Garden Tour Day

Garden Tour day finally here.
Happy. Very happy.
Tired. Very tired.
One hundred and seventy five people in my garden today...

The cherry trees were in bloom. The birdhouse Blackcrag gave me is being loved by the birds.

I love having a stone lantern in the Haunted Garden.

That's me, Spider Girl, your garden tour host today.

It's all cheery and pink by the mailbox.

Some visitors to my yard. Just beyond these ladies is the magnolia tree that I planted after being inspired by my friend Fireweed's tree-planting project. That whole area used to be just a pile o' dirt until a month or two ago. It's come a long way in a short time.

My youngest visitor, who was scolded by her mother after picking one of my yellow flowers. "I thought it was a dandelion", she protested. Easy mistake. :)

So many, many cars parking in front of my house. I wish I got this kind of traffic when I have a garage sale. Actually one fellow stopped by thinking it was a garage sale. He was right disappointed it wasn't. Flowers schmowers.

Tulips!

More tulips! (The bunnies didn't get them all after all.)

The pond and beyond.

I love the driftwood in the background--thanks Nik and Linda.

I'm rather in love with these blue and white pots but they belong to my mom. I'm going to very shortly go clay-pot shopping and get something like them for my very own, you better believe. I love 'em.

This is the patio underneath my wisteria arbour. See the little garden mirror peeking out from behind the honeysuckle vines? A very appreciated gift from my brother.

Anyway, the experience of having all these people here was a very positive experience overall.

Pros:

Compliments.

Hearing people exclaim in delight over something I worked hard on.

Finding out the names of your own plants that you didn't know from experts wandering by.

The enormous amount of calories that must have been burned during one hundred and forty hours of digging, pruing, and weeding in three months.

Meeting other gardeners.

Cons:

Dirty fingernails.

Wearing out the knees in your jeans weeding.

Not being able to resist running up the tab at the local plant nursery.

Worrying about the weather forecast for today weeks in advance. (Mostly sunny, one rain shower that deterred nobody apparently.)

This morning, total butterflies in my tummy!

A Year Ago Today

A year ago today, me and three of my best friends in the world left on a trip to Italy....

(And since all I've been doing lately is working and gardening, gardening, gardening as I get ready for the garden tour (which is finally almost here) I thought I'd post a few excerpts from my travel journal for the next little while........)

Nanaimo:

"Pol is right. It IS only a ten minute ride drive from her place to the place where the sea planes leave. But I am impatient, oh so impatient to be off. As soon as we are on that little airplane, our travels will begin."
"This is my first time in a sea plane. It is a quintessential West Coast experience, bringing to mind old Beachcomber episodes, and all the times I've watched with fascination as float-planes have lifted off from Vancouver."

"It was a fun ride. There was an enormous amount of gentle turbulence, making the plane rock and tip as the crosswinds caught us this way and that. We zoomed over ferry-boats, and crossed to the harbour in richmond in twenty minutes, landing with a splash and a roar in the Fraser River."

Here we are at Vancouver airport, waiting for our flight to Amsterdam.

This is Pol's first experience in a big airport. "So far", she said as she peered around, "it's like being at the mall." She practices yoga tree poses as we wait in the check-in line for KLM.

****

"We have checked our luggage before we realize that although the four of us are all travelling together to Amsterdam, Pol has been placed on an entirely different plane for the connecting flight to Rome...what was our travel agent thinking?"

*****

At security in Vancouver: They didn't seem overly concerned with the recent liquid toiletries restrictions. I overheard one of the security guards drawling sarcastically: " Oooohh, toothpaste! This stuff scares the shit out of me...."

Vancouver to Amsterdam:

The first time EVER that I fell asleep properly on an airplane, with help from a sleeping pill from Pol: "I pulled my hoodie over my head like a blanket and drifted and dozed peacefully (if uncomfortably) for over three hours. I feel like a curse has been lifted, I told my friends."

In Amsterdam:

"Pol set the security beeper off with her watch and got a pat-down which she smiled through. "I have to say I really enjoyed that. ", she told us. The security person also asked what the lump in her back pocket was.

"Yoda."

"Yoda?"

Pol pulled out her faithful little green plastic Yoda.

"Ah! Yoda!"

Tai has brought along her Pirate duck as well, trip mascots of sorts.

The above picture is from the very very end of our long travelling day....but technically speaking it was a brand new day before we actually got there. That's the thing about travelling---the getting there takes a looooong time.

Somebody needs to write a book on the Zen of Waiting in Airports.

Building the Pond and some Garden Photos

So... my brother is officially forgiven for any annoying thing he did to me in childhood...thank you thank you thank you Adam!

