It's Gonna Be A Good Day

It's On.

Rain or shine. Slight chance, but looking good.

In the Winter of Monet

Enter a living canvas.

A Pop-Up Garden Tour

The Perfect Day is Coming

In The Winter Of Monet
Enter A Living Canvas

What: A Pop-Up Garden Tour
When: Saturday, February 24th, 1 to 6pm
Why: Because My Winter Garden Is Amazing

If you know how to get here, Come.
If you need more info,
Contact Christopher C. at Outsideclyde at gmail dot com.

Seriously, wear good walking shoes. Low rider cars should park up top along the scenic byway.
The best lighting on sunny days occurs after 4:20 when the garden is swept up in the mountain's shadow.

Come see the Under Garden of Winter before the Lush returns. It could be the most talked about garden event of the year.

Now back to Lent.

Ashes To Ashes

In a universe that runs on impermanence, change is the only constant.

Ashes to ashes.

I have been officially informed. You are an old man.

Old man take a look at my life
I'm a lot like you.

It is time to change again.

How will I choose to be old?

It is time for silent reflection with the witches of time.

While a change is given a chance to occur.

I am giving up my blog and then some for Lent.

The impermanent universe is telling me so.

I have no idea what will come out the other side.
I have no idea if I can even do it.
I will try.

The right day will come.

It will pop up. I will speak up then.

I need someone to love me the whole day through
Ah, one look in my eyes and you can tell that's true

The Under Garden is ready for new visitors.
I am too.

With much aloha from Ku'ulei 'Aina.

No Flood

It's just been wet and icky.

No forms have been filled yet during this long soggy event. Because.

We have to get out when we can.

Out there is better than in form.

Unless form can bring something else to mind.

The witches of winter are here.

In orange.

In fog and soggy.

Red is elsewhere.

In the painting where the witches live.

Waiting For The Flood

I've been out walking. What else do I need to do?

The longer I wait, the less there is to do. I've been out chopping, and dropping, but no reason not to let winter do as much of that as it can do.

There may be a flood incoming. The wind is definitely blowing. I can wait a couple more days and take advantage of the natural chop. There is no hurry. I have at least three weeks and I am already close to half way through the three acres that need dropping.

I did spend a good hour pulling blackberries from the slope below the roadside vegetable garden. Some things need to be pulled. The more root and runner I get the better.

The main editing season runs February to mid-May as the vegetation begins to stir. By June the meadows are pretty much let be, to be what they will be. Then the Great Lawn and path mowing season begins.

And while I'm out walking, doing the main work of a summer garden, the Under Garden of winter shines through.

'Jelena' is growing nicely.

'Arnold' is about to pop. The Witch Hazels are a few weeks later this year. This will be the first time I have seen them sync up and all bloom at once. We have had a much appreciated real winter this year.

I stayed home for the flood. Instead it has been a warm, windy and mostly dry day.

I've been out walking. When it rains, I'll find something else that I may be forced to do. Maybe.

Blackout

I dropped a tree on my internet satellite dish. It might be a sign - that I did it on purpose. I've been thinking.

Once it was all tidied up, the gardener said, what can I plant/let grow in this new opening? I killed the dish last Thursday. There was plenty time for contemplation. I think I have decided on Itea virginica and letting an oak tree grow.

I dropped another dead hemlock tree where one group of Witch Hazels grow. I have been whittling away at them in the forest edge along the drive. Looking at their barren skeletons during the time of vegetation gets tiresome. Let them be dead on the ground. I want the air space for living things.

Every time the snow melts, the Under Garden re-amazes me.

That happened twice while I was away. Snow and melt. This is the slurpee season of repeated cold wet slop with more to come.

One would think during such an extended internet blackout, a stack of forms could have been filled in. You would be wrong. That did not happen.

I had the perfect excuse. I needed the internet to reference the instructions.

I was concerned that obliterating the satellite dish might lead to withdrawal symptoms. I was pleasantly surprised that did not happen. More than anything it seems, the internet is nothing but a way to fill time.

I knew how to do that just fine before the internet came along. There was TV, but I gave that up fifteen years ago and don't want it back. I used to read books and magazines more. That was before cataracts. Reading at the moment is kind of a chore.

I will have one new eyeball by spring at least.

I have been thinking since last year, it may be time for Outside Clyde to go on sabbatical. I have been thinking about stepping back from the internet. That opening in time could be filled with something new.

The first thing I did after the dish repair man left after making sure I was retied to the web was head outside to the garden. There was a complete melt between snows. The full technicolor Under Garden was back. The internet could wait.

Take a close look. A new season begins high on the low spot with Witch Hazels and snowdrops.

I'm still in the thinking phase. Who knows which way the cement on a wire will swing.

The perfect weekend day for a pop up garden tour is still over the horizon. The garden and I have been stirring in the interludes of warmish. I did manage a good deal of chop and drop in the sunny utility meadow in between snows during the blackout.

No matter what happens, you will find me out there walking, inside a living painting. It only gets better.