Scribe-ls

Hubby and I (ok, hubby) opted for a little box garden of tomatoes and chili peppers this year, but we're finding that the chilis just aren't growing.  Could it be that chili plants and tomato plants just don't cohabit?  We water regularly and they're planted in time-release potting soil, in a sunny spot.  Should be a win-win situation, right?  What's up?  Help!

Walking along admiring the crocuses and pondering the timing of the emergence of leaves from buds, the tranquility is refreshing as the sun is softly spring-warm.  Birds are twittering and I think I spy a bee!  What then is that odor?  Strong, caustic and almost overbearing, it's chemical fertilizer and pre-emergent weed killer.  Whew!  So much for the idyll.  That stuff stinks!  I'd rather smell sheep-n-peat.  Better yet, how about that fabulous fake grass found at the big welcome center near El Paso, Texas?  Along with the zen gardens, it's xeriscaping plus.  Wash n wear grass.  Imagine.

Okeydokey, I love Florida for its gorgeous gazillion miles of beaches, fantastic jungle-y forests, colorful neighborhoods and plentiful old people (they're so cute in their flip flops and wrap-around sunglasses).  One thing I am absolutely disenchanted of, however, are the multitudinous noseeums lurking in every bit of earth most of the year.  Unless you wear full clothing including socks or bathe in DEET, you can expect to be ravaged by these microscopic munchers of human flesh.  Next on the "hatem" list are the mosquitos lurking in any green, shaded area.  Walk a mile or two of aforementioned jungle improperly protected and you'll look like a bubbling human pus-bag.  Unlike good old Colorado bug bites, these semi-tropical ones take forever to heal and look to be scar-forming.  So, with a heavy sigh I resolve that a) there's no place like home and b) DEET is good even if it makes you smell like Commerce City and sticky like...well...never mind.

Early this Oct. 21 morning, around 5 a.m. it was almost balmy out here in Arvada.  At 8 a.m., I was munching Lucky Charms, sipping home-roast and scanning the Post when I heard what sounded like buckets of gravel dumping on my house.  It was pellet-sized hail, coming down in torrents!  I rushed for my camera to snap a picture of the neighborhood (submitted for approval).  In the time it took to do that the hail had already begun to transform to small flakes of s-n-o-w.  Now we've got some middlin'  fluff happening out there.  I hope it stops short of piling up enough to break branches on the still-leafy trees.  Hands off my Druid Tree, Snow Queen!

Isn't there something especially sweet about the last tomatoes of the season?  Off the withering vine they come, full of extra sweetness from the cool night air.  Mmmm.  One of fall's wonderful treats and something to perk that green thumb next spring!

South Fork of the South Platte River, Hartsel, Colorado, August 12, 2007:  Green, green it's all so green, even the far side of the hill!  This year's monsoon pattern has brought an awe-inspiring lushness to the high, high plains.  The spring of 2006 brought a return to a 12-years-absent lushness and the month of August 2007 ranks right up there in flower-dotted, waving-grass beauty. 

The recently bone-dry highlands are slightly humid!  Ten or so kinds of prairie grass have risen up from the gravelly soil, the sage is fragrantly abundant, the rabbitbrush is blooming crazily.  Indian paintbrush, mountain aster, a beautiful magenta flower with seed pods, pasqueflower...all set against many shades of green.  It is absolutely fabulous. 

The rabbit at the ranch is fat and happy; Prebles mice and groundsquirrels dare the daylight because of the cover of brush that hasn't been so plush in years.  Hawks and coyotes are far more visible because their prey is so plump and abundant.   The cattle are sleek, the horses frolicksome.  All under an almost sapphire sky that seems to happily let the rolling storm clouds in for another renewal of the beautiful land beneath it.  Come evening, the fog rolls up from Eleven Mile and Spinney Reservoirs and drops heavy dew that lingers til mid-morning. 

This is why people came here.

 

Aw gee whiz, we've been watching these unlikely tomato plants since late spring.  Hubby stuck them in a seemingly desolate six-inch-wide strip of dirt between our drive and the neighbor's and they appeared to thrive, even after having been run over.  They have tantalized us with ever-burgeoning fruits promising delightful caprese and sunshiny sandwiches. 

Well, wouldn't you know, the darned things have each split open before reaching pickin'-goodness.  Awww.  What the heck? 

