The Shifting Wind
Do you remember Mary Poppins? In case you don’t, she blows in on the East Wind and when its time to leave she blows out on the West Wind. I’m not altogether sure what the East and West designations means but I remember what Burt the chimney sweep has to say about it. He says, “winds in the east, mist coming in, like somethin’ is brewin’ and bout to begin…can’t put me finger on what lies in store, but I fear what’s to happen all happened before.” This past week was the autumnal equinox, September 22nd to be precise. That means the sun is directly over the equator for one of the two times that happens each year and the days are exactly as long as are the nights. That must vary a bit by one’s exact spot on the earth because when I looked it up for this hilltop, on September 22nd the daylight was eight minutes longer than the hours of darkness. It seems that the day when they are more or less the same was today, September 26th. I find it funny that it is today when the weather has made me think about the shifting winds that mark the shifting seasons.
Today was a funny day on this hilltop. My review of the weather.com app had told me to expect nothing but sunshine and today we got almost no sunshine at all. It was a mostly grey and wet day. I never actually saw it rain, but I saw plenty of moistness on the deck, on the ground, in the garden. It was a transition day for us as well because Kim is getting over her surgery and this is the day that Natasha, who has helped us with Betty and other general household duties for the last few weeks, left. Today Natasha headed out for her planned visit to the wilds of Zion and Bryce Canyons for a week. She will hit Joshua Tree, Cedar Breaks and Valley of the Fire while she is at it. I have reviewed her itinerary with her since its a part of the world with which I’m particularly familiar. So, for the first time since a few days before we headed out to New York, four weeks ago, we are in our home alone together. Neither Kim nor I had any real plans for the day. We were at loose ends, or as some might say, free as the breeze.
After taking a ride into town for an everything bagel with cream cheese (toasted, but please don’t tell any of my New York friends since that is sacrilegious), which is surprisingly good given how far away we are from New York and how few other places there are to get bagels out here. After that it was down to the garden on the back hillside to inspect my newest plantings. I find it funny that the two things I mostly look for are whether the new plantings are faring well and staying healthy and whether a lot of weeds have sprouted up amidst my plantings. You might say I pray for growth and no growth simultaneously not wanting to acknowledge the obvious that both plants and weeds are vegetation that respond the same way to the same environmental elements. You see, I have never been a big fan of weed barriers and I couldn’t imagine trying to put down an acre of weed barrier since that is the approximate size of the area that I have now covered, or will soon be covering with mulch.
I suppose I should be happy that I still get some weeds through the mulch. The horticulturalist that I hired last year told me that mulch was perhaps the only way to stop weeds. So much for that theory, since I see occasional weeds popping through the mulch. The good news I suppose is that all the plants I planted are doing well and there are only a few weeds to bother with. Since there was nothing to really do in the garden today, what with the excess moisture and the planned arrival of the seven superbags (10.5 yards to be exact) of two types of mulch to be spread on Thursday over the remaining unmulched hillside, I got garden itchy. That’s my excuse for getting out the spray paint and the petroglyph stencils I had ordered so that I could add to my back hillside artwork.
I have purchased three items for the hillside including another lovely driftwood stump of sizable proportions, a large cobalt blue ceramic pot planted with a nice array of succulents, and an outdoor abstract copper sculpture. I am clearly driven to add to the natural beauty of the boulder-strewn hillside. The driftwood seems like a pretty natural extension of the hillside since there are existing sticks and stumps here and there. As for the cobalt blue pot, I have made a bit of a property theme of the cobalt blue pot. I have two on the patio. I have a large one in the Cecil garden. And I already have a small one in the middle part of the hill and one medium-sized one on the northern ridge. The modern copper sculpture is not unlike the stacked stone and stainless steel sculpture we have out by the spa, so it is not without precedent. It goes well with the three wind sculptures we already have on the back hillside and the one we have in the Cecil garden. If it sounds like we have a lot going on on our property, that would not be a wrong conclusion.
I should add that I have also done some rock painting, or perhaps more accurately, boulder painting. I have a massive agave painting over the rose garden. I also have stencils drawings of various sizes on other boulders, like an eagle and some cacti. Well, today I added a large Zebra plant on one boulder and a set of new stencil petroglyphs here and there. I place three brown lizards, three paprika kokopelis and two yellow sunbursts. I may have overdone it. Kim liked the Zebra plant and at least pretended to like the petroglyphs. I figure she is emotionally intelligent enough to know that I go for more where she prefers less and that despite all that, the deed was done on an otherwise uneventful day and that there would not be any reason to make a fuss about it. She said she liked them and that was good enough for me.
I think I have officially done all that I should do on that hillside for the time being. Today was a difficult transition day for some reason and while I had planned to paint the rocks that I painted, I still feel like I was a tad impulsive with it all and I sort of wish I had waited, at least for the stencils, until the rest of the mulch had been laid down later this week. But what can I say, the wind shifted today and I was not in complete control of my faculties. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.