Arbor Day

 

The last Friday in April is Arbor Day, celebrated since the late 1800's. In the development push to create housing density, we don't hear much about the loss of so many established yards and trees as Seattle neighborhoods get swallowed up with buildings. 

In fact, the state legislature recently passed a law abolishing single family zoning, except in a few of the wealthiest enclaves (no surprise there.) The developers free-for-all is just getting stared.

Trees have a natural lifespan, but since they can live so long, this is hard to accept. Over 100 years ago, the first settlers in Twisp lined Glover Street with Silver Maples. Over many decades, they grew to enormous heights, creating a canopy of beauty and shade along the hot main street. So taken for granted-- until they weren't. 

I was there last October when massive branch broke off during a windstorm in a yard where children often play. Then, during a brutal ice storm last winter, the largest tree crashed down, severely damaging a house near Amanda and Tom's home. By miracle, no one was hurt in either incident.

The trees were weakened by age and disease, so the city made the hard decision to remove the remaining ones. There are plans to plant new trees, but oh, what a sad and changed sight for years to come. Amanda says almost like a hurricane came through town. 

The best time to replace a tree is long before it dies.

So, finally a weekend of summer like weather and everyone is pretty darn excited. Since it will be in the high 70's, we've been warned to wear sunscreen and drink water. Only in Seattle! 

Have a good weekend.

 

Days to be happy in

 

Days

 

What are days for?

Days are where we live.   

They come, they wake us   

Time and time over.

They are to be happy in:   

Where can we live but days?

Ah, solving that question

Brings the priest and the doctor   

In their long coats

Running over the fields.

A perfect little poem by Philip Larkin. What a vivid image of mortality, with religion to the rescue. 

Yesterday was the warmest day of the year in Seattle, 67 degrees. The first time I've been outside without a real coat. If it gets to 80 on Saturday as predicted, people will be tearing around on the highways, mobbing the nurseries and jumping into cold rivers and lakes. In short, going nuts. The first "hot" day is a  good time to stay home and work in the garden. While listening to the sirens.

Here's some pictures of Nova at the after-school riding program, where she's taking lessons and learning to help the instructors with the younger kids. Remember in March, when we fed "Buttons" in the pasture on that cold morning? Winter vacation is over-- back to work.   

National Pretzel Day

German pretzels are soft and bread-like and come in every imaginable shape and size. Like French baguettes, they're always consumed on the same day they're baked. 

Hard pretzels originated at the Sturgis Pretzel House in Lititz, Pennsylvania. Unlike soft pretzels, these could be stored in an airtight container and snacked on at will. As well I know, if there's a bag of pretzels in the house.

Switching gears, check out this amazing sweater Nova is crocheting, without any pattern! I'd like to take credit, but all I did was show her the most basic techniques a few years ago, and now she far surpasses my abilities. 

Well, it's Wednesday, so I'm off to the Cafe. Duty calls. Frankly, I'd rather work in the garden on this beautiful spring day.

Back to city life

 

A cute photo of the West Seattle Ukulele Players a few weeks ago, all of us bundled up under the heat lamp at C&P Coffee House. Warmer weather is finally just ahead, so I guess we'll start rotating to other outdoor locations like Aki Beach. 

I can't remember ever being "hot" along the shore of cold Puget Sound, but it's pleasant if the wind isn't blowing. In the summer, good luck finding a parking place down there when the beach turns into a Northwest version of Coney Island.

Anyway, back to other routines. Other than a stretch of blinding rain in North Bend (an unpleasant micro-climate, where wet clouds off the Pacific hit the mountains) the roads were dry and still relatively uncrowded. 

The intersection of I-90 and I-5 looked like a massive open garbage dump from the homeless encampments all along the freeway. What a sight, after so much beautiful nature. Welcome to Seattle.

The first 35 miles down the valley from Twisp to Pateros are my favorite part of the drive in early morning. I go about the speed limit, keeping an eye out for deer. I usually have the road to myself, but pulled over yesterday to let two massive RV rigs by going 70 miles an hour. The shape of things to come, when tourist season gets rolling. 