He phoned me last week to tell me he'd bring a few rocks over to my house to help me edge my pond. I don't know what I was envisioning, five or six nicely shaped rocks maybe?

Instead he shows up with an ENORMOUS amount of gorgeous river-bed slate that he somehow hiked out of the bush in his trusty rock-collectin' backpack. The amount of brutally- heavy manual labour involved in this favour for his sister staggers me. I am so pleased.

The pond is looking great. It still needs new water-plants and some plantings above and around it, but the rocks are fabulous and the new pump is burbling merrily away.

Me, I haven't written here lately because I've literally been outside gardening any moment I can. Dusk has been falling around seven-thirty lately, but it's still just light enough to wield a pruning saw (carefully) until almost an hour after that.

Things are looking healthy out there, which is good because there are only about three weeks until the garden tour. I found out today that there will be only six gardens on this tour, so no pressure to make this one count, eh? :)

I've been masochistically keeping track of the hours weeding/ digging/compost-spreading, etc. and I've logged over seventy this season. I'm so sorry if I've been neglecting to visit your blogs. I still love you all. Okay, I have to go garden some more now. :)

So I'll just post a few more photos from my project....

My little violets are everywhere..they have a faint and delicious scent, especially if your nose is about two inches above them.

My "Wanda" primroses peeking out from a rhodie bush. One of my favourite parts of getting ready for this tour is finding out the names of some of my plants. I discovered I have one sassy flower called "Brazen Hussy" . I can't help but admire her more now somehow, plastic-looking petals and all.

Pretty blue pulmonaria--- really its other name, Lungwort, doesn't suit it at all. You'd think it would look more pink and squishy somehow...

A shady corner by my garden bench. Things will look more colourful here in a couple weeks, but I kind of enjoy the quietly green look it has now.

And, finally, a pottery fish hanging out by my pond with some anenomes.

My Friend Makes a Good Johnny Depp, yes?

Here's my dear friend Deb, whom I'm spending the holiday weekend with over in Vancouver.

She's looking rather Captain Jack-ish in this photo because it's Halloween, and also because she moonlights as a makeup artist. I think she makes a rather fabulous (hot) pirate.

In this photo she remains suave despite actually being in the midst of calling 9-1-1, having just been robbed at the bank where she works as a teller.

" I've been robbed, matey! Sort of ironic, yarr, being robbed, me being the pirate and all!"

The officer taking her statement had a hard time taking her statement without cracking a smile.

This wasn't the first time Deb's been the teller facing a bank robber.

The other time was a few years back, on Valentine's Day. My friend told me she sometimes wonders if she should perhaps not show up at work on the lesser holidays.

Deb has a massive collection of the tools of the make-up artist's trade, including the The Death Wheel , which is a handy palette of shades designed to make one look decidedly unhealthy and er, dead. So for all my Zombie Pirate costume needs, I now know where to go.

The real Johnny Depp is currently in Vancouver working on a film. He's staying at the same hotel where Deb's husband works as a chef, but he hasn't yet managed to spot the elusive fellow.

Warning: This Post Might Mention Puke

A couple years back I made a post that explained Why I Could Never Ever Go on Fear Factor. I'm re-posting it here because I told Kim I would. Why, you may ask?

Well, let's just say I told Kim all about getting a double handful of a little kid's puke the other day at work. And instead of reliving it again by typing out the most recent incident here, I'll just regale y'all with some of my old musings on grossness. Have a lovely day, dear readers, and after you're done reading, go out and smell some flowers. It's Spring! :)

................................................


Besides the fact that I would never climb out on a plane's wing, bungee jump off a sky-scraper, or ride in any car that goes purposefully airborne (except for that one time in Tai's old Charger), I could never win at a show like Fear Factor because they would probably ask you to eat something disgusting.

Now, embarrassingly enough, I used to enjoy that show because I figured I could at least do as well as the onscreen contestants at the gross stuff like eating tentacles and bugs. I'm not Eval Kneivel perhaps, but I'd always prided myself on not being grossed out by...things.


I mean, come on, I tried worm pancakes in Grade 4 science class, and once I tried (didn't actually get very far to be honest)eating a mouse as a child. WHAT was I thinking, you may ask. Well, thank you very much Mr. Farley Mowat (mmmm, remember the recipe for souris a la creme in "Never Cry Wolf" when he tries out what the wolves are eating?)


Also, I seem to recall some really disgusting "corn" bread made from gerbil food when my dear pre-adolescent friends and I liked to play "We're Lost in the Woods and It's a Survival Situation".

So I hypothetically had a shot at winning if I should ever find myself in front of cameras on that sort of reality show eating or wallowing in something gross. But now I know I've been fooling myself.


