Old Time Loggers We are Not

Spring is said to be here, but winter rains are continuing way past their due date to STOP. I am holding on to the hope that June will be the end of rains until Fall.

Jim and I decided we needed to grow more vegetables so we took down 3 of our aspen trees to provide enough sun for an expansion for the garden. I made a slide show showing the progress of our garden so far.



As you can see Jim and I are not "old time" loggers from the woods of Oregon. We are transplanted Californians not realizing that we have little control over a falling tree. Lucky for us the damage was minimal. Jim had to replace a section of rail on the boat and paint over a few scratches.

Since the pictures were taken, the plants have grown and I have added more. It is looking more like a vegetable garden each day. I plan to build a gate and trellis for the other opening of the garden. I grow willow for this very reason. Jim has cut the wood and now it is up to me to create leaving the actual putting together with nails and screws to my master worker bee, Jim. It is raining again today, so tomato plants and gate building will have to wait. I am going for a rustic natural look.

I would like to plant a squash plant to climb up the trellis...or maybe beans or peas. I have a whole file of things to build for plants to climb or be supported by. We have two bean supports in the garage ready to put into action. Jim built two that look similar to this:

He was able to use the FREE inter locking pipes I found at Santa Clara, CA annual clean up. I love recycling. If you want a really good time finding treasures, take a truck to the event and then wish you had a moving van.

I also dug in a new bed along the retaining wall near the orchard for tomatoes and other heat-lovers. We suffer from a marine-layer challenged gardening area. We are 4 miles up river from the ocean, but that fog can creep up over the hills late in the day lasting until mid morning. Tomatoes can be either a bust or do really well. We plan to enclose them with a temporary greenhouse of sorts. That plan is yet to be completed.




this beautiful planted area has been reduced by 2/3 to make room for the vegetable garden. Yes, pretty is nice; but food is better!

So many plans and so little time is my problem. I have crawled, hauled, hacked and loaded tons since moving here 13 years ago. We sit in the aspen grove late in the day sipping wine and wondering where the heck we got the energy to create our piece of paradise. Many of the things we accomplished are not possible today with our much older bodies.



We sit right over there to your right in the dappled shade feeling the cool breeze coming up over yonder hill from the ocean. You can agree that we do live in our own private paradise. The dogs love romping around while we work like dogs.

Salmon season opens today, so I will loose my worker bee when the fish find their way off our shores.