Jaci Dawn

This is my third attempt at a post tonight. I should just throw in the towel and go to bed because that is what my poor aching muscles want to do and that would be the wisest decision. I can blog another time.

But I’m just stubborn enough to want to get this done.

Here’s what I did this weekend:

I finished putting up bamboo screening across the back chain link fence. We can no longer see the neighbors clearly. The dog run is going on the shady side of the shed. My prayer garden is on the sunny side.

I set up the tripod and took several photos of the Full Flower Moon. This is the only photo that came out. The rest of them looked like I was trying to photograph a halogen headlamp.

I played in PhotoShop and Paint to make a collage that I call “The Yin & Yang of Dog” (even though both dogs are male and Harvey really is the same size as Murphy – it’s all camera angle).

I got a good photo of the Black-Headed Grosbeak.

I did not get a photo of the defiant little Pine Siskin that would not get off of the bird bath so my husband could mow the lawn. But it’s etched in my brain: my husband standing in the front yard with his hands on his hips, nose to nose with a tiny little bird that had a definite attitude.

“I am not going to move and you can’t make me!”

When the bird did move, my husband moved the bird bath. And the Pine Siskin dive-bombed his back. “Take that, you lawn-mowing, bird-bath moving bully!”

I played with my camera, trying to capture the angles and shadows in my yard. This was my favorite.

Now the weekend is done and I am going to bed to rest my sore muscles.

Well, a perfect day to work in the garden and pull weeds.

It was a very nice week-end, but I didn’t even get out in the yard on Saturday: too many other errands to run plus a baby shower to go to in the evening. BUT (there’s always a “but”, isn’t there?) I saw something garden related that stopped me in my tracks. It also cost me some money. I was on my way to Target to get a baby gift as I passed the hitsoric Stevens-Crawford Heritage House (museum).

PLANT SALE.

Clackamas County Historical Society puts this one every year and I never miss it, even though most years it is rather lame. I love perusing the plants someone dug out of their own backyard to sell, love the busy members of the historical society, and I love buying something that helps fund our museums. In other words: a benefit that is near and dear to my heart.

I stopped on my way back home from Target.

I only had $14 in my wallet, but I rarely spend that much at their sales. I think last year I spent less than $10 and got a couple hellebores (Lenten Rose) and some blue-eyed grass (an Oregon native plant). But this year they had three times the inventory and a lot more shrubs.

And I found this.

There was a tag on it, but I really had no idea what it was. All I knew was 1) it smelled amazing 2) it had great shape and 3) it was priced $10.00

Fothergilla Major Blue Shadow – it grows 6′-8′ tall and has an added bonus of being extremely showy in the fall with bright red-orange and purplish leaves.

I returned to the plant sale after I got groceries and some more change (they don’t take debit cards and I didn’t have my check book with me). I spent $20 more.

One pot filled with several pink Oriental poppies, another hellebore, 2 more clumps of blue-eyed grass and a 4″ pot of Love-in-a-Mist which is a self-seeding annual (I try to avoid annuals).

Today I had to run back to the store because I forgot (!!) dog treats when I was running around yesterday. And I fell in love with this.

WHY do I do this? I have a hard time keeping the flowers in hanging baskets alive all summer, but I never seem to be able to walk away from them. $14.

I made myself come home after that. The dogs were happy that I remembered their treats.

I then spent four blissful hours in my prayer garden, weeding, digging up bleeding hearts and dropping snails (and slugs) into poison. I cursed myself for thinking I was doing the bleeding hearts a favor by rescuing them from under the handicap ramp and planting them in my flower bed. Who knew the cursed things would take over?

I didn’t get them all dug out: they will be back by fall. But I drastically forestalled their take-over of my garden. I even pulled out a number of forget-me-nots, but decided that I love the blue too much to dig them all out. I will regret that decision when the flowers all drop off and the sticky little seeds entangle in Harvey’s silky hair, stick to my socks and clothes, and generally wreak havoc as uninvited hitchhikers. The seed pods are made of Velcro™.

The only thing I did not get accomplished was edging that damn grass back. I did, however, buy plastic edging to put down to stop the grass when I do get it edged back (again). I found the blue-eyed grass and both hellebores I bought last year from the benefit sale at Stevens-Crawford Heritage House.

Now if I could figure out a way to kill the bleeding hearts that I dug up… (I left a clump in the very back corner, but I pulled all the ones that were in the foreground – those are the ones whose roots I want to kill. Preferably in an organic manner so I can plant something else in the vacancy.

I put my tools away and fetched my camera because the day was still young and Spring is in the air and…

I had an essay to write, still.

The espalier apple trees are in full bloom.

I love apple blossoms.

I *hate* Camellias. They are pretty for 5 seconds.

Then they turn into brown mush six inches deep under the bush.

This is the best photo I can come up with to show the snow damage to the one rhododendron. It was a round bush, but now it looks like someone sliced off a portion of the circle on top. Poor rhodie!

This is the lilac that came with the house. I moved it when we moved in because it was struggling in the corner it was planted in. I didn’t expect the neighbor’s fir tree to overshadow it. It is still struggling to thrive, but it looks much fuller this year.

