Planting the Rain, Among Other Things

Recently I signed my declaration of independence. Well, okay–I just posted in the family server that i was tired of doing any housework that got done, and I wasn’t going to worry about it anymore. My declaration didn’t result in a war! Everyone was very supportive. Especially the cat, whose counter-cruising is a lot more productive now that I’m no longer emptying the sink every night. >_>

So anyway. Now I have more time to do what I want to do. Like blog a day late. (sorry! brain just wasn’t willing yesterday.)

Lately what I want to do is poke at turning my front yard and my mostly concrete backyard into a wildlife habitat slash productive bit of dirt. At some point I may put in some raised beds and try vegetable gardening again, but that’s not what I’m working on right now. I’ve moved a little on it–clearing some junk out of the shed, pulling a weed here and there, buying and planting two more citrus trees…

Yes, me! I planted two trees! By myself! So far they are still alive. It’s been more than a week. While I’m pretty good with houseplants, I’ve had less luck with outside plants. Of course, it is generally something of the six-or-so legged variety that takes out my poor outside plants. But anyway. Not much luck. So we’ll see.

I bought a book. This author lives not far from me, and what he’s been able to do is just fantastic. Of course step one is to find out how the water runs off your intended garden, and it’s only rained when I’m not available for that, so far. (At night, while driving from work, at night…) (and again, at night tonight.)

I bought a weeder. It works on the little ones, but no surprise, it’s not great on the bigger ones.

The idea is to go slow. Start on one thing I know I want to do, like a bee waterer, and then do the next thing. Not buy everything I could possibly need, then run out of enthusiasm. You must always leave yourself more things to buy. That’s a wise old saying from Karl Marx or somebody, I don’t know.

Anyway. Much grumbling. I don’t want to weed whack the weeds. I don’t want to whack the flowers in among the weeds. I don’t know what to plant (I have a loooooott of options picked out.) I want my eaves fixed and a water barrel, but the Plumbing Incident ate all my house money.

But! I found and ordered a privacy screen for the chain link fence between me and my neighbor. It’ll look a lot better than the falling down reed fencing I put up seven or so years ago, while costing a lot less.

I’m wondering how to deal with the cement. I joined a Reddit DIY group and started watching recommended videos.

I have a lot of weeds, yeah. Know what else I have? Birds. Lizards. Bugs. LIFE. Which is what I want. So I’m trying to figure out how to accomplish that without my neighbors hating my guts. They’re lovely people. (I don’t talk to them because I am hermit. But they are lovely people. I don’t want to upset them.)

Also, I like taking care of things that then bloom and feed other things, and such. And wasting water in the desert is just plain stupid.

Who just trotted outside in the dark because it’s raining? This girl. And I learned that the rain from the ramada roof is dumped right into the easement. Where it will grow weeds I have to cut! And also possibly undermine my privacy wall, because it’s being dumped right at the foot of it. And then whoever did that watered the orange tree right next to the ramada from city water, pulling the water table down.

No wonder the desert is getting dryer!

I don’t dare take on the house gutters (yet, anyway) but I bet I could put something on the back of the ramada to run that precious resource onto the orange tree instead of off my property…

I’ll get to it all. Slowly. Bit by bit. And when it’s absolutely amazing and I’m looking for something else to do, maybe I’ll come inside and empty the clean dishes from the dishwasher and put them away.

Maybe.