THESE DAYS, I’M FACED WITH CHOICES I couldn’t have predicted a few months back, when I lived in a brownstone in Brooklyn.

They’re fun choices, not matters of life and death. Still, they are perplexing. For example:

• Fencing: how high? I’d like it six feet high across the front of the property, for a feeling of seclusion, but East Hampton says no more than 4 feet, and I dare not break the rules – they’re pretty fascist around here when it comes to fencing. It will be cedar, to match the house. But what kind of design – plain or cute?

The McKinley from Wayside Fence: Rather whimsical, with those little cut-outs, but they’re not really going to be seen (they’ll be hidden behind my ‘mixed hedgerow,’ which is in the pre-pre-planning stages), so do I want to bother with that little detail?

• What kind of gate across the driveway-to-come? Big enough to drive through, or merely to walk through? When it comes to deer fencing on the other three sides of the lot, I *am* planning to break the rules. Nothing short of 8′ will keep those big bucks out. But that’s wire and in the woods, less likely to attract official attention. (I hope no Town people are reading my blog.) I’ve had two fencing guys here — both scoffed at the idea of applying for permits of any kind — and one estimate so far for the deer portion: $4,200 for 470 linear feet. Is that good or bad? To be determined.

• Driveway: how big? What shape? I’m now thinking ‘parking court’ rather than driveway. I don’t absolutely need to drive up to the front door, so why not keep the car(s) tucked out of sight on the other side of my planned gate? I looked up standard driveway measurements: for two cars, a simple 25′x25′ square should do (got one estimate for about $2,000, including excavating 5″ deep and a layer of crushed concrete; that seems high). I already know what kind of surface I want: gray/beige 3/4″ gravel — larger than pea gravel, which is squishy to walk on. Then there’s the edging question. I don’t want brick or cobblestones: too urban. Steel would be functional, unobtrusive, and keep the stones from ‘migrating,’ but I could save a grand by skipping it. Would it be so terrible if a few stones migrated into the road or my forsythia hedge?

• Fireplace. Since I’ve now decided to stay here in the boondocks for the winter, a fireplace has become a must. Not a wood burning stove; this will be strictly for atmosphere and a bit of extra warmth. I’m ordering a Malm Zircon freestanding fireplace in white, below, from Hampton Hearth in Southampton (it’s the one Design With Reach carries, which I discovered later, but it certainly validated my choice). The decisions here are size — 30″ or 34″ wide? — and location. Which of two corners in my living room? Also to be determined.

Tree removal is underway and going well. Decisions have already been made (these were life or death decisions, for the trees), with the wise counsel of Eric Ernst of Montauk, known as “Tree Man.” He and his son Ethan, 19, are out there buzzing their chainsaws as I type. Soon, my yard will be less five or six diseased, struggling, leaning, or unfortunately placed trees (and I will have lots of firewood and wood chips for mulch). A white oak that overhung the yard oppressively is gone already, as is a front-yard pine that got no light. Now its neighbor, a blue Atlas cedar, has a fighting chance.

Right, ‘Before and after’ images of a gate and courtyard from my late-night internet explorations. What does it mean when you like the before (top) better than the after?

Entry Two

8/24

Mon afternoon, after day of gardening at a client’s house, was swimming laps at the pool. Saw a woman reading a book called Why Is It All About Me?

At the pool, while swimming, was thinking about my cousin who swims there but I never see her. She usually swims very early in the am – an ungodly hour for me.

She was going to teach me about how to swimming turns at the wall last year or was it the year before? We never connected about it. Then she showed up at the end of my swimming lane on the edge of the pool. She’s been really sick and is on a different swim schedule now as she tries to get her energy back. She proceeds to show me how to do the turn and I grasp the technique easily. I tell her that if I had known about how sick she was I would have brought her some food. But she and I don’t see much of each other these days and talk maybe only once or twice a year now. We used to be closer.

