It was really pretty nice all week. I sat on my back deck one evening until almost 9pm talking to Mike on the phone and it was 70 degrees. But, as the Pacific Northwest will be, we awoke Saturday morning to gray clouds and drizzle. UGH!
I decided to work in my yard anyway and managed to plant the lettuce I brought home from the coast as well as the onions, sweet basil and most of my various flowers. I turned over the soil (I guess it still is soil when it's clay and basalt) in another section of flower bed and added two bags of compost. Perhaps within a few years I can amend the soil enough to turn it without bringing up a square foot of black, slick clay with each spade. I still did not get my tree-a Green Gauge Plum- planted, but it seems quite happy in its large container for now. I still need to plant the lilac starts that Lana gave me also. They, too, seem content in their little bag of soil on my deck.
When the rain finally stopped late in the afternoon, Mike & I went for a walk. We met a fellow over on 3rd Street, almost directly through, towards the river, from me. He has a wonderful gadrden with, literally, hundreds of dahlias. His name is Howard and he was quite a talker, though very interesting. He is apparently a real "rabble-rowser" at the city council, but his causes seem valid and progressive for our funny little mill town. He also knew some history of the houses surrounding his that I'd like to know about my street. It was neat to meet someone else in the neighborhood.
Sunday was more rainy than Saturday, but Mike persisted in installing my screen door. It rained on him, at one point so hard he came inside, and he was quite soaked at the end. We ended up having to replace the framing around the outside of the door with some wood I had scavenged fromhis burn pile at the coast. My funky old home is put together rather oddly in some places and the modern, vinyl door wouln't quite match what existed. But the wood Mike installed looks better than what was there! And my screen door has a very satisfying BANG when it closes. I think all screen doors should bang when they close, but that's probably just my age and my childhood memories manifesting themselves. No one will be able to sneak out my back door, at least not the first time.
Of course, 15 minutes after Mike left, the sun came out and the late evening was beautiful. It would have been a really nice time for a walk. I opened my front door about 6:30 and saw the sun shining and that it was sprinkling at the same time. I ran for my camera a snapped a photo, which I will include here. There are also photos of my very immature garden, and, of couse, the screen door.
