Wildflowers, nasturtiums, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, corn, okra, string beans, sunflowers, purslane, crab grass and everything else that wants to grow — this year’s garden will be interesting, especially since I’ve scattered seeds in places I’ve already forgotten in this sudden transition to sunny skies, bare arms, and warm feet. Under these enlightened conditions, spending the afternoon working outside is much like losing my mind, or would be, if I still […]
Dark, rich, thick, smooth — a not-quite-full six-ounce cup of pour-over coffee. Dream coffee, slowly consumed. Coffee in the bright light shadow of a setting full moon. The fir tree has a very heavy new crop of green pitch-glistening cones, which, as they mature, are shedding bits of themselves. When I was working under it the pieces fell around me and on me. The garden is engulfed in purslane, which […]
Silent, motionless, unblinking: after four years, robins have built another nest in the fig tree. I don’t know how many times I’ve passed under it without knowing it was there; several today; and recently when the heat was at its peak, I moved several potted plants into the shade, very near where the mother is patiently sitting. An ocean breeze has cooled the valley. Yesterday the temperature fell to eighty-seven […]
The bees are busy in the wilderness. The blue star creeper is thriving, and has covered a wide swath of the west-facing slope. The red and white clovers are in bloom. Also in bloom are numerous dandelions, their long stems nodding in the breeze, each with a tiny sun affixed. Interspersed are some soft flowering grasses about a foot high. Hugging the ground are oxalis; spurge; purslane; creeping jenny; moss. […]
Yesterday afternoon, from the front window, I watched a pair of sparrows feeding on the tiny flies, if that’s what they are, in the heavy crop of purslane at the shoreline-edge of the garden. But I think they might also have been eating the purslane itself, because several times one or the other tugged at a leaf with energy and enthusiasm. But only now, after many hours have passed, and […]
William Michaelian 