Monday, April 6, 2015

First Weekend in April

Apparently, it was Easter this weekend.

The rhododendron crucified earlier in the week has not yet arisen.

Its limbs and that of the bog corner rhody were hauled to the city's green-waste yard. Unfortunately, they will not take bindweed/buttercup/ivy in muddy matrix, so all I could do was tell my 10-year-old that she was welcome to stomp the hell out of that heap.

I cut some more dead branches from the pear and plum, and a few more live and dead from the NW corner fir. The, spent a fair amount of time reducing said branches to firewood size, all with a bow saw. My neighbor eventually offered a chainsaw, but  there's sopmethign satisfying about the cut of meat-driven saw-blades cutting through wood. Rhythm vs noise, my bones strengthened rather than just shook up. ZZZZh!-huh ZZZZh!-huh, ZZZZh!-huh.

Then, a lovely bonfire.

No new planting this weekend, but I did notive potatoes coming up, blackish purple leaves peaking through the palm-prints where I'd pressed them down a couple weeks ago, like vegetative stigmata.

I also widened the bed around the blueverries, and dumped on another half yard or so of old fir needles and cones.

There was also a fair amount of reduction. Big camellia boughs became stakes and twiggy pre-compost. Fir became a carpet of needly branchlets and firewood. Pear became another carpet (twiggy, but with lichen instead of needles) and future cooking wood. The 'carpets' are spread behind the big pear where foot traffic will break them down and separate the ephemeral from durable (which will find its way to the fire pit as it dries). Stacks of willow stakes and cedar arches went up against the fence. In the end, more space to walk and use, and less clutter.

A mass of weedy sod is growing near the center of the south fence. Not sure what I'll do with it. At my last house, I had a 'grouch' (a grass-couch) around the fire pit, but that's not what I need here.

Weather has been less rainy than usual for this time of year, yet everything is nice and green.

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