Storm

A week ago today, we had the biggest wind storm that anyone has ever seen around here. A week later, most of the trees are still lying around, and the pile of trees and wood chips down at Lincoln Park is monstrous.

I described the storm so many times, so I won't do it this time. I'll post a link to pictures here, they're hosted on Flickr. You can read some about the storm there.

Our neighbour Stan's carport roof ended up in our creek. An alder in the wild spot lost some pretty big limbs, but other than that our property was unscathed. All41 was smart and turned over the patio table and stacked the chairs and set them against to wall and put down the chimes before the wind got too bad.

Temperatures at night

This morning when we got up, it was 9 degrees outside. We're starting to get into a bit of a cold spot, it's been fairly warm lately. A couple nights ago it never dropped below 40 degrees.

Pussywillows

Today I saw that we have pussywillows already starting to pop out.

The storm that we had in December broke down our largest pussywillow. That has me very sad.

We have two types of pussywillow on the property. One is very early with large pussyfeet, but the limbs and trunks fall all the time, and I consider them fragile and transitory. The other grows larger and blooms late with small pussyfeet high up on top. Most of the pussywillows by the creek are the former. One of the largest plants by the creek besides the cottonwoods was a very large pussywillow of the latter kind. The tree was obviously very old and strong, and rounded out the creek area beautifully. It brought everything together perfectly, and the birds loved it. But the wind storm a month ago knocked it over. Now it's laying over most of the other pussywillows, and probably hurting them. But we have to wait until later in the spring to trim it out of the wild mess, because right now we can't tell what's alive and what's dead.

Some quick stats about the place:

1.2 acres, 3 miles from the edge of town, only 15 minutes from most places in two towns. But still considered "country".
Squilchuck Creek cuts through the yard.
House is 2800 square feet, with 5 bedrooms, two bath, two living rooms, and two kitchens, a daylight basement and a cellar.
200 foot long zipline from our tree house in the maple, running across the creek.
Garage/Barn and corral.

Plants on the property when we moved in (either wild or planted by previous owners):


2 Maples
English Walnut
Lilac hedge
Weeping Cherry
Wild Cherry
Pussywillows
Cottonwoods
Willows
Elders
Chokecherries
Weeping Willows
Alders
Red twig Dogwoods
Mock oranges
Wild Roses
Service Berries
Blackberries
Hawthorn
Peonies
Roses

Birds and animals we've seen on our property (off the top of my head, I may add some more in later posts):


Great Blue Heron
Bald Eagle
Mallards
Evening Grosbeak
Pine Grosbeak
White Crowned Sparrow
Hawks
Owls
Kingfisher
Quail
Ring-necked Pheasant
Rufus Sided Towhee
Northern Flicker
Downey Woodpecker
Housefinch
Goldfinch
Chickadee
Stellar Jay
Hummingbirds
Starlings
Mourning Dove
Eastern Kingbird
Swallows
Magpie
Robin
Varied Thrush
Yellow Warbler
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Western Tanager
White-crowned Sparrow
Dark-eyed Junco
Brewer's Blackbird
Bullock's Oriole

Squirrel
Rattlesnake
Bull snake
Garter snake
Deer
Coyote
Raccoon
Pocket voles
Moles
Mice
Lizards


Numerous butterflies/moths...mostly Tiger Swallowtails and Cabbage Whites and Blue Sulphers.
A couple mosquitoes here and there, not many Lady lacewings...they're nasty, have the worst bite
Bees
Praying Mantis
Box Elder bugs
Ladybugs

Our place

We moved in to our place on June 30, 2000. We found out that the place that we were renting was going to be demolished and we only had 2 months to move into a new place. We had never owned before, and it was a big jump, but we decided that if we had to move, we never wanted to move again.

This place was the first place we saw, and we fell in love with it. Just to be certain, we looked at several other places, but none of them were as good for the same amount of money. It has lots of large windows and is always full of light, which is so important to me. That was one of the biggest selling points for me. When we came in to tour the house, they had all the windows open, and had fresh lilacs from the garden on the dining room table. It was incredible to hear the sounds of the creek, the breeze in the trees, and to smell the lilacs. I was a goner.

Our first night here we had nothing moved in, so we had pizza and slept in the living room in sleeping bags. We lost power for a few hours and it was an exciting start. Each year we celebrate the first day that we saw the house, and 2 months later we celebrate the first day we stayed at our house and have pizza again.

God has blessed us greatly.

I have come to realize more and more how blessed we are, because now that I cannot go out and about and travel like I used to, I have my own little wilderness spot. When you go down to the creek, it's like being up in Leavenworth, up the Icicle River. So I don't need to travel 45 minutes up into the mountains (although I would love to), I can walk out into my own backyard and have a similar experience.

I've always loved gardening. When I was a kid, I grew up in town on a half acre plot. It covered a whole block on one side. We had all sorts of thing on that property - fruit trees, a vegetable garden, roses, peonies, irises, lilacs, a dogwood, a tamarack, a catalpa tree, a whole grove of tall pines, a huge maple, a big compost pile, two sheds....and the list goes on. I tool over the roses and babied those things to death. I would pluck the grass around them by hand. In the spring I would lay in the field of grass and iris and hide and look up at the sky with all these beautiful smelling flowers around me. I loved my yard.

Throughout my adult life I rented, and it wasn't until we got to the house that was eventually torn down, that I tried planting a few things. I was able to do enough to get frustrated excited and to want more.


Us, at our new place in 2000

When we moved into our place here, we were overwhelmed with the vastness of it. In some ways it was nice because we didn't have to do anything to it. There were so many mature plants and trees already on the property. I never thought that we would be able to find a place with so many mature deciduous trees...that is not as common in Wenatchee. The creek was a nice focal point with a lot of wild native plants growing along it.

I took the Master Gardener course mostly to gain skills for our new property. The course lasted 2 years, and I enjoyed it a lot. I found out that the classes gave you an overview and a place to start, but didn't teach you everything. It sounds great to say that I'm a Master Gardener, but I suppose it doesn't mean much if you don't keep going. And unfortunately I found that it was taking up way too much of my time to keep up with the volunteer hours so I had to quit.

We have done a few things to the yard over the years. Some really big changes in a lot of places. Sadly, a lot of plants that I planted have been run over by grass these last couple of years and I'm afraid that they're gone. I've just been too sick to keep maintaining them. Last year Eric took such good care of the yard. He did a lot of weeding by the creek, and he finished our raised beds in the veggie garden and planted everything. It was our first year with a fully functioning veggie garden. It was beautiful. We spent so much time in it. I took a gazillion pictures, I'll upload them to Flickr and post a link later.

I kept a pretty good garden journal at my last house. I have never kept a journal at this one, and have kept thinking about it. When my friend Kylee said that she had started a garden journal blog, it gave me the impetus to do it as well. Especially when she keeps bugging me to write in it so that she can read my posts. ;-)


I thank God everyday for the place that He gave to us. It makes me look forward to heaven and the new earth, and the wonders waiting for us there.