Complete Chaos, Outdoors and In

Lately I seem to want to write a lot of sappy, tender, sentimental stuff. Maybe it's those PMS mints Billy sent me. I'll spare you, and post some photos instead - you can thank me later.

Romeo knows he's not supposed to be on the table, forget about in a shoe box. He's cold busted!


I took this picture about 5pm today in the backyard. About half an hour earlier there was a sudden, abrupt drumming of rain on the tin roof, and afterwards I was admiring the way the budding trees stood out against the cloudy sky. The photo doesn't capture it but I do like the way it almost looks as if I'd taken it in black and white.


In fact I've been trying to figure out what to do with this backyard. It's wild and foresty, and I like it much better than I would a neatly clipped carpet of grass. The wild onions have little white blossoms at the top, and something else is small and lacy and profuse and pink. There are also, maybe morning glories? They had little pale purple blossoms on them this morning but don't now. They have broad overlapping grassy leaf blades. There's a small, but wonderfully twisty live oak right in the center of the backyard. There's also a low, decayed, completely overgrown stone wall running along the center, the width of the backyard, dividing off the uphill from the downhill half. It crosses the fence and closes off a part of the neighbor's yard, as well. Some long-ago gardener must have had a perfect profusion of shrubs and flowers on the uphill half, perhaps with a small lawn on the lower part. What was once a large patio is now the addition of the master bedroom, leaving only a narrow hallway to the outdoors by way of a porch.

It probably helps if you squint.

I've been studying Annie in Austin's beautiful gardening blog particularly closely lately, trying to get inspiration, but it's kind of like reading the Kama Sutra when you haven't hit puberty yet.

Or kind of like grasping the concept that tables are not for sleeping on, no matter how many shoeboxes and grocery bags your idiot humans have left lying around on top of them. Maybe the cats have a point after all.