The battle started without me

Here in our neck of the woods, I’m trying to decide if spring is late like it is everywhere else, or if we’ve skipped spring altogether and gone from winter to summer. Whatever the case, I have weeds in my flower beds that I’ve never seen before. They’re like weed versions of cicadas–they hide until the proper conditions, and then they pop up out of nowhere. One day you have holly bushes and mums, the next day there’s a 6′ weed that looks like Queen Anne’s Lace. I’ve already pulled it out once, and it came back stronger than before. I’m almost afraid to pull it again. We thought the honeysuckle by the driveway was out of The Little Shop Of Horrors, but this beats it!

The other flower beds aren’t much better, and my strawberry patch needs to be mowed. The good news is the bushes we planted in the back of our yard have grown a foot this year. The bad news is, they need pruning.  And they’re taller than me. That’ll be fun.

To say I have work to do outside is an understatement. The trick will be getting out to do it between bouts of rain. We’ve had 7.6″ in the last ten days, and there’s more in the forecast. We’ve been stuck in this weather pattern for nearly two months. It rains buckets and the creeks flood, then we have 3-4 days of sunshine, the creeks settle down, and it rains again.

I’m not sure whether the trick to all this is figuring out when I can get things done or the order in which to do them. I tend to overthink things. Anyone out there have gardening advice? Easy ways to get rid of weeds? Is it the outdoor version of flossing first vs. brushing first, or is it jump in and do something?

Frankly, I think my father-in-law’s philosophy on gardening has merit–rocks and native plants. Of course, he lives in Arizona, where HOAs don’t prohibit xeriscaping. My neighbors won’t appreciate it. And we did just buy a new lawn mower…

Mood Lighting

We have woods at the back of our neighborhood. Last Thursday I took my camera for a walk and detoured into them for a little while. It was cloudy, trying to drizzle and about 55*. I went back out this afternoon because the weather is so lovely–sunny, cloudless sky, 75* in the shade. These have not been retouched, by the way, except for the second set, which were only cropped. The lighting is exactly as I took it.

Not bad. A little lonely.

 

But add a little sunshine, and look what happens.

 

These two might appear to be different, but they’re the same place. Above, there are two trees broken and leaning. Below, the front one had fallen. Not surprising, given how windy it’s been lately.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Taking a break

I took a break from conference prep the other day to take advantage of the relatively cool weather (it was only 90*) for some rendezvous prep. We bought a new tent and wanted to practice putting it up, plus Eric and the Boys built a bed and we wanted to see how much space we had left with it inside.

Our new tent is marquis style, and we found it much easier to put up than a wall tent. If you’ve never put up a marquis before, this is how you do it.

First, schlep all the pieces out of the garage.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spread the roof out on the ground and get it as square as you can.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next, you raise the corners, securing the poles with two ropes and two stakes each. Don’t tighten the ropes too much.

 

 

 

 

 

Arrange the ground cover. (We didn’t when we were practicing.) The center pole goes in next, followed by the rest of the side poles. Ours has three on each side, but the number varies with the size of the tent and the manufacturer. Each of those poles gets one rope and stake.

 

 

 

 

After that, it’s just a matter of putting up the side curtains, which hang from a rope that goes around the inside, under the scallop. The drooping side curtain in the picture was done on purpose, by the way. That’s 18th century air conditioning. Hopefully we won’t need that when we go to Ohio next month!
We do have a fly (the tent name for an awning) that we’ll attach when we get to the rendezvous to give us a shaded outdoor area. It was too hot to mess with it Sunday. We attached it but didn’t stake it up. I didn’t get a picture of the bed, but it does fit with plenty of room to spare, so if we have a rainy day we won’t be packed in like sardines.

Total time to put it up, including carrying everything around the house to the back yard, was about 90 minutes. I think it took about half an hour to take it down, and probably another 20 to 30 minutes to wrap up the ropes and carry everything back to the garage. Since we’ve practiced, we’ll likely be faster next time, and the hardest part will be figuring out how to configure the walls so our doors and stove hole will be positioned correctly.

The other thing we didn’t put up was the shower, which is basically four poles, eight ropes and stakes and a pair of cross beams at the top wrapped in canvas. It’s about two feet by two feet and stands behind the tent. It’s not strictly necessary, but it is nice to have when you’re in camp for a week. I’ll have rendezvous pictures to post closer to October, including (hopefully) plenty of pictures of our vow renewal ceremony (henceforth referred to as The Wedding).

So, this is what I do for fun! Well, this, but in petticoats and stays. What do you think? Too crazy for you?

Newport research, part 3

The last house we saw was Kingscote, which is one of very few examples of Gothic Revival architecture in the U.S. It’s also the oldest of all the Newport mansions, built in 1839. It fits the term ‘summer cottage’ better than any of the other houses. Never mind the fact that the stable had more square footage than my house!

 

 

 

 

 

From Kingscote, we went to the Green Animals Topiary Garden, which was ten miles or so north of Newport. It’s not only the oldest topiary garden in the U.S., it’s also the furthest north. The topiaries were started in 1905. They’d only been open for the season a couple weeks when we were there, so some of them were a little shaggy, but it was still fun to see.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I thought the basket of flowers was especially fun.

 

 

 

 

 

The house had a wrap-around porch with rockers, so after walking in the garden, we stopped for a few minutes to enjoy the view.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our last day there, we drove to Woods Hole, MA and caught the ferry to Martha’s Vineyard. This is the hotel in Edgartown where we had lunch.

 

 

 

 

 

Then we walked down a path between wild roses

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

to the small lighthouse,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

where we took in the amazing view.

The best part of Martha’s Vineyard? The two new story ideas I got, of course! Getting three books out of one research trip will give me some extra bang for my bucks. Now all I have to do is write them.