Steve Minus Two Days

I’m glad the trip to Nanaimo is done. I hope the x-ray leads to an understanding of what is wrong with my wrist and what I can do about it. I was back just after 11:00 am and as soon as I got back, I got to work on the yard.

Spreading peat moss is very light work and a delightful thing to do in warm sunshine and very comfortable temperatures. I am really enjoying this mild (wildflower smokeless) summer! And it feels good to be adding a moisture retainer to the land—particularly where the land is so full of gravel and drains so readily. 

The tilling was so destructive; I felt like a sinner. But spreading peat makes me fee like a saint adding nutrients to the land. And soon, Saint Christopher will be adding lime, soil and seed to create quite the biomass! And I’m thinking: What’ll I do after that? Garden gnomes? That’s it! And flamingoes! (I’m kidding.)

When I had my spa at 3:00, it was a perfect 25° and there was a light refreshing breeze that was very  rich with the fragrance of the forest. When it’s hot and dry, the forest gives off quite a lovely and delicate scent. 

Then I made Lemon ice cream. It’s really pretty good! I don’t have recipes for the ice creams I make, so it takes some experimentation. I used the juice (reduced) and zest of two lemons and it seems to have been just the right amount.

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The climbing Rose has reached the top of the trellis. It makes a new architectural feature that looked kind of stark look rich and proud now. I can hardly wait until next summer already, when even more growth is evident everywhere.

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I’ve used eight bags of peat so far and I’m going in for four more this morning; by noon, all three sections of the landscaping will be covered in a light layer of peat and I can start spreading the lime to keep the soil from becoming too acidic from the relentless rain of Fir needles.

I’ve done a million little things that I’d been putting off for months: laying gravel on the path to the woodshed, cleaning up the little piles of garden detritus I’d left all around the yard and plugging holes in the rock retaining walls that leak soil and taking things to GIRO for recycling.