Are there any gardeners out there with some wisdom about spontaneously bursting tomatoes?  I've never seen such a thing!

Oh it's hot alright.  Thank your lucky rabbit's foot, stars and penny that you don't live back around DC-Arlington, however.  They've this heat and over 50% humidity.  Given that the only sensible way to get around back there is by subway and bus, both of which entail A LOT of walking, you end up soaked like a mutt in a rainstorm by the time you get anywhere. That is, at least until you learn the southern slow-stride, a sort of poke-a-long gait that reduces the, er, glow considerably and preserves a little energy for whatever it is that brought you out in the first place.  So, yeah, we're hot, but at least we're mostly dry.

Besides that, it beats a blizzard any day.

Do we have an usually vicious lot of mosquitoes over near Hartsel this year?  That should be an exclamation.  As a B-positive blood type I rarely suffer insect bites (ok mosquitoes don't bite, they apply suction which is expressed as HAPPYFLOWERS even when used scientifically here), but the little ladies (only the girls dine on protein, the boys are veg) down at the ranch and at nearby Tarryall Reservoir didn't seem to get the memo this year.  I was brutally attacked.  Viciously vittle-fied.  Bitten to proportions I haven't experienced since Maine!  It's an outrage, really. 

Seriously, be warned all goers, that if you're heading to the lost parks or over to Tarryall, wear the bugspray!  Bathe with eucalyptus soap!  If those skeeters will bite ME with my nasty tasting blood type, enriched with garlic even, they'll dine on the ordinary O even more avidly. 

Now, excuse me, it's time for another calamine bath.  How's it elsewhere?

I noticed out around Kipling and I70 today, near a little Wheat Ridge park, that nature reasserted itself, temporary though it may be.  All the rain lately has caused the wetlands to spring up again, making the Comfort Inn parking lot into quite the duck pond, complete with cattails, and, well, ducks!  In spite of generous catch basins, the ponds have overflowed and the Clear Creek basin is showing its true colors.  While it's probably a hassle for the inn's guests, and a future mosquito hazard if it lingers too long, right now the little riparian zone is kind of neat, with some very happy ducks and bottle flies to attest. 

Happily, it's another green spring in that grassy basin known as South Park.  One of the best sights you'll see anywhere is when you come over the top of Kenosha Pass and look down upon lush, green pastures and meandering waterways hosting large herds of horses, cattle, elk and antelope under a brilliant blue sky guarded by majestic snowcapped peaks.  Some recent years, it's not been so lush and herds have been small, but to my eyes, it's looking like a banner year so far.  Let's hope it stays that way so the ranchers will persist and not give in the the pressures of the Breckenridge spill-over.   

I noticed over by Hartsel that the green just hasn't quite realized.  The gravel-based high plains there tend to drink down the water and secret it away in underground creeks and lakes.  It takes a huge surplus to put water in Cowboy Mike's pond or to puddle the gulch crossing my land.  At 8,500 or so feet, it may be a bit early yet for the prairie to spring to life.  Walking around the range at the South Fork Ranches, I saw plenty of promise in many, many buds on the short-barrel cactus.  Next weekend, it'll be a sea of fragile pink blooms.  Will the lovely Indian paintbrush and loud rabbitbrush make another appearance this year?  The bluebells didn't look especially vigorous, a little thirsty, in fact.  I'm hoping the circle grass will wave tall this summer, too.  It's a remarkable sight when it all undulates in the nearly ever-present wind.  Nonetheless, the high plains around Hartsel are always a mystically lovely place of sun and wind, earth and sky.  You can remember what it is to be just human out there. 

I love springtime while at the same time it makes me crazy.  Without fail, some time after the warm, sunny days set in for real complete with fresh greenery and lush blooms, I am beset with the most wicked restlessness imaginable.  It's wicked because unlike other restless times, I am unable to pinpoint exactly what would relieve it. 

Gardening?  Nah...that chaps my hands and I detest kneeling, can we please do patio pots?  Spring cleaning?  Hardly!  I read the Mary Kay book years ago and to some extent took up her suggestion to keep it clean all the time to avoid that time-consuming, energy-sapping spring-cleaning ritual.  So although there is never a point in any given year when the house is spotless roof to basement, it's always liveable and quickly snapped into company-shape if visiting were something people actually did. (We don't, we prefer to blog or TiVO, right?)

