90 Degrees and On Fire

The smell of night-blooming jasmine and smoke of the nearby burning Griffith Park are intermingling. The sun is up late, it seems like summer.

How long was it since I was a boy?

Just reading Rolling Stone (please don't ask, it was a gift) and going down memory lane with R.E.M. Reading Michael Stipe say, "We don't look much in the past, we're so excited about the future," and I wonder myself how long it's been since I've said as much.

I'm traveling backward some days, with my head in my hands as it were.

The scorching heat and high desert winds have set blazes 6 miles from my house and across the river and one of the nation's largest freeways (the 5). It happens a few times a year, with bright orange pictures of flaming hills splashed across the cover of the LA Times.

We found termites, again. In a wood pile I'd left by the giant timber bamboo for the last few months. They were just milling in and out like ants, busy as you please, 12 inches away from my studio.

Well here's a precarious situation, Organic Gardener meets Vermin That Eats His House.

Sorry, everyone, but this is one of those scenarios where the chemicals come on big. I call one of those places that comes and dumps chemicals aplenty down the holes, killing the queen and all her drones.

Does this mean I've failed as an organic gardener? Perhaps. But then again, my yard provides more than its share of fun stuff to do for the average skunk (we have two), hummingbird, mourning dove, and mockingbird. This is just one of those things I really can't chance with the biggest investment I'll ever make.

Termites and Taxes.

Is there any escape?

Beautiful Surprises

You know that poem someone made up about Jesus, the one called Footprints? I just had what I'd call a Footprints moment. I've been using blogger for somewhere over a year now and seeing no comments, even though a few times people have emailed me comments.

Wouldn't you know, just switching over to Google's Blogger a few moments ago and something like 10 comments appeared out of thin air. Posts from friends. I know you're there (hell, at 50,000 new blogs coming up an hour, I can't imagine many others migrating over here).

Oh, thank you friends, for your thoughts, your minutes spent here, your charity, and your posts.

This does leave me at a sort of conundrum, do I go back and answer all those old posts, which no one is going back to read anyway, or move on?

I think I'll reread them, smile, and be off to bed.

Good night, and thank you again.