Matilija Poppy

Also known, for obvious reasons, as 'Fried Egg Poppy'. 

Spike rewarded us on a trip to Cafe Frida by lying quietly under the table without once trying to drag the table across the patio or barking at anybody. Our preliminary effort at resuming and scheduling our very enjoyable joint dinners with our post-Pilates coffee group didn't quite work out...these things take practice when we are all suffering from Covid brain...One couple thought it was tonight and two thought it was tomorrow night. In the end we rescheduled the whole thing for Sunday. 

I came home and tackled the remaining bottlebrush which is trying to make a comeback but has a long way to go. I'm getting sick of looking at the dead brown branches and it has a lot of new growth at the bottom, so I thought I'd just remove all the brown stuff and see what happens with the new growth. Many of the branches are too thick to cut with clippers and as hard as iron to saw through, and the whole thing is growing on a steep hill. Once the branches were cut through it was quite a battle to disentangle them and pull them out. The more I removed, the more brown was revealed. It seemed a losing battle so I gave up on it for the time being. I would have cut up the branches I did remove so I could put them in the garden compost bin, but by then I had lost the clippers....
Our record with garden tools isn't much better than Spike's with his Kongs. They (the clippers) will  probably turn up underneath the pile of dead branches. There very well could be a few Kongs under there too. 

In the meantime Pedro and his guys were weed whacking the weeds within the deer fence which John usually does, and building a hand rail next to the somewhat perilous steps leading to the driveway from the fire garden....the final fire restoration projects. There are still places in need of plants, but we've called a moratorium on new plants during the drought. 

No wonder we are all losing our minds and can't even remember how to schedule a dinner party. We are besieged with messages that often totally contradict each other. Save water. Protect yourself from fire. Mow dry grasses  but don't keep them from drying out by watering them. Don’t mow when it is hot and dry (which is always) in case of sparks but get everything mowed by May 17 because there will be inspections by Cal Fire. Don't use plastic. Protect yourself from Covid by enclosing everything in plastic. We struggled to get vaccinated. Now they are offering incentives, monetary and otherwise, for getting vaccinated. Fauci has said we probably won't reach herd immunity from vaccinations because of all the 'hesitators'. Fauci has said we don't have to wear masks if we are fully vaccinated. The state had said no such thing. The county hasn’t even raised us out of the orange tier....

The good things are that our garden is blooming*, our youngest grandchildren (12 and 14) got their first vaccinations today, our coffee friends are an easygoing group and we were able to sort out the dinner confusion, and Spike is scheduled for a 'sport cut' next week. 

*extra