Christmas 2024

 As I am all too fond of saying far too often, where does the time go?  The end of 2024 is upon us once again.  We have been blessed this past year with no health challenges for which we're incredibly grateful.  I won't say that I live my life waiting for the other shoe to drop, but my thoughts do wander.

Anyway, we were working on the garden remodeling right up until the second week of December.  The excavator was carefully put back in the tiny shed until spring last weekend (how that big thing fits in there is really amazing) and the snow blower is on the tractor and ready for the first blizzard.

 

Winter has been rather mild so far, we've had a sprinkling of snow on and off which had melted, but as of now we've got a few inches on the ground.  

 

Back in late November, Audrey is posing with the extremely 'rare' 'Snowball' River Birch.  (I'm not sure of the botanical name, but I don't think there are any more in cultivation.)

A few weeks ago, Audrey and I had a rousing game of something loosely akin to ice hockey on the frozen puddle of the remains of my late parent's basement.  In hindsight, and as a stately grandma, you'd think I'd know better than our mutual use of rocks as pucks kicked across the puddle at each other's goal line, but this was a hastily thrown together scrimmage and time doesn't wait for acquisition of official equipment.  I can assure you, however, nothing keeps you on your toes more than ducking flying granite while balancing on ice.  Don't tell her parents.  Shhh...

Audrey was a big help to me in decorating again this year, she's always ready for a challenge, and getting ornaments untangled and my fake trees assembled is something I really need help with. 

The Christmas village was set up with precision, something her dad and Uncle David enjoyed when they were children, too.

I have some Christmas wrapping to do yet.  I made candy yesterday, not that we needed it.  The damages include chocolate covered peanut butter balls and a rendition of my mother's potato candy.  I looked through all of her recipes but couldn't find it.  After a search of the internet, I found something similar.  

'Boil one small Yukon gold potato, mash it with no salt or butter and add powdered sugar to the potato until it forms a dough.' (Which takes an alarmingly large amount of sugar to accomplish.) 'Then after forming the dough into balls, dip in chocolate' to complete the completely unhealthy creation.  It had been probably thirty years since Mom made them and now I can see why.  They are pretty good, but I'm going to keep looking for her original recipe.

Downstairs is decorated with all the old stuff I've had since we were married 46 years ago.  Mom trundled off the boxes and suitcases of ornaments to me with an almost palpable relief way back then, "Here, I'm done putting up all of this stuff. It's all yours now."  

She was done with full-scale decorating by the time she was 58.  And here I am, still muddling around at 66.  Good thing I have Audrey!
 

As I write this, I am sitting upstairs in the 'glow' of what was the last of Mom's Christmas trees, an 18" tall green plastic dime store purchase made when she was in her late eighties.  The little tree served her very well until the Christmas of 2016, when she was 95.  She didn't live to see December 2017.

 I found the tree in a garbage bag in her storeroom when we were clearing the house out before demolition.  She'd left a few tiny 'Shiny Brite' ornaments on it, some the size of marbles, which she'd had from her very first tree as a bride in 1941.  

 Mom loved 'twinkle lights' which were a new thing for us back when I was a girl.  The big, old light bulbs they replaced, oh those things!  If you're old enough, you may recall the ones, the buggers that got so hot they burned the flesh off your fingers if you touched them and threatened to set the live tree on fire, especially as it started to dry out.  As a girl, I kept my presents tucked under the tree until we took it down in January and was guaranteed to have needles down the back of my shirt and in my hair every time I reached for them.   

Anyway, Mom's little tree is not so much twinkling as it's flashing on and off like a cheap hotel vacancy sign at the moment, and I'm seriously wondering if I can locate the 'twinkle bulb' culprit and replace it with a steady burning bulb.  

One thing I know about Mom, she wouldn't mind.

As she said, it's all mine now.

                                                   Merry Christmas!

September Inspiration Excursion

 Bright and early last Thursday morning we packed our suitcases into Joel's truck and set off to view the Union Pacific's Big Boy No. 4014 steam locomotive in Illinois.  According to the site, the Big Boy is the world's largest operating steam locomotive and weighs 1.1 million pounds.  

We made it to Sterling, IL on Friday with time to spare and visit with other train enthusiasts from many other states.  Our plan was to follow the train after it left the whistle stop and watch it running at top speed, but we got tied up in traffic.  By the time we found our way out of town, the train was long gone, but we were glad to have the experience.

