Friday, August 8, 2014

Little Worm Babies

We're only just realizing that it's August, but I can already hear the quiet hum of fall underneath the blazing hot sunshine. The cottonwoods outside the window have a few small leaves moving from green to gold, for example, and the nights are dropping into the 60's. A wayward thug of a Rufous hummingbird dominated the feeder for a few days before continuing on its migration. The summer blooms are flagging just slightly, and the garden has the crazy, overgrown but worn-in look it gets after surviving the worst of summer.

I'm falling into nesting mode at home. Dave and I did a moderately ruthless closet cleaning, for example, and weeded through four crates of books and old school notes. We took a load of donations to Goodwill, with the promise of more to come. I've been clearing out old, chipped and cracked dishes, making way for shiny new things.  And I need to go out and buy some picture hanging nails to hang up the framed art that has been languishing near the front door.

 It was my birthday a few days ago--43!--and Dave and I celebrated quietly. I usually travel on my birthday, but this year we decided to stay put and work on getting things arranged in the new studio.

We did have donuts in lieu of birthday cake, though:
20140804_090014.jpg
That was breakfast, a dozen donuts from Rebel donuts. (It took us 3 days to eat the whole dozen.) My favorites were the triple chocolate in the far back corner and the Boston creme donut with red striped icing right next to it. (But really, just about any donut is a good donut as far as I'm concerned.)

Pressies were spot on this year as well: Dave gave me a new iPod to take to the gym and headphones to go with it, a book of Lynda Barry cartoons, and some new sheets that I've been wanting. He also gave me an iTunes gift certificate (I used it to buy the new Lorde and The Julie Ruin albums) and a Lush gift certificate.  My mother gave me a folding hamper that I've been looking for for over a year (!) and a sketchbook and drawing pencils. My brother took me and Dave and my mom to lunch (vegan sushi at Nu Asia Vegan). Kevin and Kelly gave me a sensitive plant--I used to have one as a kid--and an array of succulents.

A few days before my birthday, I was driving down Rio Grande after having dropped Dave off at work, and a coyote crossed into the road in front of my car. I slowed down and waited and it slowed down and waited, so I drove on. It crossed behind my car and went on its way. The same thing happened a couple of weeks before as I was walking between the garden's raised beds, only instead of a coyote, it was a snake. We have a garter snake hunting in the garden, thinning out the grasshopper population and taking care of the squash bug problem for us. I hope it can dodge the roadrunners who routinely visit the yard.

The garden is alive and well. The tomatoes are stuck in a kind of stasis. It's too hot during the day for the tomatoes to ripen, too hot for the peas, too soon to harvest the quinoa, and Dave is too tender-hearted to pull up the carrots that are turning to orange-hued wood. Only the mass of sunflowers have yielded anything worthwhile, and then only worthwhile to the bees and the birds--an unfamiliar array of finches, quick enough to dodge the cats--that are feeding on the seeds. I hope they leave be the worms we brought home from Santa Fe. I'd like to think the worms are getting plenty to eat and making lots of little worm babies.

No comments: