love

Today was the last public class I will be able to take with the person who is leading the teacher training. It is not that I cannot take his public classes only the studio where he had been holding them is no longer aailable and he is relocating to a place that is (for me) financially unamanageable.

He's an interesting person and this training will prove challenging on many levels. One is that in current society (though this may be true for other societal times as well) it is very hard to accept genuine caring and consideration. People who approach life with goodness always seem a little suspect (or is that just me?) It's not that I don't want to believe and to also view others and interact with others in such a nonromantic loving manner only there is always that fear of being hurt, either emotionally, physically or socially.

This particular instructor is not perfect. Yet he genuinely is open and caring and interested in everyone (and not in that RY* way).
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I saw the golden pair again today. I think that those of you who thought that they were goldfiches were right. The pictures I have seen of warblers are too round for this slim pair. While reading in the garden today (Myth and Meaning, Claude Levi-Strauss) a humming bird decided to hover in front of me for a while. Literally. Before zooming off to join his mate.

I started Anne of the Island tonight. And Jerry Spinelli has a sequal to Stargirl out called Love***CV

A Bit of a Sticky Thicket

I was thinking about the bin situation and it occurred to me that maybe the housemates are so used to debris in the driveway (there is a beautiful purple flowering tree that sheds more than a persian cat during a heatwave) and so they simply didn't realise that the debris in this case was a carefully made pile.

It's possible.

Tonight I smell like an herbal grill: all lemon and rosemary. Comes from pruning the snakelike lemon balm and gathering apples while immersed in the rosemary. There are worse scents I suppose.

I think the animals in the neighborhood are becoming more frequent visitors. At least the squirrels. I saw one hopping around the central garden area this afternoon. It started towards a black bucket I've been filling with windfall apples but then it saw me and decided not to go there and instead shimmied up the lemon tree. While weeding yeserday I found two small pears. I don't know where they came from. The only new tree I discovered was a holly tree (beware the holly leaf it bears mighty points), and possibly a quince. But we do have jasmine and so. many. fushias. oy! (I loooooove fushias by the way)

If anyone knows how to train fushias to be a tree I'd love your input.

And there are roses everywhere through out the space. I may just count them to know how many. A guess would be 15 to 20 individuals. Some are slender stemmed and some have inch to inch and a half diameter stalks. Everything is virtually braided together so it is only when I reach to pull a weed that I realise, Ouch! another rose! Some appear sick though. Leaves are either dirty lace covered, or eaten, or yellow. Not all but enough that I really wish I knew someone who knew plants could come and look at them with me.
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I purchased the rest of the Anne series today. At two bucks each I figured it was a deal. I started volume two tonight. I may go to a nearby park tomorrow afternoon to read***CV

Whose pile up is it?

Last night was a late night catching up with blogs and searching the net for Going Out ideas and so it was that when Chai started doing the cat thing, looking at nothing very alertly and carefully sneaking up on invisibles, and then I heard scratching and scraping at the side of the house then the back of the house followed by snuffling at the other side of the house, combined with scuttling and urgent digging of said invisibles, well, I beame a tad unnerved.

Clearly we survived but I can't speak to this night.
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I decided to do some work on the side garden this afternoon. I really wonder how much of the garden's condition is due to inaccurate pruning and how much to just plain neglect. It seems to me that even with consistant weeding and deadheading the garden ahould be in much better shape than it is. I filled one waste bin with my ivy that I pulled a couple of weeks ago. I made another huge pile with the stuff I pulled from the side garden today. And so I face a dilemma.

After I weeded the picket area on Sunday I put as much as I possibly could squeeze into the waste bins then made small piles of what was left and swept the area. Now the bins have been emptied (by the collectors) and parked (by the housemates) on top of said piles. I am confused. If they didn't want to pick up the piles okay but why park the containers on the piles so no one else can do so?

The side garden is contractually the housemate's area. I weeded just cause I couldn't stand not too. I cleared and made a huge pile to the side of the back deck out of the way of stairs and such (instead of leaving the trimmings scattered where they might fall as did the landlords). So do I pack up the waste refuse or do I leave a note stating what I did and let the housemates take care of it?

The pile is positioned so I don't have to look at it. It might be an interesting experiment to see (if I do not write a note) how long it takes the housemates - if at all - to become aware of it.

All this is reminding me why I do not do the roommate thing.
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I finshed Anne of Green Gables today and picked up a copy of Anne of Avonlea yesterday. Anne reminds me very much of one of my former students.

One of the reasons I picked up the series was that there was supposed to be a fair amount of textile work in it. There was mention of knitting cotton quilts, a fancy crochet stitch and sewing a diamond patchwork. I expected more. Perhaps later in the series?***CV

bokes solde y boughte

More selling of books today. Before I went to Powell's though I went to practice where a fellow bookaholic had a look through the bag. She ended up with a copy of Bird by Bird by Annie Lamott. The buyer at Powell's actually bought all I brought in today, inluding a twice rejected novel. I guess not everyone is a Malraux fan.
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For a whole week I have been good and not bought a single book. Today I fell off the wagon and got Botany for Gardeners by Brian Capon. Aaaah practical and erudite. Just what I need.
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In spite of my "Don't jinx something you want by thinking too much about it" philosophy, I cannot help but wonder what would be good plants for a drought stricken desert garden?***CV