It is mid August, and I am posting one last blog before I start teaching. I have not posted since I came back from Newfoundland, but there is a reason for that. Shortly after returning home, the city of Montreal started a large project of renovations and redesign of my corner. Because I have a corner property, this impacted both the front and the side of my yard, both of which are the edges of my flower garden in front.The city was replacing water pipes under the road. They had dug up my lawn a couple of years ago to replace the connecting pipe between the city and my property (resulting in uprooting and replanting a part of my garden). I am not sure why they had to do this in two installments, but at least this time, in addition to replacing the water pipe, they also replaced the sidewalks and are repaving the roads that intersect on my corner.
So this summer, every weekday morning around 6:20, trucks arrived and work me up. I would hear the loud beeping of their reversing. Then I would try to get back to sleep but it was like waiting for the other shoe to drop.I never knew if the house would start shaking, or I would have to run around closing all windows because the dust started blowing in, but I have been waking pretty early for someone on vacation. The worst part is that I had to dig up the plants on the periphery of my property and keep them potted for around a month until I was able to replant. I did not have enough pots for all, so I rescued around 2/3 of the lilies, which means it may take a few years to get them up to the stunning wall of green and orange they were at the time I had to dig them out.
The city decided to enlarge the sidewalks on the three corners that they redid, creating a small garden space in the middle. It means we lose three parking spots, but that my garden will now be in full view to all passersby whether on foot, cycle or car. Also, I am less likely to have cars parked blocking the edge of my driveway, although you never know.
A long term inconvenience has been the position of the dip in the sidewalk in front of our driveway. For my longtime readers, you may recall that when we moved into the house, there was not really a driveway, just a muddy space on the lawn with some gravel buried in the mud. The dip starts in front of a large linden tree, which obscures more than half of the part of my neighbour's property where their driveway should be. Clearly the city department which plans sidewalks and the department which plants trees do not pay much attention to each other, or at least they did not some 50 years ago or more when the linden was planted.
So our arrangement, which followed the arrangement of previous owners of our two homes, was that they could park overlapping our side. Ovidiu had, at the time we moved in, tried to get the city to either cut the tree or repave the sidewalk, but to no avail.
When the workmen started, I asked the supervisor if they could expand the dip in the driveway so that we could both park our cars, and showed him that the tree blocked the entrance. He told me I needed to go to the planning department of the city and make a formal request. We knew this was not likely to be successful, especially after I was informed I needed to bring my certificat de localisation (which shows the limits our my property.) Fortunately there were several work teams, and the one that paved the sidewalk were quite generous, and kept the original end point in front of the tree while giving me an extra few feet. In order to make their case visually, Iulia and Ovidiu spent a very busy weekend expanding their side of the driveway behind the tree, in order to be able to make the argument that they needed the extra space to be able to enter the driveway, then move the car behind the tree to be on their own property. I am not sure it was necessary, but I suspect I will enjoy the extra space to be able to ride my bike into the back between the two cars which was not always possible before. It will also make things easier in the future when one or both of us sell our houses, in case some future owner is less flexible than we are.
Once the sidewalk was paved, my front walkway was suddenly eight inches below the new sidewalk. At first I was concerned that I would need to find a company and the money to repave my front walkway (long overdue and much needed!), until one of the workmen cautioned me that I should hold off from replanted all the plants I had put in pots until they were done repaving my walkway. I did a double take. The city was repaving my walkway for me!So it has been five weeks, and today I finally replanted all the plants that were displaced. I have an order for a huge load of garden earth from Home Depot, because now I have to raise up the rest of my front yard (or parts at least) which are sunken below the walkway. I also got a new garden bed along the other side of the walkway to fill with earth and plant.
So my front garden has not been very photogenic, and is still a work in progress. Because of the noise and dust, I had not been doing much work in the garden up until this week. Also, everything has been last because we had a cold spring. Tomatoes finally started ripening this week (the romas I bought at Walmart only, the rest are still green). I had my first (wonderful) cucumber for lunch today. The apple tree seems to have some apples that are not wormy, and the squirrels are feasting on what falls to the ground so I am hoping to have a decent harvest in a few weeks. I am finding half eaten apple cores everywhere, including stuck behind the chicken wire on my fence above the cucumber plant. The kids have been helping me weed, because I had let things go during the super hot heat wave of the past few weeks, and we are making some progress. The garlic is very small, but super tasty. Clearly I did not water it enough during the dry spell. Isaac has been cooking sourdough pizzas, and homemade pasta using my tomatoes, basil and garlic in the sauces. I am thinking of planting some greens next week now that I have a lot of space, and the weather is cooling off.
