The Black Dog

There is a doggie boutique on Nantucket called "The Black Dog". Their logo is a big black Labrador Retriever like my Juno.

One of my colleagues at work brought me a large gift bag back from her recent vacation at the Cape, and she knew I would like it because it looks just like someone I know!

What do you think? Is there a likeness?

Facelift for a Pergola

My pergola got a new coat of Country White paint today. This paint job was long overdue, and the warm, sunny day helped the paint dry quickly. It now looks like a fitting entrance to the 'large Maltby room' portion of my yard.

Impatiens and Coleus

The impatien/coleus basket I got at the Farmer's Market last weekend looks great in my galvanized tub and stand. It's a perfect welcome to my garden shed.

The Finished Shed

Here is the final picture of the shed today after painting the interior, floor, and exterior trim. The bells and the galvanized tub are from our trip to the beach last week.

Painting the Shed Interior on a Sunny Day

I've been waiting weeks for a warm, sunny day to paint the interior of the shed. It involved taking everything out of the structure, and placing the items on the grass. The goal: to paint the beamed ceiling, install wood strips at the beaded board seams, and paint the plywood shed floor. As an added bonus, I managed to paint the trim on the outside of the shed a Country White color that is used for the house trim.

It looks beautiful, especially when all of the furniture was moved back inside the freshly painted structure. My new mini-Boom Box played The Grateful Dead music, and Bob Dylan's hits from the 60's. Music always makes the work go smoothly!

I spent part of the afternoon sitting in a lawn chair, admiring my work. What a relief to have this finished.

One more shed project before October 1--the shed exterior is primed only, and needs to be painted before the Fall weather begins.

Solar Garden Lights

My neighbors Steve and Mary gave us three solar garden lights, which I promptly 'planted' in the raspberry patch. There is a hummingbird, a dragonfly, and a butterfly light in the pack.

The black disc stores up sun during the day, and then powers the lights, which turn red, green and blue after it gets dark. With three lights, it looks like a mini-psychedelic event in the berry patch for the frogs and slugs! Very cool! I have such great neighbors.

The Beginning of Summer

Here is a great piece by Deborah DeWitt Marchant that perfectly sums up my mood in the summertime. It's a time to work in the yard and garden, but also a time to sit back with a good book, put your feet up for a moment, and truly savor life in a way you can't do during the other three seasons.

The Sea Birds Cry

We have a small collection of wonderful artwork that has been collected over a period of 40 years. There is a wonderful photo by Deborah DeWitt Marchant, who we met at the Bellevue Art Fair a dozen years or so ago, and various large photographs of France, the Rock of Gibralter, and various Southwest scenes. One of my favorite small photos is of bread fresh from the oven, cooling on a sideboard in South Carolina. All of these pieces have been picked up at art fairs, galleries, and small studios, and we have met all of the artists.

We recently inherited a large 18x24 inch serigraph by Elton Bennett, a famous artist from Hoquiam, Washington. It's called "The Sea Birds Cry", and it is a scene from the Washington Coast, Bennett's only subject. In his short career as an artist, he created thousands of pieces, with a goal to never charge more than $15 per piece, enabling the common man to own original art.

This scene of the beach has been in the family for over 40 years, and it's incredible to experience the colors and recognize familiar sights so common on the coast.

The art that one lives with brightens the home. Each piece appeals to the senses and the imagination, gives pleasure, broadens ones knowledge of other minds, and manifests a vision of the spirit of a certain age (in this case, the 60's).

Without art, without music, without awareness of others, of differences, one is not quite fully alive. Living with art is a part of that full use of one's mental and physical capacities that makes life, and that can also be called happiness.

The Cherry Harvest

Tonight we picked the rest of the Rainier and Bing cherries. The rain has been hard on them during the last several days, so we tried to get as many off the tree as possible tonight. The rest of them are now left for the birds to enjoy.