When I pulled up in front of the house, my neighbor rushed over and said, "It's going to be HOT!" 

I said, "Define hot." When it gets over 75 here, the heat whining starts in.

The Twisp Cross

 

The 25 foot Twisp Cross sits on top of a mountain overlooking the town. Lit up at night with brilliant white bulbs, it's visible for many miles around. 

A simple icon left over from the earlier settler days, the cross has been a source of controversy in town politics for many years. That aside, hiking up to the base of the cross is a rite of passage around here, and somehow we've missed it in the many years we've been coming to Twisp.

For one thing, you need the right conditions. I took the hike yesterday with Amanda and Maya on a cool and cloudy afternoon, perfect timing. Without tree cover, this mountain gets baking hot in the summer and of course the trail is covered with snow in the winter. The hills and valleys were just greening up and the first wildflowers blooming. We even saw a pair of bluebirds.

The reward for the long, slow slog is a dynamite bird's eye view of Twsip spread out at your feet. We could clearly see our little homes far, far below. 

Back to big city life today. The big warm up and snow melt is finally getting underway, with temperatures close to 80 here next week. The river will be running high and fast when we return. Hopefully it washes the beavers downstream. Ha ha.

Baby chick day

 

The baby chick order arrived at the local feed store, and we picked up four fluff balls this morning. For now, the babies have a heated box in the garage but will eventually join the other big hens. 

You have to marvel at that tiny spark of tenacious, curious life. Just a couple days out of the egg, transported by plane and truck from who knows where in the country, now imprinting on "The Chicken Whisperer" Maya, who cuddles them into a feet up state of warm bliss.  

In other critter news. With the snow gone, I could finally get down to the river without breaking my neck and check out the shoreline after this hard winter. We're just fooling ourselves, thinking we can ever "own" even a bit of nature. 

The beaver(s) gnawed and felled several of our pretty young cottonwood trees, and apparently carried them away. Gone, except for the neatly severed stumps. There certainly aren't any beaver dams on the Methow River? A mystery. So it goes. Raccoons in Seattle, beavers in Twisp.

Potentilla shrub

 

I did a tough love pruning on the Potentillas yesterday, the closest thing we have to a garden bed. The previous owners planted them along the front of the house, and what a great choice. They can withstand being buried in snow and 30 degrees below zero, plus the deer don't touch them. In the winter, they look like ugly dead tumbleweeds until they come back to life and bloom all summer.

So yesterday was taken up mostly with chores, although I walked to the bakery with my neighbor for tea and had dinner with Amanda and Maya. Tom and Nova were at play practice, going almost every night now that the opening of "Wizard of Oz" is a week away. I had 12,000 steps on my watch by the end of the day, so no wonder I was tired.

The morning had started out nice but then turned into a cold and grey afternoon. Looks like the same pattern today, so I'm getting my bike out early, now that it's safe to ride around town again.

The final traces of the winter quickly disappearing-- the last dying snow berms. It was a hard one, even by Twisp standards.

We're losing patience with this cold spring on both sides of the mountains. I read that yesterday was the coldest April 20th in 130 years in Seattle. But it might finally hit 70 next week. Promises, promises.

Spring along the river

 

I'm watching the deer chase each around the frosty yard this morning-- they're feeling frisky. There's still snow on the hilltops around town, but down here the grass and shrubs are just starting to green up. 

It shouldn't come as a surprise each spring, but somehow always does, when the immense piles of dirty snow disappear like magic, and nature emerges from underneath as good as new. 

It actually rained yesterday, probably because I just had all the windows cleaned. Ha. I talked to a landscaper who will get our irrigation system running in May, also bring in new gravel for the driveway. 

Eric's company is in high demand for big projects in the Valley, so I feel really lucky he has time for our little job. He is the dad of Maya's best friend and also the son-in-law of my good friend Karen who lives just down the street. So I did some name-dropping to get him over. You won’t get much done here without a local connection. 

