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Edging My Way into Gray

The past two summers I wore a lot of black. In fact I probably wore mostly black.

I have nothing against black, I even like black. But hot sunny summer days call for something a little lighter and brighter. I do like color and I like to wear color.

I would say that I wore black because that is what I had, and it is true at least in part. I had black, black fit, and I didn't have time to shop. I also didn't want to have to think about what I was wearing.

Perhaps I was not at a point where I was really ready to let color back into my life. But that is not really what I want to talk about today.

I don't want to wear black this summer. At least not mostly black. So I am slowly edging my way into color.

Edging, because the world is mostly gray, wet, and cold and I am adapting by wearing mostly navy and gray with touches of a few other colors.

Edging because I still have found limited shopping time and I only want to buy (or make) things that are perfectly what I want and make me happy. Most of the things I have ordered have been sent back as they were not right.

These things are old and beloved. They make me happy and if they are not quite redolent of spring, they are not quite suited to winter either. I love the color, the texture, the combination of prints: a simple silk tee, long sleeve, with ruching on the sleeves. A tunic I picked up at Urban Outfitters a few years ago, and exception to most of what I find at Urban Outfitters: Japanese cotton crepe in two patterns. The top is tunic length on me but I think it was sold as a dress. I find it perfect over jeans with a turtle or a tee. I am trying to wean myself from the turtlenecks, but it a slow process, that baring of the neck, much like weaning myself away from black.

May 6, 2009
A misplaced X

The Eleanor Roosevelt knit-in was loads of fun and really a nice way to spend a wet dreary Sunday afternoon.

As seems to have been the rule last week, I came unprepared and frazzled. I had my yarn, and I had the block I had knitted previously, but I forgot my camera and forgot several other things. I also paid no mind to what I might be knitting once I arrived.

Namely I just never thought about the idea that a block could be something other than plain stockinette. Of course once I was actually there and started looking at what everyone else was knitting it occurred to me that it might have been nice to think about doing something interesting with my block before I actually started.

Instead I just winged it. I thought I would put a cabled X in the middle of a simple stockinette swatch with garter stitch borders. A pretty simple idea really. I think I should be able to come up with something more interesting on the spur of the moment, but the simple truth was that I couldn't.

For the most part, it worked well although I didn't quite finish the patch. I could have stayed later. A few women were hanging in to finish and I only had about an inch of garter stitch to go. But by that time I realized that I had missed in my off the cuff attempt placing the cable motif at the center of the block; it was about an inch too low. I decided to rip and restart, saving the block for next year.

This is apparently going to be an annual event. One intrepid knitter brought in 127 blocks. I have no intention of competing with her, but I think that I can manage a few blocks for next year. It would be fun on occasion, when I want to play with a pattern, or for those days when I want to knit something (anything) and don't have a project at the appropriate stage. Blocks are also small and portable and a good way to use up some of the yarn left over from knitting hats and scarves for the children at the city schools.

May 4, 2009
Tulips for Spring

The tulips are a bonus this year. These were all planted two or three years ago and I am amazed at the large, lush, vigorous, and sweetly scented flowers of the white tulips. I will have to plan to include this variety in the landscape plans, not merely in the cutting garden. There are few tulips that can manage three seasons of large blooms.

There were enough tulips for a large vase for the neighbor in celebration of a 50'th birthday, and a smaller vase for me.

May 4, 2009
I Must Knit This

I was toodling along various pathways on the web yesterday and I came across this sweater:

I was obsessed. I must knit this.

The spring Anny Blatt and Bouton d'Or books came a couple of months ago and nothing really caught my fancy; not that the designs were bad, there was just nothing begging to be knit.

This sweater is in Anny Blatt Horst 13, the Horst series are not included in my "subscription" to Anny Blatt books and I often forget to look for them.

When I found this, on Yarn Market's new Knitch Magazine I was obsessed with finding out what it was and where I could get it.

The book and the yarn are on their way to me even though I won't be knitting this until cool weather beckons again.

It struck me, as I clicked "buy" on my computer that until Thursday I hadn't bought any yarn since February; and now here I am on a mini buying spree of sorts.

Otherwise, nothing much has been happening. Nothing has been finished although the "to be blocked" and "to be completed" piles are growing.

