The Gardeners Anonymous Blog

Rain

The other night I fell asleep to the sound of rain.

I’ve never been a very sound sleeper, but there is nothing more comforting, nothing that lulls me to sleep like the sound of rain on my roof.

I can’t figure out why rain is so relaxing and comforting. It must have something to do with being a gardener. I know that without rain my garden would be very sad indeed, not to mention that without it we’d all be dead.

I know the miracle of rain.

Our little part of the world has been in a drought for two or three years, and my neighbors who have inhabited these hills for 20 to 40 years tell me that there used to be a lot more water even during drought years. They say there used to be streams that trickled all through the summer and small bodies of water year ‘round—but not any more.

We have had the mildest winter I can remember. The sky has been clear and blue. We had the largest full moon there will be this year. We even had a week and a half this January where the temperatures were in the mid-seventies.

Mid-seventies, people!

Even though the weather has been gorgeous, I would love to see more rain in the forecast, because six months from now water will be at a premium.

Here are some pictures I took of my family at Alma Bridge, which has been underwater at the bottom of our local reservoir for most of the past 56 years.

Here are some more shots of us walking through the town of Alma five-and-a-half decades after it was flooded to make way for Lexington Dam and the waters of our Lexington Reservoir.

Stumble It!

Green Thumb Sunday-Winter Snapdragon

Stumble It!

Growing veggies this time of year

The other day, my neighbor Marcus asked me what he could plant in his garden this time of year.
We are lucky to live in California and have a winter growing season.
I probably missed a few items, but this is the list I gave him:

broad beans
fava beans
garlic
onions
carrots
lettuce
spinach
turnip
beet
muzuna
arugula
collards
kale
leek
radishes
and parsley

Stumble It!

Meet Moondoggie

    Five days before Mr. Wizard died, my family and I had decided to foster a troubled little cattle dog mix named Ribbon. Then, after Mr. Wizard died, my boys wouldn’t let me give Ribbon away. And they made me rename her. So, we named her Moondoggie because I like to surf and because she likes to surf the counters in my kitchen, also because none of us liked the name Ribbon.
    Today, Moondoggie and I took off to take some pictures with my new camera for green thumb Sunday. We went out to an inspirational place where she could run and run and I could shoot and shoot.

 

I Miss My Mr. Wizard

 

    I was glad to see 2008 go.
It was a year filled with losses. But I didn’t expect another loss so soon in 2009. I was hoping that this might turn out to be a better year. Well, my husband told me to look at the loss of Mr. Wizard in the first week of the year as a 2008 hangover.
    By writing this I hope that this will be therapeutic enough to help me to get back to my blogging. There are some things that are very hard to admit, such as this: I have been just too darned depressed to blog.
    So, I made a New Years resolution to write more and become more serious about my blog.
Two things happened.
    1. I decided to become a foster dog mom for the Humane Society and I brought home, Ribbon, a female cattle dog mix on New Years Day.
    2. Five days later, our other dog of 13 years, Mr. Wizard—also a cattle dog—died suddenly from a pulmonary embolism.
    There are a lot of my friends that tell me that when one dog dies, the other follows shortly after, like some old married couples, one dies and the other dies months, weeks, or sometimes just days later.
    I like to think that he was just a healthy old dog that probably cheated death for a year, maybe two, by running like a bat out of hell every day along the length of the fence that surrounds our one-acre of property. He’d run like a streak, with head tucked down and ears back, in a barking frenzy.
    Yesterday was no exception. I left with the foster dog in my car to run an errand. Mr. Wizard circled my car twice and ran alongside us until I turned at the corner.
    I picked up my son, Dash, at school and we came back.
    Mr. Wizard was sitting on his bed on the porch waiting for us with his nose in the air as if he was getting a whiff of something tasty. He was looking extremely happy and satisfied with an hour or so of chasing cars along our fence. We pulled into the garage when Dash and I heard Mr. Wizard again. This time it wasn’t a bark; it was more of a yelp—a painful, frantic yell.
    I sent Dash to the front of the house to see if he was all right. Dash came running back and said that he thought Mr. Wizard had bit his tongue. I put Ribbon inside and walked around to the front of my house to find him collapsed next to his dog bed. He was panting and in distress.
    I picked him up and laid him on his dog bed. I opened the front door and he struggled to his feet and followed me inside. I steered him to his other bed under the kitchen table. He lay down and then became very disoriented. I was already on the phone to the vet. I told her “I think my dog is dying.”
    He then just relaxed and I said to the girl on the phone again, “I think my dog is dying.” She said to bring him in as soon as possible. I placed him on a bed in the back of the station wagon, trying not to hurt him even more.
    It took about twelve long minutes to get to the vet. Mr. Wizard was aware of what was happening but he was panting and didn’t look good.
    I pulled into the parking lot and before I could throw my car into “park” Katherine and the other vet tech had opened the car and were carrying my wonderful old boy through the back door.
    I followed but stopped short of the door to the to the operating and procedure room. I just stood there. Then Katherine reemerged to ask if I would give permission for x-rays and blood work I said yes and tried to explain what had happened she cut me off mid-sentence and disappeared again.
    I was standing in that place in the office behind the receptionist but not in the exam room. There was quiet, no one in the waiting room. The receptionist wouldn’t look at me. Tears rolled intermittently down my right cheek. I only cry through the right eye unless I’m really sobbing.

  

Mr. Wizard, October 1995 – January 2009

"I have sometimes thought of the final cause of dogs having such short lives
and I am quite satisfied it is in compassion to the human race;
for if we suffer so much in losing a dog after an acquaintance of ten or twelve years,
what would it be if they were to live double that time?"

–Sir Walter Scott