Are you wondering are there plans for a real flower or vegetable garden? No, plenty of that work in Seattle. Keeping up the deer playground and a wild bit by the river is more than enough.

 And here comes the sun...

Speaking of natural

 

It looks like wild boars were rooting here, but it's raccoons, pulling up moss at night looking for goodies like grubs and worms. The ground is soft and wet, so this won't be nearly as much fun when it finally dries out.

If we had a fine lawn, I'd get more excited. But there was an old container of "Critter Ridder" out in the shed, so I spread the granules around like a party pooper. I went to the hardware store, and a small bag of grass seed was $25. Isn't inflation exhausting sometimes? You start sounding like an old person, "I remember when!"

I'm driving to Twisp today to see what the critters have been up to over there. The snow is gone now in town, but we never had time for fall cleanup so I expect the yard and deck will be kind of a mess.

Natural gardens?

"There are no green thumbs or black thumbs. There are only gardeners and non-gardeners. Gardeners are the ones who ruin after ruin get on with the high defiance of nature herself, creating, in the very face of her chaos and tornado, the bower of roses and the pride of irises."

"It sounds very well to garden a "natural way." You may see the natural way in any desert, any swamp, any leech-filled laurel hell. Defiance, on the other hand, is what makes gardeners."

From, "The Earthman"

Henry Mitchell (1924-1993) wrote a gardening column for the Washington Post for 25 years. Wonderfully opinionated and wise, his weekly essays were later complied in several entertaining books. 

Speaking of natural defiance, consider the plant science and engineering that went into creating these amazing red tulips we take for granted now.

The tulip was originally just a little wildflower from  Central Asia. The Turks started cultivating the tulip around 1000 AD and the flower was introduced in Western Europe around the year 1600. 

The normally staid Dutch went promptly nuts. "Tulip mania" became one of the most famous asset bubbles and market crashes of all time.

 Nothing new in the weather department here, just another cold and stormy day.

Spring in Seattle

 

Everything that slows us down and forces patience, everything that sets us back in the slow circles of nature, is a help. Gardening is an instrument of grace.   By, May Sarton

It seems like ancient history now, but the pandemic certainly slowed us down for a while. I don't know about "instrument of grace," but garden work saved me that first year of lock down.

Despite this unseasonably cold weather, beautiful spring is popping out everywhere. I'm entering the 4th year passing by this blooming street on my walking route, so pretty even on a cloudy day. Looking back on sad and scary April 2020, when a solitary walk (avoiding other humans like the plague) was about the only break from house arrest in Seattle.

Anyway, the trees on this street have probably lightened many heavy hearts over the years, thanks to the generous people who planted them long ago.

What is that old saying?  "The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time is now." 

One nice thing, the tulips last a long time outdoors in this chilly weather. And I always cut a few of the biggest, finest ones for the house.

It rained Sunday (of course) but we were downtown at the Symphony. An interesting program to say the least, it featured a world premier concerto by South African cellist Abel Selaocoe. 

An extremely charismatic young man, the music was accompanied by chanting, singing and audience participation. He whipped our usually sedate afternoon crowd into a rock concert frenzy, getting a raucous standing ovation which he rewarded with a long encore. It was quite something, especially from our fourth row seats.

The epic Symphonie fantastique by Hector Berlioz was on the second half of the program. We were listening to conversations during intermission, and people were actually leaving early, so overcome with the cellist performance that "anything else would only be a letdown" after that experience. Poor old Berlioz, upstaged in Seattle. 

https://www.abelselaocoe.com/

Mary Quant

 

The British fashion designer Mary Quant died this week. She lived a long, interesting life and was credited with designing the mini skirt. Mary Quant totally defined fashion for the 1960's and girls went instantly crazy over her styles. 

No wonder. She took us from long pleated skirts to cool, skimpy sheath dresses. With our young knees showing, everything suddenly felt free and lighthearted, the boys as happy as we were.

Throwaway, cheap fashion didn't exist back then and clothing was still made in America. We went to Lerner shops and Sears only for special occasions, like birthdays and prom dresses. 