Oh I take that back. I finished a block for to take with me tomorrow for the Eleanor Roosevelt Knit-In down at the Roosevelt Historic Site. We are knitting blocks for Warm Up America, and I have one to knit while I am there.

May 2, 2009
Thoughts on how we “read”.

As I was outside on the deck yesterday, brushing and pressing stain into the rough-hewn siding that is the lower part of the privacy fence on the more public side of our deck, I started thinking about reading and the various forms that the words "reading" and "book" are taking in modern life.

What am I talking about? I refer to the audiobook, the digital reader such as Amazon's Kindle, and the plain old fashioned book on paper.

I admit I am a lover of books. There are a couple of thousand books floating around my house and I love them and I struggle occasionally with the idea that I don't really need to keep so many books. But I do often go back and flip through them and read occasional pages. Many books are read and reread in their entirety. These books are like friends, offering new insights with each reading. But most of them are not rare and I could theoretically get them from the library. Many of them are products of their time and are not necessarily available on a whim. Perhaps I have them because I like being able to call on them when inspiration calls. But I also like their physical presence. I like curling up with a book. I like feeling the paper in my hands. When I want to go back to a particular passage, I tend to remember the section or chapter which contains the passage, but I also tend to remember its position on the page. But that kind of memory is unreliable. Position on a page is different for each edition of a book, each iteration of which may be shorter or longer, larger or smaller than the copy I read.

Perhaps because I am such a lover of reading for its own sake, I have never really adapted to audiobooks, although I have friends who love them and plow through them in great numbers. I know people who listen while they drive, clean house, work out, commute to work etc and etc. Personally I am too easily distracted to listen to a book and drive. Popular music is good for the car because I really only half listen, but for me at least, a book might be too distracting. I would either lose the content of the book or lose track of what I was doing, which is quite dangerous. But I do listen to audiobooks. I was listening to a book while I was painting. I have listened to books on the train to NYC while I knitted, and I listen when I am in the yard weeding or doing other simple mindless tasks. I listen if I am walking on a treadmill, but not if I am walking outdoors along the wooded path near my house. Walking in the woods requires its own contemplative silence. But I don't sit and listen to audiobooks. I can read many times faster than I can listen to anything, and given my choice I would rather read.

We as humans have a long history of listening to tales and stories. After all, before the printing press most people could not read, the transmission of history, poetry, religion,and story was all oral. People would listen to favorite tales and stories over and over and commit them to memory. In some sense, having a book on paper allows to absorb more and perhaps remember less. After all we can always find the poem or passage that struck us as so meaningful. Perhaps in some sense a book acts as an external memory device. If there were no books, we would have to commit everything worth knowing to memory and that would limit the amount we could know. So books have helped advance civilization and society. Perhaps audiobooks advance it yet another way in that they allow us to "multi-task" and "read" while we are doing something else, like painting the deck. In that sense I can see how they are a good thing. But I can't really relate them in my mind to books. It is not as easy to go back to a favorite passage. If I listen to a book that is of the moment I am happy. Otherwise, if I perceive the book as having more lasting value, I still need, or at least want, to own a copy that I can refer back to and look up passages and read and read again. And of course there are those books that require complete attention whether one is reading or listening. In those cases I prefer a book, again because it is easier to go back and read and reread important passages. So I guess I see audiobooks as a supplement to reading, a way to expand horizons and knowledge, but not really a replacement for books. They serve a purpose and are quite useful. After how much of what is read is really of permanent interest or value anyway?

Perhaps I am giving the audiobook short shrift. It is perfect for certain situation. I would rather borrow or buy an audiobook than buy a paperbound book that is destined to be tossed when I am done; and I am not so naive as to believe that all the books bought and sold in this country are recycled and reused. Have I missed something important? Please, if you see it differently let me know.

And then there is the digital book. I adore my Kindle. It was pretty much love at first sight and I continue to find reading it compelling. There is that instant gratification aspect of the kindle, the way I can read a review of a book and with luck it is in my hand a few seconds later. A kindle is also small and portable and about the size of a paperback book. It is not too heavy to read in bed, or on the exercise bicycle like some hard cover books. If one is interrupted by the telephone or the voice of a loved one, one don't fumble to save the page. The Kindle always remembers. The kindle will hold many books and storing digital books is far less space intensive that physical cloth and paper books. I can mark passages of note and automatically upload them into a word document without having to write them out by hand in a journal or type them into my computer, saving time. With its variable fonts I can set the type size on my kindle so it is perfect for me. I am never moving the book further or closer, or trying to peer below my bifocals or get the print perfectly in focus. I even prefer reading the newspaper on the Kindle. Best of all, I can curl up with a Kindle anywhere.