I call this my Cindy lilac because my friend, Cindy, gave it to me when it was just a twig. It has outgrown the other lilac.

I love lilacs.

I also love that I live in Oregon and in the Portland metro area where we have free curbside recycling. I filled the yard debris can today (it will be taken to a compost site and will be turned into something beneficial for gardens). I can’t compost it because my compost pile doesn’t get hot enough to kill the weed seeds. Where this is going, it gets hot enough.

The big grey bin is for our regular recycles (plastic & paper) and the little blue one is for our garbage. We pay for the blue one. The others are free.

(And I do have a compost bin, but I can’t possible compost everything I pull up in my yard, so quite a bit of it goes to Metro.)

I am tired.

And I haven’t even planted my new plants (yet).

Today, in Norway. The best sort of public protest.

While the protest was in response to the trial of terrorist Anders Breivik, it could be also be a fitting response to the terrorists of every culture, from the drug cartels to the religious extremists who believe that killing their enemy is their duty to their “god”.

One sky above us.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could have more rallies like this, in more places in the world, people holding roses in the air and singing a child’s song.

Naive, yes. Wishful, yes. But wouldn’t it still be wonderful?

You can hum the song to yourself or crank up some Judy Collins, be my guest.

We had three lovely days in a row, two of them on a weekend. Monday evening, the clouds rolled in. I wondered if we would get a sunset.

That’s “iffy” here, on the west slope of the Cascade Mountain range. I grew up on the east slopes of mountains, and sunsets were commonplace. Here, they are extremely rare and never quite as spectacular as those in the Great Basin.

I decided that even if we didn’t get a sunset, watching the changes in the clouds was well worth the time – and photography. The winds in the atmosphere were high, altering the shape and distorting the light in the cumulus clouds coming from the southwest. If I captured nothing else, I might capture the light – and as an artist, I could only hope to do that much!

So I sat on the steps with my buddy, Harvey (who was feeling all kinds of better) and I snapped photos.

By the time the sun dipped below the horizon, the wind died. The drastic difference in atmospheric pressure and temperature evened out and the clouds dissipated. We did not get the hoped-for sunset, but we did get a bit of color.

I don’t feel the way about love the way the singer in the song does, but, clouds…

I went to the dentist today. I’m getting new crowns but that isn’t very exciting. My mouth was very numb when I came home and I was thinking about what I might be able to eat for dinner. That isn’t very exciting, either.

I came in the back way, which brings me in on roads that Harvey & I walk. I was thinking about walking Harvey.

I noticed a Black man (read: man of African-American descent) standing in front of a house in the neighborhood. My first thought was, “Oh, new neighbor. Nice to finally integrate the ‘burbs!”

But as I drove by, I noted he was walking away from the house, carrying a bunch of bottles and a black satchel.

Oh. It’s door-to-door salesman season. Darn! I hate that. I hate turning away these young adults who are hired from somewhere in the Midwest and shipped out here to go door-to-door selling products no one wants. I think the companies that do that are preying on young people and ripping them off. I think the young men and women who get sucked up into that just want to do better but find themselves in an awkward situation, like this young man. He’s very Black in an almost All-White Suburb.

As I was still mulling that over, I pulled into my driveway and opened my car door.

This ebullient young woman with multiple face piercings danced (literally) off of our front steps and ran to meet me, her arms spread wide. “Can I be your Chocolate baby?”

I have to tell you, I laughed. I knew she was the partner to the man down the street, the other half of the door-to-door salesman team, but here she stood, acting like my new best friend.

“But I already have Chocolate babies,” I replied.

“I’ll stand up and sleep in the corner,” she shot back.

“My babies will be jealous.”

She pouted. “I’ll be hurt.”

She was so warm and engaging, gave me a high-five and talked like I was her best friend. “You look like a pale Halle Berry” she said.

“Liar.” But I laughed. And I asked her what her name was. Leslie. From St. Louis.

I asked her how she felt about being dropped off in a white neighborhood to go door-to-door. ‘I’m not intimidated by nothing.”

I admired her cool rubber boots.

“Got them at Fred Meyer’s,” she bragged. “And that dog down the street bit them!”

Yep, the neighbor’s Doberman bit her. She wasn’t much fazed by it, so I believe her: she’s not intimidated by much.

She bounced on down out of the yard like Tigger on a Very Blustery Day, waving good-bye and promising she still wanted me to adopt her.

Then I turned to my husband, who looked very sheepish. “I thought it was Chrystal at the door,” he said. She was about the same height and black hair. Said he opened the door and there she was, ready to knock.

“Surprised to see a Black woman on your door step,” she challenged.

“Uh, no.” He really wasn’t. He was just surprised she wasn’t Chrystal.

She sold him a bunch of cleansers.

I think I should have adopted Leslie on the spot.

I hope she makes a lot of money and the company that hauled her out here fulfills all their promises to her.

Leslie is a reminder to all of us: embrace life. Embrace challenges. Don’t be intimidated by anything. And ask complete strangers to adopt you.

(And they’ll buy anything, even cleansers they don’t want. I didn’t ask how much Donald spent… Sucker for a pretty face, that’s my husband!)