 On the way to Illinois, we toured the Boerner Botanical Garden in Milwaukee on Thursday.  This was one of the first botanical gardens I'd ever seen when Carl and I were dating back in the 1970's.  Much has changed as plantings have matured and new gardens have been added.  Workers were setting up the grounds for the China Lights Festival which begins September 13 through October 27, 2024.

There were displays all over the gardens and more were arriving on trucks as we were leaving that morning.  The grounds looked like something out of a fairy tale, I can only imagine how glorious nighttime illumination will be!

From Milwaukee, we traveled to Janesville Rotary Garden that afternoon, another absolute gem of a botanical garden.   The Japanese garden is what I was most interested in because of the stonework and the water features, but we appreciated each garden and the meticulous grounds. 

There was a groundskeeper putting Christmas lights on the trees while we were there, over 1 million lights for their holiday display in total.  What a treat that would be to see in December. 

I think I found my favorite garden pond at the Rotary:

The area of the pond itself is almost the same size as our Quarry puddle here at home.  There is a stream that cascades down to many other levels as well.  This was the inspiration I was seeking for our remodel.

                                                Joel took some time to enjoy a lawn chair.

My favorite piece of reclaimed architecture is the old Parker Pen stone entrance.

 

What a glorious portal to the formal garden beyond.

The stone building below is a very recent addition.

                                               Carl, inspecting the wrought iron hinges.

              There was a great view of the gazebo and the lake from the top of the building.

We stayed the night in Platteville, WI before heading to our last destination, the Anderson Japanese Garden in Rockford, IL.  Pictures cannot convey the details and serenity of the twelve acre Anderson garden.  This is a true masterpiece.

We were honored to speak with a docent at the garden who was very cordial and knowledgeable about the history of this beautiful landscape.  Tucked in between a busy highway and a residential neighborhood, there is such serenity to be found.  What a testament to the garden designer and the maintenance gardeners hard work.

We left Illinois and headed back to Wisconsin, discussing the beautiful things we had seen on our trip.  

Finally, at 10:30PM Friday night, we were home, tired, but inspired.  

 

                       Time to put the new ideas to work.

P.S. Today is our 46th wedding anniversary.  Where did that time go?

Renovation Progress

 

In what is record time for us, we have the stonework completed in the new 'canyon' of the Pachyberm in just over two weeks.  The new stone walls are steep which should eliminate a great deal of weeding.  We hope.

                                                                                       Walls going up

We need to be able to drive the lawn mower through the gap for mowing, and had been measuring as the stones were installed.  We thought the distance between the walls was ample, but unfortunately, the width needed to be increased after a test drive when I found there was only an inch to spare on the curve.  I'm glad we discovered the mistake before all of the work was done.

The rocks that were no longer needed in the area were hoisted out of the way.

We'll be using the excess stone in the next phase of the renovations.  Joel lifted them with the excavator into piles as he drove away, picking each one up and moving them in front of him where they are now stockpiled until needed. 

Carl has been raking and repairing the lawn and I've been replanting hostas and other perennials that were removed in the demolition.  

I've been going in circles thinking about how we can repair and rejuvenate the Quarry itself, and have stared at it trying to imagine what we can do without destroying all of the conifers.  We have attained our garden design inspiration from nature and other private and public gardens we've toured over the years.  I pulled up pictures of my favorite gardens online and watched videos, but pictures just aren't the same as being there.  

As it turned out, Joel wanted to see the legendary Big Boy No. 4014 steam locomotive as it makes its way across the Midwest.  The closest stop to us was in Illinois, about four hours away.  He said as long as  we were in the area, we could revisit my favorite public gardens.  

We haven't been away from home overnight for seven years as neither of us like to travel much, but this was a great opportunity and a much-needed break.
 

Red sunset on Wednesday night as I ran around watering all the pots extra-heavy to keep them going while we were gone. 

Time to pack our bags and be inspired.

 

The Renovations Begin

 Last week Monday we began the task of tearing up parts of the goofy-named Pachyberm.  (How 'inventive' of me to come up with the silly title for a pile of dirt in the middle of our lawn in 2009.) 

The name came from a satirical article I'd read years ago by a garden critic who, loosely quoted, stated, 'Berms look ridiculous in landscaping, especially if the rest of the garden is on flat ground.  I suppose they could be useful, however, in the unlikely event the garden owners needed to bury an elephant.'  

Later on we had a garden visitor also question our reason for having the odd hill, so even though we didn't bury a pachyderm in our yard, I nicknamed it the Pachy(b)erm as it has been known ever since.