For all that I adore books, I am increasingly thinking that digital books are a fabulous resource. This technology seems somewhat primitive though in some ways. Amazon has a kind of digital location to mark the position of text in a Kindle book. But this does not relate in any way that I can ascertain to other books. Google is digitizing books. There are online sources for digital versions of profosseional, academic, and scientific journals. Perhaps I am being incredibly naive and hopeful but having access to the world of books in digital form seems very promising and empowering. What if there were some universal library that everyone could access? What if there were some standard reference point for locating positions of text in various media? I can imagine reading a book in my Kindle and immediately being able to access he authors reference materials and expand my reading if I wished to do so. This will perhaps be a long time in coming. But it seems like the promise could and should be there.

In the meantime, there are lots of books that don't need to be savored and reread. These are perfect for the Kindle. Reading a new novel, a book about current events, even a newspaper is immediate and compelling. Perhaps devices like the Kindle might revolutionize reading. After all, it has been done before. Gutenberg revolutionized how books and knowledge were created, read, and accessed. Perhaps we are due for a new revolution.

Talking to G the other day I realized that there could be a perfect confluence of visual and audio use of books. Audiobooks can bring books to the blind for example and also to the elderly. G often complains that he cannot read as long as he used to. He hasn't really adapted to the Kindle yet, and he doesn't find the mechanical voice of the Kindle's audio facility easy to understand. But I think there is hope here. I can currently read a book on my kindle or on my Itouch. I can read it or listen to it. I wonder if there is a hope of a perfect world where one can read a book or listen to it, picking it up at will, switching between mediums as needed, and always being able to coordinate one's location and communicate this to others. That may be too much of a dream.

And by the way, I don't think books will disappear for a long long time. There will be those who love books for their own sakes, those who collect books. But most readers don't save or collect the books they read. Most books are not printed on quality paper, most books are not made to last, and most don't have any lasting value.

If a device like the kindle encourages reading and makes it more compelling and immediate for more people, we have made an advancement. The important thing is not the paper itself, but the content, information, and wisdom that has been transferred and saved. If the goal is a literate society, all of these improvements should only help everyone achieve that goal.

May 1, 2009
Early spring nest building

It seems that the birds are not the only local residents who have been building or renovating their nests this early spring. My neighbors have also been busy.

I live in a small neighborhood of homes built in the late 1960's and early 1970's. They were all built by the same builder and although there are variations on the ranch and raised-ranch style homes, few of the homes appear similar and there are even a few relatively daring departures in style. This was the first neighborhood built by this developer, their first homes in fact, and they were obviously still "finding" their style. Of the things I like about the neighborhood is that it does not entirely, at least from the position of my home, look like a cookie-cutter suburban neighborhood.

But a few things are changing. The house above me was definitely in need of some repair and this winter the house was resided and the deck rebuilt with new railings. This is a good thing and it looks all new and shiny and nice.

And yet I quibble. The house itself is not distinctive: a variation on a raised ranch or split level (I haven't been in it in about 20 years), it could disappear in any neighborhood. What I liked about it was that it had the same T1-11 siding as my own house and several others in the neighborhood, and a cantelevered deck, also much like my own house. I liked the clean look of the siding with its vertical lines, and the deck with its minimalist apearance. Since I see this house everyday from my sewing room/office window I want it to be something I enjoy looking at.

Now I appreciate that the cantelevered decks are a problem. Many such decks built by these same builders have proven to be unstable in recent years and it did need to be repaired and replaced with some kind of supporting structure. And I fully understand that vinyl siding is so much easier for the homeowner than wood siding, and if one is going to really take the siding issue seriously, one needs to order the heavier grade of T1-11, (which took months for my own house).

Nonetheless, although the newly sided house looks lovely, I wanted something more contemporary to look at. The horizontal seams of the vinyl siding, the white colonial-plastic railings, and even the windows all look so mundane and "every house".

