May & June showers bring....

....lots of growth.  First of all, an update on the cedars.   I found what appeared to be a dead one near Paulette's garden and went to pull it out.  It resisted and I persisted and found that the roots were woody and firm.  I looked closely and found some new sprouting green near the soil line.  Then and there I decided to leave all plants in place for the next couple of years regardless of appearance.  Most of the trees we planted this Spring are doing really well and have already shot up as much as six or more inches.  I chalk this up to the unusually rainy weather we have been having.  The rain also made the grass grow like crazy and the now three year old Douglas-firs shoot up a foot or more like this one.  Note the yellow mesh on a branch we thought would be the leader.  Obviously another branch won.  Already many trees are above competing vegetation.  Still, if we can get rid of plants immediately around the trees it would be a big help to their growth.

Speaking more about growth, the ecology of the property seems to have completely changed this last year.  Spurred on by the rain and the invasives abatement, we see tall grass crowding out many weeds and lots of foxglove where the slash piles used to be.  This one is typical.

We had to have a new septic system installed as a condition of the building permit to remodel the existing cottage on the property. While we were at it, we had the installer rough in a driveway to our future homesite up top then I worked on it with our tractor and box blade. You can see one of Paulette's hoop houses in the garden enclosure to the right.

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Last year, no berries.  This year LOTS!  These are the native (good) wild trailing blackberries...very tasty, as opposed to the invasive, European (bad) blackberries....very tasty.

.Inspired by the garden at Good Cheer Food Bank where Paulette has been taking gardening classes, she purchased and added a special greenhouse plastic covering secured by oak lath attached to the end hoops, then framed end walls covered with corrugated polycarbonate. One end has a door and both vents. Window screen is yet to be added to the bottom of both sides shown rolled up.

.And just to show that remodeling has not been neglected, here is to what our new septic system is connected.  This is the lower floor bath with building drain at the bottom of the photo.  This will be inspected along with foundation modifications then we pour concrete.  After that, we will demolish the left half of the cottage to completely rebuild it.  We are saving the right, two story portion of the building and foundation.  This plumbing is in that part of the building.  This will be our new Cora Central, superceding our beloved travel trailer.

Dale