Trifter

Fishing Boats in the Marina at Charleston

           Moving took over a week, and I have always wondered how we could have fitted so much stuff into a little tiny house trailer that we had been living in. It was October and the beginning of the rainy season in Coos Bay. The sweet smell of burning leaves filled the air as we drove up and down the windy little hill, and the buzz of chain saws echoed across the valley, as we unloaded box after box. Of course we were helped by the Boston Terriers ever step of the way.  We, at that time had only two.  That was to change very quickily. People have asked me over the years what our house was like. Did we live in the woods? Was there wildlife in the area?

            Actually, we do live on a wooded hillside that curves gently around the slough below. Coalbank slough was named after the coal bunkers from where the coal was uploaded onto the large cargo ships that backed up into the slough, as they could not turn around once they were there. We do have bear, cougar, deer, elk, and on a full moon one can hear the coyotes that inhabit the surrounding hills and raccoons and squirrels that tend to inhabit our yard. Deer stick pretty close to town these days, but come hunting season, all the game animals depart, never showing their faces until hunting season is over. The rest of the year you can spot deer standing in the middle of the road down from our house, or munching blackberries surrounding the church by the hospital, which is pretty much slap dab in the middle of town.

            Our little cottage, built in the early 1930’s, is about 1100 square feet with cedar shake siding, and a large back deck, sitting on three-quarters of an acre. Surrounded by pine and cedar woods on one side and deciduous trees on the other, small lanes border each side of the property, meeting in a triangle down at the bottom of Pitzer and McLain Lanes.  The only house that adjoins our odd-shaped parcel is below us. Joyce, my friendly neighbor also came from England, and our visits consist of a “cuppa,” talk of gardens, England, the life we led as we grew up so far across the ocean, compared to the life and state of the world we live in today.

            It’s quiet here at Treetops. We listen to the songbirds in the trees below. Squirrels chatter and shriek in the tall pines, and the wind accompanies our daily life with all kinds of tunes as it blows its way up the hillside. Occasionally you can hear the wail of an ambulance in the valley below, or the rhythmic sound of men chopping wood, or the noisier buzzing of chain saws, as neighbors store away wood for the coming winter.

            Traffic is light on the road that sits above us, almost roof high. An occasional logging truck rumbles by and the worst part of living below a roadway is the dust. Although the road is paved we tend to accumulate a fine layer of dust that filters down into the house on a daily basis (either that, or I am just plain lazy). But the garden provides an oasis, a place of quiet restfulness, for all of its jumbled cottage garden look. Friends who visit are always in awe, as they exclaim, “Wow, it’s so peaceful here.” But it wasn’t always that way.

            That October when we moved in, the garden was a disaster. Just a small patch of turned over ground about the size of a pocket hanky that on the real estate listing was named “a large vegetable garden,” and the small still green lawn totally flanked by massive waves of oncoming blackberries, that were slowly claiming the house as their own. There were only three items standing in the garden. First an elderberry bush by the corner of the house, a heritage type rose known by neighbor Joyce as “Claudia’s Rose” and a spindly lilac bush. The lawn, halted by more ferns and blackberry bushes, then tumbled down hill, to the small meadow, also dotted with blackberries, and the woods. It was only three-quarters of an acre, the barn would have to be torn down, but there was room for improvement, and I could picture it all, a cottage garden, fruit trees, and the wood-lot.

To be continued

Queenie splashing it up at the South Jetty