Nightglow Window

Sideslope Planting

It's Sunday night and the dead hour between West Wing and Big Love.

Dead on my feet myself after a long, long day in the garden that
reaffirmed that the world needs ditch diggers, but I'm glad I'm not
one of them.

Oi! The soil in Carlsbad! It's an inch of topsoil straight down to a
rock-hard clay that splits and shatters under my pick axe. More like
chopping wood than digging a hole -- seventeen of them to be exact.

The side slope has been an embarrassment for years. It's steep. Really
steep. It was covered in this lousy ice plant that I hated so much
that I pulled it all out, thinking I'd plant it with what's on the
front slope: French lavender and basil and Japanese tea trees and
granite (no, not a plant but they count.)

Finally figured out today why I've been procrastinating so long. But
oh my god was it a long time – like two years.

So the morning started May Gray and the beach run to T-street was
scrubbed and we were too late for church and I was posted up in a
steaming tub anyway re-reading Black Sun by old crazy Ed Abbey (god
rest 'em well).

But I guess the urge to whack got hold of me – weed whack that is.

So I strapped on the iPod and began mowing down the overgrown weeds
and grass and all the other things that make me such a great neighbor.

I whacked and whacked and got covered in dirt and grime. Pebbles
tinked off my glasses and I whacked my shin (the heavy nylon leaving
two huge oozing welts). It was fun.

By 10 a.m. it was denuded; smoother than a Brazilian bikini wax. So
what if the beach was off, this here was progress.

So I rooted through my wallet and in the junk drawers for all those
Home Depot give cards and about an hour later the driveway was covered
in greenery begging for the warm earth – or clay in this instance.

Can something be silent but still make a distinct sound? Probably not,
but I swear when my first blister popped on my hand I heard a
"Pssffttt!"

So we kept at it, Syd and Hannah bringing me huge bottles of green tea.

The irony is just as we committed to the all-day task the sun came
out. Oh, it felt good to soak a T-shirt through from stem to stern, to
have the sweat drip out of every pore, feel its burn in your eyes,
smile a grimy smile as the sweat makes rivulets of clean on a dirty
face. To look up at the wide sun with your heart beating hard in your
chest.

By 4:00, the work was over and I turned on the sprinklers to admire
the work and give our new friends a long drink.

Oops! A geyser!

The pick has gone through the PVC pipe of the sprinkler system and it's a mess!

ARRgh!

That's why I stick to using my brain for work.

Later I duck out to pick up Chinese food and my hands can hardly grip
the wheel. Yep, tonight I'm an old man who has to think
about how he's going to get off the floor. The steps feel high and my
legs heavy, my back sore. Making a fist, my palms hurt.

The side slope, however, will never be an embarrassment again. (Unless
I forget to fix the sprinkler and all the plants die.)