Fuschias

The fuschias are thriving this year in the cool, damp climate. Now they are getting enough warm weather and dryer atmosphere to have a growth spurt, and I've never had fuschia baskets of this size and beauty before. This is my favorite purple/pink variety, and it has so many blooms that you can hardly see the green leaves!

Vacation Shopping

I love going to new places on vacation and finding things that can't be found anywhere else!! I found this cool galvanized container with a stand, and I used it for my new flower basket I bought at the Farmer's Market today.

It looks great outside my new shed, along with my galvanized antique watering can and bucket.

Bells from India

These bells were found in a shop at the beach, and they were made in India. The various combinations of metal alloys in the bells and the wood used for the bell-ringer inside the bell were developed over many years by Indian artisans. The sounds these bells make are very beautiful and subtle, with many overtones audible when they move in the breeze.

They have pride of place at the door of my new garden shed.

Roses At the Farmer's Market

Here's a picture of the Flower Lady selling her rose bushes. They were lovely, and she had every color imaginable. This was also a great shady place to rest and have some ice cream!

Home Again to a Different Kind of "Slow Life"

Today dawned clear, sunny and hot, and we headed out this morning to the Lake Forest Park Farmer's Market. It's our favorite neighborhood market in the summer, and we cruised through all the booths first before committing ourselves to any fruit, vegetables or flowers.

The apricots from Marysville were our first purchase, and then I moved on to the gardeners selling plants. I got a lovely large hanging shade basket of coleus and impatiens, and two bouquets of flowers, one for the French dining room in red, orange and yellow colors, and one white bouquet filled with "Goose Dust", a flower I had never seen before.

We finished with Blackberry ice cream and lunch at Third Place Books. It was a perfect afternoon, and a great way to finish up a wonderful vacation. I'm glad to get back to my version of The Slow Life.

Community Fire Pit

Each small neighborhood at Seabrook has a community fire pit, complete with benches and dry wood. We all have our marshmallow-roasting equipment, and the ingredients to make "S-Mores" with marshmallows, chocolate and graham crackers.

What could be more perfect on a clear summer night than the smell of wood smoke, children laughing, and this ageless treat?

A Beach Cruiser Bicycle

I love my Beach Cruiser bicycle, and it takes me on miles of rides while I am at Seabrook. I pedal up and down the many hills, and cruise through Beach Camp, Beach Promenade, and the cottages built as replicas of the many small dwellings built on the coast in the 1930's to house loggers and their families.

I survey the new developments from my bike, and it reminds me of the balloon-tire bike I had as a kid growing up in the city. There's nothing like a bike ride to make you feel young and free again!

Changing Weather at the Coast

The Washington coast is a treasure trove of beautiful places to see, with long sandy beaches, views of the coast stretching for miles, and sea birds crying. The beach grass is battered by the winds, but has adapted to the climate here and fluorishes. The weather can change in minutes, and a single day can create many different types of micro-climates.

I've been coming here all my life, and as the years pass, I grow more enamored of the sand and surf, the pounding of the tides, and the pull that the ocean has on us human creatures. It's a place you can really think, and get in touch with your hopes and dreams again while escaping all of the things that distract us.

Slow Living on a Covered Porch

This is a great place to really kick back and enjoy yourself! No more thoughts of the outside world, just this small, cozy world by the beach in the middle of the work week. Summer pleasures extraordinaire!

Lilywalk

Here is a shot of a portion of the Lilywalk neighborhood at Seabrook. Lilywalk is made up of about 15 homes/beach cottages built in the last 9 months. They wind around the area of Seabrook that gradually slopes down to the beach by way of the dense forest.

There are future plans to build behind Lilywalk, so we are enjoying the view of the greenbelt while it is still there.

The Beach House--"Beach Music"

Here is our lovely beach house, named "Beach Music". It's in the Lily Walk area of Seabrook, and has two bedrooms/two baths with a covered porch, visible here in this shot taken from the path that runs along the greenbelt at the edge of the development.

