Plant Sale

Today, there was a plant sale next door at Elaine's, run by her friend Valerie as a benefit for the high school swim club.  Valerie lives in Black Creek but thought she could make a better sale here in Seymour.  It took a week to set up, collecting plants from Elaine and Valerie's gardens, as well as mine.  There were hundreds of plants, in dozens of varieties.  

When I woke up this morning, Valerie and her husband were already setting up, so I took my cup of tea and helped out by hammering signs into the ground that indicated the kinds of plants that were for sale.  As I worked, I thought about what I should buy at the bargain price of $2 per each perennial plant, but I had several problems.  I already had almost every plant. I didn't have any room in my gardens.  I am leaving for Laura Lake on Monday and am running short of time.  I told Valerie I would wait until she was done for the day and if she still had creeping phlox, I would buy it to put on the terrace strip, which Gary and I agree should be planted with various ground covers.  It was a mess since the city made me dig up all the flowers last year.     

Chris and Tisha brought Evan over to celebrate his seventh birthday. We went out to eat, opened presents, then Tisha and I went over to look at the sale again, but when she looked at my gardens, that was where she found the plants she wanted.  It didn't seem to be a nice idea to go digging plants when there was a sale going on next door, so we agreed she would come back next week.  

Meanwhile, Debbie, who lives on the other side of my property, asked me to come over on a consultation. Debbie has gotten most of her flowers from me over the years.  A year ago, she started a shade garden.  First, she wanted me to identify a couple of plants.  As it turned out, Virginia watersweet and comfrey had wandered over from my yard.  We also discussed what plants she might plant there, then she went over to the Elaine's and bought them.  

I went back to the plant sale at 4:00 pm, and there were still two pink creeping phlox plants left.  I bought them and that's when I realized that Valerie had gotten them a year ago from my terrace strip when the city demanded that I dig everything up.  They had moved to Black Creek and then come home at a cost of $4 to me. 

Oh well, the swim club can use the money.  

 

Paths

Three years ago, I had cataracts removed from my eyes and new lenses implanted.  It was after the first surgery that the doctor said no gardening for a month. He could have mentioned that beforehand.  It was May, and the second surgery came along in June.  That made two months of weeds growing and nothing I could do about it.

Two springs ago, I had a damaged knee.  I was walking with a cane and wore a knee brace.  That was a second year of weeds,

Last spring came with rain and rain and rain and more rain.  By the time the gardens drained, we were in the middle of camping season and I was soon off on a six week tour of the west coast.  More weeds in my garden.

Finally, a good spring, and I am in good shape, but the thought of what I must accomplish is overwhelming me. Three years of neglect makes for a big job.  I finally decided to go at it by working on the paths first, then working into the plots.

The gardens are surrounded by paths.  There are three gravel paths, four brick paths, one tile path, and the rest of the gardens are surrounded by grass trails.

For the past two days, I've worked on the gravel paths, clearing them and working on the flowers on either side, weeding and planting.  These are the two I've done so far.

There's so much more to do, but in these two places, there is serenity.  The rest of the gardens will follow. 

***

Wade Peterson's story, "The House that Sang" is now at Black Coffee Fiction at http://blackcoffeefiction.blogspot.com

Next week, it's my turn again. 

Physical

I had my yearly physical this morning.  I seem to be healthy though the blood work won't be done until tomorrow.  I don't expect any surprises.

I am supposed to get a mammogram, but I am putting that off until the end of camping season and start having it yearly during the winter. I had to return from a camping trip for this physical and I didn't like it.  I'd rather do maintenance when nothing else is going on.

What surprised me is that I am now 5 feet 7 inches tall.  I was 5'9" all through high school and up until a year ago I had only lost an inch in height.  I must now accept that age is shrinking me.

Getting shorter doesn't bother me except for one thing.  When I was tall, I could figure my ideal height was somewhere around 145 pounds. I was thinking I should lose thirty pounds.   Now that I am two inches shorter, I figure it's more like 135 pounds, and I'll have to lose forty pounds to get to my ideal weight.

During his physical, Gary found out his bad cholesterol was high and his good cholesterol was low.  He had high blood sugar, too.  He is counting calories now.  

Time for both of us to get serious about losing weight.  

