corner of the world, but it makes my toes cold and wet. I categorically refuse to wear socks in the summer.
I am trying out this nifty new product. I’m not sure if it has a name or not, but if it does, it’s an Ant Moat. It hangs between the hook and the hummingbird feeder and you fill it with water. In theory, it stops the ants because they can’t swim. Sounds logical and if it works (this feeder is in an area with heavy ant traffic), then I will purchase more of them. I should have washed the label off first, so next time…
This was a spur-of-the-moment purchase. A funky glass bird feeder that is probably prettier than functional, but I filled it and put it on a shepherd’s hook in the backyard. now to see how long iot takes the little birds to find it (it’s much too small to host the big birds – they’ll have to share with the squirrels out front).
Speaking of bird feeding: for three years in a row, I have had zero fortune with growing sunflowers. I’ve never had such a black thumb with such an easy plant to grow, but there you are. This year, my husband decided to not mow down the volunteer sunflowers that sprang up underneath the front yard feeder.
He made that decision after I sprang for six sunflower starts at Portland Nursery, which are also doing quite well. I took this photo before I added the old croquet balls to the yard decor. There are only four croquet balls left from the cheap variety store set we purchased when our kids are little. The brandboys used to roll them down the handicap ramp out back, but now that they live far away, I’m turning the set into yard decor.
I like random yard art. The door knob is one of three that came inside a chest of drawers I purchased at Goodwill. They’re just funky plastic door knobs still attached to part of the door. Inexplicably, someone saved them and I repurposed them to the garden.
The gazing balls are just cheap plastic ones. I positioned them on the roots of a bush that died in my garden. When I dug it out, I decided I liked the shape of the root ball and rather than toss it away, I am using it for yard art.
An old lawn chair becomes support for the Russian Sage. By the time the sage blooms, it will be tall and prone to falling over. The chair fits over it perfectly.
The remains of an old stool become a tomato cage for one of my struggling tomato plants. My wire art hangs from two store-bought tomato cages. And my grapevine is beginning to take over the corner.
We’ll have grapes this year if the birds don’t beat us to them!
Speaking of random yard art, Daphne has taken up residence on my cheap garden bench.
So did the cast iron bird. You can see my bench had an accident. Eventually, I will recycle the bench into yard art as it is cheaper and easier to just purchase a new bench for $40 than it is to find replacement slats. I just have to decide what I want to do with the old bench first.
I bought this at the Farmer’s Market. The artist called it “Bird on a Stick”. She had dozens of the birds & even sold sticks, but I told her I had plenty of sticks in my yard to use.
I did some planting on Saturday: the peppers are staked with old hot-wire stakes. The stakes consit of rebar with a ceramic insulator at the top. I have about 8 of them that I picked up out of an old barn on some property we lived on long ago. They don’t make hot wire stakes like these anymore and I’ve used them for a variety of purposes over the years (Christmas lights, plant stakes, gate stops, temporary fence for horses that I no longer own).
I have no idea why I took a photo of our one and only tree. It’s a dying Lodgepole pine. Two bird feeders and two suet cakes dangle from it. We call it a “Habitat Tree” because it attracts so many birds to our yard. As such, it can’t be cut down. Sadly, it’s completely dead on the north side and slowly dying up the other side. My dad suggested it has a fungus. We know it has tiny black borer beetles. It’s not tall enough to be a threat to our home (the towering Douglas Firs across the street are a bigger threat), so we’ll just let it stay there as long as we can use it for the birds.
This is Earl’s House. Earl is our resident (and brazen) star-nosed mole patriarch. We don’t know how many Earls live in the hole or what Earl’s wife’s name is. Earlene? Chrystal named Earl when I was trying to teach her dog to mole hunt. There will be more blogs about Earl as I am getting ready to wage war with him (humanely, if possible).
War was actually declared by Earl the night before Father’s Day. He came out of his hole while Harvey was standing there, did the little gopher dance from “Caddyshack”, and then retreated into darkness when I tried to point him out to Harvey.
Speaking of Harvey. It’s an on-going battle to keep him in the yard.His last escape attempt was at this gate. He figured out that if he kept jumping on it, it would eventually unhinge and open. Fortunately, I caught him in the act. I stapled a tomato cage (opened and flattened) across the weak point so he’ll stop pushing on it. So far, so good. Another temporary foil until he finds a new weak spot in the yard.
