A Toad in the Garden

Last week a little tree frog was in the greenhouse and yesterday this big bugger jumped out and scared me. Toads and frogs are most welcome in my garden areas, especially the greenhouse, because they eat insects. The ducks are good bug eaters but I don't let them in because they will eat or trample everything. I put down some little dishes of water to encourage the toad to stay.

Cherry tomatoes are ripening so the ducks will have fresh treats soon. The people tomatoes are just starting to flower so it will be awhile before we're harvesting any. We'll have Cherokee Purples again this year. They were the most delicious eating tomato. And I planted some Amish heirlooms for cooking.

We'll be eating artichokes from this year old plant soon. The new plants are growing like gangbusters with the ducks fenced out and we might get a few chokes from them, too. Sequim used to be known for growing artichokes. Who knew?

Here are the duck girls. Sassy as ever. Still getting four eggs a day. Would love to give them a bigger pool. 

Hattie keeps the ducks under control. With warmer weather they don't want to spend the night in their house but for their safety that's where they have to go. Without Hattie's help I'd be hard pressed to get them in. It's our evening chore and she knows just what to do.

Flowers! Here is Bonica, a pretty shrub rose. All these roses were little twigs last year at this time.

I don't recall this one's name. Have to look it up. It's a climber.

The white is Darlow's Enigma, a rambling rose. Ceanothus Victoria in the foreground.

More of the Tag and Hooper irises.

This is New Dawn climbing rose with a crazy-blooming clematis and delphiniums.

I love my shady areas. This nook is finally filling in with ferns, epimediums, hostas, oxalis and helleborus.

A beautiful yellow rose that came with the house and pretty pink something-or-others. Dianthus, I think.

I'll close with another picture of my girl Hattie. Our nosework classes will be getting into scent training soon. So far it's been searching for hidden food, but now she'll learn to locate a scented object and tell me she's found it. I think we start with birch scent. If Hattie's hearing has deteriorated I can't tell yet. She's still high functioning. Her DNA is being collected for research in several projects, one related to hearing loss in border collies, the other to determine the genetic keys to particular traits in all dogs. Tux is still hanging in there. I'll try to get a photo of her for next blog entry.

Color on a gray day

More pictures of irises and the garden to brighten a dull day.

Greenhouse looking good. Tomatoes are already putting out flowers.

A red iris with a really red peony in the background.

This black iris was a free gift with my iris order. Didn't think I'd care for it, but look at the purple at the base of the velvety black petals - it's gorgeous. This is Bob's favorite.

One of the pretty red irises that look purple to me. I guess there is some red in the tongue area.

Tag and Hooper irises...

Salad greens ready for eating. Improved soil and a few hard learned lessons from last year are paying off.

We learn about transportation in Seattle

Bob's neurosurgeon was at the Swedish Hospital at Cherry Hill in Seattle. We drove to Bainbridge and left our car there to take the ferry to Seattle and avoid driving in Seattle traffic. From the Seattle terminal we walked up a steep hill to a bus stop and hopped the #3 bus to the hospital. We were notified the day before that a room was available at the hospital inn at $75 a night, much less than the $130 deal we had at a hotel about a mile away, so we quickly canceled and went with the inn. The room is pictured below. The window doesn't open and we couldn't get the temperature below 72F. so in addition to the hardest bed I've slept on since some funky roadhouse in the Yukon, guess who couldn't sleep for two nights. But the room turned out to be right down the hall from the room Bob was taken to after surgery. His room was much bigger and the bed much better... and cost a whole lot more too.

A bunch of boring stuff happened with me the next couple days, Bob's back was sliced and diced, and he was finally released after a lot of nagging and whining so we could go home.

