O u r   G a r d e n  o f  D r e a m s
By Peter & Carol  Bricel

In The Pacific Northwest
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TO OUTDOORS

HOME GARDENER'S PARADISE:

We had a lot of high fir trees; they became dangerous in heavy winds. Most of the stumps were left in the ground and they serve now as decorations. We love them. The weeds of all kinds looked very discouraging but cutting them down and covering them  with commercial covers didn't work out. Then we heard about covering the weeds with many layers of newspaper. It took piles of paper meant for the recycling...

We were happy to discover old newspapers as a very good control of the weeds, particularly on walk-ways, or areas between the plants. We have a strong growth of ferns, black-berries and salal still in the grounds. It would take a lot of clearing to clean them out. Covering the ground with at least 20 pages of newspaper and bark, or cedar chips on top does the trick. It is much better than use of anything you can get in the stores.

Building a pond is surprisingly more easy using a Pond Liner than by using a Preformed Plastic Pond. I have tried both. The difficulty   with a Preformed Pond is that the shape of the hole in the ground has to be quite close to the shape of the the form and the top edge has to be level. The Liner is also much less expensive. Wherever you purchase the materials they will have some instructions or a booklet on How to Build a Pond. It is true, a Pond just cannot be too large. The larger the more natural it becomes. Under the liner I used sifted dirt covered with a blue tarp. Our oldest ponds are about five or six yeas old and still holding water. You will most likely grow Water Lilies and they like to have at least 30" depth but do not forget a shallower Marsh and Edge zone near the edges. The effort of adding a Pond to your garden is most rewarding...

If you have space a Gazebo is an other wonderful addition to your garden. Building it from scratch, buying the necessary lumber it should be less than a few hundred dollars. You can also buy a kit with most of lumber pre cut. Most costly are cedar shakes, but well worth the money. Our summer was very cold this year and it made it easier for me to work in the afternoon, because every morning I had radiation treatments at the hospital almost 15 miles away. This way it took four weeks. I was lucky having a table saw in my garage nearby. There is a lot of angle cutting because of the octagonal roof shape.

O U T D O O R S :

A trip to the Enchantment Lakes, State of Washington

By Seth Bricel (Sept. 1999):

Recently I went on a hike with my dad (Jim) to the Enchantments, a series of high mountain lakes. It was definitely the best hike that I had ever been on and to me, one of the most beautiful places on Earth. It was a really wonderful experience going there.
My dad and I left home at about 5:30 AM for Leavenworth to make it in time to get a permit. We got one and went to the trailhead. After we packed our backpacks we hiked up a ways and saw lots of berries and fireweed. The nicest looking place that we saw on the way up was a campsite in a shady clearing next to a small creek with a couple small fish. It was near Snow Creek Wall, a popular climbing spot.
I was pretty tired from the first switchbacks, so we camped at Snow Lakes, a little more than half way to our goal. We went swimming in the freezing lake. It felt pretty good after a day of hiking.The next day we hiked ups to Leprechaun Lake and set up camp. We then day-hiked to the rest of the lower Enchantments: Sprite, Perfection, and Inspiration Lakes. Sprite was the best. It was small, but it had neat flowers and some cool waterfalls nearby. Between Perfection and Inspiration we saw 5 mountain goats, two kids and three adults. They were really bold and let us take some close up pictures of them.
The next morning we headed all the way out. We used the last of the film and food on the way. Later in the day it started to get really hot, especially on the switch back segment at the end, but we had fun anyways. It was great to be up in the Enchantments and great to get back. I'm very glad I went. It was beautiful and I'm hoping that the whole family will be able to get up soon.

Photos by Jim