Garden Touring in the North End

On Sunday morning we traveled north of Seattle to tour two NPA Open Gardens that were new to us. It had rained in the early morning, the air was cool and fresh, and everyone was behaving, wearing masks and keeping their distance. It was good to get out and away again.

The first garden was obviously a labor of love, belonging to Mary Monfort. Set in an ordinary mid century neighborhood, it greeted us with sunny color in the front yard.

 I love these daisies!

 The Asiatic lilies were gorgeous. 

 A very cool plant stand holding pots of succulents that don't require much watering. 

 Through the garden gate at the side of the house we entered a large back yard centered with a waterfall, stream, and pond, all hand dug. This is a garden created by the owner/gardener, not a landscape designer. I like that. 

 Lots of folks have found places in their yards for small vegetable plots this year. 

 Mary's garden contains many wonderful Japanese maples.

 Mary commented from her perch on high. 

 Along the other side of the house. 

 And back to the front. Signs along the way directed us to mostly one way traffic to accommodate distancing.

We enjoyed our tour of this garden very much. 

Droopy Daisies and Old People Toys

We had a little rain this morning, .34 of an inch, just right to refresh everything, but the rain weighs heavy on the June flowers, like these droopy daisies.

 and roses

and poppies

The bird bath is full.

The border is sagging.

And I have been trying out my new toy.

 It's a sock putter-onner, otherwise know as a sock slider.

 Getting a woman's sock over the hard plastic tube is a struggle. 

 Slide your foot all the way into the toe of the sock.

 Then pull.

 I needed to do a little adjusting, but I can lift my foot to do that with one hand.

After my last back surgery I had to have Tom put on my socks for me for a while since I was not supposed to bend over. This takes a little time, but I will be having plenty of time during recovery. Maybe old people toys will be entertaining as well as helpful. :-)

I have also ordered an extended shoe horn, and I'm considering slip on sneakers. I need to wear supportive shoes for other issues. 

So I am preparing. Once my back is healed, I'll need hip replacement surgery.

Falling apart is not fun, but I am working at not being a droopy daisy. 

A Bowl Full of Cherries

Life isn't just a bowl full of cherries, but it was cherries we were after when we made a trip down to the Carpinito Brother's produce stand in Kent on Wednesday morning.

Oh, those Eastern Washington cherries are so luscious! And we couldn't resist other fresh produce either: more local strawberries, beets and beet greens, and Bibb lettuce. I'm not sure if the little melon is Washington grown - it might be from California. June is early for melons here. 

I am eating the cherries like candy. I had strawberries on my cereal this morning. I will fix beets and beet greens for dinner, and our green salad will use some of the bibb lettuce. Yum.

After we got back from produce shopping I found a bunch of e-mails from my medical team. Those kept me busy for a couple of hours. After a few inquiries and some phone calls and lots of going over the "surgery instructions", I think I have just about everything on the calendar: lab tests and EKG, MRSA nasal swab, pre-surgical physical with my primary care doc, phone appointment with a neurosurgery nurse to go over all of these instructions, days marked to stop all vitamins and OTC pain meds, in person appointment with my surgeon, the surgery (July 14th), and the post- op appointment in August. I will be notified about my COVID-19 test time and place just before the surgery. 

It was a bit overwhelming at first, since there was a short time line to get all the appointments sequenced, but everything worked out and it all begins next Monday. 

So now I keep on keeping on.   Life is good here on the Reeder half acre. I'm working on keeping it all in perspective. 

Like that bowl of cherries, the pits are smaller than the sweet parts. 

Tuesday

With a hodge podge of topics, I didn't know what to call this post, so you  just get "Tuesday".

Getting up is slow these days, and painful, but I did get my limited exercise routine done in time for our 9:30 Zoom meet up with our breakfast group. Our almost 93 year old friend DeDe was able to get all of her technology working and join us. That was fun.

After that it was time to do my one scheduled job for today - defrost and clean the old freezer that lives in the garage. While it was melting, I got an eight mile work out on my stationary bike. It's getting warm today so I needed to get that in early.

I was interrupted on my freezer job by a phone call. Things are moving fast now, and that call was to schedule spinal surgery for July 14th. That was faster than I expected, but I'm glad. It gets harder every day to manage pain and loss of mobility and other complications. The same surgeon who did my last surgery will do this one and I am comfortable in knowing what to expect.

Then I had to wait on hold for the longest time to schedule my pre-op appointment. In the mean time Tom came to my rescue and mostly finished the freezer job. 

We had lunch on the patio, a summer treat. It is a calm, sunny day, just perfect for reading the paper while I dine al fresco. 

After lunch Betsy Brown Cat came to see me. She doesn't settle much but does love attention. 

It's now 84 degrees, hot in the sun, so I'll save wandering in the garden until this evening. But I did want to show you that the stinky flowers are blooming. The Voodoo Lily is loaded with blooms and attracting flies. It's amazing how something so beautiful can smell so awful. 

With surgery scheduled for July 14th, I will need to be in quarantine for seven days before, so that will limit our activities even more. We are scheduled to spend three days at the Whidbey cabin, and I think we can still do that.  We have to cancel our Open Garden which was booked for the July 18th, since I will still be in recovery, so I will just have to continue to share our garden via photos.

It's now 3:00, time to settle someplace comfortable and read. 

Ah, Summer!