Good-bye to Laura Lake

I'm usually the first up.  I go out to the cook tent and set water to boiling while I got down to the lake to see who's down there. This morning it was the loons, with the mallards off doing something else.  A kingfisher was grouchy, as usual. The robins are singing their hearts out.  And the sun rises to a new day.

I have only eight minutes before the tea kettle starts whistling so I walk back up the hill.  I get our tea made and wake Gary up.

It figures that now that the sun is shining, I have to leave. I have a doctor's appointment, a meeting, the garden to work on, a plant sale, church, and a performance before I can return here on Monday afternoon.

Before I go, I take another hike down to the boat landing.  I have a friend who tells me she only hikes on paved trails.  To me a paved trail is just another sidewalk.  I don't even care all that much for the trail that goes through Seymour.  It is graveled and smooth and goes straight on an abandoned railroad bed.  The trails I love look more like this one.

I go down to the dock, watching my steps carefully, using my walking stick to balance myself on the shakiest ground.   I take note that another camper has arrived in the low area we call the Flats.  Three of the thirty seven campsites are filled. 

I leave Gary still working on improving the camper.  It will be cold tonight, so he'll have more blankets to snuggle under.  

I'll snuggle with Rascal Cat and wonder how Gary is doing. 

Rainy Day

We take the days as they come.

I knew when I drove up here to Laura Lake that rain was forecast through Wednesday. Yesterday's sun was a bonus I didn't expect but today it has been raining on and off since midnight. Other than one quick walk to the boat landing, we've stayed inside the camper. The sky would clear, we'd get ready to go out and do something and just that fast, it rained again, never a hard rain, just sprinkles.

When it stopped there were brief amusements. During the winter, whenever we came to the bottom of a peanut butter jar, we closed it and put it aside, never scrubbing it out for recycling. Now the jars are being expertly cleaned, one at a time, by the Chipmunk Waste Not Want Not Society. In two days they've cleaned out one jar, which has been replaced by the next. These aren't the chubby little chippies of last fall. They've been in their dens all winter and now are sleek and ready to spend their summer begging from the tourists. They are still wary, and don't come near us, but by summer's end, they will be sitting on people's knees begging.

Gary put out bird feeders as soon as he arrived and this afternoon we were rewarded with rose-breasted grosbeaks, two males who fought some over the territory, and one female who let them duke it out for her favors. He put some corn down by the lake where our two mallards hang out. There are three loons on the lake this year. We think one must be one of the babies from last year.

We read, we talk, we eat, we play with our computers and listen to the rain. Gary did some research and decided that the yellow flower I saw yesterday was bellwort. I finished the Life of Pi and started on a Nevada Barr mystery, one of the Anna Pigeon series.

This evening, to avoid the damp and cold cook tent, we went to one of our favorite spots, Stony Ridge, for supper. Though these days, we seldom eat red meat, we pigged out on cheeseburgers and I finished up with ice cream. I have a doctor's appointment on Thursday morning and expect to be told to lose weight, so this was a last hurrah for a while.

We rejoice that we have been away from phone calls from politicians. Today the primary election will be over, but we still have another month of Walker recall madness, followed by months of Presidential politics. Wisconsin will be one of the battleground states, so we expect to be deluged. Our only hope is to camp in places with no cell phone coverage as late in the year as we can.

We keep wondering about the neighboring campers. There are thirty-seven campsites at Laura Lake. Gary was the first to arrive and take site 22, which has a good canoeing bay, the right amount of sun for his solar panels, and sufficient foliage, once the trees finish filling in, to give us privacy.

There were plenty of sites, all but one empty, so why did they take site 23?

Wade told me last winter that when he finally found a quiet spot to read in an unopened restaurant on a cruise ship, suddenly people showed up and sat in the tables all around him until he gave up and left. Do people look for other people with the idea of safety in numbers?

We don't mind the neighbors, but isolation is what we really craved.

But we take the days … and the situations … as they come.  

Laura Lake

Only ten minutes out of Seymour heading “Up North” and tension I didn't even know I had is slipping away, as if I were shedding a skin. Fifteen minutes from Laura Lake and I am mellow and happy. Driving into the campsite, I become euphoric. I am home.

Gary, who arrived yesterday morning, has the camper set up save for sheets on the bed. We make the bed together, me inside and him on the outside working through the bottom of the pop out extension. It is the easiest way to do this.

