Second Week of September 2008

Weather: very dry, but mild days with cool nights. 59 degrees this morning. Highs in the 80s.

G & I snagged a few red rocks Saturday. Iron oxide? Sandy gritty things.

Did she photograph it? She had a perfect tomato the size of a sugar bowl in her largely neglected garden. She thought it was going to be rotten from sitting on the ground, but it was maybe the best tomato I've ever eaten in my life. Tender, sweet and juicy.

We sat in her yard in the shade and tried to catch a closer look at the tiny birds in and around her sunflower forest with binoculars. How do I invoke them? How fast they move? How restless? How quick? How well they blend in? And how none of them really looked like the photos in the bird book.

A pair (of young?) hummingbirds buzzed us several times. Then zoomed in to rest very briefly in the elm branches above our heads.

Gloria climbed the golden delicious tree. Reaching, twisting, stretching. Branches grabbing at her hair, poking her shirt. She laughed later. Hadn't done that in a long time: climbed the apple tree. I stood down on the ground pointing her to the biggest prettiest ones. We were a clumsy comedy team with the big yellow ladder. And the tree seemed to have a will of its own, ready to protect itself from our advances. There was a branch blocking every angle.

Rose bushes on sale. Hope they make it into the dirt. G got a 1 gal and a 3 gal. We picked them for fragrance. Some old-fashioned pinks. Probably quaking in their pots at the sight of Rose Neophytes.


I spent a few minutes in my own yard. And found a tomato horn worm. (Then very gradually, another. Four total!)