Lovin' the summer time

We're expecting a heat wave for the next week. Thankfully we have the pool to stay cool. Fresh fruit is everywhere. I've been picking the little native blackberries lately and grabbed some blueberries from the farmers market to make this Black & Blue pie. Its bubbled over and looks messy but man was it delicious!



I've some peaches waiting to be made into a pie as well. Yum!


Mr. Petey like to pose for the camera.

A low key Fourth

Daniel and I spent a gloomy day at the beach. The sun never did burn thru the marine layer. We finally got a glimpse of it as we left there and headed inland to a friends place for an evening bonfire. A pleasant day all around.


Cats stayed home. Here's a pic of Miss Gracie drowning in her own floof.


On today's agenda we have laundry and digging irises for the HIPS Sale and for my eBay sales.

F@#%$*G Cats!

So I've had these birdhouses on top of my potting bench for years and have never managed to put them out int he garden for the birdies to use, they were just kinda being decorative. This spring a pair of swallows decided to move into one of them. I was thrilled as they were eating all the wasps that usually nest all around the patio area. Sweet! I don't use the potting bench much so I stacked alot of junk and stuff on the main surface hoping to keep the cats off it.


Yesterday I went out to find the birdhouse pulled down, broken, and the nest ripped to shreds. One of the frikkin-frakken cats decided to get up there and cause havoc. Argh!! Then I clean that up and turn around and see my little iris seedling have all be uprooted by someone using the bed as a litterbox. Double Argh!! Some cat is very lucky I did not catch them in the act or they would be housebound for a few days. We have such bad cats. I am sure it was either Gracie or Peter doing both. They are permanently punished.

Winding down

Iris season is winding down now. Still alot of blooms, and the Japanese are just starting, but the bulk have passed. It's been pretty overwhelming and I'm a bit burnt out on pics. I took thousands and have kept 615 so far. Here's a few highlights.

Beotie. The color is not showing correctly in the photos. It is a gray-lavender-blue. Very smoky and subdued, but rich. Had seen it before but three stalks in bloom was just gorgeous. This one will get a more prominent position.


Loving Bronze Bell. Great shade of brown.


Cahokia has thrilled me for two years in a row. What a great iris! The color and form are really something. It blooms later too and extends the blue tone for the season, as my others are generally early.


On another note, I've managed to keep the deer of the rosa glauca and it is finally getting to put out a mass of blooms for us.


The peonies are really looking good this year. Finally filled in. On another note... Mr. Petey likes his sunbeam.


More to come...

Lions at the Gate...

... and at the door. Guarding the family from any rodents or small birds that may wander by. Lol.




The shade border is really filling in beautifully. The Soloman's Seal is just amazing - such structure! The mock orange is about to bloom for the first time. Fantastic fragrance.


I love taking pics of the irises just before the sun sets, when the soft golden light comes in from the side and lights them all up like stained glass windows. Here's a few from last night. Click the photos to see the larger versions.

Sunshine and blooms

The pulminaria's are so bright right now. The slugs and deer ignore them so they are always putting on a good show.







Tuck catches some Z's in the late afternoon. Ahn.

Spring has sprung

Warm sunny days - finally! It was up to 70 yesterday and we were out all day in it. So nice, and I got loads of stuff done. Here's the south side of the driveway as you get to the curve. This had been full of weedy fir trees and blackberries, but our wonderful neighbors, the Pearson's, have been working to clear it out for us. We'll be replanting with different trees and shrubs once it is finished. Right now I am working on removing the weeds and making beds out along the drive. I've filled it with irises of two colors, massed, and moved the red hot poker here as well. The hummingbirds that nest in the area will enjoy that.


The cats are enjoying it as well, and all the early daffs are blooming their hearts out.






We had friends over for a bonfire in the evening and watched the sun set. It was a beautiful day. Hope yours was as well.