Sometimes I just have to resort to funky with the big dogs. This is my funky “do not pee on this bush” fence. They’ll probably pee on the wires, but they’re still too far away to kill the bush.
Why do we have dogs…?
Which segues into other critters, like snails, slugs and fairies. Here I have the supplies to build a fairy house. A real one, not the sort I make in my studio. The kind that attract real fairies. However, I haven’t done much with it because of the snails and slugs. If I build a hollow, the gastropods will invade it and make it their home. I don’t want to put slug-and-snail bail down inside a fairy house because it’s probably toxic to fairies (not to mention the matter of aesthetics and dead slugs/snails.
I have an idea, but I need to commit it to paper and then visit a hardware store and make a tiny model first. I think a faerie house on stilts with a place underneath to kill slugs and snails? I could post slug bait warning signs for the fairies and the birds wouldn’t be getting into it, either.
Or the dogs.
More on critters: there has been a dearth of these in my yard this summer. We started out strong with the honeybees and bumblebees, but two things have happened that have affected out population. They moved a huge hive that was building outside of a church steeple in early June. My husband said they were relocating them back inside the steeple. All I know is this: the honeybee population in our yard took a dive. It’s starting to come back (I saw six honeybees yesterday).
The other blow was to bumblebees. I still have them in my yard, but it seems like there are far fewer and I’m concerned that what happened in Wilsonville (50,000 bumblebees dead) has happened closer to home. I worry, too, that individuals purchase the insecticide Safari and apply it in their own yards, indiscriminately and because most people think bees, wasps, and hornets are the same thing.
While I was chasing down the honeybees for a photo, this guy kept buzzing me. It’s a young bald-faced hornet. They can be pretty aggressive, but if you don’t get excited and swat at them or you don’t get too close to their hive, you’re usually pretty safe from them. This one definitely let me know how close I could step to the lavender while taking pictures of him. Of course, maybe he was just posing for the lens.
And then there’s the dogs. In a classic move, Harvey, the submissive, hides his treat from Murphy, the domineering. Murphy won’t force the issue (these dogs have never gotten into a fight), but he’ll hover in case Harvey drops the treat.
“Please drop it, Bro!”
“Nope, nope, nope. Yumm.”
And last, a little interlude from Earl the Mole’s cousin:
It has been a long time since I have posted photos of my grandkids onto my blog. I apologize, because I really have the cutest grandchildren on the face of the earth. I have some pretty good-looking children, too.
Saturday’s Child.
You know the nursery rhyme?
Monday’s Child is fair of face
Tuesday’s child is full of grace
Wednesday’s child is full of woe
Thursday’s child has far to go
Friday’s child is loving and giving
Saturday’s child works hard for a living
And the child that’s born on the Sabbath Day
Is bonny and blithe, happy and gay
My little Verity is a Saturday’s child.
She is surrounded by a pair of Tuesday’s children and a Thursday’s child. Brothers like these will make a formidable alliance when she’s old enough for boys to notice her!
My Monday’s child had an accident with a razor. But she certainly fills the bill: Monday’s child is fair of face.
I just threw this one in. It has nothing to do with grandkids. I just happen to think it’s a darn good photo of my youngest – she’s my Audrey Hepburn child. And she has provided me with a grandpuppy that I have been teaching to hunt moles.
A mighty tired Fen, my grand-doggie.
(After all, all grandkids who come to visit me should get fair billing. I have yet to meet his siblings, the grand-kitties.)
Then there’s these boys. Oh my gosh – what sweet, loving, boisterous little guys! Makes my heart pound!
And, of course, Miss Korinne with her daddy. Which segues into the next nursery rhyme…
Before I post the nursery rhyme, I want to tell you a little story. When I was a little girl, I once asked my mother what she had wanted in a little girl before I was born. I mean, how did she imagine I would look before she actually had me? She told me that she imagined a little girl with natural curly hair. Black hair, like my father’s steely black hair.
Of course, I have flat brown hair. Not a one of us kids inherited my father’s black hair and not a one of us had naturally curly hair.
And then there’s Korinne.
Every time I look at this photo of my darling granddaughter, I think of this nursery rhyme (sorry, Kaci & Levi – but it pops out at me!). My mother used to say it all the time:
Jaci Dawn 