An Interesting Idea

We walked over to Dana and Jim's house with spike today, passing the same burned down houses in the same state of dereliction as they have been since the end of September. Nobody, not even the people who own these properties seems to be able to find out when they will be cleared of debris. It is just the beginning of a seemingly never ending string of delays in the rebuilding process. MY friend Caroline called the county office to which she submitted all the necessary forms months ago to try and find out when she could expect some action, and was told that it was 'no longer in our hands'. She wasn't able to find out whose hands it is in....

We checked in on Grace's Zoom 5th birthday party today. When it turned into a virtual party room we bowed sneaked out and went back to the local nursery to look again at this arrangement of pots and plants that caught my eye a few days ago. Tucked into a corner between some bamboo poles and a table full of succulents it was difficult to get a good picture. It turned out to be the only picture I took today...

 We have a lot of pots, most of which are too heavy to move because the plants have died but the pots are still full of dirt. The plants that didn't burn died because they didn't get any water for the two weeks we were evacuated and the power (and therefore the well pump and the irrigation) was out.I spent some time emptying the dirt out of my Talavera pots and played  with arranging them in a group. We're ready for the cheerful designs and colors on these wonderful pots from Mexico.The jury's still out on the plan but  it has possibilities. If it works out, I'll post a picture. John dug a hole to plant one of the plants we got the other day and hit solid rock. That's one reason we have so many pots ...

It is almost 5:30 and the light shining across the green fields and into the house is beautiful. They days are definitely getting longer. I even ran into two neighbors while Spike and I were running down the driveway after his Kong. If it takes a funny bounce and he doesn't see it, it will roll all the way down to the street before he finds it....

It feels a little bit like we are coming out of hibernation, squinting into the evening sun as we stand ten feet away from each other because I didn't have a mask on.