R.I.P. Mac Daddy

On Wednesday, March 17, a bright and sunshiny bit of love left this world, for on that day I buried a very dear friend.  With heavy heart, and tear streaked face, I dug a hole, lovingly laid his linen-wrapped body in it, and began to shovel dirt back over it.  When I was done, I built a cairn of stones over his grave, spending the waning hours of the winter evening gathering stones in my grief.  I cried, sobbed, and snuffled the whole time.

(Mac Daddy on Julie's front porch)

Mac Daddy wasn't necessarily my cat, but I was definitely his human, but we loved each other unabashedly, and neither of us made any bones about it.  Belonging to one of my very best friends, Julie, I've known Mac Daddy since he was just a young adolescent.  He loved to share his joy and love with others, and always took nurse duties with new kittens, taking very good care of them.  And nobody, of course, could occupy a lap quite like ol' Daddy.

Having reached the grand age of 12 sometime over the past year or so (you know how it goes with cats... you just don't always know), Julie and I had both noticed he was getting to be an old cat.  He spent a lot of this winter indoors, but then heck, who didn't?  Having heard that he had been spending the last few days under the bed, I wasn't surprised.  I wanted to do the same.  I thought little of the fact that he hadn't come out to visit me the week before.

But I was shocked when he made his slow, stiff-legged way down the hall into the living room wednesday afternoon.  Poor Daddy!  He had lost weight, couldn't move very well, was so fatigued he took mulitple rests to get across the room, and was literally gasping for breath!  He went to the water bowl, but just couldn't manage a drink, laying back down without going to the food bowl.  My Daddy wasn't well!

Julie called the vet, and we took him right in.  He was made comfortable until the vet could get to him a short time later.  Not long after that, the vet euthanized him, a mercifully peaceful end to what had become a very uncomfortable existence.

Examing Mac Daddy, the vet had aspirated a lot of fluid from one lung, which was completely full, and had collapsed.  It filled back up immediately, leading the vet to a diagnosis of FIP - Feline Infectious Peritonitis.

I'm thankful that Daddy didn't suffer for very long at all.  Of his last three days, while it's apparent he knew something was wrong and had been hiding under the bed - as cats are wont to do - I don't think any but the last day were acutely uncomfortable.  His mates Sam and Boogie were at his side continuously with love and concern and companionship, and humans who loved him were at his side right up to the end. A life lived like Mac Daddy's is well lived.

All this heartbreak brings me to the secondary reason for this post.  The pet cemetery.  Creatures who bring such joy and love into our lives such as a cat like Mac Daddy deserve something more than disposal at the vet office, or a hole in the the ground out along the back fence.  When I arrived home Wednesday afternoon, I broke the news to Mike (who also loved Mac Daddy very much) and asked him to consider where we might begin to create our own memorial garden for beloved pets.

We wanted somewhere where there was space to accommodate all of our pets over the years, someplace peaceful, beautiful, and fairly easy to reach.  It needs to be permanent - there will be no moving this particular garden element in 10 years because it's in the way of another project.

We chose a patch of forested area between the mushroom garden and the display beds.  It has a moderate slope, lots of ferns and violets, and is along the primary pathway into that section of woods.  Additionally, it's behind the large stump pile in front of which Mike planted a shrub border, so it will be secluded.  I like to think that a cat-spirit might enjoy climbing the stumps to watch out over the area or bask in the sun.

 

(Mac Daddy's final resting place)

I don't exactly know how the pet cemetery - I need to come up with a name for it, as I don't exactly like that term - will evolve over the next few years.  I am imagining a series of stone cairns ringed by moss, ferns, and violets, as well as rhododendrons and hostas.  I would like to include a bench for sitting and visiting, and occasional grieving.  Mike wants to cast a 'tufa cat statuette for Mac's memorial.  We'll use cedar boughs to create a decorative fence along the edges.  Beyond that, I'm sure whimsy will take over and guide our efforts.

I miss Mac Daddy very much, and I'm tearing up just writing this post.  How will I handle it when one of my own cats dies?  [Sigh]... love can be tough.

