Orchid

To counteract the mounting piles of snow outside I thought I would post a picture of what is happening inside. I can usually keep most plants alive, but have tried twice to grow an orchid and both times the effort has failed. This one was given to me as a gift last year, in bloom. I enjoyed the bloom, cut it off when spent, and hoped to at least keep the plant alive. Somehow I managed to do that and just before Thanksgiving I noticed the new bud! It took a month to bloom, but it was worth the wait. We have had an additional 16" of snow (8" today) with more snow predicted every day for the next 10 days. This continuous snow event is getting really old, really fast.

So, I gaze into the face of my beautiful reminder that things do grow, are green and pretty and that everything has its season.

Study in White

I told myself that I wasn't going to take any snow pictures this winter. Why remind myself of my least favorite season? But, during this massive snowstorm currently dumping white stuff from the sky and dumping and dumping and dumping, there are some views that can't be missed.

This is the back deck railing at 7 AM this morning


The same railing at 11 AM


The first pass at clearing the driveway. The snow measured an even 18". Dave has already done it again today and will probably need to do it one more time before night and again in the AM so I can go to work.


Just in case you can't figure this one out - there is a basalt fountain under there!


I hung snowflakes in the living room windows when I decorated for Christmas. Now there are fake snowflakes looking out onto real snowflakes.




There's a potting bench under there somewhere


The garden house cloaked in snow


And, my favorite - the little, metal snowman at the front door

Study in Yellow

Took these pictures at the same time I took the red ones and was intending to post the yellow ones shortly after the red ones. But, life intervened. Enjoy the yellow ones as the color fades into winter.











I can't resist inserting this last one even though the election is over. I took it intending to post this prior to the election. I had errands to run on two consecutive days about one week prior to the election which took me north/south and east/west in Spokane. I started counting yard signs for both presidential candidates. On the first day the count was Obama=20, McCain=0. The only McCain sign I saw on the first day was at the Replubican headquarters office. On the second day the count was Obama=18, McCain=3. Hmmm...... 38 to 3. I am not a pollster so had no idea how to extrapolate that data into percentages, but it seemed to me that this was telling us something. Spokane is normally a Republican stronghold with a few Democractic breakthroughs. But, the dirth of McCain signs really made me wonder if I wasn't witnessing a shift in the winds.



And, it turns out, I was right! Spokane County and Whitman County (the county due south of Spokane) went for Obama while the rest of eastern WA was a sea of red.

Study in Red

How many shades of red are there?

Autumn Torment

I, like many other people, have a love/hate relationship with autumn. On one hand, it is gloriously beautiful with an array of color that is unparalled at any other time of the year. One the other hand, it is a precurser to winter. I revel in the crisp air, the colors, the feeling you get after taking a deep breath, the taste of crisp apples, and all the other things that say "autumn." But, the little voice in my head is saying, "Here comes winter!"

Right now I am going to just enjoy the scenery and take what comes next with the best of intentions to not complain.

Chapter Two

I intended to write this chapter about three months ago. Time flies and no one catches up with it! It is a cloudy, fall day and I have some beautiful fall pictures of the garden to post, but first let's finish the story about the backyard transformation. We left off with the mystery of what was going on to the left of the new fountain.

This is the before shot of the area in front of the garden house. The really lovely garden house was just not being shown off to its best potential and the raised beds which used to grow vegetables were now too much in the shade for good vegetable growing and had been relegated to nursery beds for perennials waiting to go into the garden, weeds and lots of self-seeding garlic. Time for a change!



Digging out the dirt so that the raised beds could be removed.


The original plan was to remove the raised beds carefully so that they could be transported to our daughter's house and placed in her vegetable garden. But, in the process of digging and lifting three, heavy frames Dave stacked one on top of another to get it out of the way. Wait a minute! That looks like the perfect compost bin! So, Plan B: keep the frames and stack them all up on each other for two, side-by-side, 4x4' compost bins. Ingenious!

Voila!!








The other addition to the space was a potting bench. I wanted one I could stand up at without breaking my back and I wanted to be able to face out into the garden while standing there. So, I designed, and Dave built, a potting bench with shelves for nursing new plants and also with its southern exposure, a place to grow herbs.









There you have it. The backyard transformation summer 2008.

I have lots of really pretty garden pictures taken recently. I promise to start posting those tomorrow.

Baby, oh baby!

There is a reason this happy couple are smiling. They are expecting a baby! That definitely makes them headed for parenthood, but it also makes Dave & I headed for grandparenthood. Oh, my!! The baby is due in March and we look forward to every day getting closer to the birth and being able to hold a most precious bundle.

For details check out Klay's blog http://www.klaydoughdreams.blogspot.com/

Congratulations Klay & Richard!

The New Look: Chapter I

The transformation of the back garden started in mid May. Is it complete? Not quite. Complete enough to finally post about our progress? Probably. Is any garden project ever completely done? Not around our house! There are still some plants to plant to fill in the gaps, but I am waiting to do some fall bulb planting and see what little gems I pick up at the Friends of Manito Plant Sale http://www.thefriendsofmanito.org/index.html in September.

For years (10 to be exact) Dave has been wanting to build a water feature in the backyard. Our backyard is long in width and narrow in depth. Our drain field for the septic system is the whole backyard. So, our options are limited in what we can dig up. Thus, a few years ago a section of the front yard beside the front walk leading up to the door became a basalt columnar water feature and patio. Very nice. But, we don't sit out there even though there is a bench. So, next plan was to build a sluce box-type water feature off to the side of the house with the pond area next to the deck. Plausible. Would we see the pond? Probably. Would we hear the water? Definitely. But, I think that the best view would be for those people walking down the street and looking into our yard from the neighbors viewpoint.

Then, last summer a glimmer of a great idea started to take shape. The back garden had become very overgrown with a few select plants which had decided that none of the other plants needed to be seen. It called for drastic measures like digging up the whole 12 x 50 foot garden and starting over. If we were going to do that, why not incorporate a water feature? A Cathi-type water feature with slightly more refinement than the Dave-type water features of rock and hard edges. An urn! A large urn!

We went shopping at the end of the season to see what was left but, nothing worthy of coming home with us was found. So, with much patience and the help of a long, snowy winter, we waited. In May, we went shopping again. This time we found the perfect urn. Only the cost of the urn ate up our whole budget. My very clever husband decided that instead of spending big bucks on a "pond package" he could figure out how to install the urn on top of it's water base by purchasing the needed items individually and putting them all together. The urn was purchased and left at the site for drilling and installation of the plumbing.

A return visit in driving rain netted us an urn and all the parts needed to complete the project loaded into the trailer.

Well, almost all, as they sold us the wrong pump. But, the owner drove the 40 miles to our house to bring us the correct pump and consult on the project to make sure we were on the right track. Just how heavy is a 3' by 30" urn? Very. And, that is even before it has water in it. The urn made it home in one piece and was unloaded and moved to its new home.

Friend, Steve, who helped unload the urn and move it to the backyard.






The new home ready and waiting


The abridged version of placing of the urn






Fountain and dirt and rocks! Oh, yes. Gotta have the rocks!


Fast forward a couple of weekends and you have this:

The path leads from the deck out to the fountain with new stone patio and bench.

Another view


Trial run


Now to the garden.

Poor iris got dug up even before they had a chance to bloom this year. Hopefully, they will be forgiving and bloom next year once they get back into the ground.

Dirt & wheelbarrows





We were being watched!


The dug up garden replanted. Hopefully, it will remain tame for a while.


Chapter II is the companion project which was taking place just to the left of the urn/garden project. Will post that soon!