Garden Roses

The roses in our garden have all done brilliantly this year. Even the ones we thought wouldn’t recover from the fire have done so and are blooming profusely. This one seems to have completely changed its color as well as changing daily from yellow to red as the blossoms open.

We went for a walk around the neighborhood and tried to figure out what was happening where. The whole place seemed to be alive with beeping trucks, mowers and weed whackers,  leaf blowers, power saws and excavators.

They are on the move with the excavators on the fortress side, putting gravel into the trenches they dug next to the massive cement foundations. Apparently the builder thought the drainage was sufficient and the engineer thought otherwise.

One of the workers from the other side came over and introduced himself to us(Jeremiah) and to Spike with a pat  and a treat. The earth moving of yesterday on the street above us has ceased for now, but we had a nice chat through the fence with Finley the golden retriever and her person (Suzanne). Their house burned down in the 2017 fire and they bought this one (along with her mother) in our neighborhood. The Glass fire came very close to this house and burned the large workshop on the property but, like ours, their house was saved by firefighters making a stand there. Their property has really come together since then. The workshop has been rebuilt and they planted a small vineyard and an orchard.

Coming home down through our field and the top garden, I admired the newly planted tomatoes tucked into their cloth covered tunnels. The potatoes, beans, cucumbers and lettuce are coming along, and I picked some lettuce and some volunteer sweet peas. They are now in a vase by the front door, their sweet scent pervading the house.

The ‘hill garden’ is blooming and many of the plants we’ve replaced since the fire are finally taking hold. It takes them awhile to establish themselves in the steep rocky soil. Spike and I sat up on the top level and enjoyed the warm sunny morning and the garden before coming down to wash the lettuce.

We have to take Spike to our friend Dr Steve, the vet, because he has an eye infection. I suspect he ran into something pointy, but his eye is red and streaming with greenish gunk. Eye drops are needed….

If the persistent wind dies down we’ll have dinner in the garden.