At Sixes & Sevens...

Progress Report

Veggie Garden - August 2008 - 1
Originally uploaded by EphusBailey

Way back on May 18th, I posted a picture of my little, newly planted vegetable garden. 

Look at it now! I'm hopeful I will actually be able to eat tomatoes and squash some time before the weather turns too cold to ripen the fruit. 

Caretaking

HPIM2723
Originally uploaded by EphusBailey

I'm truly enjoying my new garden and there are still times when I feel as though I'm caretaking someone else's garden.  At some point I'm sure the plants will begin to feel more like my own. It is all, I suppose, just part of settling into a new house. 

New

Iris
Originally uploaded by EphusBailey

Part of the fun of owning a new house has been watching the garden come into bloom. Aside from a few stalks of rhubarb and my struggling vegetables, I've planted nothing this year while I await the surprises of someone else's horticultural choices. 

Like these beautiful iris, that have come up by the bird bath.. or these lovely clematis that bloom outside my bedroom window..or the lovely orchid-like flowers at the bottom... 

Complete

Bailey in the Garden
Originally uploaded by EphusBailey

Bailey the Dog and I have reached the end of our weekend, and while I can't speak for the dog, I have entered that blissful state of completeness that comes with having crossed everything off a "to do" list. 

Summer seems to have finally arrived in the Pacific NW, with a tentative sunshine and temperatures warm enough to support short wearing, at least for a few hours in the hot part of the day. Evenings, I am still donning long pants and long sleeves. It is a welcome change from the chilly grey days we have been enduring. 

Yesterday, I completed a 71.8 mile (115.5 km, for readers elsewhere) ride through the Willamette Valley known as the Strawberry Century. I've done this ride 3 times in previous years, opting each time for the 53 mile (85.2 km) route. This year, I decided to be bold and shoot for something longer, and I'm very glad I did. The day started out at a chilly 43F (6C) and warmed to a, well, warm 69F (20.5C) by 3:00 in the afternoon when I pulled into the parking lot. The route turned out to be stunningly beautiful, as spring in the Valley can be, and was made all the more spectacular by an eventually clear, bright sunny day. 

I was a bit tired at the end, a condition brought on, no doubt, by the rather large quantity of simple sugars I ate during the ride, and the generous helping of strawberry shortcake and ice cream the organizers fed us at the finish line. I'm still learning what sort of food I need to eat to fuel a ride of that distance, but after Saturday, I'm fairly certain the cookies just won't cut it. I overheard some report that a guy with a fancy GPS/heart rate monitor unit reported that he had burned 6300 calories on the 100 mile (160 km) route. I doubt I burned that much, and do need to still watch what I put into my mouth, if I'm going to maintain a weight I can pedal around. 

Put a check mark by the item listed as "get some exercise this weekend." 

I woke up this morning with an ambitious list of gardening tasks to complete. The picture below is of my now weed-free courtyard. 

The little spaces between each of the flagstones used to be packed with moss, little flowers and weeds. I spent about 4 hours today carefully digging and scraping and sweeping in order to make the area clean and tidy. 

Another check on the to do list. 

The other tasks weren't nearly as photogenic and included fertilizing, watering, weeding, mowing and shoveling. The result is a tidy yard with considerably fewer weeds than were there when I started out this morning. 

After all this effort, Bailey and I have had several well-earned hours to sit back and enjoy our sunny afternoon and evening. He got a much needed bath, an activity he does not enjoy in the moment, but seems to like after it is all over and he gets a treat. 

Our work is complete! 

Nascent

Nascent
Originally uploaded by EphusBailey

These tiny little plants are the result of several hours of work on this fine Sunday. I've planted cucumbers, butternut squash, delicata squash, yellow crooknecked squash, tomatoes, basil, thyme and rosemary. May it all grow tall, strong and bountiful!

Blood, Sweat and Tears

Garrison Keillor of A Prairie Home Companion fame starts his monologues with, "It's been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon, my hometown....."

I wish I could say the same.

Blood
On Wednesday morning, I got up a 4:00 a.m. to attend a 5:00 a.m. meeting for work. Meeting over at 6:00 a.m., the dog and I ran out the door for our morning run. A block away from the house, he stopped to sniff at a rose bush, yelped, and then pulled his head away. Thinking he had poked himself, I quickly checked his eyes and seeing nothing alarming, we pressed on. Another block away from the house, he stopped again to sniff, and to my alarm, I looked down and blood was positively dripping from his left ear. We made a quick dash back to the house, where I tried everything I knew to get the blood to stop flowing. Apparently, when he pulled his head away from the rose bush, he caught his ear on a thorn.

