September 19, 2005

First rain of the season. First rain! Good lord, when was the last time we saw rain in September? My notes are bad, or I would tell you.

Everything is approaching the end of the season here, which means it’s time to go out and begin the heavy work of the fall. It’s different here than a lot of the rest of North America, fall is actually the best time to plant native plants, shrubs, and trees, because the rains of winter will soak the soil and let them set their roots deep into the earth. The rest of everything must be cut back. Not because the snows will bury them, but they’ll begin new green growth through the spring. The Matilijas, Mexican Sage, Butterfly Bush, and Fennel, all who have become heavy with seeds, must be cut down to the ground. No matter how many times I do it, I am always in awe that they come back, and just how quickly. The Lion’s Tail is leggy, as it is twice a year, and will have to be cut back by a third. The roses are coming back into bloom, after a month’s break (mine never seem to bloom during the heat of the summer – perhaps it’s because I starve them for water, which is no matter for me – we have native roses that make it here, these can certainly give it the old college try).

The rains, of course, have got me to thinking about the garage roof and the gutters I’ve failed to clean out. The leaves have just barely begun to fall on many of the trees, and I’ve been putting off going on to the roof for a month now. And not just because Ryan is insisting on “helping” me this year. We’ve got a 60 foot eucalyptus tree about four feet from our house that looms precariously over the roof. It scares the bejeezus out of Wendy. So much so that she wants it cut down. I’m not quite at that point, but I do often wonder who was stupid enough to plant a tree like that so close to the house. I know it sure as hell wasn’t me. When you live in a house and garden this old, you get used to looking at people’s mistakes (and your own) and learn to live with them until you can a) fix them yourself b) pay someone else to fix them. Getting rid of that tree, which I’m sure will run $2K, is not at the top of my list. You know that list, the one where everything costs two thousand dollars and above? Insulation, refinish the hardwood floors, paint the outside of the house, rip out the trees, get new gutters, install a fence around the front yard… Need I go on? You have your own list, so I’m sure I don’t have to. It’s depressing, that list. I don’t have it written down anywhere, it’s just we start talking about something like the tree and all those other items magically appear as if out of thin air. We talk a bit about making an actual list (we could have already crossed out redoing the moulding in the kitchen), but we become too exhausted about three-quarters of the way of discussing it. I think it’s me who usually changes the subject.

Which is why, if we have another record breaking rainy season, I am going to get it when it starts to really come down.

I installed the garage gutter by myself. And I just had the roofing guys come and take a look at why it was leaking (which wonderfully had nothing to do with my crappy handling of tools and vinyl guttering). Still, it’s a small area back there and I should really divert the water, like everyone else in the city, down into the gutter system so it can make the LA River swell to an enormous size. Every year our playroom, which used to be the two car garage, leaks a little bit. And it makes me nervous. I have no idea why I don’t just call the damn gutter guy. Maybe I believe it’s admitting defeat. I have a rain barrel back there which I’m sure is helping me save the earth with every 50 gallons I save (which is like a lot of people’s morning showers). Maybe I’m just damn cheap.

Honestly, I did call four gutter guys last year and exactly one called me back. One. When I arranged to meet him, I waiting here for four hours, and called him twice and left messages. I talked to this guy on the phone for 15 minutes, he knows what my house looks like, what the problem is, I know that his son lives close by. And yet, and yet, I never heard from him again. I called him the next day, just to make sure he’d gotten my messages. Got me. If I learned one thing from the experience, it’s that I know I should have my son go into gutter repair if he wants to make a good living.

Hey, they’re doing so well, they don’t every have to call anyone back.

Scrapping It

So, there's just so much to be said about the past and I'm beginning to realize just how difficult it is to write from your own perspective even two years ago, not to mention nine.

Nine years ago I had exactly zero children (which is one of the few things I'm absolutely sure about) and 500 different plants in my garden. Today ithovers right around two children and 250 plants. Luckily for my wife (and children) I'm a considerably better father than I am gardener.

So, going forward, suffice it to say that when we moved into this house, I had a learning curve equivalent to Ben Franklin's when he popped into the Stevens household on Bewitched.

It's 2005 everybody, get on your party hats.

Gardening with children has its own difficulties. They always want to help, for instance. Yesterday I snuck out to the storage room to get my tools so I could fix a sprinkler in peace. Maybe if I cursed more like my friend Jerry, they'd leave me alone.

It does make me sad, though. My dad wasn't around as much when we were kids and by the time he took me out to show me how to change the oil in the car, I really wanted to just go back inside and listen to the Talking Heads or watch Gilligan's Island.

Yesterday's sprinkler repair wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be, merely swapping out heads. It unfortunately does involve digging a lot of dirt and grass out from around the sprinkler head, something I fail at repeatedly, as I always end up with a great deal of dirt falling back into the pipe where the new head goes. (I always shortcut around this problem by turning the system on and blasting the dirt out via the created geyser shooting up through the pipe.)

I even got a "Man, that job is the worst" from a passing dad, who added, "I've got two at home I've been putting off". Which is much better than what I expected to hear: "I've got two at home you can do when you're done". Though I don't think anyone messes with a guy covered in dirt and laying prostrate on the ground with a screwdriver in his hand.

These sprinkler heads that I'm always fixing, by the way, are located on the area at home we used call "The Dead Zone". It's the area no one wants to mow or water. Located between the street and the sidewalk, the homeowner does not own this land, but is responsible for its upkeep. A fact we learned about when we needed to have our sidewalk repaired due to cottonwood tree roots ripping the living heck out of it.

Everything happens to these sprinkler heads. I see bikes riding over them, strollers, skateboards... I once saw a 16-wheel truck drive over some when making a three-point turn on my corner. I end up replacing one of these every other month. I do have Javier, the gardener, do a few as well (which sucks for him, I let him do all the ones where the line breaks and involves a lot of digging, replacing, and gluing).

I daydream each time I'm on my belly ripping one of these things out that I cover this area in bark and native plants and can forget about doing anything but weeding and summer watering.

But then again, I don't know if I'm up for adding another 15 plants to my care.