 The first rock leaving the vicinity using the old hand-crank wrecker hooked to the back of my late father's tractor.

There we are, 51 years old, posing with the big rocks that were dumped on our lawn back in 2009.  The same rocks we are now hauling out. 

The dwarf conifers have grown so much since then and the rocks have been hidden under them. Back then I wanted 'planting spaces' to put flowers in, now that I'm older, solid rock sounds good.  Or lawn.  

 Below is the same view as above, August 21, 2024.

We began removing the rocks from the west end of the berm the way they were installed with the wrecker and tractor. 

It was slow-going and though Carl did not want to tear up the lawn by driving the excavator in, he finally agreed it would make the job go much faster.  Joel drove it over to the berm right after he got home from work.  Yes, it left ruts, but at this point, we don't care.  They can always be fixed.  Plus, digging hostas has never been easier.

Now, as my late mother would say, we were cooking with gas.  Or diesel.  If we would have had this equipment back in the day, things would have been a whole lot easier.  But then we would have probably built more gardens, and then we'd have more to downsize.  On second thought, good thing we didn't have it years ago.

Even though the excavator moves the boulders with ease, each rock has to be rigged with chains and placed carefully using a crowbar and blocks for a final fit.  Carl and Joel are both experts at chains and rocks after all these years.  Joel helped us with each phase of the garden construction over the years. We were reminiscing about the project and figured out he was 23 when this particular berm was built. 

He said, "I'm 38 now, and would not take on a job like building the Quarry in my 40's and the berm in my 50's, even with the use of an excavator."

I think he was kindly telling me that his parental units have always been a bit eccentric. But just as he was invaluable as a teenager and younger man, he's still working as hard as ever right along with us.  We are blessed.

At the end of the first day we had shortened up the west end of the berm by a good fifteen feet.  We had a lot of trouble with thistles in this area and it was amazing to see how deep their roots extend.  No wonder we weren't successful weeding them out all these years.

While Joel was at work the next day, I took the controls of the excavator and ever so slowly hoisted rocks into place for Carl.  To his credit, he only looked terrified once.  I don't blame him, he gives me a wide berth as we all do no matter who is driving swinging rocks overhead.  Safety is paramount.  Everyone stands out of the way until the rock is on the ground.

We had to dig at least fifty hostas and other perennials out of the berm and have them in the shade waiting for transplanting.  Only one conifer had to be taken out so far, which was sad but it hadn't been doing well anyway. 

With the rocks out of the way, we could remove the soil next.  We're intending to cut the remaining berm almost down the middle and have the ability to drive between the remaining trees by shoring up the walls with some of the boulders, forming a sort of canyon effect.  This will cut the bed down by more than fifty percent.  Truth be told, we probably could have yanked everything out and turned it all back into lawn, but the conifers are still beautiful, so for now, we will preserve them. 

Joel was back on the excavator on Friday afternoon, loading up our old dump trailer with the soil we don't need.  I was in charge of hauling the soil to our pile an acre away while Carl helped dump the antique trailer for me.

Our eight year old granddaughter, Audrey, helped by hauling a few loads of dirt with the lawnmower trailer with Grandpa Carl along for the ride.

 By sunset we had the soil removed and ready for rock replacement on Saturday.

Saturday saw a lot of progress and a lot of head-scratching.  When we originally built the berm, we'd be lucky to get three boulders in place in one day, but the ease at which the excavator can get into tight spaces is phenomenal.  It's the 'sky-hook' we always wished we'd had.  Using a long chain we can suspend huge boulders and get into the trees without ruining anything.  

Saturday was in the upper 80's and the humidity was rising.  We were all hot and sticky, but kept at the job until sunset again.  

Sunday was a day of rest and in the afternoon we had an 80th birthday party to attend.  

The temperatures were up into the 90's with the humidity pushing it over 100 degrees by Monday, not the kind of weather meant for heavy landscaping.  We watered the planters and the perennials that are out of the ground, mowed lawn and took frequent breaks in the house to cool down.

Monday night, a severe thunderstorm came through and again on Tuesday morning right before noon, but we were lucky, nothing major was destroyed.  The humidity was still oppressive, though, and we spent the day running for parts for the tractors.  I did some deadheading on the zinnias and cut back the broken plants from the storm before calling it a night. 

The rest of the week is forecast to be much cooler, so we'll be back at it tomorrow if all goes well.

If we all had Audrey's energy, this project will be done in no time.