Butterick patterns to the rescue, always the trendiest with Mary Quant's darling face on the envelope. Even pure wool and cotton fabric was cheap in the basement of Woolworth, and you could easily sew a dress for under $5. Mini skirt patterns only required a couple yards!  All high school girls learned to sew in Home Ec class.

Friday rolls around again, and despite the frost on the cars this morning, today might be the warmest day for the next week. By that, I mean a high of 55 degrees. Big whoop. Will spring ever come?

John has usually done the first mow long before now, but he's going to give it a try this afternoon. It's a dry day, so I'm headed to Costco. (Because no place on earth is more depressing than a rainy Costco parking lot.) Then we have a Symphony on Sunday to wrap up the weekend.

Have a good one.

Tomatoes

 

I bought two tomato starts yesterday-- pitiful little things for a $5.50 each. And that's Home Depot, imagine what our fancy West Seattle Nursery charges, if you can even find a spot in the parking lot. I used to shop there often, but now it's too overwhelming.

The "Roma" or paste tomatoes are hard to find, so I buy one as soon as I see it.  It's still too cold to plant vegetables in the ground, but the south side of the house is already hot when the sun decides to come out. They won't freeze (probably) but will sit in the pots doing nothing until it warms up. Still, that chore is done, and I hope to get some geraniums at Costco this week.

Oh yes. The travelers are safely home. What an amazing experience for the girls. We had a few minutes with them yesterday and they told us about the exotic French culture and all sorts of incredible adventures, like a jeep tour of Tahiti and swimming with sharks and rays. 

And the beautiful Dreamliner flight on Tahiti Air. The plane wasn't full either way (when does that ever happen?) so the families had two rows to stretch out by themselves with extra pillows and blankets. 

The girls said with wonder, "they even brought us good FOOD while we were flying!" We should all travel with the eyes of a child. 

Mid week already

 

That means my shift at the Senior Center Cafe. What will the day bring?

Stir fry last night with baby bok choy and a pile of mung bean sprouts I bought at Uwajimaya Market on Monday. John does all the chopping for dishes like this now, slowly and precisely, with everything in uniform sized pieces right down to the ginger and garlic slivers. 

I'm getting spoiled, because once the prep is done, cooking just about anything is a piece of cake. With brown rice, stir fry is a no-guilt meal that gets a lot of mileage from a single chicken breast. (Sorry, mixed metaphor day.)

I've been watching the Tahiti flight on the FlightStats app this morning, making the long, overnight flight up to Seattle. Hopefully the travelers are getting some sleep; the plan is to drive back to the Methow Valley this afternoon. That's what I call a long day of travel.

Spring break

 

Looks like a mass exodus at SeaTac this morning, with folks trying to escape this endless winter-spring weather. Those days of "getting there is half the fun" are long gone, so imagine the big zoo inside the terminal, from parking entrance to departure. 

The Methow families have an overnight flight today from Tahiti, getting back to Seattle reality tomorrow morning. 

Maya has turned into a Polynesian girl. The lucky kid didn't get that lovely complexion from the sun-burny German side of the family.

Not much else is new. Today is National Library Worker's Day, so hats off to those skilled, hard-working people. I never worked in a public library during my career, but probably would have enjoyed it. 

My, how everything has changed since the 1980's. Even a simple question then meant a trip to the public library card catalog, or a librarian doing a complicated literature search. And always, those rows of reference books for patrons to "look things up." Now a few taps on Google usually does the trick (or does it?) Libraries are as essential as ever. 

 

Our turn

 

Despite the unseasonably cold weather, the last 2 months have been relatively dry up here. Now California gets a break from the rain, with the atmospheric river aimed north. 

I went for a short umbrella walk yesterday to look at the wet camellias and cherry trees-- no tulips for Easter this year. But I hear the robin chirping away outside, a cheerful sound in the dark. After all this rain, it should be glorious when it finally warms up to 60 next weekend, which is our normal high this time of year.

We're planning to meet some old friends today in the International District for a dim sum lunch. We haven't been to that part of downtown since before the pandemic so hopefully we won't get lost. 