Rainy days...

Time for a nap.

First iris of 2009

This cute little reticulata opened today. Such a nice bright bit of color. I've seen yellow buds coming out on a couple of i. danfordiae as well.


Miss Gracie has become so hairy she is drowning in her own fluff. Poor baby girl.

Beautiful days

What an unseasonably beautiful November we are having. The last few days have been warm and sunny. We've yet to have a killing frost, tho a few light ones have been thru. I finally (!!!) managed to get my Kleinsorge bed expanded and a new one created next to it. This is going to make a big difference in a few years as the lilacs and the vine maple grow in. And in the meantime all my Kleinsorge irises are in one place together.


Miss Gracie was outside with me all afternoon enjoying the sun. She's brought in a few rodents today (leaving bits of them scattered about the back yard - yuck), but unfortunately no more moles yet. They are tearing up my terraces something awful and making a huge mess and I sure wish she would kill a few more.


Here's Mr. Pansy in his favorite chair again. Paws up!


And finally a raspberry tart I made a few weeks ago. Not the most attractive but it sure was delish.


Friends are coming for Thanksgiving. Hope yours is a happy one!

Parnisp and pansies

Check out these gorgeous parsnips from Daniels veggie garden. They are roasting as I type... Yum!


And here's a shot of Mr. Pansy. He loves the green chair, and who can blame him? He looks so cute in it - especially in the sunshine.

Fresh pics

It's been awhile since I downloaded my camera and went thru the pics. Here's some recent shots from around the place. Not much is happening due to lack of funds to adequately deal with the weeds, but we're doing what we can.

Here's a shot of a not-so-lovely but quite delicious Apple Tarte Tartin I made from a Cuisine at Home recipe. It is basically an upside-down cake.


I love kniphofia. this bright yellow-orange one kept the hummingbirds happy for awhile and sure made a bright spot of color in the garden. The deer leave it alone so I'll probably get more of these.


Sempervivum 'Mount Usher. Gorgeous coloration.


A wonderful pelargonium Joey got for me for my birthday - isn't it just stunning? I'm hoping I can keep it alive thru the winter so I can enjoy it for years to come.


Here's Mr. Pansy looking quite adorable, and hiding a heart filled with badness. The little stinker got mad the other morning when he didn't get to go out and peed on my shirt that was laying on the vinyl couch - right in front of me! I think we have solved the mystery of who peed on the bed in the guest room and destroyed the mattress and a pillow. What a bad kitty. It's a good thing he is so cute.




And finally two shots of recent sunsets. We've had some really stunning ones lately. Not sure what is going on to color them up so well. One looks like a forest fire and the other was so neat - the clouds started melting like a watercolor painting, with long trails fo mist falling slowly down just as the sun was going down. Very neat effect. Click on the pics to see larger shots of them.


Until next time, happy gardening!

A few sumertime pics

Back in June there was an extreme low tide event here so mom and I walked down to the shore to check it out. A very kind lady showed us a few of the things left in the open muck as the water retreated and one of them was this pink fellow. It's really quite large - maybe a foot across or a little more.


This gorgeous shirley poppy came up early in one of the beds. I believe this was a seedling that came from a swap. Oddly when the heat came on the pink picotee edge entirely disappeared and now it is blooming pure white. The shirley poppies have been very pretty this year.




An astrantia with a visitor.


And here's a picture of Chewie. She is always doing that. I love Tucks expression in the background.

Sunny Sunday

Here's some new pics from the garden. We ahd this canoe and no where to go with it so decided to make it into a water feature. I filled it with some water loving irises and a willow that likes wet feet. Added a large 'tufa rhubarb leaf for the water to run down and Voila!




Here's the purple Japanese iris blooming int eh pond right now. So pretty.


And of course we have to have some cat pics. Mr. Tuck posing and looking fabulous, followed by Mr. Petey napping while the sun goes down.