Good commute

Tonight when I was driving home from work, the light and scenery were just magnificent. I work in Bellingham and live in Lynden, so I was driving north on the Hannegan Road. The sun was low in the western sky on my left. I put my windshield visor down over the window on that side. I drive through farm country between the two cities, pastures with horses, sometimes cows, occasionally llamas, fields with blueberries or corn, houses and barns. While driving to Lynden, Mt. Baker to the east would require me to look through the window of the back door (I get a good look at Baker and the Twin Sisters on clear mornings, driving south), so I don't look for it; however, some magnificent mountains are in the far distance up in British Columbia, Canada. Only a few trees are touched with color yet; mostly they are still green.

I always see the very first color already in August. Somewhere in the area there will be just one branch of one tree that turns red in August. Now it is a few more branches. Here in the Pacific Northwest, we don't get the spectacular fall colors for which New England is famous, but we get some. I am glad we are the Evergreen State, though, so that even when all the leaves have changed and then fallen, we still have green trees. Snow comes only occasionally in our winters, and doesn't stay long-term, so mostly the pastures and grasses are quite green all winter.

On my drive this evening, the westering sun made the all the colors--green, yellow, and the rest--vivid. The air was clear.

Here's a picture I took in February of this year of the Canadian mountains:

This picture was not taken from the Hannegan, and it's at a different season and time of day than I saw these mountains this evening, but it gives some idea. They were not as snow-covered today as in this picture. I realize I always look at and my eye is drawn to that sort of snaggle-toothed peak, but I have no idea what the mountain's name is.

Now, here's a picture I took last December on my morning commute of the sun coming up behind the Twin Sisters, and if you click on the picture to enlarge it (use your "back" button to come back), you will more clearly see snow-capped Baker glowing to the left of the Sisters:

This picture encourages me by demonstrating that even close to winter solstice, the sun is still coming up while I drive to work--it's not dark all the way. Also, I now go to work a half hour later than I used to (I start at 9:00 instead of 8:30), so that's all the more time for the light to grow.

Beauty matters.

Falling

I got home a little late tonight, so I walked the dog around 8:00 p.m. It was dark already, a sign of Fall. But it was just delightful outside. The air was cool--sweatshirt weather--but still, no freezing wind, just refreshing. My deck looked great in the gloaming. I swept and trimmed things this weekend, then we had several days of rain. Today it dried off and everything looked beautiful. I didn't sit out, though. I needed to get dinner for myself.

I like Fall, and I know that it will be followed by Thanksgiving and Christmas, which are great. The hard part about the shortening of the days is knowing that ahead lies the heart of darkness--January and February. I have to take as my "verse" Shelley's line in Ode to the West Wind: "If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?"

Methodical Madness

For some strange reason, I like this article:

Structured Procrastination

Cascading fuchsias

Last May I planted these fuchsias with the autumnal-colored leaves with a calla lily in the center of the pot. I hoped that the fuchsias would grow and cascade over the edges of the pot and the calla lily would grow lush and magnificent, as some have for me in the past in this same location.

Well, below is a picture of the pot this morning. For some reason my calla lily this year did not thrive and neither did the one I had last year. I think it's because they were some different "variety" instead of just the plain "calla lily." Next year I'll go to a nursery for exactly what I want in calla lily instead of buying from in front of a grocery store. However, I am very pleased with the way the fuchsia has grown. It is a bit longer on one side than the other because that's where the morning sun hits, but still it's beautiful 

Notice the sunlight. It was such a pretty day today, sunny and mild, just perfect.

Again

Perhaps I have posted pictures of my begonias pretty frequently over the years, and maybe it seems repetitive. But the blooms keep appearing and being so beautiful! The red petals so stunning and the bright yellow stamens in the middle standing out so brightly and distinctly against the red, even though they're so tiny.

Beauty is not repetitive, is it? You can't look at a gorgeous blossom like this and think, Oh, beautiful again--yawn. You have to think, Wow! Beautiful! Again!

Ladybug update

Well, it's been two weeks since I released ladybugs into my honeysuckle, and when I examined it this weekend, I still saw some significantly infested areas. I also saw some aphids on one of my fuchsias. So I bought some insecticidal soap in a spray bottle and doused all my fuchsias and the honeysuckle. So the result of my experiment was that the ladybug approach was ineffective.

Sunday afternoon enjoyment

It was a beautiful, sunny Sunday here in northwest Washington. After church, my dad, mom, sister-in-law, nephew, and I went to  CJ's Beach House in Birch Bay for lunch. I forgot to bring my camera, so took a few pictures with my phone. Here is one looking out toward the ocean. The tide is out but coming in.

Here are my sister-in-law and nephew. My nephew enjoys the sun; my sister-in-law is in the shade of our table umbrella, by her preference.

