Golden Hour

The poppies are up. Bound to be the best time for the garden. Broccoli in (and already attacked by the snails) as well as Golden Lights Swiss Chard and some mesclun type lettuces Ryan and I raised from seed.

I don't know if it's from the weekend we mostly spent at home (true, I went to bed Sunday thinking, Hey, I haven't left my front yard today), but today feels, what? Vast. Vast, upon coming home.

I think it's a feeling we regular folk don't have very often, this sense of glorious opportunity in front of our evening. Often, when my inner mind is complaining about the dishes I'm doing at night, knowing I have another hour worth of bookwork out at the computer, I think of the single moms, and how insanely taxed they must feel all the time. I cannot imagine what it's like to go this route alone and on half the money.

But today, or tonight rather, exactly the opposite. My office is finally clean. A bamboo palm the kids and I picked up from a Plant Yard Sale for $10 brightens up the corner, and there are a few bills to go through, but they can wait for this post.

Spring in so many ways signals beginning for gardeners. The dreams you have looking through catalogs, the hopes as the seedlings come to life in little rooms lit merely by grow lights. The season mimics the life of the young. Before we had responsibilities, when everything rolled ahead of us like a carpet of grass.

Maybe it's just the memories of an aging man. Or of someone who had the privilege to dream. But the days begin to creep up on all us adults where the dreaming stops and the hard work of doing and being busy begin.

Raising children is harder, far harder, than gardening. And it's hard to stop and think, If I don't stop and try to enjoy some of these moments, they'll be gone soon.

Sometimes I'm worried that my writing at home has dwindled to nearly zero after so many years in front of the computer screen or writing pad. But sleeping in the next room is my real work and what I'm aiming at giving the world. It's scary, yes. But very important.

Where am I going with this post? Hell, I wish I knew.

Let's leave it at being happy at the res of the evening being ahead of me.

Good night.

Manic Sunday

You know you can tell people that January is different when you live in a Mediterranean climate, but you really have to see it to believe it.

Which is why I give to you the picture on the right - taken sometime in mid January.

The good news? It was warm enough to be wearing t-shirts and shorts.

The bad? Those leaves didn't just pile themselves up like that.

Living here and doing your own gardening is like owning a house anywhere, everything is your responsibility all year long. Which gives new meaning to the word "Winter interest".

It wasn't such a manic Sunday today, and I'm sure everyone now is cozied up to their TVs with popcorn in hand watching the latest Academy Awards. We had a party to attend but Ryan woke up sick with a fever. Again. Two weeks ago he and Abby missed their whole week of school (with me working at home) because of the flu that's been going around. Wendy caught it, too.

It took a whole week to catch up to me and put me into the shivers for two days, and I'd just begun to hope we'd all turned a corner.

Nope.

It's a mystery to me. Ryan was just up yesterday playing soccer and helping with dig free mulch from the City Free Mulch Giveaway.

Which, in itself is hilarious. We'd been waiting forever for a mulch giveaway that was closer to our house and were excited when I got a flyer announcing a new location. Less that 3 miles from our place. Ryan, Abby and I set out in the car with two shovels, gloves and two of those enormous storage containers [one which would weigh more than 70 pounds when I was done filling it. Smart move with my back]. We had trouble locating it and I told Abby to look for a brown sign and Ryan to look for a gate with someone posted out front. Then we saw we were headed down a one way street. "Wait, this can't be right," I started to protest, but then I saw it. Right there at the end of the street in a light-industrial area, mulch piled about 8 feet high with a sign behind it [already graffiti'd] Free Mulch Giveaway. I don't know which was more hilarious, us standing on that steaming pile of mulch, or the guys walking around us going down to the toxic LA River to fish.

So, not so manic. Just rerouted Sunday. Which is not bad, just takes some adjusting.

The rain was on and off today. Finished the leftover chores from yesterday: the cat box needing emptying and the compost taken out.

Oh, ordinary day.

Tonight, fewer than five miles from here, people are walking down a red carpet, flashbulbs are popping, and microphones are stuck in the faces of actors and directors who will voice their opinions to their adoring fans worldwide.

Oh, but I believe the opinions elsewhere, among those watching, are much more valuable. Take it from a guy who worked those trenches for 7+ years and still lives close to that world.

"The common man's opinion" I say is a diamond in the rough.

Like a mulch pile in the middle of the city on a dead end block.