Last Weekend

Last weekend at the coast was stormy and gray until Sunday at 5:30pm. So, we did other stuff........like veg and read. I matted one whole photo and printed one other. Not much motivation present. The grass grew even longer and stayed unattended. We admired the colors form the kitchen window and that was the extent of our involvement until Sunday evening.

Riley complained so loudly Sunday afternoon that I took him for a run/walk in the rain. My seriousness at running can be measured by the fact that I brought my camera along. I HATE running with anything in my hands and I actually took two photos on our "run." Midway on the path we usually take the rain became so intense that I called Riley back and we went home. He seemed satisfied with this brief adventure, accepted his treat and retired for the afternoon.

About 5:30pm Sunday the sun came out and so did we. The beautiful maple tree that split in the wind this winter has produced several little baby trees beneath its branches. There was one about 3 ft tall that I'd just love to have in my front yard. Mike dug it and we put it in a 5 gallon yellow pail after drilling holes for drainage. Hopefully it will survive this season and thrive. If so, I will adopt it and plant it in St. Helens. My yard, front and back, had no trees at all when I bought my house in the Fall of 2005. I have planted a Plum tree and a Mountain Ash in the back but no trees in the front as yet. I'd love to have this Maple in my front yard.

The iris in Mike's front garden has bloomed again. We always seem to forget that it is white with blue edges and the beauty is a lovely surprise each year. I caught this photo just after the rain. It's so pretty, as it was last year. But I can't resist another photo of it.

Cracked Crystal

A glass of wine and the Oregonian at the end of a day is one of my favorite things. However, wine has many more calories than I want/need, so I decided to have Perrier with a twist instead. Perrier in a lovely cut-crystal glass is almost (but not quite) as enjoyable as wine. I owned two beautifully etched crystal wine glasses that I rarely use. I decided that the beauty of the glass might make up for the deficiency of the content. I think that is a piece of reasoning that is quite common and often works very well on some level.

In any case, I poured the Perrier, added my twist of lemon, several ice cubes and retired to my favorite chair with the newspaper. I have a cork coaster handy there for just such occasions. The table was my grandfather's library table and will watermark with a sweating glass. As I perused the paper, sipping my "wine" I noticed my glass was sweating profusely. I went to the kitchen for a paper towel and folded it into fourths beneath the glass. It was promptly soaked. The evening was warm and I repeated my trek to the kitchen to fetch another folded towel. That was soon soaked as well and I brought my glass into the kitchen with me to wipe away the "sweat." As I placed the lovely glass on the counter I observed the "wine" oozing from the side of the etching. Could my glass possibly be flawed!!?? I held it to the light. There it was....the imperceptible flaw in the etching. The delicate beauty was fatally flawed and rendered the glass useless. It was only pretty to look at. When put to the test of reality it failed sadly.

In disgust, disappointment and a broken heart I placed the cracked crystal glass in the trash and took another, rather common, wine glass from the cupboard for more Perrier. Note that I did not/could not throw the cracked glass, but gently placed it in the trash. And then I gently retrieved it, went for my camera and phtotgraphed it. The beauty was too great not to record.

In our world there are many "cracked crystals." Leonard Pitts (Miami Hearld Columnist) has written about two lately: Paris Hilton and Jerry Falwell. They are/were both flawed in widely different ways, but flawed never-the-less. Folks admire and seek to emulate them, but when put to the test they fail miserably and publicly.

Closer to home, I hired, and subsequently had to fire, a piece of cracked crystal. She was an attractive and engaging young woman who seemed to have potential and desire to succeed. I seek and enjoy diversity in my staff and she fit that model well. We taught and trained her for over 4 weeks without success. She could not and would not learn and didn't seem to care. With heavy hearts and sadness, after many counseling and coaching sessions, we terminated her. She seemed to accept our decision well. We later learned that, upon reaching our parking area, she became violent and spent several minutes spewing foul language and anger to anyone within earshot. She was cracked crystal and she broke our hearts.

I guess there will always be cracked crystal in our lives. I hope we never grow hardened to that and that they always break our hearts. If not, we have no hope for the future. We should always continue to look for that perfect glass.

I think I will keep that other glass just to look at and never use. It will be my hope for the future.

Amazing

Amazing!!! I only started working on my yard a month ago. I looked around this evening and couldn't believe my eyes. I have lettuce and spinach that needs to be harvested. I have chives (see purple flowers above) that need to be used or put in a bouquet! My crazy Egyptian (or Walking) onions are blooming and looking very strangely at each other.................but then, they are odd anyway!

Last year I transplanted some Bleeding Heart plants from Mike's yard in Cannon Beach. They did well and bloomed. But THIS year they have gone nuts!! Not only have they spread and are blooming, but they are almost five feet tall now. I have had to stake them so they don't fall. They are beautiful and I think they must really like my awful black clay soil. I have brought more plants again from Mike's and planted them this evening. I hope they do as well as the Bleeding Hearts.

