HEY!!!! There's no need to be crass(or is there?).....

As a matter of personal interest, I worked in the garden today. Nice day for it. The usual "overcast" skies gave way to...to....oh, no they didn't. It is overcast today. Really nice actually because it lets certain nuances of color and shading be more pronounced yet demure. The gray-green of the 'agave americana' pups is more subtly obvious then in glaring, blinding sunlight(which I do like too) and there is no blistering heat on the back of my neck and forearms. Also, when I water, it tends to linger longer in the ground and on the leaves(watch for mildew, people!!!) and allows the plants to absorb more of it.

As I was watering around the 'mimulus lewisii', a hummingbird came to feed. 'Mimulus' are trumpet-shaped and perfect local natives for the hummers to feed from. I was "too close" to the 'mimulus lewisii' so the little hummer hovered about 2.5 feet right out in front of my face, "checking me out"(I would imagine as I didn't have the opportunity to ask.....) and hung there for perhaps 5-7 seconds. That's a lifetime for a hummingbird so close to a human, or a lifetime for 2 football teams in a very close Superbowl and the lower scoring team has the ball within reach of a touchdown. Anyway, it was kind of lovely. I just stood still, relaxed within the moment of it all, and waited. She/he ended up flying over and perching on the nearby fence and waited(I assume she/he was waiting as again, I didn't ask...) for me to abandon her/his food source. This hummingbird had a natural green tint to his/her feathers, overall, much like a male Mallard duck has on his/her neck(hey!! S/He might be transsexual!! LEAVE IT ALONE!!!). It is a regularly seen colored hummingbird here and it is always a pleasure to see.

I planted my 'lonicera hildebrandiana' (Giant Burmese Honeysuckle), along with a 'yucca aloifolia', a blue 'salvia' of some sort(yawn.....Gerry brought it home and I'm stuck with it), as well as a "spurge" 'euphorbia' that is in full chartreuse bloom right now. Our tomato plants are freaking out beautifully in their pots, with one small fruit on one plant right now. My 'masdevallia cucullata' are all growing new leaves and one has a flower spike(I have 3 from Gary Meyers' colombianorchidimports.com), the golden plum tree in the back has so much fruit that one branch has cracked and will need to be removed once the fall comes. GREAT sweet fruit!!! My 'lilium regale' has just finished blooming and my 'lilium Black Beauty' plants(I have 9 from B & D lilies in Port Townsend, WA) have a combined total of 75 flower buds and I expect I will see flowers in time for my birthday in mid-July. What else? Hmmmmm..........I did plant into the ground 2 different 'leucodendrons' from Africa. One is 'leucodendron discolor Pom Pon' and the other is some thing I can't be bothered to remember(Shhhh, don't tell Gerry!!!). The 'canna warscewiczii' is just going bonkers, another greatly visited plant by hummingbirds. My 'solandra maxima' has TONS of new foliage and has already had one flower this year. I bought it in February in SF and it had mostly defoliated, was 15 feet long(one single long stem) planted in a 3 gallon pot and needed some serious attention and food. Suffice it to say, I have given it more than its share and so it rewards me a'plenty!

The neighbor, right across the fence to my right as one leaves my front door, has taken it upon himself to break off pieces of my yellow 'brugmansia' hybrid that grow over his fence, and he throws them back into my yard. Seems very passive-aggressive, so I spoke to him about it today, telling him that if he wanted me to cut it so it would not grow into his yard, please let me know but not to break it off and throw it into my yard. He became somewhat apologetic and nice about it, saying that as his 'brugmansia suaveolens' in his back yard needs to be cut 3-4 times a year due to aggressive growth, he was just addressing my overgrowth in to his yard. "Well why throw it over the fence? Why not just put it in the trash?" I asked. Seems like he's uncomfortable owning his own deeds and just kind of let it drop instead of answering. I believe, though, that it has been handled and we will not have the same situation in the future.

There has been a lot of peripheral death in my life lately, say in the last 3 weeks. A cat was hit and killed and still lies alongside the road I walk to the commuter train(interesting to witness the decay. Not in a good, enjoyable way but in a way like "oh, so that is how that looks"). Someone took it upon themselves to bag up and dump into a vacant yard their rather large dead dog and though the city of Oakland has been called, it still sits there rotting and stinking up the way to and from my house. And then on Sunday morning, a child of 30(or so) was found to have overdosed around the corner in the Castro in a between space of hedges in front of Worn Out West. He was clean, well dressed, looked healthy(as told to me by Fred at Brand X Antiques next door to the sight of this kid's death) and not "street" as one would expect from such a sad story. I was most saddened by the idea that somebody was to get a phone call this week to learn of the fate of their son. I guess the wheels of life keep turning......