Earlier today, a grande dame Blue Atlas Cedar tree healed me at my client’s property. When I arrived at the property, I was in such woeful spirits. The tree called to me to do my prayers to Creator and Earth Mother under her. So I did them and then started to walk away. The tree commanded me to come back and talk with her – touch her bark. I was literally yanked back to the tree. If anyone had been watching, they probably thought I had been yanked by an invisible crook of a cane back. I don’t do normal things in the garden, at times.

I know the tree is a ’she’ since my Cherokee teacher met her several years ago and affirmed that the tree is female then. This tree is more than 300 years old, towers more than a hundred feet up and two of us stretching our arms around the girth of the tree barely touch each other. The tree is the power center of the property — and calls me to her often.

Today was different. As soon as I walked away from the tree, I was a shifted, lighter person. She took my melancholy from me and I was instantaneously in a better mood.. more positive, uplifted… Even was cracking jokes with my assistant later that morning.

My assistant was in an off mood too, so I encouraged her to go talk with the tree. Then when I caught up with my assistant half an hour later on the other side of the house, her mood was very different and lighter. She shared the tree told her to focus on “loving not just being loved…” This prompted me to say that one of my issues is being able to love through the faults that I see.

Is this what is going on for me with my teacher?

After I left the property that afternoon, my mood started to sink again… too much lead in my heart, I fear.

The days seem to blur into one another when you are suddenly the only one in the office doing the work of what two people did before. I’m pretty sure it’s Friday.

We woke up to snow on the valley floor this morning. You’d think after 29 years of living in Northern Nevada that I’d get used to spring-time in Nevada. But I’m really getting tired of snow dumping on my blooming flowers and trees.

Weeping Cherry about to blossom out ~

Am hoping that the Weeping Cherry made it through all the rain last night and snow this morning.

Looking up into my Weeping Cherry.

Still playing in the front yard ~ Here’s what the front corner looked like it all the stages since last summer thru last weekend.

Corner with Junipers from Hell.

Front Corner Today with Blue Atlas Cedar, iris, heather, lilac, lavender

Next was getting rid of a cedar type of shurb to make room for 3 Blueberry bushes, 1 Elderberry bush and a place for an herb garden.

Making room for berries and herbs.

Soon to be Herb Garden with berries.

I also planted the LEMON QUEEN SUNFLOWER SEEDS in the corner and against the fence.

The pelican? It’s cut from some heavy metal…I found it at a local yard sale earlier in March. A guy had about 4 of them that he made for some local business that decided not to take them after all. I love pelicans so I got one for $5.

Our Canada Goose Mama is back…she makes her nest outside of our building, on the second floor…on a ledge! Every year…same place. Every year we take the babies down to the court yard when they’re big enough.

Mama Canada Goose

Living on the Edge!

While walking into work yesterday morning there was this plant…am thinking it’s some sort of holly. Very pretty yellow flowers. UPDATE ~ Maybe it’s a Mahonia.

Holly of some sort??

And a parting shot of some of the quail that come to feed in my yard ~

After begging for last Friday off from work…I spent the whole day in my yard! And while my body revolted on Saturday…it felt VERY GOOD! Especially with it being sunny and 70F (then it was blowing & snowing and 40F over the weekend!)

Started at 7am in the back patio cutting the 6′ dog-eared cedar fencing down to 63″ (I had painted them the night before)…I needed to make a 4 foot section of fence to replace the tree/shrub my husband cut down on the side of the property. Took me about an hour to put it all together by myself…if you don’t look hard enough you can’t tell it’s a bit crooked.

Four Foot Section of New Fence ~ Right Side.

After getting the fence up I headed to Lowes to pick up some things I will need for the drip system. I didn’t get all I needed to do last year, so will finish it up this spring. While there I HAD to make a detour outside to look at all the new plants that came in. I bought some small containers of herbs ~ dill, lemon thyme, spearmint, oregano and something else that escapes me at the moment. Also some cabbage and broccoli.

Called my mom to see if she was home and if she wanted to go with me to G & G Nursery (I can’t find a website for them, but here is a map with some reviews) with me to look for blueberry plants. So I swung by and picked her up…found the blueberries! Yippie! G & G Nursery has 3-year old Blue Crop and Berkeley plants…bought 2 to go with the one my mom gave me from her yard. Also bought the last of the elderberry plants (the berry one and not the ornamental ones…they have lots of those).

