February 27

          I subbed a lot last week, and hosted writing group AND Book Club on the 18th, and writing group again on the 25th.  Lots of housecleaning.  Lots of excuses.  I did write a new short story.

          Anyway, I got compost - "manure fiber" - at the methane generator located at the burned-down blimp hangar just south of Tillamook, 18 - 20 miles north of here.  It is $10 to fill the bed of my little Toyota.  I hope to take a shovelful to each of this year's and previous years' plants.  What I didn't get on my trip to town was wire fencing for tree cages - too busy getting books at the thrift shop, groceries, and seeds!!  40% off the seeds!! at Fred Meyer, and great fruits and vegetables at Valley Fresh Produce.  (Yes, that last mention is 'product placement'.  It's a sweet little market owned and run by a Mexican family.)

           But late this afternoon, after rain all day (for days . . . ), Rose and I planted two hemlocks.  We used ones from the AAUW, and I caged them with cages from a blueberry I'd transplanted to inside the fenced blueberry patch (our old vegetable garden space), and another extra cage that was hanging around.  I used temporary poles to stake the cages in place - a fiberglass pole and a bamboo one that have been around awhile.  G. says he has lots of T-posts, the usual metal fencepost around here.   But I will need him to find them and drive them in.  He's wiring our old guest room which we are remodeling for our older son and his wife.  We're hoping they'll stay with us quite awhile when they come from Mongolia, before they go off for him to go to college again.  Wiring involves wiring the basement, too - complicated stuff.  I won't interrupt him, unless absolutely necessary.

          I planted one hemlock among spruces - one or two are dead? - on the hill toward the river from the tractor road that comes from the mink bench past the little pond.  I planted north of the pond slightly, somewhat near earlier this year - and several older - huckleberries.  The other one we put in almost on the bank of the tiny creek that runs into Three Rivers from our spring.  It's maybe 30 feet from the river.  This area has very little along the river besides salmonberry - which I like, but trees are needed to hold the bank.

          I'm beginning to realize I'll need to learn some things in order to complete my project:

     1)  I'll have to get strong enough to push a wheelbarrow with trees etc., up steep hills,

     2)  know how to cut and weave closed wire fencing circles for tree cages, 

     3)  know how to pound in T-posts

     4)  find sources for wire, 

     5)  find sources of plant material:  Yamhill Co. SWCD, Nestucca Neskowin Watershed Council, trading my labor potting trees with BLM, Forest Service permits to dig 'forest resources' -- these are possibilities I need to look into.

          There are probably many, many more things I'll need to learn!  Not knowing how to do things or where to get plants/wire, etc., really stymies me.  I'm pretty shy, especially when I don't know exactly what to ask or who to ask.

           They've cut - beheaded, it seems to me - all the baby alders coming up, "weeds" in the large terraces at the High School.  I don't know how to ask them not to do that.  I have asked over and over that they not spray/use herbicides and pesticides.  I don't know if that got to the right folks, but the little trees looked cut, not sprayed.  Which is good, I guess.  I don't want to be a pain in the ass volunteer.