My Birthday and Since

     I would have said I'd been planting most days since the 3rd, but . . . . On September 3, Gordon and I planted three spruces and an Indian Plum.  Planting companionship was what I asked for for my birthday.  We planted two of the spruces by the tiny creek that drains our spring area, one further along on Three Rivers, and the Indian Plum in a cage on the east side of the small pond up in the woods.  On the 7th, I worked at the high school, weeding and mulching behind the school's main building with Gordon and a few kids from his new Environmental Science class.  Many of the plants they planted last spring died over the summer, but some have made it, and the straw mulch is doing a great job of staying in place and keeping things looking respectable.  It will keep the area wet but not soggy over winter and limit erosion.  The area will be easy to replant this fall and next spring - no more heroics terracing the area, etc.  

      But nothing planted that day or the next.  Yesterday Rose and I planted an evergreen huckleberry up by the little pond, removing the cage around a dead Indian Plum (?) I planted last spring and using it around the huckleberry.  Today she and I went to the county property by the child care center and planted 2 Sitka spruce by the river.  There I pulled out 2 dead things (not sure when planted or by who), and used the stake by one and the stake and cage by another to mark my new plantings (practically in the same holes that I'd pulled the dead things from).   I think the little spruce will like the sun there and be hardy enough to forgo shade and ample water during the summer.  

       That's a bare spot, very gravel-filled, along Three Rivers there.  It definitely needs to have plant cover - to shade the river water (lower water temperature for the fish) and to lessen water speed and soil erosion should it flood through there again.  (A long-ago flood probably caused this low and gravelly spot to form.)  While I was poking around, looking to see how the other plants were faring, I heard a huge splash in the river.  I thought it was Rose jumping in, but I saw she was still digging behind me.   (In the grass, not by the trees!  But, you know, she is bit of a hazard about digging plants up, if I'm not on my toes.  Because, when I enrich the soil where I plant, the richness attracts earthworms and etc., and they in turn attract their rodent predators - moles and all - and those are what Rose is after.) 

      It was salmon in the river, splashing.  As I watched I could see several dark fish shapes, and every so often, one would jump and splash.  The river is low and the salmon are tired

(being dark in color means they are tiring on their journey, even this close to the ocean), so they hardly cleared the water in their jumping, but they certainly made noise and commotion.

Pretty quickly I called Rose away from the area so she wouldn't get the idea to go investigate and hunt. 

      So, I was at 102 plants going into the 3rd, 106 by the end of that day.  Then one yesterday and two today, for a total of 109.  None of this takes into account the death of plants - that fact is staring me in the face as I get out and about and see what made it over summer and what didn't.  At this point, I'm really noticing - and bothered - by all the plants that haven't made it.  I'm sort of putting those thoughts on a 'back burner', though, so I can go on with planting.  I just have to.  Maybe I can develop a philosophy about plant death or even some practical activity to guard against it.  But for now, I'm planting again and that's enough.