The Garden Murders

Or the View From My Porch

Wednesday is the day the local weekly newspaper, the Chinook Observer, comes out. The coming weekend is going to be busy if gas prices don’t keep folks away. I was mistaken about the price of gas here on the Long Beach Peninsula or else it went up in the night Monday night. Yesterday when I took Amy to rent movies (a Tuesday ritual) it was $4.55. Well, you can get quite a bang for your gas buck if you come to the Peninsula this weekend there's so much going on. On Saturday there is the Beach to Chowder run, a 5K and a 10K run/walk followed by complementary chowder for participants and $5 for spectators. That will be happening at the Bolstad approach in downtown Long Beach. The run will be followed by the Doggie Olympics for dogs of all abilities and pedigrees so throw Fido in the car and he might get a medal if you don’t in the run. Garlic lovers listen up. This weekend is also the NW Garlic Festival which is being held at Sheldon Field in Ocean Park at the North end of the Peninsula with music, food, and various vendors. http://www.funbeach.com/events/beachrun/index.html

The folks who own the place across the street were working on it yesterday. No, it's not the house in the picture above, although a contractor lives there, too. It’s a big pink garage with a tiny apartment rental attached. I’m glad they aren’t out there yet this morning. He’s a contractor so ought to know what he’s about, but they were having a rather loud disagreement regarding how the shingles were going on.

There are many Victorian houses within sight of our porch. There’s a particular one two blocks down that my daughter-in-law, to use her words, drools over. It has the fish scale shingles, a bay window, and twin behemoth oak trees flanking the front yard. An elderly lady used to live there. Sometimes her little white poodle would play in the white picket fenced front yard. When she moved along an architect and his wife, a retired school secretary, bought the place and we knew it was in good hands. A year or so ago the architect passed away, too, and his wife moved closer to their children. I don’t know who owns the place now, but sometime in the last week and a half they had the top half of the ancient oaks cut off, leaving two large pillars in the front yard. Someone was even more upset than I for red paint has been splashed on the sad trees. I don’t approve of vandalism, but I understand the sentiment. This was our first garden murder in the neighborhood. The second occurred yesterday.

This morning is just gray without the mist. It would be a good day to finish up the mowing I got started on yesterday afternoon once the heavy mist lifted and the sun came out. Unfortunately just as I was getting started on the chore our mower died. Now the mower is probably six years old so it is not as though it is brand new or anything, but the thing is, this is the second electric mower that has died when in my hands. It’s a good thing I could only text-message my husband regarding this death. Needless-to-say I am headed to Astoria to purchase a replacement this morning in the hopes that it will a) fit in my Neon and 2) I can get the lawn mowed before he comes down on Saturday without murdering anymore lawn mowers!

The triangle patch of lawn in the picture above (by-the-way it was taken with my cell phone and isn't half bad) is what Dave is coming to work on and where Lorraine's hollyhock seeds will ultimately go. It will be my garden of remembrance.