Bits and pieces.

I just hate coming back to work after a week out of the office. Hundreds of emails, the to-do list I didn’t finish before taking off, a nagging sense something will get forgotten in the week ahead of catching up. All that, and it wasn’t even a holiday! Damned union convention.

But I survived it – this, the national triennial convention of my union is a big deal – a thousand people attending, hosted at the new convention center in Vancouver (first triennial hosted in BC since 1986 no less), late nights and early mornings with lots of talking in between. By the end of it all I was pretty much done, but managed to drag myself through an obligatory May Day demo on Friday evening anyway. Which left me feeling annoyed rather than militated or even committed to the cause. I spent the whole demo just wanting to get on a bus and go to dinner. Sometimes I just hit my limit.

I spent the rest of the weekend at home, cleaning up after the concrete-grinding dust that got all over my house from the downstairs renos, grocery shopping, meal-planning, and gardening my backyard. I’m getting pretty excited about that last part now Brian has dug out the dog area and built the dogshit composter, and I’ve worked all the other beds to get a lot of plants, bulbs and seeds into the ground. We’re not developing any new beds this year but rather working with what we’ve got in order to keep expenses and work low while the basement is being finished. But even with limited planting space dug out I’ve managed to put in kale, cabbage, lettuce, peas, basil, parsley, dill, radishes zuchinni, and cucumbers not to mention hostas, gladiolas, poppies, yarrow, lilies, anenomes, bleeding heart, columbine, sweet peas and a few other assorted flowers as well. I’m working on a mixed planting scheme for the first time which means not having a stand alone vegetable garden but interspersing vegetables, flowers and shrubs where things fit and look attractive together. We’ll see how that works, I am slightly afraid of forgetting where and what I’ve planted – particularly the stuff coming up from seed.

Last night I saw an owl in front of my house which is the first time I have ever seen an owl in urban Vancouver. It was hopping around on the ground and at first I thought it was a big cat, but it flew up into a tree when I opened the door to look at it better. It made another appearance on the ground in time for Brian to see it also, so we both got silly-excited about it and we hope it lives on our street among the big trees at night all the time. I’m going to look up how to attract birds to the yard in general, and I’m hoping we can get hummingbirds even – though I have never seen a hummingbird in the city, Brian has heard that if you put out a feeder you do get them. I suppose it’s worth a shot, after all, it’s not like the sugar water costs much to put out there.

I have about eight million ideas for both yards, and it’s hard not to get out the shovel and just start digging all over the place. But plants either have to be cultivated/divided/dug up at the right time or they cost money – and either way you can’t just rush around with no planning. Still, I am thinking woodland garden with a small pond for the front yard, maybe in a couple of years when we’ve finished the shed and patio in the back. The good thing about woodland garden is the availability of native plants, particularly in areas being turned into horrible developments – no one complains there when you dig up a fern or a salal bush – so I can dig them up as I find them, and plunk them in one small plot at a time. I suppose that makes for screwy planning. but since when have woodlands ever been organized?

I will post pictures of the backyard shortly in any case, and the inside of the house. I have been waiting until the lumber is out of the yard first, and I haven’t had a chance to take pictures inside since we got all set up….. Though soon.