How about a drive down the road to visit the folks?  That's a heavy-sigh-inducing prospect.  I love them dearly.  I feel bad they've got themselves stuck in some sticksville in their latter years.  I feel sorry that Mom counts a trip to the local WalMart as a high point in her week.  (Simple pleasures?) My visits become a relief effort, and while usually a little more selfless, that just isn't me in Spring Fever Time.  (Hello, guilt.)

What I found in the past to help was something out of the ordinary and low on hype.  Last year it was the Estes Park Jazz Festival, but that's NEXT weekend!  My spring-nerves are jangling now.  The previous year, hubby and I were chasing around the Gulf Coast, which included beaches, jungles and travel-survival on a semi-desert island (see my avatar for a sunrise view of my heart-home), which definitely cured the SF. 

So, what to solve this wonderful curse called Spring Fever?  Wonderful because, after all, it's SPRING!  Curse, well, you know, jangle, jangle!  Watch out for a crazed, chubby, wild-haired middle-aged woman doing the unexpected (but nothing like moshing or crowd surfing, I got that out of my system years ago.)  That just might be me, with hubby in tow if I can lasso him into it! 

The new yard is a squirrel haven, despite an active 20-pound cat and a tireless Chesapeake Bay retriever.  It could be that the massive elm in the back combined with all the lesser trees in our yard and two adjacent create an irresistably lush urban micro-forest right here in Arvada.  It promises to be a stunningly beautiful summer, for sure.

The squirrel-world is splendid.  As my husband and I sip our coffee or wine we are secret observers of a whole squirrel society via a wall of windows across the back of our house.  They're amazing little creatures, really.   Their industry in gathering food and nesting materials is upstaged only by their exuberance in life.  Oh, for sure, some of the behavior is mating or territory related, yet I've never seen squirrels actually hurt each other.  Even territory, once established, seems to be an informal point.  There aren't outcasts among squirrels.  The brawny brute who chased the scrawny upstart from the elm to the crabapple this morning will surely be playing a fine game of round-the-elm with him this afternoon. 

Why, the squirrels seem even to enjoy the aforementioned cat and dog, as well as their less robust senior counterparts.  It could be anthropomorphism on my part, but I would place money on it that there are times when one or the other of the bushy-tailed imps performs elaborate antics to attract the notice of the household pets.  A little golden-belly will sit atop the peak of the neighbor's shed, stare into the back of the house, run across the chain link about 5 yards, sit, switch the tail about a bit, and run back to the shed over and over until one or all the pets are enticed to go out and give a bit of harmless chase.  At that point the little rascal zips under their very noses across the yard and up the elm, just out of reach.  The play provides hours of entertainment for the Chessie.  The three others become bored after a half hour or so, but the Chessie will wear herself stupid 'playing squirrel.'

Funny, though, I often find myself reflecting that there are many squirrel-like people:  good natured, fun-loving and simply happy with being.  We need more of those, myself included.

It's baa-aa-aack!  Lulled by warm sunshine and gorgeous bulb flowers, how many of us have cleaned and packed our parkas?  Nah, we never do in Colorado, right?  How about that ICE STORM the other day?  It only took two days for my car mirrors to thaw out, meanwhile it was dicey looking into a pancake-sized circle to change lanes.  Trying to pry any larger space clear, if I could have, would have resulted in a $150 mirror needing replacement.  Hey, hello, Jack Frost?  Scram, would ya?  The spring equinox has happened, the egg-totin' bunny has done his thing, dangit even the crabapple at my new house is trying to bloom.  One more fury of flurries, I suppose.  In 1996, we had a heckuva blizzard around this time.  Lucky me, I got to white-knuckle it back from ever-lovin' Burlington after a farm auction somewhere out there.  That storm was so thick we hoped and prayed for a roadblock to help us find our way off I70, but luck just wasn't there and on we went, all the way into Denver, not entirely sure we were on the road, but guessing pretty well that we were when a semi missed us by inches.  Eyup, it's about time for another. 

It's true!  I've been up Bear Creek Canyon and seen for myself the yellowness of the sap rising in the narrowleaf cottonwood and, I never thought I'd be glad to see them, flies on the wing!  Why, I even saw a honeybee near the south entrance to Red Rocks Park!  Have you noticed day is lasting just a little longer?  Hooray!