A Lovely Portland Hill Walk

We recently purchased Portland Hill Walks and decided to mount our first exploration this morning.

It was an appropriately gray and cloudy day, lest we become confused.

The first walk takes you up into Willamette Heights, full of extraordinary front gardens, parking strips overladen with roses and wisteria (seriously, wisteria in a parking strip), and gigantic, seemingly-empty mansions, each of which sort of dumbfounded us a little bit more. By the end, Eboy looked at me and just sighed, wow, our house sucks. These houses were a little over the top. I kept thinking, um, how many people live in there? Squeaky Fromme, is that you?

I love this entryway, spilling over with climbing roses:




And as you go along, you find yourself suddenly in Forest Park, crossing a early 20th century bridge that serves only one home - which has served as a home for unwed mothers for the last 50 or so years. (they still have those?) And then we turn up into the park, passing this huge watertank (that hopefully no one will go swimming in) - those tiny little things in front of it are of course eBoy and Abby.



Finally we made our way upto Leif Erikson Drive (formally known as Hillside Drive for obvious reasons but then changed after a petition by the Fraternal Order of Sons of Norway (or something like that). From there, we meandered over to Aspen Drive, where each home got a little crazier than the next.

At this point, I stopped taking pictures because a) I was a little overwhelmed and b) these seemed to be the sort of folks that would release the hounds should they catch you taking pictures of their home.

Besides, this whole taking pictures thing is still new to me, so I kept forgetting.

But I thought this was fun: one home had made a little Jurassic Scene in the grassy area of their parking strip. Very clever, these Portlanders.




And then we had to cut our walk short out of Forest Park because eBoy got hungry. Sigh. Stay tuned for more walks!

The current state of the back yard

This gardening business is a daily exploration of trial and error. While I have exactly 38 books on gardening, it seems to not make a lick of difference when I'm just staring at a wilted petunia wondering where the hell I've gone wrong. You know why most gardeners seems to be in their 60s? Because it takes 30 years of this shit before you'll admit it to the public.

But the vegetable garden (created and maintained by eBoy of course - he's of the "stick-it-in-the-ground-and-see-what-happens" persuasion) seems to be going gangbusters. Sigh.

Although I still think he desecrated our lawn and still owes an apology to the pear tree.

So, as you can see, the pumpkin is steadily making its way towards the house, where it will eventually curl around our necks as we sleep while forming pods that encase zombie-like humanoids that looks just like us.




Also, the zucchini appears to be....um, healthy.



I'm hoping to spend all weekend working on the new back perennial bed - but i still need to get a better idea of what i'm trying to do. At this point in the summer, I don't know if it would just be a better idea to put some fall flowering annuals down and just keep working on a plan. It's all so much harder than it looks.

I have sunk firmly into suburban middle age.

Well, things have been a little crazy around here lately - for the last 16 months or so, so forgive the lack of blogging. Not that anyone tunes in here anymore anyway. And why should you? It's like ctrl freak's blog, which hasn't been updated since February and sometimes you just have to let go and realize that an era is coming to an end.

Not this chick though. I've got plenty of schmaltz and chutzpah and other yiddish nouns with the wrong connotation still left in me.

Last weekend, we had our official "wedding reception" - a nice little backyard affair with my family, E's family, and some friends. Very casual, very lovely. Before that we spent a great day touring wine country, visiting the aviation museum, and staying in a KILLER b&b with e's parents and mine. It was simply heavenly. Of course, you can never really tell if e's parents are enjoying themselves, but I talked to my sister in law (she reminds me of Talia shire in the 3rd godfather, only of the yenta persuasion) and she said they haven't stopped gushing about it since returning home. So this is good news.

School starts next month. I'm currently working three jobs. The garden is coming along well. I have another perennial bed to work on this weekend. I went down to the Oregon Garden this weekend - and I so excited to make an entire day of it, but then after I got there, I realized that I had forgotten to take a claritin that morning and I had such a terrible attack of allergies. I ended up scratching my eye with my own contact lens while rubbing it, so that it became VERY painful, and I ended up having to leave after only being there an hour. And then I had to drive home with one eye, at about 25 miles per hour, which was very scary. I was so goddamn sad about the whole thing. And then I got home and took a nap with eboy and all the family pets, because this seems to be what we're mostly capable of when the mercury rises about 75.

So this is to say, I was hoping to get some ideas for the garden when I was down in Silverton this weekend, but alas and alack, this was not to be. I'm hoping to go down there again this weekend. It really is a beautiful place. Seriously, click on the link. Anyway this time, I'll take my glasses, my visine, and a big freaking mainline of antihistamine before I go.

Oh, it's my birthday day after tomorrow. We're headed out to a local place that my parents gave us a gift certificate for. We'll probably be home in bed (asleep) by 9pm.

More than eight years later, aren't you offended enough yet?

Here's your problem: someone set this garden on Evil.

Ugh, I have looked into the eye of the Beast and it is Oxalis Cornaculata, a particularly nasty weed in my yard. Ugh. I spend one weekend, ONE WEEKEND focused on the back yard, and my front rose and lily beds erupt all over again in these little suckers - and yes, I have been digging out the roots. it is my nemesis!!



My next job is to throw down about four inches of mulch to see if that helps. And I have to spray my roses this weekend because they're grappling with a particularly heavy case of black spot this year.

By the way, if you ever buy a house and you're thinking, oh wouldn't it be lovely to get a yard....FORGET IT. Get yourself a nice condo or townhouse. Just keeping up with the maintenance in this yard is a full time job, let alone try to improve it or do something worthwhile with it. Sigh.

In addition to all that, I have taken two claritin, 4 squirts of nasonex, and about a gallon of visine this morning - and I'm still a mucusey, itchy, sneezy wreck. I've just informed eHubby that I will be moving next week to Arizona or New Mexico. Two words: Rock Garden.