I finally was able to wrest an afternoon off from Broadway Medical Clinic today. It was difficult. As Mike predicted, folks pursued me all the way out the door. One fellow even chased me down the sidewalk, calling my name. However, I managed a clean get-away at last and was able to drive to Rainer and purchase my wood stove. This purchase of the wood stove will net me a call from the installer to come and tell me how much it will cost for the actual installation. This also means I really must finish the tile setting project. The floor portion is done, but I need to continue the tile up the wall behind the stove. I really like the Navajo rug pattern I designed and am looking forward to doing the rest. I've always wanted to learn to set tile. Thanks to Mike's instruction, I now feel more confident in doing this. Actually, I could probably get carried away with it and "find" more projects to do.

Oregon is a marvelous place to live. I am slowly but surely learning about the climate, the plants, and the plant "pests" that dwell here and am able to negotiate around my gardening fetish with more success each season. I have also learned that weeds grow with as much vigor as the favorable species. Bark mulch is becoming my best Friend. Safer spray runs a close second as does Deadline slug & snail killer. I can't imagine living anyplace else. I just love it here!!

Setting Tile

My daughter, Cathy,warned me! She said that setting tile would be so easy and so much fun I might get all carried away with tile. She was correct, as was Mike. They had both assured me that it's not that difficult....... and, with Mike's advice, it wasn't. After I got the hang of keeping the notched trowel at more or less 90 degrees to my work, it was easy to spread the thin- set mortar. I numbered the rows on my graph of tile pattern and was able to easily set the tile. What fun to watch the pattern I created take shape!
By Saturday evening the tile on the floor was set and we could admire the work.

On Sunday morning Mike screwed the Wonderboard for the wall portion to my living room wall. We had wondered if that part would require some special products, since we didn't really know what was behind the drywall. And we still don't, but whatever it is holds a long screw really well. We strongly suspect that the original wall is wood of some sort, since the 2" screw Mike put in "bit" into something quite substantial. He put a ledger on the wall for me to set the second row of tile against. I can then set the entire field above that. When that is dry I will remove the ledger and use an adhesive to set the bottom row to continue the pattern from the floor.

Traditionally, Navajo rugs have a flaw in the pattern. When a rug is made perfectally, tradition dictates that it will be the last rug made by that person. Pefection is the final accomplishment. Mike asked me if I was going to insert a flaw. I have thought about that all day. I have found my flaw. I, unintentionally, began the pattern on the floor at the second row of the pattern. There is a center white tile missing. That makes the pattern unfinished. That is my flaw and it will stand as such.

An Update, at Last!

Last weekend at the coast was unexpectedly nice. Not to say that it was warm, you understand, but no rain, not much wind and SUNSHINE!! While Mike tractor-mowed the lower lawns, the go-cart track and the upper "parking" area, I mowed the front and side grass with the power mower. It was very rewarding to look at the lawns afterwards and admire our work. After the downright devastation of the winter our expectations for spring growth and flowers were pretty low. Actually, it's not quite as bad as I think we both feared it would be.

Sunday again brought sunshine and yard work. The water feature "creek" and waterfall were cleaned and tidied and I edged and weeded the front flower beds. Bonica, the rose we moved two years ago to make room for the deck, is finally looking good over by the fountain. We moved one of the roses from Judy Osbourne's house wall to a place in front of the little glass house. The other of those roses is planted at the end of my front porch in St. Helens. I have no idea which of us has the red one and which the pink one, but hopefully we'll be rewarded with the answer this summer.

There were/are two mystery plants in the front flower gardens. One is a low-growing, well behaved, ground-cover type plant with delicate white flowers. This plant was a gift from a friend many years ago and was given with the comment that it was rare, but no name was provided. The other mystery plant is also a lower growing plant that spreads, but has lovely blue flowers on somewhat taller stems. I snapped photos and decided to try to have these specimens identified. I first emailed them to Joy Baird (Administrator's wife) as she is quite knowledgable about Pacific Northwest plants. She was stumped. I next contacted and emailed the Master Gardener in Washington County. His name is Albert Martinez. Mr. Martinez immediately identified the blue-flowered plant as a Campanula Glomerata Superba. The "rare" white flowered plant, however, remains still a mystery. He asked several more questions about growth habit, leaf configuration and height. I am awaiting (hopefully) an answer from him. Of course, I now have several friends that want samples of this plant: Joy Baird, Dr. Kristin Collins (who also has no idea what it is) and my friend Lynette with whom I have shared plants in the past.

Sharing plants has become a favorite way of filling my previously blank yard with vegetables and flowers as well as a very tangible way of remembering friends. My small yard now has plants from the gardens at the coast, which include plants from Mike's mom, plants from Lana, Karina, Lynette and soon will have some perrenials from Joy as well. What a great way to "connect" with friends and what a lovely reminder to see of the friendships.