Nature at it's Weirdest

These Blue Agaves are also known as Century Plants, presumably because they take 100 years to flower and then, having put a tremendous amount of energy into producing this enormous spire, they die. The 100 year part is probably an exaggeration, but they do die after they flower and it does take many years. This is the second on on our property to do this and we know that the whole process takes quite a long time. In the meantime, we watch this plant, which survived the fire but is now at the end of it's life. Its spike, which appears to grow about a meter a day will put out some rather scraggly looking flowers which produce seeds before the whole thing gradually expiries.

The weather continues warm and I was seized with the gardening bug this morning. There are some cana lilies that we took out several years ago because if was too hot for them, but they refuse to go away. There was quite a stand of them that came up in the middle of some other plants so I decided to go after them. But first I had to run over to the nursery to get a new pair of gloves because several pairs of mine have vanished into the black hole of a large garden with three or four possible storage places and an infinite number of places to put them down and forget them. There's a picture of the new gloves and a pile of pretty cana leaves in extras.

After ten weeks, an interesting side effect of recovering from knee replacement is that I am savoring being able to do things that had to come to a halt for many months....mundane things that I once took for granted but now am just grateful to be able to do. Spike, who doesn't do it with John, came out and sat next to me with his Kong which I threw for him between cutting and chopping.

We both enjoyed our morning in the sun before I came in and had a Peloton ride with Christian Vande Velde. Although I often don't pay a lot of attention to the settings, I can use them as a guideline, and am beginning to notice that my stamina is improving....

Small milestones, but satisfying on this first day of May....