And why should I care? Isn't it pretentious of me? Well I suppose it is. The new double hung windows make sense (all the windows were replaced) although they completely change the style of the house. Even as I understand that these new windows are easier and probably more practical (and cheaper than large single panes of double-glazed sealed windows that open out in their entirety and were heavy and cumbersome to use) I miss the old house. Stylistically it was nothing new but even so, it flirted with modernism. It had a bit of style, whereas this house is just another house.

Perhaps I would be more pleased if they would build a deck around the pool so I didn't look up at its underside everyday, or perhaps cleaned up the downed trees that litter the hillside below their house, but which I did try to eliminate in this photo.

I wish the view from my window was of the house of my neighbor below. I have heard the work going on down there as well but it wasn't until I was down the hill cleaning brush and directing some tree removal that I really got a chance to see what they were doing. The downhill neighbor did a lovely job, and in fact I wish I had been that creative with the siding of my own house even as I acknowledge that the same treatment would not be suitable.

They have the same T1-11 siding as I although you can't really see the vertical lines of the siding on the photos, even if you click and blow it up, which I can see clearly IRL. I am impressed by the way they have taken the necessity of having a horizontal piece of lumber masking the seam at the top of the house to mask the seam between the pieces of plywood where they are not quite long enough for the entire length needed, by painting it white to contrast, and repeating it in a fixed pattern around the house. I also like the alternate white and gray stripes on one wall and which provides an accent and also echos the same pattern on the chimney which was redone a couple of years ago. Really, this is a thoughtful, clever design which enhances the style of the house. The other detail that I love, although it is really quite a small thing, is the blue beam, which echoes the blue of the deck chair below it. The house has post-and-beam ceilings, as all three of our houses do. I am intrigued by what the new residents have done with the inside of the house, although it is also quite possibly true that they may have spent all their money so far on the outside of the house, as we have done (and apparently are still doing).

The deck and the path around the house are also new and these have really stuck in my imagination. Partly because they fit so well with the house, and partly because I want a walk like that.

Well that is not entirely true.

I need a new front walk. I love that walkway and my first thought was indeed "I want that" but I realize it would be impractical for a front walk. The gravel will not stay in place over time and will get in the garden and the yard and the driveway and will be impossible to shovel during the winter. This is fine for a side path to a deck, but not for a walk to the front door.

But as we have been discussing and planning our need for a new front walk, it got me thinking.

Our front walk has long been a source of problems and contention. It is slate. The slates are placed randomly in the soil. They were placed directly in the clay soil with no gravel, sand, or whatever to help protect from frost heaves and the like. After all these years, many of the slates have broken. Each year some slates rise up,others sink down into the mud, and much reshoveling and cursing takes place only to have the same thing happen again the next time winter rolls around as it inevitably does.

But what kind of walk? G refuses to have brick. And really there is no brick around our house except for the two chimneys. Brick really wouldn't work with the house anyway. Most of the people in the area who do walks prefer to use pavers, but neither one of has really seen pavers that we like that much either. Last year, when we put bluestone around the corners of the pool, G commented that he would love a bluestone walk, even though for years he has said he only wants slate, despite the fact that slate is slippery and cracks easily. And so it was decided. Bluestone it would be.

But some part of me had a love/hate thing with bluestone. It is nice. It is elegant. It is such a standard upscale/nice thing to have. I must have some contrarian part of my soul that struggles with the idea that a bluestone front walk is the "expected thing".

Is there some way a walk inspired by the downhill neighbors path would work with our house, and still be easy to maintain? Would it work with our house?

And this brings me back to my original plan for this walk, back when G said he didn't want brick and he didn't want pavers, and he didn't want stone……..

My original idea was for a concrete walk. Yes I know boring, boring, boring. And yet not. I wanted concrete, in discrete sections, with cedar between the pieces perhaps, or something else I haven't gotten that far. I wanted a stone aggregate for the top layer, with the concrete brushed away and perhaps glazed or polished; just rough enough that it wasn't smooth and yet still smooth enough I could shovel it and the remaining bits of snow would melt. Into each rectangular piece of walk I wanted to place one square piece of the same Indian Slate that covers our front stoop. This would give G his slate, and would provide some consistency as we eventually intend to have the same stone inside the house as well. I didn't want the slate to be symmetrically placed in the center of each square, but more randomly, in a different place in each piece, flush with the polished gravel or stone, and a highly polished black or dark gray stone could work well here.