The covered porch (or 'sunroom' as I like to think of it) is a great place to eat breakfast, read, or just kick back in the bentwood recliners and take a nap.

There's nothing like a week in the mid-summer to kick back, forget about the real world, and de-compress. Beach living is a worthy goal for us all!

Strange Patterns in the Sand

I loved this shot of the early-morning beach, and the patterns in the sand created by the ebb and flow of the tides. They look a little like ancient dwellings in a strange land.

A Week at the Beach

I look forward all year to time spent at the Washington Coast. This last week, the cold and dreary weather was left behind in Seattle, and the Slow Life began anew at Seabrook, WA. Driving to Pacific Beach, the sky got lighter, and the sun came out and stayed out, making everything look brighter and newer, flecked with mist. As the days passed by, the clouds were fewer and the sun got brighter and warmer.

The first sighting of the ocean for those of us who are 'land-locked' is always my favorite moment. The ocean is always there, waiting patiently until I get back to it, and we catch up on all the news and changes during our time apart.

Musings on a Picket Fence

I had always dreamed of having a white picket fence surrounding my home in the country. So when I finally got a home in the country, it had to have a picket fence.

The prospect of a fence was pretty dismal when I surveyed my new home in 2001 and saw 4x4's cemented in the ground at the property line with chicken wire stretched over them. This was really the country, I thought, and started planning and plotting how I could get rid of the chicken wire and livestock gates and put in a real picket fence.

Fortunately, my son and his fiancee announced in 2004 that they would like to get married in our backyard, so I had approximately 10 weeks to make the fence happen.

Over the following weeks, I cut off the 4x4's, removed the chicken wire, painted the posts, bought 8-foot sections of picketing, and starting nailing brackets and putting the fence together. Then came the job of paining the fence white--a 90-foot section takes a lot of time to paint on both sides. But I did it! I finished one week before the wedding.

Over the last 7 years, the fence has held firm, and I touch it up every two or three years (this looks like it will be the year to do this). I love this fence, and it has stood firm against the weather and still delights me after all these years.

Nature

"Nature will bear the closest inspection. She invites us to lay our eye level with her smallest leaf, and take an insect view of its plain." --Henry David Thoreau

July: The Fruits of Summer

Here's flowers for you; hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram,

The marigold, that goes to bed with the sun,

and with him rises weeping: these are flowers

of middle summer.

--William Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale

Wherever our gardens grow, July brings in all the bounty of summer. The colors are delicious. Gardening attunes us to the vast range of the color green, as the single word seems so inadequate to describe all of the different hues.

The grass and clover are a bright spring green, while the arbor vitae along the road and picket fence are forest green. The moss is sea green. Backlit by the sun, the leaves are jade green and emerald green.

Medieval theologians saw green as the color of rebirth and eternal life, believing that it nourished both body and soul. During the month of July, let the lushness of our gardens and the color green nourish your soul and delight your eyes.

A Basket of Strawberries

I've never had a strawberry basket before, and I bought this one at Flower World. The berries are ripening nicely, and the birds seem to be leaving the fruit alone at this point. I snapped this picture to remember this lovely plant in its summer prime.

St. Francis, Patron Saints of Animals

St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals and ecology, was a Roman Catholic saint who took the gospel literally by following all Jesus said and did. There are many images of him that have been drawn showing him standing among the birds and animals, his arms outstretched.

This lovely statue stands in my front yard among the rhododendrons and the barberry bushes. Birds are always near, and the cottontail rabbits run by him as they pass through the yard. I like to think that St. Francis welcomes all who pass by, people and animals alike.

We Learn From Our Gardens

"We learn from our gardens to deal with the most urgent question of the time: How much is enough? ---Wendell Berry

New Tires for the Riding Mower

Finally, after a month of waiting, our new riding mower tires arrived in the mail last week and the repairman showed up this morning. Even though it was before 8 a.m. on a Saturday morning, we were ready!

This mower is 25 years old, and came with the house when we bought it 10 years ago. We not only got new tires, but also new rims. While the repairman was here, he did an oil change and checked the carburetor--all is well.