My mom asked me not to take her picture. I think she may have feared that the ocean breeze, which was refreshing, had messed up her hair. My dad did not object to having his picture taken. You can see that the cell phone camera is not a good enough camera to capture the background; that all whited out. And the picture doesn't do my dad justice. It looks like I caught him when he was just starting to laugh or talk.

Here's a better picture of my dad, from his most recent birthday, just to establish what he really looks like.

We had a most pleasant meal by the Bay, then drove to my sister-in-law's house for some ice cream for dessert, then came home. Then I took a little nap. All in all, an excellent Sunday afternoon.

Saturday afternoon accomplishment

A while back, I bought this potting table/shelf, unassembled. Here it is as it came out of the box:

Those metal pieces with the curly cues are cast iron: heavy! Using nothing but my own two hands and a pliers, I assembled it, and here it is all put together:

Pretty, isn't it? In the garage, I have an unassembled rocking chair made in the same line--same kind of wood and leaf-pattern metal. I'm fired up now to put that together.

Here is the shelf with stuff in it, being used for the purpose for which I built it:

And here is a shot of the sitting area:

Een gezellig hoekje. Although I must admit I swept the area vigorously, as the shady side of the deck has a tendency to get a bit spidery. When the spiders are swept away, then it's a pleasant place to sit.

Meanwhile

Not this past weekend, but the weekend before, I went back to Hi Hoe Nursery to get more Veronica Miffy Brute, to help fill in the sand and dirt steps on the west side of our house. The ones I bought earlier are doing well and spreading, but just not very fast, so I stuck a few more in to help the cause along.

Of course, I couldn't just buy what I went there for, and I came home with more plants, including these hostas, which I planted between the blueberry bushes because that's a fairly shady spot. I told my dad we should take the blueberries out, as they have not thrived there, but they do have a few berries, so he says to wait at least until the berries are done.

I also bought the fern on the left. The fern on the right planted itself. It's what my aunt calls "a volunteer."

These little plants were so pretty, I bought them for my deck, even though I had used up my pots, and I had to go buy new pots just for them. They are called Blue Ageratum.

And these, with their trumpet-shaped flowers, were vaunted as appealing to hummingbirds, so I bought them and a pot for them, too. The blooms suffered a bit from the fact that these sat in their starter pots for a week before I transplanted them to this big pot. They are called Nicotiana, which makes me wonder if that word is related to "nicotine," and if this plant is related to tobacco. Sure enough. I just looked on Wikipedia, and this is tobacco. The information "stick" said that all parts of this plant are poisonous if ingested, but I don't plan to eat it, or to smoke it either. Just grow it.

And I bought this little fern-type fellow for this little pot. The daisy-type of flower I put in it previously died. I think there was insufficient drainage from the pot and the soil stayed too moist. I put some small rocks in the bottom of the pot this time. There is no drainage hole in it. This plant also suffered from sitting in the starter pot for a week before I transplanted it, plus the starter pot fell over on its side. So we'll see if it recovers or if I'll have to try a third time to find something for this pot.

Ladybug II

It's hard to evaluate the success of the ladybug experiment so far, as it's only day two, I guess. I put them out Saturday night, and here they are on Sunday morning. They had crawled up the trellis from the ground.

Some were wandering into the plant. The picture below shows both two ladybugs, but also how sorry-looking many of the honeysuckle leaves are. Even if the aphids disappear, the damage they did will be irreversible for this season, anyway.

Below is a shoot with a particularly gross infestation. Shortly after I took this picture I cut off this shoot and threw it in a bucket of water to drown the aphids. I hope aphids are drownable. I just couldn't stand to leave them there.

A few ladybugs had already wandered over to nearby plants, like these two on these lavender blooms.

Today there are fewer ladybugs in the honeysuckle (I didn't take a picture), but still some. Well, the long-term idea is that even if many of the ladybugs do fly away, some will leave behind eggs, and ladybug larvae eat even more aphids than ladybugs. They're not as attractive, however.

Any of the pictures on my blog you can view bigger by clicking on the picture; then use your browser's "back" button to come back to the blog.

Ladybug, ladybug

My honeysuckle, shown below in a picture from last summer, I discovered is full of aphids. So today I went to Bakerview Nursery and bought a container of ladybugs.

The instructions said to keep the closed container in the refrigerator until use and to release the ladybugs under the plant that's infested in the early evening--first having sprinkled the ground with water.

The guys at the nursery said if you open it during the day, they'll just fly away. The instructions said that they don't fly at night, but they will be attracted to the moisture you've prepared, and they'll apparently crawl around getting a drink and generally checking things out. Many will fly away in the morning. Hopefully, some will stick around and snack on aphids. Also, hopefully, some will lay eggs, which will hatch and the larvae will also eat aphids. It can take a few weeks to be fully effective.