While looking at which blueberries to buy I spied a wee Blue Atlas Cedar in a 10 gallon tub…with no price on it. He told me that I can get it for 30% off if I wanted it…I said I wanted it, but would have to wait until I get paid. My mom bought it! THANKIES! (Remind me to remind you that you already bought me an early, very early birthday present!) So we loaded up the car with the plants and swung by my house, unloaded the Lowes and G&G Nursery plants then hopped into the pickup to go get the tree.

I now have a Blue Atlas Cedar in the front yard!

See all the river cobbles around the tree? Well those came from the hole I dug for the tree…I told you last year I think a river ran through my yard. I’m pretty sure if we looked at old maps that it would show the Truckee River meandered through my yard pre-1915!

I also planted the 2 blueberries (plants in corner…with blueberry from mom’s house), 1 elderberry (right side) and 2 jasmine plants (left side) in the corner where I put up the new part of the fence. I’m hoping that if I build some hay houses for the jasmine that they will live through our winters…gotta give it a try!

Blueberries, Elderberry, and Jasmine.

I’m debating on planting the herbs in the middle…probably in a small raised bed. Or they may go up front with the Blue Atlas Cedar. Right now they are in the old wash sink in the side room of the house. And since cabbage and broccoli are cool weather plants, I went ahead and planted them in the back raised garden beds.

Also planted ~ a packet of Lemon Queen Sunflower seeds that I found at my local Lowes in Sparks… these are for the Great Sunflower Project I told you about last week.

Lemon Queen Sunflower Seeds

Around 4pm I wandered back into the house and realized I didn’t take anything out to make dinner…nor was I in any shape to go out and get something. Luckily I had a bag of leftover ham in the freezer…and some lentils in the pantry…chopped up an onion and a green chile, put that and the lentils and the frozen ham into my cast iron pot, poured some chicken broth over the whole thing. Then crawled into the shower.

Very sore on Saturday…but I wouldn’t ever trade a day like Friday for anything but another day just like it! I get a lot done with my husband at work and out of my way! LOL!

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The first snow of the season in our Washington Heights garden, and naturally we are drawn to that most unnatural of colors: the electric slate blue of the atlas cedar (Cedrus atlantica). Suddenly — are you with us? — we are on a train in northern Italy, watching the countryside drift past; here, it seems that even the ugliest post-war architecture is redeemed by the presence of such imperial trees, which if given the chance will grace us all without any mark of class or religion.

Music: “Buried Ships” courtesy of Saturnine, Mid the Green Fields (VictoriaLandRecords 1998).

One day on the street in Washington Heights we passed an old man who invited us into his garden. Though barely the size of three parking spaces, the garden contained a vast array of unusual trees, including columnar varieties of a blue atlas cedar, a purple beech (the most magisterial of all trees), a Norway spruce, and — most impressively, for it was already 300 feet tall — a dawn redwood. These trees provided a canopy through which only the most dappled light could pass, although apparently this was enough for several species of Japanese maple to thrive, and we spent several minutes admiring the intensely variegated leaves of the most unusual specimen. Nor did we fail to note our appreciation for the delicate ferns and mythic hellebores that populated the lowest regions of the garden, or the Corsican mint that crept so luxuriantly among the crevices of the rocks. In the center of it all stood a single white birch, the golden leaves of which — for by this point it was already October — fell around us like snowflakes.

When we expressed the depths of our admiration at this display, the old man nodded. “I will give it all to you on one condition.”

“Anything,” we said without a thought.

“You must pick up each of the million twigs and leaves that fall each season, so that the bricks will stay clean and the moss will not be too invasive.”

“That doesn’t sound like much,” we responded, still eager to take him up on the offer.

He laughed somewhat wryly. “Yes, well — neither does life for the first hundred years,” he shrugged. “But when the second hundred arrive, you will know the meaning of both tedium and eternity.”