Yesterday we worka-hard, as my brother says. Ran our automobile errands in the morning, and then got going in the greenhouse, because we came home with plenty plants. We now have a fig tree, with a half-dozen figs already on it, and a giant hellebore (pun not intended), and pony packs of marigolds, and three dill plants, and two parsleys, a variegated ivy, and a blossoming veronica. Four bags of the wrong kind of mulch and two sacks of potting soil.
Gunter did some damage during his sojourn in there. I found he'd busted out a window--enormous shards of tempered glass dangling at pathetic angles from the frame--and it was a good thing the opening was too narrow for him to squeeze through, or he'd have been halfway to Bisbee, Arizona, by now. I have lots of extra tempered glass, though, and I think I can replace it. Then there are the plants he squished and mashed under his heavy self. My sacred white sage, my southernwood, both churned into the dirt, and two rues, too. I have propped everyone up again, and they'll make it OK.
Dirt in the fingernails, hauling, digging--with the prescribed lying-down intervals I accomplished much, and so today no edema! I learn a successful rhythm to work, like the rhythm to water here. And the hoses are all hooked together in a great system originating at the creek pump. No guarantees, though. Last year the creek was dry briefly in September. This year I predict early August--and that it will remain so until midwinter.
Irrigation pump in situ, snout in creek. Photo's a little grainy; shot it after dusk.
***
I awoke this morning from a lengthy dream of Jimmy Flood (and I wonder whether that's the name Burrelles Luce is looking for...). He's appeared in dreams to me only once or twice in my life, and only fleetingly, in passing or in the distance. But last night's dream was different: I visited my mother in a large apartment complex, where she recuperated after giving birth to Jimmy's child. Nurses marched in and out with an infant in their arms. And Jimmy missing, in that weird dream time-warp, for years already. But then I glimpsed him through a window climbing the stairs, carrying a supper of Chinese take-out. A ragged man I only recognized because of his haircut--a "Chicago Boxcar," he had called it. No one else I knew wore their hair that way. I dashed out to follow him, and then entered his dingy, sad apartment--in the same complex all along!--and became aware that he'd been watching us, monitoring us, powerless to contact us lest we come to some harm. He wept. And I held him close, and kissed his mouth. It reeked of bacteria and rot, evidence of his long despair, and I didn't even care. I was just so glad we'd found each other, and the relief was mutual, and we spent the rest of the dream talking and talking, telling our stories, catching one another up.
***
Today I'll mow close to the house, and a little out in the garden. Slog across the creek with hay for the llamas. And I'll roast a chicken: my friend Sally is coming for a visit in the afternoon and I want to prepare a decent meal if the little beast thaws in time. A movie, maybe (Closer), if Sally sticks around long enough.
So I'd better get started. Is what I'm trying to say.
8:44:36 AM 
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