I've included various photos and angles of the house from the south and east sides because I need to think of how the walk would fit and the more I think about it, I think this aggregate and slate idea fits in well with the varied angles and pieces of the house. Bluestone is almost too staid and grounded. And perhaps, the more I think about it, centering the slate in the pieces of the walk is almost too symmetrical in an asymmetrical house. A random placement adds a bit of a touch of jazz, a touch that is much more suited to the surroundings.

But no decision has been made yet, and it isn't going to happen this year anyway. As you can see, there is far too much to be done: painting, patching the foundations, more painting, cleaning up junk and various detritus, landscaping, planting, and so much more.

I am way behind and even though I have been very busy these last couple of weeks, I know that just catching up will take more than one season despite the fact I am mortified at how much is to be done. I am still fighting my inner tendency to want to hide all that is not perfection, and I suppose I am making headway as there is no perfection in any of these photos.

We've come a long ways though. We put the peaked roofs on what was originally a flat roofed house, we jacked up the cantilevered living room and decks and put supports underneath. Even though they will never be truly level they are much improved. We have cut down and ripped out the huge spruce trees that flanked the front walk when I first moved in, trees so large that walking to the door was like spelunking in a dank dark cave. And even though some of my early attempts at ground covers for the front yard were misconceived and need to be replaced, it is still better than the fields of moss that lived here when I arrived.

The crooked slate walk and random steps will have to go, but I think I finally have the inspiration I need to create an inviting front yard and walkway.

Stay tuned.

April 29, 2009
Yesterday

Yesterday was the first truly warm, sandal-worthy, day of spring. We took full advantage of it having a leisurely of frippery, frivolity, and function.

Yesterday was also the day the maples leafed out and as we drove around town the full glory of spring was unfurled around us. The light yellow green near transparence of new leaves almost thickening before our eyes and dancing in the sunlight was almost magical. The magnolias were thick with blossoms. The daffodils are everywhere, yellow and white and cheery, dancing in the sun. A few early tulips are up but not chez dooney. I don't seem to have any of the early tulips this year, an oversight I am sure, although I do tend to prefer the more exotic later varieties.

A minor note of interest. I have lived here for almost 30 years. For most of that time the maples fully leafed out consistently on May 2 or 3. You could count on that like you could count on the day that ice would first cover the Hudson. Neither of those "old" dates hold true anymore. Leaf day has been creeping forward, first toward May 1st, then gradually a few days earlier. The last two years it was nearly a week early, but this year the leaves suddenly opened on April 24, a full 9 days early.

Yesterday I finished reading Gwen Ifill's book "The Breakthrough". I enjoyed reading it, and I learned a few things about politicians I knew nothing about. Her portraits were insightful and she was able to capture the quality of each politician she discussed in a way that made them memorable. Ms. Ifill's prose is just like her voice on "The Newshour": fair, direct, and to the point. As I read I could imagine her speaking. The book reads like a series of interviews with a varied and interesting group of black politicians who show much of the change, variation, and conflict taking place in politics today. I think I personally would have liked a little more analysis, but then again, analysis is dry and it is really to early to determine what any of this "means". Ms. Ifill is a journalist not an analyst. There is a lot to think about in these profiles of the changing face of politics. It was a good, timely book, but not something I will come back to or read again.

Yesterday I went back on antihistamines after a week's reprieve. And I fell asleep to quickly to read any poems of Christopher Middleton. This volume of poetry has provided us with a lovely bedtime ritual, a poem or two or three before bed; read aloud, discussed, savored, shared. Tonight we shall have a poem before we "slumber in our sleep" to quote my Grandpa.

April 25, 2009
Book update

True evidence of spring is not just in the flowers, the budding leaves on the trees, the lovely smell of wet dirt after a long winter, but in the appearance of the first spring produce.

The first leaves of mache are up as well as sorrel and ramps. We picked up our first local ramps of the season at the market on Friday. We also enjoyed our first soft-shell crabs although there are no pictures of those.

Otherwise I am reveling in being able to do things and catch up with things that have been left languishing. I am also truly enjoying having the time and attention to read.

I finished Fallen Founder for the second time and truly enjoyed it this time around. I think I enjoyed it the first time but I also think that I was too frazzled and concerned with other things and did not really pay attention. I know there were several other books at that time that I picked up and just never finished, not because I wasn't interested in them, but because I had little focus.