Other than that a pretty ordinary week shaping up. The families come back Wednesday from their Polynesian adventures. Going from Tahiti to the Methow Valley in less than 24 hours might be a shock. But what great memories for the little gang of friends.

Sunrise, sunset

 

A tropical sunset for the memory books, after swimming with the reef sharks and sting rays on Moorea. All smiles no pieces missing. 

Way back when

 

When my sister and I were teenagers, our mom worked as the cook at the Triple B Guest Ranch in Woodland Park, Colorado. Surprisingly, this old dude ranch is still in business, now called the "historic" Triple B Ranch and Event Center.

Looking at the photos, it hasn't changed that much, still with the same 1950's cabins and lodge. Even the bedspreads look the same!

 

 

Marji and I had summer jobs, along with some city girls from Chicago, cleaning rooms and serving the family style meals mom cooked for the guests and staff.

 

The teenage girls stayed in a dorm room on one side of the property, the wrangler boys on the other. Enough said.

We girls did domestic work, the boys were strictly horses and other outdoor stuff, except for one brainy kid who did dishes. One of our jobs was doing the guy's laundry, along with our own. Each girl was assigned one boy's dirty clothes. Sometimes you got lucky. Different time and place, that's for sure. 

We had a ball. We could ride, the food was good and there was even a swimming pool we were allowed to use occasionally. Naturally, there were sneaky midnight swims.

Well. You can just imagine the horsing around on a ranch with lightly-supervised teenagers. Back in those days, most adults were too busy with their own work and lives to pay much attention to kids, unless they got caught doing something really outrageous. 

They say the music we remember best is what we listened to between the ages of 12 and 22. Our brains undergo rapid development during that decade, and the music gets hard-wired into our minds. Even the songs we didn't like much become entangled with memories from our adolescence. 

I'm boring you with this because yesterday at our ukulele gathering we played the 1965 Zombie song, "She's Not There." I'm not crazy about rock classics on the ukulele, but it sure was fun and took me right back to the Triple B Ranch days, hanging out with those friends. That song was a big hit that summer.

What if someone had told me then that almost 60 years later, I'd be playing it on the ukulele, with a group of senior citizens at Seattle coffeehouse? What a long, strange trip it's been.

Easter weekend is here, with soaking rain on the way for us. April showers will hopefully, finally, bring some May flowers.

Have a lovely holiday, wherever you are. 

Tropical paradise

These pictures of Moorea are almost surreal. The two traveling families relocated from their beach rental to this guest house in the mountains. Needless to say, French Polynesia has become a popular tourist destination. Once considered impossibly remote and exclusive, now families from all over the world can afford to vacation there. 

 
Back in the the mid-1990's, we took a cruise through French Polynesia and the Cook Islands on the World Discoverer. We flew from Seattle to Los Angeles to Tahiti, where the cruise started. 

 

Near Papeete, Tahiti, I remember touring the Gauguin Museum on a dripping wet and hot day. We looked at reproductions of his paintings, the originals fortunately removed from the tropical climate long ago. Everything seemed very exotic in Tahiti. 

 

It was the trip of a lifetime. Our small ship could maneuver into tight harbors and narrow channels. It had inflatable dingies that took us to remote shorelines, atolls, beaches and tiny islands along with the expedition naturalists.

 The World Discoverer docked on Bora Bora

 

A happy time for us, but no happy ending for the World Discoverer.  In April 2000, the ship struck an uncharted reef near the Solomon Islands. The very same German captain and crew we had a few years earlier were praised for heroic and professional actions during the crisis. There was plenty of excitement, but no injuries. I remember the serious "abandon ship" practice drills we had on our cruise, which must have paid off.

 

And there the poor ship lies, to this day.

 

I'd like to go back to the South Pacific, especially the Cook Islands. But sometimes it's better just to keep your happy memories. When you return to a special place after a long absence, you tend to spend your time comparing the present to how it once was. I'm sure it's just as beautiful, but with many more tourists.