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May 14, 2010

IT'S FRIDAY, MY FAVORITE DAY!!

Last Friday, all of the garden club members gathered to get ready for Saturday's plant sale. We set up tables, tents, and delivered and organized the plants. As usual, we moved plants from one table to another and then over to yet another before we had everything in order. By noon that day, we were about as ready as we were going to get. On Saturday, the "Garden Gods" shined down on us and brought us perfect weather, since a lot of the plants were outside under tents. We opened the doors at 9:00 a.m. and a line had already formed that was a block long. People come from far and near to buy at our plant sale because the plants are nice and healthy and they are cheap. At 12:00 noon, everything that was left from that morning went on sale for half-price and by 1:00 p.m. we tore down our tents, put the tables away and what remaining plants that were left were taken away and will be saved for next year. We made about $5,000 to be given away to some of the local charities in the area. What I enjoy most about this sale is watching people and the plants that they select. Of course, I came home with a carload of plants myself! I got six boxwoods to line my path, three tomato plants, some Japanese Iris and a plant called Sea Drift.

I hope everyone had a great Mother's Day. Because we stayed in Wheeler for the day, I received my greetings from my girls via telephone and cards. We plan on getting together this weekend to celebrate all the birthdays we had this past week as well as Mother's Day. But last Sunday I went to the dump with Dave to unload some more church debris and we ended up stopping at the local nursery in Tillamook where I bought more plants and a new bird feeder. The bird feeder was one of these fancy metal ones enclosed in a wire cage so that only small birds could use it. I am getting tired of feeding the forty or so doves that swoop down when I am not looking a cleaning out the feeders. Unfortunately, when I put my new feeder up the small birds wouldn't have anything to do with it, so I ended up putting the old feeder back up. I even tried to entice them with seeds on the bottom of the feeder, but they just came and pecked at the seeds at the edge of the wire. I am not going to give up though.

It is finally beginning to feel like spring and I have been working a few hours out in the yard each day trying to get my flowerbeds in shape. This has made me pretty stiff and sore and Advil has become a close friend lately. If this weather keeps up, I may get in the mood to plant my vegetable garden, although I am trying to hold off on that until the end of May. It's going to be tough to hold off, because it has been sunny with the temperature in the 60's for the past several days. I did place my fuchsia planters out under the eves of the roof and planted my flowerpots.

I was driving home from water aerobics the other morning and had to put on my brakes as six otters crossed the highway right in front of me. They were headed from Nehalem Bay to the estuary across the road and didn't bother to look to see if any cars were coming! I have seen the otters in the bay before but never on the highway. You just never know what you are going to see around here.

Dave and I are taking today off from all our work projects and driving to Seaside to get new eyeglasses and Dave has to get his peripheral vision checked. While up there we are also getting the Chevy serviced and making a stop at Costco. Tonight we have plans for dinner with our friends, Des and Donna Kahrs.

Nothing new to report on the church project except that the guys have braced up the back and north walls so they can jack up the roof a few inches. They have to replace some rotten wood at the top of the wall and they have to get the roof up off of it so they can have room to work. They have all the beams in place and will start to raise the building on Monday. Cross your fingers, because this time it will be like trying to raise a house made of playing cards without having any of them fall down! They only worked a couple of days this past week as Ray had another project he had to work on. Our church project is low priority, and besides, I think they're pretty nervous about this next step.

Dave is driving into Hillsboro on Saturday to attend a memorial service for one of his favorite professors. Dr. Scheller was the man who took Dave under his wing while he was in college and Dave has always thought of him as one of the people who had the most influence on him in his younger years. He'll drive right back home after the service.

Sunday we will head back into town for our birthday celebrations and late Mother's Day. We will also attend a dance recital for Lara's two oldest daughters, Jadyn and Jaysa. So it will be another busy day and we plan on driving back to the coast again that night as there is too much going on next week.