Dog's ears are highly vascularized, and though the cut was small, it was strategic. The problem was made worse because as the blood colllected on the bottom of his ear, he could tell something didn't feel right, so he shook his head vigorously, spraying blood in a wide arc across the kitchen. I ushered him quickly out onto the back porch, where he continued to bleed and shake. I remarked to a friend that I hoped no one was found murdered in my town, because my kitchen and porch looked like a crime scene.

I tried everything to get the bleeding to stop. At one point, the handiest disposable and absorbant item was a sanitary napkin I found in the downstairs bathroom medicine cabinet, so I sat on my back porch using it to sop up the blood as I applied pressure to my dog's ear. After about an hour, his ear clotted up reasonably, and I took a quick shower and headed to work.

Things apparently went well during the day, but as soon as I got home, Bailey shook his head and the bleeding commenced. I called a friend whose girlfriend is a vet, and she suggested liquid bandaid or Krazy Glue. After an hour struggling with various goopy and drippy substances and an array of bandages I had purchased to replace the Kotex, I gave up and drove him to the emergency vet clinic for stitches.

The stitches are working ok. He is still bleeding a bit when he shakes his head, but the amount is smaller and the clot seems to form more quickly. Meantime, the house is speckled with drops of dog blood, and I'm going to be spending at least part of the holiday weekend scrubbing the house clean.

Sweat
I wrote in a previous post that I've been having difficulty with running injuries. I've had now 10 visits to the physical therapist, and I think we've got a handle on the problem. However, weekend before last I went for a very hilly 65 mile ride. The next day, my hip was hurting terribly. The PT diagnosed an inflamed bursa and taped it up to ease the pain. I went for a ride both Saturday and Sunday this past weekend, 25 miles the first day and 66 the second. By the end of Saturday's ride, I had figured out that my bike seat was about 1/4 inch too low, and was causing the hip pain. I raised the seat before Sunday's ride, and because the ride was more gentle, and I didn't push it, I was able to complete the route with little to no pain, and likely no further damage.

The route was the southern route out of Eola Hills Winery. Eola Hills sponsors rides every Sunday in August through Oregon wine country, and the southern route was especially lovely because by some good fortune, much of the route was freshly paved with smooth asphalt! The weather was perfect: partly cloudy, 75 degrees and little wind. The route featured three wineries, a Buena Vista ferry crossing, and a wonderful salmon BBQ at the end. A special treat for me was sighting a coyote poking its head out of a corn field.

Tears
I didn't actually cry, but as I wiped dog blood off the kitchen for the umpteenth time, I sure felt like it. I missed a couple nights sleep, what with the dog baying at the lunar eclipse and his late-night trip to the vet. Missed sleep, combined with a packed work schedule and a final trip to the PT resulted in a pretty stressful week.

To top it off, I was trimming bushes back from the house, and found insect holes in a piece of my siding. I've got Orkin and a contractor coming tomorrow to start taking care of the damage.

Geesh! What a week. Here's looking forward to a long holiday weekend and (hopefully) some extra sleep!

Roses Bouquet

Roses Bouquet
Originally uploaded by EphusBailey

These lovely roses came from my garden.

White Flowers

White flowers
Originally uploaded by EphusBailey

"A Lilac bush and an Apple tree Were standing in the woods, Out on the hill above the town, Where once a farmhouse stood. Broken dishes, piles of boards, A tin plate, an old leather shoe. And an Apple tree still bending down, And a Lilac where a garden once grew." Kate Wolf

This tree grows on the north side of my house, and I haven't a clue as to what it is. My house was built in 1910, and I like to imagine that it was planted by someone who lived in my house a long time ago, like the lilac and apple tree in the Kate Wolf song by the same name. It is probably my favorite shrub, and I look forward each year to this display of snowy white blooms.

I Beg Your Pardon

Eden
Originally uploaded by EphusBailey

June is rose month in Oregon, the month when Portland celebrates the Rose Festival. My own yard has a number of roses that I've collected over the years. Growing roses in my home state of Virginia wasn't a pleasure, what with the Japanese beetles and assorted musts and rusts. Here in Oregon, growing roses is a treat, and I can't seem to kill them! This year, they are especially beautiful, including my lovely Eden rose growing at the corner of my carport. I've put a number of rose pictures up on my Flickr site for you to enjoy.

Moses Supposes His Toes.....

Climbing Rose
Originally uploaded by EphusBailey

I spent Saturday of my three day holiday weekend gardening. Gardening is one of my passions, and I get to indulge all too infrequently. This climbing rose is named Eden that I purchased from Heirloom Roses in St. Paul Oregon 2 years ago. It is the only plant (out of that 6 I've tried) that has thrived in the spot at the corner of my carport.