I hope it works. The trouble with sprays to kill aphids is that they usually say to spray the leaves front and back, like you can stand there turning every leaf on a very full plant front and back. Also, I don't like to get bug spray on my fingers, and I don't want to breathe it. 

But ladybugs, if they stick around, will be motivated by hunger and appetite to seek out and eat the aphids. We'll see if it works.

A single ladybug is kind of pretty, but a container about the size of a tupperware dish full of them is not as attractive. The lid had lots of air holes, and lots of lady bugs were clinging to the bottom of the lid, so when you looked at it you were seeing the underside of the insects, with many twitchy little insect legs in evidence. I wet the soil under the honeysuckle, then carefully took off the lid and scattered them on the soil. Many were still clinging to the lid and dish, so I left them there, too, so the bugs could crawl out at their own pace.

Ladybug! Ladybug! Fly away home!
Your house is on fire; your children will burn.

That's version I know (another version). But I want my ladybugs to think of this honeysuckle plant as their home and not fly away anywhere else.

Here's what's next

All at once!

Blooms of many colors

The first bloom on my portulaca was pink.

The second bloom was yellow.

And now the third bloom is white.

What next?

Not a prince, but I rescued him (maybe)

I saw movement in my "pond" today and discovered a frog swimming in it. I'm not sure if he jumped in or hatched there.

I couldn't be sure, but it looked as though the frog was trying to climb out of the pond but was unable to do so. I scooped him up in a bucket of water, and first I carefully dumped him out on the lawn. Then I thought, it's a long way to the creek, and since the weather is warmer, what if he dries out on the way? So I scooped up some more water and actually caught and plopped him back into the bucket and brought him down by the creek. I carefully dumped him out there, within a foot of the water.

He's in the picture below, in the lower half, center; this is him in the grass by the creek.

Bon voyage, grenouille!
 
I need to clean the pond out and put up our Belgian water feature (mannekin pis). Then the pond will no longer be suitable for amphibian life forms.

Can it be?

What is that outside? It . . . it can't be . . . It is! . . . It's . . . it's sunshine!

And they said it couldn't happen here.

First fuchsia blooms

The autumnal-leaved fuchsias have produced their first blooms. Hooray!

Some are still in bud.

Hose caddy

Saturday I bought this hose caddy, so that I can reel the garden hose into it, instead of having it sit in a heap on the deck. I bought one with a cover, so it also provides a place to put a coffee cup.

On top is a piece of petrified wood, for weight to hold the lid down.

Weighed down by beauty

This begonia is falling sideways under its own weight. I feel like I should prune it back to encourage it to grow straighter.

But these blooms are so beautiful I can bring myself to cut them off. The plant will just have to tumble sideways until these blooms fade.

Resting place.

I found a table for this little pot. It's too small to just sit on the ground or on the retaining wall by its lonesome. It needed a small surface to sit on.

Of many colors

I was intrigued to see a yellow flower had come out on this plant, as an earlier blossom was red, or pink. Apparently the same plant can bloom in different colors. That seems an unusual quality to me.

Happiness is a warm puppy

Yesterday, when I was outside sweeping and fussing around on my deck, I left my dog inside, where he could stay warm and dry.

Someday when the the pavement is warm and dry, I'll have him out with me and he can lie on the sun-baked stone. But until then he'll be happier on  the couch.

Too much reading makes you goofy

Tonight I have been reading The Liars' Club, by Mary Karr.


It's too good a book. Ms. Karr is so good at re-creating what it's like to be a little girl in a home with alcoholic, brawling parents, and a mother with mental illness that I find myself feeling sad and anxious, as if I am in the same situation.

In reality, I haven't been a little girl in several decades. And my parents were (and remain) two of the finest people you'd ever want to meet. And they gave me a loving, stable upbringing.

The upside of the book is the resiliency of all the characters. I benefit from having read Mary Karr's third memoir, Lit, before reading The Liars' Club, so I know how things turned out for her in the long run: better than you might expect, although victories not easily achieved; much pain along the way.



But in The Liars' Club you have to admire the bravery of the little girl Mary and her older sister, Lecia, for surviving, for taking care of each other and even of their mother, and for having the will to keep moving on through life.

There's a third memoir, in the middle, called Cherry, that I suppose I'll also read eventually. I may need a little break first.

The title of my post comes from a conversation my mom and I sometimes have. Like me, my mom has always read a lot. Or I should say, I am like my mom in being one who reads a lot. Anyway, she tells me that her mom used to tell her, "You shouldn't read so much. You'll get goofy." I always respond, "Well, Mom . . ." It's one of our favorite jokes.

Deck shots

I swept my deck today, which was an all-day job. It was necessary since all the planting I did previously left potting soil scattered all over the place.

Moved the planters and moved them back in new ways.