It has been overcast and cold all morning, and I am tired so I take a nap, a deep two hour sleep, and wake up to sunshine and a warming day. Gary has been busy improving things, putting up the cook tent, and setting up folding chairs next to the fire pit. He has been trying to make a fire but after days of rain the wood is far too wet.

He has the sage I gave him a while back and he sets about smudging the area, not so much to rid it of mosquitoes, since there aren't any but to rid us of evil spirits. We've never had any at Laura Lake so it must work. He has sweet grass, too, and later will burn some of that.

The deciduous trees are just beginning to leaf out this far north. The forest floor is still covered with last years leaves. In perhaps two weeks they  will disintegrate and the world will be fully green once again.

Kevin, the Ranger, stops by. His cancer, discovered two years ago, is in remission, he tells us. Two years ago, he had to have a kidney removed. We know all the rangers and keep track of them so are glad to hear he is doing fine. He tells us that there has been no bear activity here lately, good news, I suppose, though we like the bruins when they wander through. Not so good are humans. He tells us somebody for some unknown reason stole a pump handle from the Bear Lake campground. Worse, on the far end of this campground, someone put a deer carcass in a dumpster. It probably stayed nicely frozen for the winter, but now with warm weather is smelly. Not a nice job for the National Forest Service.

A chipmunk who may remember us from last year pays us a visit but we have no peanuts. Instead, Gary puts a dollop of peanut butter on a rock. Chippy likes it but has to keep coming back to lick it. There is no way he can store it.

We go to the Corner Store in Armstrong Creek to get some dry firewood and get information. We want to go out to eat tomorrow and found out there is a Taco Tuesday special at a local pub and grill.

We come home to have stew for supper, then I take my walking stick and go down the trail to the bog. This is a real trail, with many roots, leaves and deer tracks. It curves and twists so there is always the possibility of meeting up with something big, scary and interesting. Not today though.

The belted kingfisher screams at me as if to say, “How dare you set foot in my territory.” I tell him the house wrens in my back yard feel the same way when I am there. “What's your point?” he screams back. “I've been coming here for almost thirty years. I have some a right,” I say.

He screams again, and I get the message. What is a paltry thirty years compared to the millennia he and his ancestors have been hanging around these parts? I move on.

The trillium are in bloom as well as a yellow lily Gary must identify for me.

The blueberry bushes are loaded with blossoms so there should be good picking by June. The bog is calm and still.

I would like to sit there for a while and take it in, but the sun is going down. I don't want to walk over those roots in the dark.

The hermit thrust is singing in bell like tones. Gary is about to light the fire. Tonight, we'll look at the stars and perhaps see the moon, so close to earth.

All is right with the world.

Rain

My plans to join Gary at this afternoon were spoiled by the rain. 

He took off early this morning before the thunderstorms hit and drove as fast as he could, pulling his camper to Laura Lake, where we always begin our camping year.  

When I convinced Gary to go camping with me for the first time some twenty years ago, it was to Laura Lake, in the Nicolet National Forest.  He fell in love with it.  We begin and end our camping season there, arriving with the loons in the spring, and leaving when the leaves fall in the autumn.  In between we go from one national forest campground to another, because we are required to move every two weeks.  We usually take a break from camping in July when the campgrounds get too busy. 

I was to follow him in my own car after church, but by then it was raining hard in Seymour, and he called to tell me it was the same there.  He hadn't been able to open up the fold out bedroom sections, so he would be sleeping on the couch.  It didn't make any sense for me to go until tomorrow morning. 

I couldn't work in the garden or take walks, so I did the next best thing.  I took a long, long nap.  Then I completed my packing.  I am taking many, many clothes, everything from swimsuits to long underwear,  which will stay in the camper for the summer. 

This summer, Gary invested in Internet service so I can continue the blog wherever we go.  He put in a new TV antenna, so we will have better reception. My cellphone works in most national forests so we can connect with the world. This is not the way I camp when I go out on my own, but I suppose it comes in handy on rainy days. 

Gary just called from site 22 to tell me he was the only camper at Laura Lake all but then another family, and a noisy one at that, showed up and sure enough, camped in the site next to his. 

So maybe rain is a good thing that will drive them away.   

Tomorrow I leave at 9:00 a.m.