Resistance is futile

I tried. I really tried. I went to Arbutus with every intention of buying garden-variety wood stain. I’d decided to go with pine, as this would be lighter. I even had a tin in my hand, all set to go. And then, in a moment reminiscent of those in my twenties when a pair of shoes I hadn’t even known I needed would suddenly scream my name as I walked past them in a shop window in Oxford Street, in just such a moment as that, I spotted something. Like those shoes (oh, so many pairs of shoes), as soon as I became aware that such a thing as turquoise wood stain existed, I had to have it. 

Down to the garden first thing this morning (first guaranteed sunny day in a while) to get cracking. 

Seriously, how fabulous is this?

Unfortunately, once the strawberry/blueberry bed frames were done, a problem with the other frames became immediately apparent. I cannot not stain them in situ. Manage – with some difficulty – to shift the one on the left and get it stained, but moving the other two is definitely a two-person job, and I am but one person.

So, a message is left on Mr Fixit’s answering machine, in the hope that he might be able to pop over later today or sometime tomorrow.

After that, it’s just a question of acquiring and attaching some wire mesh. (I do have some plastic netting in the shed, but it’s a bitch to work with and anyway the holes might be big enough to trap and endanger small birds. Definitely not the object of the exercise.) Hopefully I will get around to this part of the job before the birds start eating the berries.

Appley ever after?

The question of paint versus stain has been duly debated and the answer seems to be stain. Although some followers quite fancied the idea of brightly painted frames, WISE woman Catherine made the best point.

“I just finished staining a planter box we built. Here's why: stain will protect the wood, to a degree, from wind, sun and snow and last for several years. It won't crack, bubble or peel. So the question is: do you want bright, beautiful colour and more work sanding, stripping and repainting in a couple of years? Or natural looking wood, less work and more time for the swing, the book, the cats and wine?”

Obviously more time for the swing wins. Stella, when asked, totally agrees.

Quite a bit of staining in my future, although possibly not in the next couple of days. (After a week of summer-in-April, when I go outside to take this photo of Mr Fixit’s latest delivery, there is a clap of thunder. As I write, rain has started falling.)

Elsewhere in the garden, the most exciting news so far is…

Regular readers will, I’m sure, recall that three years ago Krys and I planted a dwarf apple tree in the garden. It produced lots of blossom and one apple the first year, lots of blossom and eight apples the second year (and there would have been many more apples if frigging Antler Boy hadn't got to it) and precisely zero blossom last year. So, yes, the fact that there is once again lots of blossom on the apple tree is pretty bloomin’ exciting. Will any of this blossom turn into actual apples? Time will tell.

There is also lots of blossom on the pear tree, added to the garden two years ago. This is not quite as exciting as pear blossom has appeared in abundance every spring. What has so far failed to appear on the tree is an actual pear. Fingers crossed this might be the year.

Speaking of things blooming (or not, as the case may be), across the road at Pat’s place – and all around the island – lilac trees are already flowering. Alas, not so in my garden – neither the long-established, flowered-once-only-for-Krys-three-years-ago tree nor the second tree I planted two years ago which I was promised would flower the following year and didn’t. Considering how much I love lilacs I consider this to be most unfair. Fortunately, Pat remains very generous with his overabundance.