Dennis Hollingsworth

Ahora Luego

(Luego hoy, earlier this Sunday afternon.)

Springtime is here. As I shake off the bewildering fog of chores and prioritize my have-to-do list, work in our back yard calls. Landscape lighting and rearranging the storage below the house...

...buh, the readership of this blog isn't interested in the have-to-do list.

Well, how about this:

...a tour of sweet California in our back yard:

A view from the back forty.
Here's another shot for the top, a bit marginal as a foto but I'll pop it up anyway:

The yard faces South and a prevailing breeze rises every afternoon. It's air that I imagine to be off the ocean, a layer that comes from a higher elevation that hits our Santa Monica Range foothills as it moves horizontally with the jet stream, air that hasn't been breathed before... at least for the time it takes for a transit across the Pacific.

(I wonder how many times a typical lungfull of air has been breathed before by humankind?)

Nasturshums come up every year and are strongest at this time. They spill out and flood the yard, even under the big oak in the shady front yard.

The hill that rises to our West is covered by succulents: Aloe, Century Plants, Prickley Pear and Bougainvillea. Spiney, thorny, difficult and a good barrier on the upslope side of our property.

Better watch out.

This sunflower is a carry over from last year, so we get the bloom early. I'm going to plant dozens of them in the side yard and let the seeds fall down and grow as they might in the oily soil on the hill under that stand of nasty stringy bark eucalyptus trees that screen the Eastern edge. The bees will gorge on the pollen. The birds will pick them clean.

It's time to plant the salsa garden: tomaotes, peppers and onions.

Sabroso.