Garden

end of season

Friday, October 1st, 2004

There are still a few apples and pears on the trees, but they are well passed prime. We didn’t harvest much this year. Just let it all fall and rot. We had a big harvest of apples and pears, or we would have if we had time to pick them. The cherries just didn’t produce. Seems like there was some sort of leaf blight and there wasn’t much fruit. But maybe the squirrels and jays just got the cherries before I even saw them.

Oh, there were tons of blueberries too. We ate lots of them and gave some away, and still the bush had a ton of berries shriveling by the end of the season.

potato harvest

Wednesday, November 2nd, 2005

Two weeks ago, Julie dug up our blue potatos. It might have been a little late, because some of them were getting soft. Still, we got about laundry-basket full and they taste great. It is amazing how different homegrown vegetables taste. It is a bigger difference in taste than the difference between standard vegetables and organic vegetables.

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peregrine falcon siting?

Monday, September 12th, 2005

A few days ago, I heard a ruckus in the backyard. It sounded like something was distressing the swallows and sparrows. It was easy to see what they were concerned about because it was right there in the middle of the cloud of their swooping and squawking. falcon? Elliott and I ran around the house looking for the best vantage point to get a picture, but each window in the house seemed to have pretty much the same view. falcon? What do you think? Is it a peregrine falcon? That’s my best guess.

We sat and watched it for about half an hour before it flew off to the west. The biggest park in the area is to the east of us.

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bird sightings from our yard, claradendruns

Tuesday, August 9th, 2005

Recently Julie and I hosted a baby shower. While all the guys were hiding in the backyard, I spotted a bald eagle flying over our house. Very cool.

And on the way into work one day, I interrupted a hummingbird feasting on our firecracker fuschia.

Have I mentioned that I’m regretting creating a garden that is so bird-friendly? For a week or so, we had crows at dawn screeching relentlessly. I think it was immature crows yelling for food, because it looked like they were regularly fed by other crows. I can’t really tell by looking at them if they are young or not… they were all the same size and color.

They just took up residence near the bird bath and squawked. Hopefully they are gone for the rest of the season.

Also, I should note that the claradendrun trees in the neighborhood are all blooming now. They just opened up the blossoms last week or so. Even our newly planted tree is blooming. I have to make sure to get in lots of evening walks past all the claradendruns for the rest of the summer. There are about 4 trees we can sniff within 4 blocks of our house.

And strangely, our apple tree is sprouting a second round of blossoms. We already had one meager crop and had one great pie, but now the tree is blooming again. I don’t think it has done that in the past.

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sprinklers

Thursday, March 31st, 2005

We just had a week of non-stop rain. If that keeps up, we might just beat this drought. It is a pretty wacky place that can be worried about the lack of rain after 7 straight days of it.

And what better thing to do in a downpour than install a sprinkler system. In just two days, the crew dug trenches, set the pipe, and we ended up with three zones of irrigation in just the front yard. (The backyard sprinklers will have to wait until the wall is done.)

I didn’t really want a sprinkler system in the front yard, but it just seemed so reasonable to put it in at the same time we were getting irrigation in the backyard. I can’t say that I’m likely to use it. I like how the dry summer weather stunts the growth of the grass so I don’t have to mow as much. Who cares if it gets a little brown? Grass is supposed to be brown when it is hot and dry. It isn’t going to die or anything. But there it is. And it is a good thing that we had someone digging around in the front yard… they found a leak between the water main and the house that we’ve been paying for for ages. They said it was a big leak too. About a gallon a minute. I’ll be looking for our water bill to drop 50% if it really was that big of a leak.

I’d normally have some pictures of the Ditch Witch and the pattern of the pipes so I could find them again later, but our beloved Canon Powershot S40 pooped out. (The lens tries to deploy when you open the lens cover, then it stops and beeps three times and shows an E18 error on the LCD. I’m guessing it is dust or sand in the lens mechanism.) I was left with the dilemma of repairing the camera for between $150 and $500, or picking a new camera to buy, or getting an upgrade from Canon for $230. It probably would be smartest to just buy a new Canon SD20. That’s the light, simple, point-and-shoot Canon. It makes sense. It would be easier to use than our clunky S40. But in the end, I opted for the upgrade to the S60. That’s another clunky, complex Canon. I couldn’t bring myself to give up all those options that I almost never use. I like occasionally fiddling with exposure and focus and depth of field. Even at the expense of not being able to fit the dang thing in a pants pocket.

So I’m still a happy member of the Canon family and I think their upgrade program is really smart. Even though they couldn’t tell me when my S60 would ship. And even though they are likely guilty of an astroturf campaign on the Newegg customer reviews (too many Canon customers tend to sign off their reviews with the phrase “Go for it!”).

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rain

Thursday, March 17th, 2005

Rain last night. I think it was safely after the cherry blossoms were set, but it may mean a bad year for apples and pears.

The dogwoods, lilacs, and wisteria are just starting to bloom now.

In other news, I just read that sea lions are coming up the Columbia, looking for food. Some were seen near the Sandy river eating a 5 foot sturgeon. That means that the thing I saw in the Willamette near work could have been a sea lion. How cool is that? Big mammals in our river!

   UPDATE: I talked to one of the biologists at work and found out that California sea lions are known to come up the Columbia and Willamette as far as the barriers of the Bonneville Dam and the Oregon City falls. He said it is a little early in the season to see them.

   RE-UPDATE: One of our biologists captured this footage of a sea lion in one of the fish ladders at Bonneville dam.

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apple blossom time

Monday, March 14th, 2005

The apple tree is just peeking out a few blossoms now. The cherry tree is loaded with blossoms and it has been dry and sunny — I’m beginning to have really high hopes for a good cherry crop this year. I just need to get some sparkly ribbon in the tree to scare the birds off.

There is always the danger of a frost since it is still so early in the year, but it is hard to be too scared when it is 70 degrees and sunny.

The pear looks like it is ready to start putting out blossoms too.

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cherries and daffodils

Sunday, March 13th, 2005

I forgot to mention when the daffodils came up in our front bed, but yesterday they pooped out. They had been going strong for about a month. The same day, our bing cherry tree popped out a whole bunch of blossoms. We learned from Henry that there is a four day period during blooming during which the fruit is in danger of being wiped out by rain. I suppose that could have happened in the last few years to cause our meager harvest.

Henry also gave me a couple tips about pruning so I can go after the dead wood and suckers in our pear, cherry and apple trees.

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landscaping begins

Wednesday, March 2nd, 2005

Today, work began on a complete make-over for our backyard. We expect the digging, leveling, cement removal, oil tank removal, wall-building, and planting to take about 6 weeks.

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pruned dogwoods

Friday, February 11th, 2005

Even though it seems like it might be too late, I went ahead and pruned the front dogwoods. It only took about 10 minutes to do the deed I’ve been trying to prepare for the last 2 months. The end result looks pretty good. I just hope that the trees didn’t lose too much energy in the pruning.

The decorative cherry trees in the neighborhood are blooming already.

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Leaves fall

Thursday, November 18th, 2004

Last Friday, Nov 12, was the day when the most leaves fell in our yard. It was the day when the last leaves fell from our under-watered dogwoods, and the first half of the leaves fell from our Japanese maple.