I've been mowing the pasture with the gasoline push mower, and had to break it up into three days worth of work. Now, as I write this, I've just finished the whole pasture in less than 40 minutes.

I LOVE this mower! It looks great for its 25 years!

Cherries and Raspberries

The sun came out in the afternoon, and it was time to pick the cherries and raspberries. The ladder was a big help to reach the high branches, and we picked as many as we could today. We'll share some with the birds, too!

The raspberry bushes are loaded with fruit, and the 70 -plus degree weather will ripen them very quickly. The next few weeks will be our own personal "Maltby Raspberry Festival". I always share with the neighbors, and truly have enough of the berries to support the whole neighborhood.

A Great Day for Golf

Yesterday, my son Dave took his daughter Kaila golfing in Mukilteo. They live right on a golf course, which makes it easy to put on golf gear, grab the clubs, and go.

It looks as if the golf clubs were a little unwieldy as Kai tried to keep up with Dad!

Flower Boxes

My uncle gave me three flower boxes that once resided on his lovely deck at his home in Silverdale. My aunt would fill these with bright spring flowers at the first sign of good weather.

The three containers are now fastened to my white picket fence in the front yard, and are filled with English Ivy and magenta-colored geraniums. This particular planter hangs above my female Skimmia bush, and they make a nice pairing looking south from this part of the property.

Every time I tend these containers, I think of my aunt, gone for three years now, and once again I am reminded how much I miss her.

Roses Climbing a White Picket Fence

This particular red climbing rose is about 8 years old, and I ordered it from Jackson & Perkins Roses online. The bare-root rose bush arrived looking like a broken, brown stick. I stuck it in the ground, and hoped for the best.

It lazily climbs the fence each year, with red blooms poking through to the gravel lane that provides access to the other four homes in our neighborhood. The roses greet all who walk by, and provide a lovely scent as we lean over the fence to talk to our neighbors.

Impatiens, Tropical Beauties

The impatiens flowers commonly sold at nurseries in North America are hybrids and are treated as annual plants. They are native to tropical Africa and easily damaged by frosts. In Africa, they are perennials and bloom all year long.

These vibrant-colored flowers thrive in warm, shady environments, and are excellent as borders along the lawn. During peak summer months, they can double and triple in size and cover a considerable area.

I love these flowers in baskets, and I found this one at Flower World in Snohomish last weekend.

Julia Child Roses

The roses struggled through a very cold winter this last year, and are not quite as hardy as last year. However, the yellow blooms are still brilliant and abundant, and they are reaching for the sun as they climb up to the fence and pergola. They are by far the most resilient roses for the Pacific Northwest climate. I need to make a trip to the Antique Rose Farm in Snohomish soon to get a few more to add to the yard.

Raspberries Are Ready!

Here is the first crop of raspberries to be picked this weekend. They are about one month late this year, but the crop looks like it will be a large one.

The Berry Patch

The raspberries are thriving this year, and the 10-year old blueberry bush is a new addition to the 'berry patch'. The lush green bushes make a nice screen between the new garden shed and the fenced backyard of the house.

I'll be getting my berry boxes out this evening (old wooden ones like I had when I was a child) so I can start picking the raspberries for jam, pies, and home-made raspberry viniagrette dressing for summer salads. "Raspberry Time" denotes mid-summer, warm and sunny weather, and hours spent reading a book in a shady part of the yard.

Ladybugs In the Garden

Ladybugs are beneficial insects in the yard and garden, and eat many other insects that harm gardens and crops. They are fascinating to watch as they walk or fly around our properties. Each Spring, one solitary ladybug makes its way into the house and onto my bedroom window ledge. I like to think it is the same ladybug each year, heralding the spring and summer season, and calling all gardeners to their upcoming tasks.

I found this ladybug wreath for my garden gate at Country Village, and it lends a spark of color to the raised beds of vegetables. It joins the red geranium baskets on the garden fence, and the red William Shakespeare rose between the rhubarb and the gladiolas.

