Adventures Of a Phoebasaurus: And so it Begins....

The Planting Season

Nursery, aka my new second home

That's right, its here. Last week we began cleaning and packing plants so they can travel to their new homes: the emptied Mills and Aldwell reservoirs. Although I have not personally done any planting to date, crews began planting this week in both valleys. I have played my humble role at the nursery, shuffling plants around, looking for slugs and slug eggs... counting and recounting, and then having to recount again because Nico is saying 7, 12ty9, 239 or Leonie unknowingly interrupts...

Vine maples in the process of being cleaned

All the flats have tags like this to identify not only the plant, but the project it is for, the year the seed/cutting was collected, and the year it was sown. For example this is Lonicera involucrata, E for Elwha (also 07 is the project code), 12 is the year it was collected meaning this was a cutting, and 12 again, the year it was sown. If you can only get one thing right in the nursery, this would be the thing to focus on. If this tag is wrong... well. We're screwed.

We have lists, lists we must follow. Our boss has mapped polygons on both reservoirs, given them site numbers, and created plant lists according to the planting density desired for each particular site. Densities may vary due to sediment, natural regeneration, perceived browse pressure... (I made the last one up a little, although I'd like to think it is taken into account). These carts get loaded multiple times daily with a hodgepodge mixmatch of 8 hawthorne, 50 bigleaf maple, 36 black cap raspberry etc. etc. etc. The cleaned plants are put in bags marked with flagging that has the site code and bag number on it, and stored in the greenhouse until further action is taken.

Red osier dogwood

Sometimes I think fall in the Pacific Northwest is a little dull. This year that thought hasn't really crossed my mind.Red osier dogwood and vine maple in particular present brilliant pigments as the chlorophyll breaks down and departs the system in preparation for leaf dropping. They spot the landscape in drifting leaf capes, challenging others to match their vibrant concession to the impending cold.

Bigleaf maple, mixed forest

Others such as big leaf maples, indian plum and red alder attempt to meet the challenge placed with bright translucent yellows, and the conifers... well they don't give a damn about their cousins' frailty and keep doing their thing.

Am I getting poetic and rhapsodizing? Moving on...

Since we are going to be doing this (and washing pots, cant forget washing pots...) all this winter, its vital to stay peppy. And sometimes that means a Phoebasaurus visits. It typically only occurs on special occasions when props such as stubby tubes are available.

Just in Case you Think I Actually Live at the Nursery...

I take breaks to make things like windfall pear butter and a-little-dense bread. The SO kindly loaned me his crock pot to make some last rounds of apple butter from the trees in our yard, and so the fun began all over.

Leonie and I gathered these bad boys from an alley one of our coworkers had mentioned to us. Free pears!It may be the most delicious thing I have tasted in a while.

The result

Occasionally I get cocky and think that I can make bread. Now IF I had a little more patience and a less grumbly belly, this may have risen (literally) to it's full potential. I, however, was hasty. So I ended up with rather dense but still tasty walnut rosemary bread.