Day after day, blistering heat, no rain in sight. Watering the plants I’ve scrounged at curbside (or the plants that kind friends have brought me) involves hauling 20 to 40 gallons of well water to various corners of the yard, watering can by watering can full. I’m about done in. If you’re curious what I look like in my own mind right now, picture the “American Gothic” woman but a bit squidgy around the middle, and with no pitchfork-wielding husband standing by her side. #Fried #Hardscrabble
At this point I’ve just gotta say, All right, plants, I’ve done my best with you. If it’s not your time it’s not your time. Other plants will grow, other shrubs will be left at curbside for me to scrounge. I might still do the water-hauling thing, at least it’ll burn a few calories, be good for my core. #MidlifeMoment
I just spent the day doing errands along one of our main thoroughfares, watching landscapers weed-whack the expensive turfgrass under the expensive palm trees (that replaced the old oak trees that had been growing there). The fumes and noise were overwhelming as I bicycled past.
The expensive palm trees are held up by braces. What a costly, high-maintenance operation. Why do we humans do this? Why do we cut down old trees and understory that were self-maintaining, and replace it with resource-consuming high-maintenance stuff? It’s not even particularly pretty; it’s very sterile-looking like the landscape in one of those Sim City games.
Just my brief experience of homeownership so far, struggling to get a few plants to grow so I can have some vertical green around me and not be forced by the lawn-gestapo to maintain a vast expanse of flat shaved thin green desert, would be enough to make me a raving lunatic forest-fanatic if I were not already.
And now for your viewing pleasure, various forested lots I espied while “killing time” before an appointment. (BTW I try to never actually kill time. That’d be such a waste of a nonrenewable resource!) I love the residential lots. These people have escaped the treadmill of lawn maintenance, and created deep green sanctuary for themselves, and for wildlife.