Beans and Squash and Corn--The Three Sisters

My Three Sisters Garden (corn, beans and squash) has been a challenge this year in our cool, damp Pacific Northwest climate. The corn is being eclipsed by the beans, which need less sunshine to grow than the corn. The squash is struggling with multiple onslaughts of slugs, but the beer-traps seem to be working, and I think the 3-inch high squash will make it.

However, the beans will climb up the trellises and produce a good crop. You can see how well they are doing in this picture.

Next year, I will plant the corn about four weeks before the beans and squash, for much better results!

Thoreau's Journal

Thoreau began a journal at the suggestion of his friend, Ralph Waldo Emerson on October 22, 1837. Thoreau was just 20 at the time and his journal writing continued for the rest of his life. His first entry began with this: "What are YOU doing now?" he asked. "Do you keep a journal?" So I make my first entry..."

For those of us who keep a journal, and who find solace in the natural world, Thoreau's Journal is an inspiration. The quote below tells a little bit about what was on Thoreau's mind when he began this innocent bit of writing that eventually became his best work.

"I write to set down such choice experiences that my own writings may inspire me and at last I may make wholes of parts.”

Here is a quote from a reviewer of Damien Searls' book about Thoreau's journal.

"Walden is surely one of the greatest American books. Whether we measure it by its influence on the lives of its readers, by the precision of its language, by the number of memorable sentences it contains, or by its sheer originality, it stands almost alone. Yet the Journal that Thoreau kept from 1837 to 1861 may be even greater. Though he began it as a kind of commonplace book and a workshop for his “real” writings, Thoreau eventually came to view it as a work of literature in itself.

The Journal is different. In some ways it feels like a greatly expanded version of Walden itself. The pond appears in all seasons, and the bulk of the Journal concerns Thoreau’s life within the boundaries of the village of Concord. But the Journal is funnier, more playful, more tolerant of ambiguities and contradictions, better able to explore matters slowly and from all sides, better able to express Thoreau’s doubts and fears, and better able to encompass and express the rhythms of nature."


--Review by Geoff Wisner of Damien Searls' "The Journal of David Henry Thoreau"

A Bouquet of Summer Flowers

I cooked a lavish, Slow Food dinner for my best friend Liz and her husband last Saturday night, and she brought me this lovely bouquet of pink flowers. The color pink has many meanings in our friendship, and she knew I'd be thrilled with this large bouquet of lilies, Gerbera daisies, and carnations. The stems of eucalyptus send a subtle fragrance through the house.

These flowers set the tone for the grilled Sockeye salmon with an Argentine rub, fresh local asparagus, potatoes, an organic green salad, appetizers with fresh grilled red peppers and Kalamata olive tapenade, and a White Zinfandel. Dessert was a fresh Strawberry Rhubarb pie with my last bunch of home-grown rhubarb, and local Maltby strawberries. We topped it all off with ice cream from the Snohomish Ice Cream Company.

Fuschias

The first fuschia, Fuchsia triphylla, was discovered on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola in 1703 by the French Minim monk and botanist, Charles Plumier. He named the new genus after the renowned German botanist Leonhart Fuchs (1501-1566).

There are over 100 types of fuschias, and during late Spring and early Summer, you can find baskets of fuschias at most garden stores. There are also varieties of fuschias that are used for borders, and make beautiful color statements in any garden.

This year I have five fuschia baskets, and it is a labor of love to take care of them. They need some sun and a lot of shade, and need to be watered almost daily in hot weather and sprayed with a fine mist of water to prevent the leaves from burning and turning brown.

They are worth every minute of care they are given, and in perfect conditions, they can double in size by the end of the summer season.

I've found compatible locations all over the yard for the fuschias this year, and this fuschia in the picture resides in my front yard shade garden, hanging from a branch of my Asian Pear tree. You can see my garden angel peeking out from the English ivy on the garden bench below the basket. The white picket fence that I built creates a great backdrop for my ivy, roses and hostas.

