World Labyrinth Day

We have been working quite hard to get ye olde homestead to look presentable for our World Labyrinth Day gathering, later today.

The labyrinth has gotten a fresh "haircut" and the bricks have been cleared, which required a pretty thorough weed whacking. Tori has spent the past couple of weeks busting her butt at the seemingly endless job of weeding the lavender border. And it got done, and the labyrinth looks great!

We have invited friends from Port Townsend and around the state-- as well as everyone who lives here on the Colman Drive "loop" in Cape George. Since it is more or less an "open house" format, we really have no idea how many people might show up, nor when they might be here. I guess time will tell. We're about as "ready" for the event as we are likely to be. Now we just need to put the energy out there for it to stay dry, so people can actually be outside and walk the labyrinth.

Elsewhere, we have been starting to "tidy up" things, after what seems like a really long period of not paying attention to the garden... beyond just the most rudimentary stuff.

Tori seems to have developed an interest in yard work... and perhaps she's sensing (even if only inadvertently or subconsciously) the anti-depressant aspects of "playing in the dirt" and doing something physical.

The beds along the driveway have been completely weeded (we started that a few weeks back), and even the cracks in the concrete no longer have grassy bits growing in them.

I cut down the "eternally dying" madrona tree which used to be behind the red rhododendron at right. I never seemed to do very well, and every time we thought "the last branch had died" another branch would start wilting and soon turn brown. It seems there is some kind of "wilt" going around with madronas in the region, so it wasn't really specific to our tree. Anyway, the front looks a lot better with it gone, and now it will no longer hit against vehicles or people's heads.

Back when we started digging through the thick blanket of weeds along the driveway, Sarah discovered that we actually had six blueberry bushes, hiding below all the junk.

They have obviously been there at least since we bought the house in mid-2011, but they never really had much of a chance.

Now they have been "dug out" and Sarah built a small fenced pen to discourage the neighborhood "retarded deer" from wandering in there, too easily. Although this is hardly much of a "deer proof fence," it will at least make it a little more difficult for them... and since there is so much "deer food" in the area, hopefully they will move on to something that's a little easier to eat. We are still a little mystified by why our tulips seem to be such a delicacy for deer... yet other people in the neighborhood (without deer fences) seem to have beautiful tulips.

Maybe I should be researching to see if there are "complimentary plants" deer don't like, which you can mix in with the tulips to deter them.