This three-tiered thing, below, was actually labeled as a cake display or serving device. I guess you could put three round cakes on it, but I put three potted plants.

The rain didn't help me get the work done, but it didn't stop me, either. It was a Washington rain, small drops in the air, not a downpour.

Now I'm tired.

Got 'er done

The last of the plants are planted. I was a little discouraged at lunch time because a light rain was falling, but then it cleared up and the sun came out. I went outside and brought dirt from the dirt pile in a wheelbarrow, then added a couple bags of potting soil. The soil level was still too low, so I drove to Rite-Aid a minute and bought some more potting soil. Got these beauties planted and added the ornament I use in one pot.

Then I wheeled away the wheelbarrow, put the shovel back where I found it, took a big garbage bag full of the little pots all the plants came in, their plastic i.d. tags, empty potting soil bags, and other miscellaneous junk to the garbage can in the garage, and felt the deck was tidied up.

While I was tidying, I stopped by my car and took out a lot of trash and empty water bottles. The car is still very dirty, but at least it's not full of trash.

I also refilled our bird feeders.

Having fed and walked my dog, I'm waiting for my own supper to heat up, and then I'm going to mix a gin and tonic and have a sundowner out on my deck and enjoy looking at the fruits of my hard work.

I still have a ways to go to get the deck where I want it: sweeping it clean, putting together the furniture I've bought, emptying and cleaning the pond, and setting up the mannekin pis, but for today I've put in a good effort.

Two others

I also planted small plants in these two little fleur-de-lis pots. I bought the rectangular pot last year and saw a small square version of it this year. I found the same annual for the rectangular one that I had last year, a succulent flowering plant called portulaca:

My California sister might want to note that portulaca is hardy and grows well in hot, dry conditions. It likes full sun.

Below is a cute little plant, the name of which I can't recall, and I'm too lazy to go outside and pull the tag out of the pot to find out. Anyway it has cute yellow, daisy-like blooms against dark green foliage:

Planting frenzy

Yesterday, Saturday, I made it a goal to get a lot of planting done that I've been trying to accomplish for weeks but unable to do because every weekend kept being rainy. So I sat on the deck (on a folded towel, as the deck was rather cold and damp), surrounded myself with baby plants and the pots to plant them in, and planted away. Here was the scene before me:

I added some of the new potted plants to the groups of pots already on the deck. I try to buy plants that are fragrant. The smaller pots in this picture have the new plants. Perhaps I should have bought larger pots, but I was kind of guessing when I picked up the pots. Anyway, new are a pot of eucalyptus (with round leaves), two wallflowers (the red and yellow flowers), aromatica something-or-other (the purple flowers), and a small succulent, the tag of which I seem to have lost, so I don't know what kind of plant it is:

I think I need to buy some little tables or stands to put some pots on, rather than having them all just sit on the ground in a clump. We need some visual variety. By the way, I had pansies in a lovely pot in on top of the little table in the above picture a couple weeks ago--you can even see it in a recent blog post. Well I was out there with my faithful canine companion, who was tethered with a long leash to a post. He was wandering gently around, dragging that tether when suddenly he saw another dog. He ran to the end of his tether, snapping it tight, dragging it through pots and whatnot, the little table tipped over and the pot of pansies broke. Very annoying.

The table top looks a little dull above. What happened there was I had been using a small brush to brush some green mold off some of the terra cotta pots. My little great nieces visited and found that brush infused with green slime and "painted" the surface of the table with it. I need to clean it off, but I also need a clean brush.

On the left of the below group, the lemon balm is newly planted, and on the right, a lotus vine, which is supposed to get blooms:

The front pot in the below group was newly planted yesterday, which is a plant called Cuban oregano:

The tag for the Cuban oregano adds in parentheses, "ornamental," which I suppose means that as oregano goes, it's not very tasty. I once put just ordinary oregano in my herb barrel, but it tried to take over the whole planter. I had to keep pulling up large amounts of it to keep my other herbs from getting swamped.

Now all I have left to do is the two big barrels in which I put creeping jenny and impatiens, both of which are waiting to go in. They are new, replacement, pots, so I have to haul some dirt in a wheelbarrow to fill the bottom half. I don't see any point in using potting soil for the depths that the plants won't reach. I hope to get that done this afternoon. Yesterday was a beautiful, sunny day (at last) while today is a bit overcast, but I'm hoping it doesn't actually rain today.

Rose trellis

Last weekend, I went to the Farmers' Day Parade in Lynden. I attended by visiting a friend on Front Street and watching from her porch. I brought my camera with me, but forgot about it and didn't take any pictures of the parade at all. However, afterwards, walking back to my car, I saw this rose trellis on the side of a house. I don't know who lives there, but the gray wall, white shutters and trellis, green foliage, and red blooms all formed such a pretty scene that I took a picture.