River Bed Reminiscing

 As our septic tank removal and replacement looms ever closer, the River Bed's days are sadly numbered.  I thought it would be nice to do a 'Way We Were' photo montage.  

The new septic tanks will be installed (hopefully) on Friday. 

We've been dismantling everything in preparation for the big event all week.  The two new tanks arrived bright and early Wednesday morning.  I was a bit taken aback by the size; wow, that's going to be a tight fit in our back yard.

I was also amazed at my apparent leg to body ratio, my goodness...looks like I'm on stilts.  Now I know why I have to order my jeans in a long length.

 

 Apparently I didn't always plant Bubblegum petunias every year.

  
My favorite pictures of the River Bed were taken in 2008-ish, I don't remember the exact date; but anyway, I was up on the roof of the garage.  I don't know why exactly, except a thunderstorm was coming in and I apparently wanted to get a closer look.

  
There's my washlines and the Gazebo and the windmill in the distance, and the shingles look really good.

  
Seeing the garden from this perspective was really different; I should do this every year. 

 It almost looks like we planted a big caterpillar when seen from the air.

 Look at that nice lawn; well, it was a nice lawn, anyway. 

The entire area is going to be obliterated on Friday.

In the picture above, Carl is sprinting off to rescue some of my potted plants from the incoming storm.  Luckily, we had no damage.

 Ah, well, so much for Memory Lane.  Now to the way things were a few weeks ago, here's the not-so-pretty views, first, the view from the bathroom just before we dug the cannas and yanked the Bubblegums: 

Above is this morning's dismal view taken from the north with everything pretty removed.  After the septic tanks were delivered I sauntered around the yard for awhile, taking random photos as I waited for the frost to melt.  I don't like handling wet vegetation and yeah, well, I'm lazy.

Though despised by many, the burning bush catches my eye every time I look at the Quarry.  

 I was tired and thought about sitting down for awhile, but the bench was wet.  Yes, I'm lazy and picky.  

 The early morning light was lighting up the Stainless Steel Whatsit quite well.  It almost took my attention away from the fact I have an entire hosta bed to dismantle yet.

 We have five Paperbark maples, Acer 'Griseum' planted in the gardens; the one above is in a sheltered area and has some green on it yet.

 The maples out in the open are a nice red.

 I'm at loose ends these days, even though there is so much work to be done, I find myself being more scatterbrained than usual.  That's scary, and not a Good Thing, I'm attributing the absentmindedness to stress.  We had dropped the Pachyberm remodeling like a hot potato to work on the septic remodeling. But then we had the two funerals last week and, well, I'm just not with it.  The mound will be in a week tomorrow already but it doesn't seem real.  The deaths seem even more unreal.

I did the laundry on Tuesday; Mom put up another protest at the wresting of her laundry from her work-willing hands, but I was victorious in the end.  And what a lot of wash I had; good grief, I ran out of lines to hang it all.  

On my way home from Mom's this morning, I received a call from our excavator informing me he cannot fit our septic tank installation into his schedule.  Oh, dear; that means I had in turn to call Fred to tell him the news and he in turn has to find a way to fit this new wrinkle into his schedule; truly a domino effect.  The weather is still holding which is unusual in November.   It won't last forever; we're all anxious to get this done by Friday.  

While I was doing laundry on Tuesday, Carl came home early from work and was digging the septic tank connecting pipes out by hand.  Fred said if we could locate as much as possible it would make the job go a little quicker.  Carl also rescued as many tulip and daffodil bulbs as he could find, too.  Everything is going to get dug up and buried and pushed around.

Joel stopped in tonight to give us a hand with the tanks, he and Carl loaded them onto our car trailer and into the back yard.  I directed traffic.  Somewhat.  (The trim was ripped off the Oldsmobile's door earlier this spring, I swear.)

Aren't they lovely?  (Do you see Carl and Joel?)

On Thursday we are supposed to be receiving two dump truck loads of sand.  That is, if my message was received.  I'm going to have to call by noon if we haven't seen it beforehand.  I have a doctor's appointment in there somewhere too......I also put in a call to our friendly septic tank pumper person; we have to destroy our old concrete tank in order to put the new ones in and the old one has to be empty before that can happen.  The septic pumper said he'll be here by 8AM on Friday.  With a project like this there are so many people involved and it's hard to get everything coordinated.  Having to find a new excavator at this late date is a problem, but I hope we can work something out.

Carl and I worked on digging out a buried electrical cable which powered the pan fountain tonight.  Gads, it gets dark way too early! We had our own power lines to the fountain and the Dome in the Formal Garden which I'm glad Carl remembered to remove. 

 I hope the fountain is safe from the remodeling, I'd hate to have to remove it, too.  When we unplugged the pump, it was sad to hear the last of the water trickling out.  

I threw together some floral/evergreen arrangements on Tuesday night for the urns in front of the garage and the light shade planters along the driveway.  I was working by the back porch light, so they didn't turn out all that great, but it's still better than looking at empty urns for the next seven months.

Between our friend Jill and myself, we've used up almost all of the greenery from the trees we had to cut down to make room for the mound.  If I have time, I'd still like to do some tweaking on these urns.

So, I guess that's about it for the Official Countdown to Septic Tank Installation/River Bed Remodeling.  Stay tuned to see how it all comes together.

All gardeners know change is inevitable, right?  This change, though a bit overwhelming,  will give us an opportunity to do something completely different.  Or not.  To tell the truth, this bed has always been one of my favorites. 



Here's to the way it was.  And hopefully will be again.