I recognize that I do not have the mind-set of a scholar, and I am really not interested in reviewing books either, there are so many others who do that better than I. But I really enjoyed reading this book, it was gripping at times, and interesting to read and I think it was a fairly fair portrait of Aaron Burr. It was quite fascinating to read about Burr and his interactions with the other founding fathers of our country and to see think about them not just as these great men, but as people with their own foibles and follies just like us. Politics was no different then than now, or as Nancy Isenberg says on page 311, "Partisan politics were deeply personal — and often irrational". I suppose longing for more reasonable intercourse between politicians is merely a pipe-dream.

I am currently reading two books that capitalize on current political and economic realities and they are both fun, interesting reads. I downloaded The House of Dimon to my Kindle right after reading a review of it and I am truly enjoying it. Patricia Crisafulli's writing is a bit breathless, but I suppose that is fitting for the financial turmoil and times with which she concerns herself in this book. I am also finding that the Kindle a rather compelling way to read. I like that I can have several books and it marks my place; it is the perfect size to carry around, you can put it down without worrying about loosing your place, and I can set the type size to be perfect for just about any situation. The fact that I got a book I wanted to read instantly didn't hurt either.

I am also reading The Breakthrough by Gwen Ifill and it is interesting and I am learning things I didn't know and looking at contemporary politics a little bit differently, from a bit of a different vantage point. Whereas Patricia Crisafulli's book is interesting just because it is about a person who is in the thick of things now, Gwen Ifill's book is more general and leads me to longer periods of reflection. Gwen Ifill writes like the journalist she is, and her words on the page sound just like she was uttering them on The News Hour or Washington Week. As I read I can imagine her sitting there and talking to me. I wonder if she reads the audiobook version of this book. That would be very interesting.

April 18, 2009
Seduced by Hellebores and random mutterings about the yard

Last friday I wandered over to the garden center side of Adams, our local gourmet market/farm stand/nursery and I a large display of hellebores caught my eye. Now I had been thinking about these shade loving plants for part of the garden, a part of the garden that is unfortunately not anywhere near to ready for planting. But a mass of them, in various sizes, mostly in bloom, artfully displayed next to the check-out kiosk, was a serious hurdle to overcome and of course, I succumbed. I only bought 2, and smaller ones at that, thinking that I could put them in one of the stone flower beds near the front door, particularly the smaller one which is is in pretty much total shade.

Now that bed has always been problematic because it gets very little, if any, direct light and half of the bed is under an overhang and surrounded by the house on three sides so it only gets rain if it comes in pretty much directly and horizontally from the east, which is rare.

In the past that bed has been mostly devoted to annuals, namely impatiens, and it has done quite well. But a couple of years ago, before the health saga began, I had temporarily stuck a few shade perennials in the front of that bed to overwinter when I couldn't get to their permanent location. And they did quite well. So now I am hoping to have a mix of perrenials and impatiens there. But I never really planned that bed, I just stuck a couple of things in willy nilly and they have done well, so I wasn't really sure what to expect.

This is precisely why I prefer to plan my beds, so I am not caught by surprise, so I don't forget and plant something where I have planted something else, and most of all so I know what I am looking for because I am still relatively a novice gardener and I don't recognize most things unless I know what I am looking for.

In short, I thought there was more room in that front flower bed than there actually may be.

This is that poor, sad little bed, with the three plants I knew were there, front front to back, a bergenia, a brunnera, and a daylilly. the far corner where the daylilly resides is the only corner that gets sun and it is also the driest part of the bed, with more rock and sand, somehow a place that the small daylilly has decided is just perfect.

But wait there is something else. First of all, although you can only barely see it here, there is a small pink plant stake in front of the brunnera indicating that a fern is planted in that space. The ferns haven't stuck their heads up yet, so I don't yet know if that is going to actually materialize, but there will probably not be enough room for the hellebore there, especially considering there is another little plant poking its head ups as well.

A small yellow and green leafed plant is coming up, just beyond the bergenia, a plant I can't identify.

I don't know if it is actually a desirable plant or just a weed, although I tend to doubt it is a weed because I just don't get weeds in this bed. In fact the only cleaning out I had to do was pulling up a bit of vinca that had crept up, over, and through the rocks, and a little bit of moss and leaves. That doesn't mean there can't be a weed, but I think I can count the number of weeds I have pulled out of this bed on one hand and I have been cleaning it out for over 20 years.

