Fern Garden Underway

Eoin (L), François and Walnut in Jay's living room where we
had dinner the other night.

I am definitely better—physically. Mentally I wonder about myself; I had two strange dreams last night. In one, I was an agent of a lawyer working Khloe Kardashian; in the other, I was on the phone here at home and looked out the window to see the forest on fire. Why I would dream about a Kardashian is horrifying to ponder.

This morning at 7:00 I hung the laundry out (my bedding) and afterwards, when I was in the spa, life felt perfect. It was a wonderful 20° already, birds were everywhere and it was quiet, quiet, quiet. There was something about the laundry, though, that made it perfect. It’s a powerful image, bedding blowing gently in the wind. As I watch it float in the breeze, I reveled in the thought of the smell and joy of climbing into bed tonight.

I began working on section three where I left off, but as soon as I got started I uncovered another mountain of gravel that I’ll have to dig out and schlep to the driveway. It’s the worst part of this project. So, instead, I switched to working on the Fern Garden (FG). It made sense because clearing that land gives me a place to transplant Ferns and Digitalis that I remove as I work on section three. Plus, working in the FG had me in the shade on a hot day.

And guess what? I found some wild Orchids growing in the FG! Imagine my joy! It was apt compensation for slow, dreadful work. It’s one-weed-at-a-time tedious! However I’ve no option if I want to leave behind as many “baby” Ferns as I can. 

The FG is small. Regardless, it will take several days of earnest work for me to bring order to it. And because it is lopsided, barren on one side and thick with four large Ferns on the other, I may buy myself a nice Japanese Maple.

While I was working, Paolo Pietropaolo played music from the opera Prince Igor by Alexander Borodin. It was the Polovtsian Dances and it is obviously the source inspiration for the popular song, Stranger in Paradise,  that’s in the musical Kismet.

I first heard Stranger in Paradise sung by Canadian singer, Giselle MacKenzie, and this small boy and soloist in St. Anthony’s church choir immediately fell deeply, deeply in love.

The Orchid.

I'm creating the Fern garden in an area where some Ferns are thriving even
though the area gets little sunlight. It's right off the east end of the deck.

This is the area I've cleared of weeds, one at a time, leaving every "baby"
Fern I find and adding others from the yard where I'm tilling.

This is the side I haven't done.

If you’re a regular reader here you’ll know that a market employee, Robin, and I resuscitated a gentleman a few months back. I later discovered that the man we recued is a neighbour of a friend here and she said the man was rather nasty.

Well here’s what I discovered today on the dog walk. That man went into hospital; I stayed with him until the ambulance arrived. He was kept in hospital for a fair while and then, when he was released, he took the ferry from Nanaimo back here to Gabriola, got in his truck that a friend had left at the terminal, drove home and died sitting behind the wheel of his truck.