Cutting Bed

 I spent several hours after Pilates class this morning knocking down the dog hair and doing laundry. It made me think of a print I have by Sister Corita Kent of a beautiful flower titled, 'After Ecstasy…the laundry'. I don't know how one dog, even a fairly large one can produce so much hair. We comb him and rake him and 'furminate' him and still we have drifts of his fluffy undercoat in every corner, under all the furniture, in our bed and even our food.

The early morning mist and clouds gave way to warm sunshine and blue skies and we took the dogs up through the 'field of dreams' and up the road to try and figure out how far the new housing development project is encroaching. What I thought was an orange construction Porta Potty has appeared next to my favorite red barn, but as we got closer it seemed to be too small for that, so we can only hope that, despite its color, it was put there by the people who own the horse farm.

Pedro is coming to mow the field of dreams (extra picture) next Tuesday--just two days after the deadline imposed by Cal Fire, the state forestry fire department which oversees our unincorporated rural area. We also pay a $100 surcharge to them every year because we live in a high fire danger area.The grass is three or four feet tall, but tinder dry and crunchy underfoot.

Coming back through our upper terrace, I stopped to admire the vegetable boxes and overseen by OilMan. The amount of time he spends up there has paid off, we have corn, string beans, zucchini squash, tomatoes, tomatillos, carrots (in several colors)  radishes and arugula all in various stages of development. The iris, sweet peas and lava beans have run their course and been taken out to be replaced with shell beans and some climbing roses.

The dahlias, zinnias and snapdragons, all either from seeds from last year's crop or volunteers are flourishing, and I decided to take their picture against the backdrop of vineyards, hills and sky. Not a bad life….