Garden & Garlic Dreams

And the View From My Porch

It’s gray this morning in Ilwaco, but I have hopes of it burning off later and being as sunny as it was yesterday afternoon. The view from my porch changed over the weekend. Besides making progress on our new garden, the folks across the street spent the weekend tearing down their aging fiberglass green house. The grandson probably had the most fun banging away with his hammer. My husband enjoys demo as well. I confess to being more on the “preserve and enhance” side of DYI.

It was a busy weekend at our house in Ilwaco with little time for sitting on the porch and little alluring weather. On Thursday my daughter-in-law and grandson arrived from Gig Harbor. My mother came home from the hospital on Friday and our friends Jo and Jon came from Gig Harbor as well. On Saturday afternoon my husband Dave came down and our party was jolly, giving us the warmth we lacked outside.

Saturday we walked to the Ilwaco Farmer’s Market where we bought vegetables for dinner. There was no tuna or sturgeon to be had for dinner as it’s too early in the season. Not wanting to end our fun we drove the fifteen miles North to Ocean Park to attend the N.W. Garlic Festival. The garlic festival was what had drawn Ana down this weekend, garlic being her favorite food.

Though it pains me to say it, the N.W. Garlic Festival was a bust. There were plenty of booths selling crafts and food booths with the usual fair fare, but blessed little garlic. It was disappointing to Ana, Jo and Jon and irritating to me since it was fifteen miles each way. About the most garlicky thing about the festival were two gentlemen dressed as garlic and wearing top hats. We purchased nothing other than some good teriyaki which we ate in the car parked on the approach, the wind being cold. Ocean Park needs to come up with a new name for their June festival—“Summer Solstice For Most of Us” perhaps?—but until they have more than two booths selling garlic products and a few food booths featuring garlic, they need to drop that word from their title.

We got our lawn mower woes straightened out, the lawn mowed, and a portion of the sod dug from my remembrance garden. I put together the plaque for my father and purchased white and purple lilacs for his brothers and their wives. Their plaques await assembly. I might just do that today.

Best of all, Monday my mother felt like getting out, coming over and sitting on the porch. We borrowed Amy’s foot stool from her cottage and tucked a down comforter over her legs and there she stayed for a long time until the Sun disappeared behind the clouds and the cold breeze that has been the theme here since I arrived, made its appearance at the turning of the tide. Our few snatches of sunshine have been divine and having my mother join me on the porch made it feel more like summer, but a bit more warmth would be appreciated here on the coast.

The view from my porch is gradually changing and my dream of a place to remember those whom I still love so dearly gradually is taking shape. I’ve got my father’s plaque put together and two more for aunties and uncles to stick in the ground and hopefully Dave will get the rest of the sod dug out before long and I can add more things.

Just now there’s laundry and dishes to do so I’ll mosey back in the house. Stay cool up there in Pierce County and thank goodness Summer seems inclined to join us.