Party Central at the Shed

My garden shed was transformed from a place to plan my gardens and flower beds to a place for guests and family to congregate this weekend! I swung the double doors open wide, propped them open with galvanized buckets full of petunias, and turned on the radio to 60's oldies. We relaxed in sling-back linen chairs, enjoying dessert and soft drinks and lemonade. There was a nice breeze to cool the afternoon, and it was fun to enjoy all of the shrubs, trees and flower baskets.

There are two bird feeders hung from the back rafters of the shed, and there were a lot of sparrows, robins and bluejays enjoying the seeds. I LOVE this new shed! It's turned an unused corner of the yard into a great place for creativity and fun.

The South Side of the Shed

I got around to planting some flowers and hostas on the south side of my new shed. The gravel we hauled in from Clearview keeps the dust down, and makes a nice place for the bistro table and chairs to rest.

It's fun to go around the back of the structure, where there's a tiny little area that might become a small flower garden one day. My gardening tools rest there now, waiting for me to find a rack to hang them on. The great thing about a garden and a shed is that the projects and new ideas never end. There's always a task waiting to be done, an improvement to be made, and at the end of the day, something has always been accomplished.

The Garden in July

Things are looking good in the garden once July arrived! The warm temperatures and light rains created good conditions for seeds to come up, and my Three Sisters Garden is doing well. The peas are winding their way up the poles I've provided, and the thyme and rosemary have taken over a large part of one raised bed. I planted some Scarlet Runner Beans along the side of the shed, and they should take over the trellis in that area.

In the foreground of this picture, you can see some extra containers I've planted with cucumbers, tomatoes, and mesclun salad mix. I'm hoping it's not too late to get some of these plants to come up and transferred to the bigger raised beds. Keep your fingers crossed that conditions in my favor will prevail.

Rainier Cherries

The cherries are almost ready to eat this weekend, and we sampled them today when we were out in the yard with guests. Their red-yellow fruit was sweet, and the birds evidently have not noticed them yet. I'll try to pick them this week at the height of their flavor. I can't think of anything that evokes the feeling of summer more than fresh, ripe cherries!

Hostas

Many years ago, when I moved into this house, I sent away for a dozen hostas from a nursery in the midwest. I planted them all in the Fall when they arrived, and they all came up the following Spring. Over the last 9 years, they've grown and spread out all over the yard. I've really enjoyed having something so beautiful in the shady areas of my yard.

This is what they look like this year in the back yard, nestled under this beautiful fuschia basket, next to the armillary sphere my aunt brought back from Copenhagen years ago. It's a lovely corner of the yard in which to enjoy a cup of coffee on a busy afternoon.

The Deck--A Summer Escape

I love my deck, and the privacy it affords me on a warm summer day. The clematis has grown over the deck and up the side of the house this year, creating a lovely screen. The hanging baskets and the planters on the deck add to the effect of a private, cozy room. The Adirondack chairs always look welcoming, especially when adorned with pillows made from vintage fabric enbroidered in lovely old thread. I'll take Thoreau's Journal out there one evening this week and learn more about his Walden escape, where he spent so much of his time writing and thinking. We all need a place of our own to relax and listen to our thoughts.

Wind Chimes Made from Silverware

I love the sound of these windchimes when the breeze kicks up on the deck. It's a clever idea, and they look nice hung near my large hanging basket. Its soft sounds lull me on warm summer days as I lounge back in my Adirondack chair, inhaling the lovely scents of all of the shrubs and flowers.

Strawberries and the Bird Condo

A bird family moved into my new large birdhouse made of salvaged barn wood that I bought at the Antique Rose Farm in Snohomish. I hung a basket full of strawberries above the birdhouse, and the strawberries were disappearing for a while. Evidently the birds moved on, and the remainder of the berries are growing and turning ruby-red. I picked one this evening, and it was firm and juicy. Lots more are on the way!