But what is it? If you know you can let me know. I will ask at knitting on Thursday as well as there are some much better gardeners than I.

Anyway, it is looking like there is not much room for a hellebore here, and if I add any more perennials to this bed, I should probably duplicate something that is already here, I really hate having just one of something, unless it is a really big something that is.

So I plopped the hellebores in the planters by the front door, where they can happily reside for another month before they need to be relocated so I can put the summer flowers in. In the meantime I have two ideas for places they could go, one planting bed that has been in the plans for a couple of years, and another, one of several actually, on the north side of the house in the areas that need work after the building of the new deck.

I was thinking about one of these areas today as I was staining more of the siding around the deck. There is a small area between the stairs up to the deck and the lattice covering the underside of the deck. It is a small area and I could easily frame it in and I need to plant something there to keep it looking neat and to keep the weeds out but it is an area that will get very little direct sun, so I need plants that don't need a lot of maintenance as that bed will be fairly difficult to get into once it is planted, except for watering of course. The area I am thinking about is kind of hidden in the middle of this picture, between the railing and the lattice work below the deck. This picture was taken before today's staining. The T1-11 wall at the top of the stairs is now stained, with a thick oil-based semi-solid stain and I am now working inside the deck walls. When I get all the T1-11 siding stained I will come back with primer and paint and paint the risers, rails, and vertical pieces, all smooth cedar, which will hold up much better with paint rather stain, but paint doesn't adhere well to the rough-sided stuff, which also happens to match the house.

As you can see, there is a lot of opportunity for landscaping work here.

I have time to think about it a bit before I get started. Right now it is pleasantly cool and dry so I must continue working on the staining and painting. It is a time consuming project and a bit of an expensive lesson in terms of the contractor not doing it, although I think at the time the contractor just wanted out of the job because he had already probably spent more than the contract due to innumerable mistakes on the part of his various crews and various changes of subcontractors. It is tru
e that the contract did not specify painting the cedar, siding, and lattice but it did say built according to the plans which did specify painting. I agreed to accept the earlier plan though, which did not say the word paint on it, because the earlier plan showed the entire deck and included another 25 foot of deck which was on the original proposal and was not on the second plan, which was really only the detail of the more complicated portion of the deck.

I made the decision. I accept the job. I grumble to myself but I do enjoy sitting out in the nice spring air and painting. I am sure I will have to replace some things sooner than I would have if I had stained and painted a year and a half ago, or even a year ago, but I made that choice as well.

I was also noticing today that the section of siding at the top of the stairs is the thinner fir T1-11, not the thicker fir that I insisted on, and had to special order, that was used for the bulk of the job. I think that by the time that was done we were on the third carpenter, and I was preoccupied with other things, so it just got by me. It is already starting to warp, of course made worse by the fact that I hadn't stained it yet, but the other siding, the thicker T1-11, looks much better. Life is filled with learning experiences.

I still think wood is easier to come by than good husbands.

April 14, 2009
Marfy once again.

I found myself in the sewing room yesterday with an hour to spare and the inspiration to go back to the Marfy coat.

As you might recall, I had altered the pattern and made new pattern pieces before I went away, almost a month ago. I should have known better than to start a project just before leaving, the interruption also scatters my concentration and motivation, and it seems harder to pick up something that was started before than it is to just begin something new.

So yesterday I marked the new pieces on the muslin and cut them out. I had a lot of fun doing so. I actually do love the process of laying out and marking and cutting. Of course since this was muslin I just used markers and dressmakers carbon, but it was still fun.

I only cut 5/8" seams, especially around the large sleeve opening because the wider 1 inch seams I used on the first muslin were really too unwieldy. I may or may not regret this.

Then, much to my glee, I found that I had made a mistake when I looked at the clock and I actually had another hour. The fronts and back have been sewed together and I started to work on the sleeves, but realized I needed a little more time to lay the pieces out and think about front and back and what was what. I am glad I did.

All I did today was lay out the pieces. I didn't even pin them, but I am happy to leave them there on the cutting table waiting for my next bit of time. It may be tomorrow.

In the meantime I pulled out three or four pieces of fabric I will use for some desperately needed spring clothes. I still have to gather together linings, zippers and other notions, but I shall use these simple little bits of nearly instant gratification as rewards for completing the steps of my coat.

April 7, 2009