We managed the return trip without being able to pre-plan. We took a taxi from hospital to ferry terminal because there was no way Bob was going to ride the bus and walk down the steep hill, but even with the taxi dropping us off at the terminal elevator, by the time we bought tickets and neared the dock he was fading fast. I noticed some wheelchairs by the terminal doors and asked the ticket checker about them. Who knew wheelchairs were available at the ferry? Not the occupational therapist who lives in Bainbridge and takes the ferry to work at Swedish. Nor the nurses. But now I know and you do too. There are wheelchairs for use in terminals, and there are wheelchairs for use on the ferry. So someone brought us a ferry chair and pushed Bob to the seating area in the front. We were told someone would bring us another chair and help get Bob up the very loooong ramp to the parking area when we arrived. Of course that didn't happen. I had to grab a terminal employee who found a chair and helped get him about ten yards from the ferry then said he wasn't allowed to go further. So there we were with a big suitcase, my ridiculously large shoulder bag and Bob in a wheelchair, and it was now up to me to get everything up that ramp. We couldn't put the bags on his lap so Bob, holding the suitcase handle, had to guide the wheeled bag in front of him while I pushed them both from behind and tried to keep my shoulder bag from hitting him in the head. I'm a gray haired old woman for godsake but somehow I managed to get everything to the car. What a sight we made, and what a relief to get home and sleep in a cool room on my own cushy bed!

New in the garden

Home from Seattle after Bob's surgery and there are things to see in the garden.

Artichoke 

A Polish Clematis

Tag's Iris

Hooper's Iris

Red peony! 

The Studio on Mothers Day

The studio is coming together. Bob has been getting the big jobs out of the way before his surgery so I can at least get working with clay again. I hung old lace curtains in the sunny windows to reduce some of the glare.

Who's that devil behind the studio?

The work area (below).  I need shelving to organize all the clutter.  I love these massive tables Bob made.

 

My old wheel and new stool. Maybe I'll buy a new wheel after all. We put cement board up where I'm likely to splash a lot of clay and water.

And here is my little sweetheart using the bike stand as a pillow. We're only into our sixth month together and it feels like she was meant to be part of our family. A good helper, smart as a whip. If only she could mow the lawn to give me time to work with clay....

Hattie sleeps

Flower Time

This is a rewarding time for us walking around the yard to see new flowers open in all their glory. Our soil is so sandy I'm never sure what will survive when I put things in the ground.

This is one of the red iris in the red bed, though it looks more purple to me. Not complaining. It's beautiful whatever you call it.

This is Unique Marmalade, a rhododendron. It's put on lots of new leaves after a rough start that had me thinking I would lose all three rhodies we planted last summer. What a delight to see a flower cluster, too.

Tag and Hoop's Memorial Garden. This rugosa rose is doing very well, the first of the roses to bloom. It grows in coastal areas and on sand dunes in its native eastern Asia. Perfect for our lot. So pretty with the purple onion flowers. Irises, lavender, sea holly, poppies and ceanothus yet to come.

Studio, Yard and Ducks

We've had a gorgeous weekend, perfect for working on projects. The shed has finally been closed in. Bob goes to hospital for back surgery in less than two weeks so we're trying to get the heavy jobs he won't be able to work on afterwards out of the way. 

We finished the front of the shed (studio) with lots of windows. The sections below the windows will be covered with shakes left over from the roof. The gravel floor is covered with stall mats so I can hose down the floor when it gets messed up with clay and it's pretty comfortable for long periods working on my feet.

UPDATE: The front of shed is finished!

Bob wanted a bottle wall but bottles being hard to come by settled for this small section above one of the windows. The colored glass is pretty with the light shining through.

Warmer than usual weather has done wonders in the yard and I'm excited about all the growth. Here are the ducks in their pool in the raspberry patch. Bumblebees are busy in the blueberry flowers (foreground) awaiting the raspberry bloom when the garden will be alive with all kinds of bees.

The girls are happiest in any spot of water.

A nice shot of the patio with surrounding flower beds.

This is one of the PrairieFire crabapples we planted around the yard in full bloom. This one is in the back yard, another three are lining the drive in front. They'll be spectacular when they gain some size.

Inside the greenhouse with plants, mainly tomatoes and basil, in the ground.

The veggie beds draped in row cover, blueberries in the foreground.

This is the red bed with irises, peonies, fig tree and my favorite peony tulips. Looks like this year we might get a few figs to eat.

The New Dawn climbing rose that was just a twig last year, now loaded with buds. Clematis and delphinium also promising a good flower show this summer.

A shot of the dahlia bed with two varieties of smoke trees leafing out, a Japanese maple making a comeback on the left, and new green leaves of a weeping goldenchain tree we put in a few months ago. There are new plantings of zinnias and poppies for flowers later this summer. The dahlias aren't doing much yet.

That's all for now.