Come Visit the Park

 Wednesday began in high energy. I got right to work with chores inside the house before walking with our friends on the Ricki Ave. trail. I chose that trail to see if the prednisone is making any difference to how I do on the Ricki hill as I climb it.

Once home after our wonderful meander through the forest, full of small talk and laughter, I came home to Zoom with Cathy. We hadn’t chatted in quite a while, so we had a lot of catching up to do. And then it was time to feed the brood before attending to more chores—this time, outdoors on another beauty of a day. This sunshine fills me with energy.

And the energy it gives me makes me want to work, so the afternoon began with cleaning the interior of the car. What a horrid fucking job! It took hours, mind you I’m wanting every single needle out of the car. I get OCD-ish when I am cleaning. And. My back! Holy Jesus it gets sore, but that’s probably a good thing because it makes me take a rest.

But, oh how clean the car is now. I must help Regina move soon, and so cleaning the car makes me feel better about helping her and people seeing the state of the car before I cleaned it. It’s impossible to keep the house and car clean with all the needles, pitch and dusty roads, not to mention a dog who gets all kinds of crap in her hair and then gets in the car or the house to shed it all.

Once I was finished with the car, I was done. Working on the shed had to be put off to today because I like to unwind with Her Highness walking the Elder Cedar trail in the late afternoons. So, that’s what we did, and then I came home to get into the spa. It’s my reward for working.

We’re in for another long stretch of good weather, and that means watering the garden beds is back on my schedule, demanding a lot of my time. But that’s why I love living here, and I’m felling that very, very strongly right now. The past year was a bit of a downer. It started in May when I noticed that my breathing was laboured.  And then, in August I had the worst seizure I’d had in many years, so I stopped entertaining, and all through the year I worried about what was causing the poor breathing and the implications of the condition.

Now that I know and have a treatment plan, and now that Springtime is here and I am outside every day, I am profoundly happy to be ‘living’ more fully and feeling happier about life. I love that I have a nice clean car and that I’ve been doing things every day outdoors. I can hardly wait to do the shed tomorrow. I set myself a project every day. When the shed is sorted, I’ll be getting started on the yard and the gardens. I’ll set modest goals for every day; rainy days will be my days of rest. I’m feeling terribly happy, so….

Last night I did a walkabout with the camera. Here are photos of early Spring in Pinecone Park. Until two years ago, when I hired Bronwyn, all my efforts went into planting, weeding and watering. Only when I hired Bronwyn did I learn anything at all about gardening. She taught me about pruning and different ways of fertilizing and aerating the soil.  As you will see in the photos and read in the captions, what she taught me has brought fucking amazing results.

This is a garden that borders on the courtyard.
The bare patches is where Hostas are emerging.

This is the patio where I will have the table and chairs soon. Plants are 
slowly maturing around the edges. They are all recent plants. The paving
stone path, edged with Spanish Moss I hilt two years ago and it has settled
well. I will work to grow more moss between the pavers.

This is Butter Burr taking over my garden, but I love it. It's so pre-
historic and unusual. This garden borders the deck.

I'm pleased with this garden, beside the Butter Burr garden, because it
was difficult to get growth under the tree, a Japanese Maple that I love.

This is my Camellia. I've had it for six years and
it barely grew. But ... the past two years has seen
it quadruple in size. It had lots of blooms this year
and now there is tons of new growth.

This was a huge patch of native Salal. The Winter before last killed it, so
last Summer I built this wall of rocks and planted a garden that has really
taken well. I'm attending to the bald patch where the Salal was in the Fall.

This garden is beside the gate that leads into the forest. I own more land
behind the fence where I put branches that fall and so on.

This garden is under the trees and separates the small field where I
have three Aopple trees, a Lilac, Japanese Maple, Ornamental Cherry,
and some Lavender. It is a fairly busy field. On the other side is the bare
open yard you can see in the photo above. 

I built this garden around the base of a tree two years ago and 
it is thriving. The Bleeding Heart conceals a container in which
grows an Evergreen Clematis.

This is the Clematis, growing on a trellis Pete and I
made for it to grow on.

This is the patio where I eat. The Hostas and other plants will
soon be much larger and the Hydrangeas will bloom. And ...
I will clean the patio.

This is my Fern Garden. It borders the house and gets little sunlight.
As I cleaned up the yard, I put all the ferns that I found here to live
and so I'm very attached to this garden. They are all rescues, and they
will be much larger as the fronds grown.

The Butter Burr from above.

This is a plant and I forget its name. It is powerfull and beautifully 
fragrant and it's about to bloom. It's in a huge container I bought 
when Imoved in and it's right beside the spa, so when I am in the
spa for the next two weeks, I will enjoy a beautiful citrus smell.

I'm very excited about this: Six of my eight Blueberry bushes ane
bursting with berries. This has never happened before and I am
over the moon about it.

And again: three of my Apple Trees are blooming well and 
this is a first. It truly excites me to be dad to all these plants.

Look at all that new growth on a Plumb tree I planted 
two years ago. Bronwyn pruned it and I fertilised it
and I expect with all this growth to get a few fruit.

This is a garden that separated my front weed field from a jungle of
Salal the covers my land to the street. It can only sustain Deer-resistant
plantings, harsh sunlight in the afternoon, and trees beside it that 
complete for water.

This island is in the very wide driveway I have. It is wide at the
entrance so as to support four cars. I did not plant the Daffs, nor
have I ever watered or otherwise tended to it, but Henri cleaned
it up so I will maintain it now. It, too, must be Deer-resistant.

The weed field is my front 'lawn.' Right now it is bursting with white
Daisies, Buttercus, and Dandelions, all in bud (except the Dandelions) 
and I feel good about feeding the bees, insects, and birdies.

This is a Hrose Chestnut. A friend gave me a seedling and I have been
husbanding it ever since. Last year. the Deer got it the day I planted it
and before I got a fence up. So I was relieved to see sech great growth
this year. I have mulched and fertilised with love.

This is a down year for the Rhode. But Henri did wonders with the 
ground underneath it. He really cleaned it up and it looks wonderful
to me now. It is rich with growth. Every little branch is bursting with
buds for new leaves. It's going to be a great Summer to watch it
grow a nice new coat.

This is a garden I made two Summers ago. The ferns were there,
so I added  Peones and some ground cover and it looked much
cleaner. It's to the left where you come into the back yard and
onto the courtyard (a large paving stone  area between all three
buildings: house, studio, shed.

This is the wall of the shed I see all the time. I planted the Ivey
and three bushes that have merged into one giant ball of free
that I love. It is all evergreen I love having green everywhere.

This is my trellis. When you're in the courtyard, it
conceals part of the shed.It's six years old and it
thrills me because with the fountain in front of it
it brings a lot of green to the courtyard where once
there was nothing.