March 29, 2020 - Sunday. The Four (Five?) Things That Fall from the Sky.

A mixed-bag Sunday - some clouds, some sun, some rain. Two newspapers grace the table, replete with articles about the rise of the virus, the state of the nation, the condition of the world.  But I am compelled to dig, to plant, to consider what sunlight, dirt, wind would mean to a lilac tree, to irises, to blue-flowered penstamen, to the small grasses I'd gaffled from our house on B Street just before we moved, pulling them from the soil, hey babes, you're coming with us.

It takes time and study to learn how the elements play out across a new lot, how the geometry and vectors of the house interfere with the four things that come down from the sky - sunlight, rain, fog, snow (not so much snow around here, I must admit). Oobleck is that  fifth option, submitted for our approval by Dr Suess. I try to read where the wind plays and dallies, where the sun might break through the future foliage of the mulberry tree, as gauged from the just leafing-out buds. These are landfill lots, thin topsoil sitting on yellow-brown clay and lots of infill-rocks. It takes a lot of amending to provide beds amenable to roots. If we had to survive on what we could grow out of our plot this year, it would not be pretty.

So I concentrate on flowers for now, deploying them like little thin miners to tunnel through mixture of rocks and the dense, gluey clay-stuff. This is not rich adobe clay, so dark, almost black, with nutrients. This clay is anemic, pale, almost yellowish-brown,  old dried up oobleck perhaps, a continuous layer that seals up against water and rots the roots. One must dig  through this layer, down into the old marsh below or build up, with raised beds or mounding habitats.

And so through the sweeping waves of sun and rain-drizzle and cloud-shadow, I dig and plant, convincing myself of a summer and a fall that will arrive. Yes, indeed, it will. But first we must get through all of this. And we can only do that together.