Somewhere along the way, my olfactory sense has honed and turned against me. NOW what would I do In a Survival Situation?

The SMELL factor would really be my downfall.

Two recent incidents have led me to this conclusion.Once, several months ago, I opened a small Tupperware container from the back of the fridge. "Hmmm, I wonder what this could be?", I said all unknowing.

By the gods! How could vegetables in salad dressing become a Thing of Satan? The thought of eating this runny lettuce suddenly sent chills down my spine! I would probably die if I had this smell in my mouth.

Suddenly the rat-milkshake people from television had more of my respect (if that's the word).


And today at daycare, just at the end of a sunny pleasant day, my intestinal mettle was tested anew. I heard my co-worker calling out for someone to help her. I went in to the children's bathroom and was met with the sight of one of our kids projectile vomiting. My co-worker was splashed to the knees. The four other children in the washroom were similarly decorated.

There was a tide of chunky pink puke everywhere. On the mirrors, the baseboards, the art cupboard.

Everywhere.

And the smell was a creature all its own.

The other kids and Justine started to heave in sympathy. No, please, no!! If there were going to be six people throwing up, I don't get paid enough!

I helped Justine herd them all out before disaster could strike. She took care of the poor little sick girl. And me, I was on cleanup duty. I waded in with rubber gloves and towels and bleach.When I came out of there,my eyes were watering from the smell.

Bazooka barfing in Technicolor Smell-A-Vision. That'll do it to ya.

And that's why I will never be seen on Fear Factor.

Sploosh

Hmmmm...that's funny...the water filling the bathtub won't warm up.

Hmmm...strange... we don't have any hot water from the kitchen tap either.

Funny how that impending sense of doom comes over you when you're walking down the steps to check out what's happening with your hot-water tank.

Yep. I think the water tank's gone bye-bye. I think SPLOOOSH is a fairly accurate description of the area of the floor in that vicinity.

Sigh, so apparently hot water tanks that are run on natural gas have to be installed by a licensed gas fitter (which is fine by us as we really don't want to mess around with that sort of thing ourselves, do-it-ourselfers though we usually are).

But our tank blew on a weekend and gas fitters charge time and a half for Saturday and double-time for Sunday, so we're waiting for Monday to get our new heater installed by the only fellow who returned our phone calls.

He charges seventy-five bucks an hour which makes me feel like I might have gone in for the wrong career choice, oh, plus travel time and plus eighty cents a kilometre driving down from Campbell River. He seems like a nice enough fellow (gave us the tip to drain the tank ourselves first so he doesn't have to charge us for that time), but it seems like a lot of money that all of a sudden is (ahem) going down the drain.

But, drat it, I need my hot water. Bath-time is just not the same at the moment. *sigh*

Now, if I put the kettle and a large pot on every burner on the stove, heat them up, run them up the stairs and pour them into the tub, run downstairs again---repeat. Well, then I have roughly two inches of warmish water. Ah, woe!

*more tragic sighing*

My Garden Has Been Interviewed

Yes, my garden has been interviewed....and I'll be on the garden tour this May. :)

It almost did feel like a job interview of sorts when two of the local garden society representatives arrived to evaluate my garden, notepads in hand: there were background questions to be answered, inquiries about shrubberies which required botanical lingo to answer (most gardeners do their best to appear as if they speak Latin of course), and garden design questions to field.

Half an hour later, they shook my hand and thanked me and congratulated me.

This despite the fact that:

*despite the crocuses featured on this page, my garden is a squishy, muddy bog this time of year, and anybody who is not a horticultural type will have to take it on my word that those funny pinkish bumps in the dirt will two months hence be glorious peonies

* that I obviously had no clue that the odd-looking plant off in one corner was a Himalayan honeysuckle (and not the What-sit as I have referred to it for the last five years), or what species my ornamental cherry trees might be

*that my sword ferns were looking particularly unruly that afternoon (they gave me some fern-whacking tips)

*that there was a large dead mouse lying across one of the pathways ("I have bunnies too!" I exclaimed brightly)

Yes, they seemed to quite like it despite all that...and I'm glad because I've been working my hiney off out in the yard since I put that application in the second week of February. I've put in about thirty-five hours out there (ahem, not that I'm counting, but I'm curious to how much effort I'm eventually going to expend on this project now that I've committed to it).

And speaking of that....

Who needs the gym, my friends, when you can burn off huge amounts of calories weeding in Spider Girl's garden?

Yes, don't waste your time on the StairMaster people! Free "Garden Gym" memberships for all--- I've got plenty of toning and er, weight-lifting activities around about.

Just ask Jeff about the physical benefits of digging large holes.

He's, er, thrilled that we're on the tour.

Just thrilled. :)