Big day today. I walked the dog (really, the other way around), looked in on the neighbor dogs (I’m dogsitting), scraped away some turf for the new lawn/meadow/hopelessly weedy mess I’ll regret later, spent about five minutes pulling weeds around the agaves, a minute or so shouting expletives when I jabbed my finger on an agave spine, another five minutes pruning the cotoneaster so the branches didn’t hit me in the eye, took a nap until the dog threw himself on top of me because he thought he heard thunder, made out an order to Mesa Garden, ate some leftover Chinese take-out, watched part of a movie, took another nap with the dog napping somewhere else.
It amazes me that people think life should be something other than this. Or rather, that people think I want to do something other than this, that you always have to be doing something to lead a rewarding life. If Bodhidharma could stare at a cave wall for nine years, I can stare out the window for a couple of hours, and still say it was worth my while.
I will admit that going out every hour and checking the progress of the blue grama I sowed doesn’t make it grow any faster.
Enough about me. For now, anyway. (It’s my blog, after all.) I managed to take a couple of pictures in between naps.
Here’s another of the hybrid echinocereus. (E. reichenbachii × E. coccineus, I think.)
And a close-up of Asphodeline damascena.
the miserable gardener 
Oh my yes. “It amazes me that people think life should be something other than this. Or rather, that people think I want to do something other than this, that you always have to be doing something to lead a rewarding life. If Bodhidharma could stare at a cave wall for nine years, I can stare out the window for a couple of hours, and still say it was worth my while.” YES! So many people ask if we are going on vacation, and I say STAYcation, and they look so sorry, like I am deprived, and don’t I want to go to the sunshine? etc. I read a good book on this topic called “A Full Life in a Small Place.” At least, I think it was about that (it’s been awhile).
Yep. I prefer to stay at home. The only time I ever enjoyed going places (as in flying) was with Cindy, even though we both preferred to stay at home. In fact I told her, when I asked her out for the first time (after she talked me into asking her out) that my idea of a good time was sitting at home reading, and she said that was her idea of a good time, too. Now I’d rather stay at home with the dog, who feels the same way, of course. Though I think his idea of a good time would be sitting at home, eating.
Yes, it would. I shared this post on my Facebook gardening page with a quotation and a link. It’s wonderful.
Thanks. I had forgotten about all the posts….. Sometimes more than one a day. Compulsive, I guess.
I meant, yes HE would. Chess. Eating.
He would. Eating. When his buddy Slipper was sick with liver cancer, I made all sorts of yucky things for him to eat, since he wouldn’t eat the same thing more than a couple of days in a row. Rice drizzled with chicken fat; a puree of hot dogs, hardboiled eggs, and cheese, etc. Occasionally he wouldn’t eat what I fixed for him, and Chess would sneak over and eat everything. Hence his less-than-slim physique, though on the other hand he is extremely “buffed” from all the walking. So much so that it astonished the vet.