"I got one"

Scott finally caught a fish. Last weekend this nice salmon gave up the struggle was brought aboard and forced to pose for photos. He was brought home and smoked. The smoking process was a learning experience for Scott. Alterations will be made to the smoking recipe next time to improve the flavor and texture. I am not saying it was not good, as it was, but i can be improved. I hope he brings home one of this guys friends soon.

Night music or noise - you decide

One persons music is another persons noise. I happen to like the extremely loud rebits of the the tree frog that has taken to hanging in my backyard. i am guessing it is a male trying to attract the female frog to his new digs.

here is a little info about tree frogs.
As the name implies, these frogs are typically found in very tall trees or other high-growing vegetation. They do not normally descend to the ground, except to mate and spawn—but some even build foam nests on leaves and during their adult lives rarely leave the trees at all.
The back color of tree frogs is typically a vivid green, uniformly so in many species, subtly patterned in others, altogether giving an excellent camouflage depending on the particular kind of vegetation they inhabit and what predators they have to hide away from. But many tree frogs can change their color to a remarkable extent, and thus when resting on bark they are usually brownish grey.
Tree frogs are usually minuscule, as their weight has to be carried by the branches and twigs of their habitat. While some reach 10 cm (4 in) or more, they are hardly in the same size class as "grass frogs" (which ironically contain some species belonging to the "true" tree frogs, Hylidae). Typical for "tree frogs" are the well-developed discs at the finger and toe tips; the fingers and toes themselves as well as the limbs tend to be rather long, resulting in a superior grasping ability.

A beautiful spring weekend

The last two days were so beautiful I could not wait to get out and do some gardening.
That made Saturday kind of painful since I had to work until 3 pm. I stopped at the nursery on my way home and boy were they busy. People and dogs every where. This is not a dog park. Leave the furry kids at home. Anyway, I escaped without spending too much money. I brought home a few shade plants for the “back 40”.

When I finally got out in the yard I spent most of Saturday edging the back portion, and a little time cleaning my pond and planting a few plants here and there.

Sunday I transplanted most of my tomato starts from their plug pots into 4” pots. After they spend a short time there I hope to sell off the spares. Today is there first day outdoors unsupervised. I hope they don’t party and disturb the neighbors.

Scott put together a potting bench and that is where my tomatoes are currently hanging out. It will spend a little time on the back porch for easy access then it will go back behind the shop.

Today I will be attending a meeting for a almost local garden club. The West Linn garden club’s meeting will run from 7-9. I hope it is informative and fun. More on that later.

Very busy sunday at the Brown-Williams house

This is Viburnum tinus 'Compactum'Spring Bouquet

It is an evergreen shrub with small, leathery, dark, green leaves. The new stems flush wine-red then fade to green. Viburnum tinus 'Compactum' has dense fragrant white to light pink flowers in the spring. The fruit is a blue black berry in the fall. This Viburnum has a round compact upright growth habit and can get 5-6' tall by 5-6' wide making it perfect for small hedges or screens.


I pent quite a while remove some giant overgrown ugly shrub to make room for this little cutie. The shrub in question would obscure the light from the new window I am designing for the back porch area. Hopefully to be completed by June. It would be nice to have it done for Christina's graduation.
I think it is so cool that she will be graduating at or near the top of her class. Quite an accomplishment. especially considering she works full time too.
Aside from shrub removal other Sunday activities for me included planting some peas, carrots, spinach and nearly 100 onion starts. I added 1 more blueberry bush. It is a northern high-bush variety that will fruit in June. My others fruit in July, so i will be able to enjoy them for a longer season.
I mowed the back lawn and then Scott put down a bit more seed and fertilized it. Scott also spent some time putting finish on several stair treads to be installed when they are done.

Heron and hail

Last week i finished the tiles. Here they are. Some of the colors did not come out as i hoped, but they are good enough. I think it will look nice when Scott attaches it to the wall where the banister use to be. It will save him the effort of repairing the damage from the removal of the old banister.

The stair remodel has been dragging on due to salmon fishing. Scott hopes to catch one soon and there is only so much time do it in, so the stairs fall to the back burner.

The weather today is crappy typical Portland weather. i had hopes that i could do a bit of yard work today. I wanted to put in some edging on the back 40 and plant some shade plants there in front of all the rhododendrons, but no, too cold and wet.


At least this weather is an improvement of the bazaar stuff that fell from the sky last week.
It would be sunny one minute, big fluffy snow falling the next, and ultimately tons of hail or freezing rain. that is spring (or nearly so) in Portland.

Even though it is technically not spring, i call it spring as soon as the daffodils start coming up.

Sprouts

I can't believe it is frigging snowing. The daffodils are starting to bloom and its snowing.




Nothing more to plant inside. Now i just need to keep them alive until i plant them outside. All the sprouts have come up, except the Cleome flowers. They were planted last week, so maybe they just need a little more time. I wish it was spring, and i wish i was done with tax season. Tired of working 6 days a week.

Yard and patio show

Yesterday i went to the yard & patio show at the convention center.

I attended 3 seminars.

The first one was about fragrant plants. it wasn't much of a talk. more of a list of plants for each season.

The second seminar was put on by Ed Hume ttp://www.humeseeds.com/. It was about tips for the vegie garden and growing things year round. I did pick up a few tips from his talk. A couple of them were on slug traps, and gopher deterrents.

The last seminar was "bodacious borders" The speaker was Lucy Hardiman a local garden designer. http://www.lucyflora.com/ it was about planning borders, obviously. Thinking about color, texture, size, etc. There were some wonderful slides. I did get a few ideas from her talk. This picture is from her website and is a garden she did.

Today i planted my melons and a few other things. Now my little indoor greenhouse if pretty much full. Lots of little sprouts coming up.