After much overtime, and a very intense courier trip to Mexico City, I have finally returned to my favorite pastime of plopping my ass in the garden and tending to my flock. I have returned from my forced blogging hiatus and climbed down from the pyramid of the sun in Teotihuacan to discover that while I was abroad my yard has exploded with growth!
I’ll fill you in on my trip in my next post with some amazing photos! But for now, I wanted to return to simple things. The stuff that Mind Your Dirt is meant to be about. The garden. No more melancholy over the loss of rock stars or pissing and moaning about working too much. It’s the brass tacks y’all. The meat and potatoes (although neither of those are in the content below). In short, I’m back baby! Did you miss me?
Being away from home for a spell truly affords you some perspective. I came in late Thursday night so I didn’t see the changes until I woke up too early on Friday morning (jetlag). When I stepped outside, I was blown away. Things were bursting with buds everywhere I looked. But what I noticed before even stepping out the door was the sweet smell of jasmine. It wafted through the open window and pulled me out of bed in a pleasant dreamlike fervor.
Okay, I fully understand if you never want to talk to me ever again. The abusive neglect, the lack of phone calls and the general all around shabbiness of my behavior is inexcusable. Here it is three weeks since my last post and I come crawling back at 7:30 at night reeking of overtime and exhaustion only to write to you a paltry apology that has nothing to do with gardening or landscaping or sustainability. Nor does it have any neat-o photos or illustrations of puppies or cute chickens! How crass. How sad. This is all I can muster at the moment.
Pathetically couch-bound.
A sad little cellphone selfie using the light from my laptop and a meager 5% remaining battery power. One shoe off and an unhealthy dinner getting cold on the counter. Something involving potato wedges and a meat item of sorts. This is my life the last few weeks. Not keeping in touch with my good friends at Mind Your Dirt but eating shitty food long after the sun sets while the couch absorbs my sad tired form.
Why you may ask? Well, see that bronze disinterested lady up there in my feature image? Well, she (and her twin) represent 1/8th of the massive new project at the San Diego Museum of Art. To “free the art” from the confines off storage and bring it to the people of San Diego in all its glory.
There’s me holding the first “E” in FREE. See how excited I am? I’m the one guy in this photo that was most impacted by the project.
A fantastic plan when you are a fantastic person sitting around a boardroom table spit-balling fantastic ideas. But for the poor schlubbs like yours truly, a daunting undertaking to organize the logistics and build the mounts for ginormously massive bronze sculptures when you have zero time in an already INSANE schedule. That said, let’s do it!
My days have looked something like this…
You may feel a little pressure…
Each object had it’s challenges, but the Zuniga also had some bad galvanic reaction. That’s when you use two different types of metals touching one another and then stick it outside for several years and they fuse together. Like permanently. Well, someone at some point thought that carbon steel and bronze would be a good idea. Nope. It wasn’t. So Zuniga needed me like the desert needs the rain.
I won’t bore you with the details, but lets just say the last few weeks, as well as the last few years, have been very taxing at the museum for me. But, I tend to thrive under pressure so I soldiered on and we are almost ready for next Thursdays big press preview and circle members opening! Almost.
All of that said, I am so exceedingly sorry to have not been more a part of your life! I have been working in the garden, but haven’t been reporting back to you. I am the worst person ever!
And I am sorry.
Um, wait a minute!! I DO have a cute puppy photo to post!!! My bestest of friends just got a new puppy and I took a photo of her. Hold on…I’ll go get it…
BAM! Instant puppy photo.
HA! You thought that I couldn’t produce didn’t you? I’ll never completely let you down. Not all the way. Just a little.
What else has happened? Well there was a huge wind storm on Sunday night that jacked up most of my house and yard. Here’s me on the roof trying to fix everything…
And when I got to work the next morning, there were several downed trees…Two people were crushed by fell trees actually! Not these, but you get the idea of what 80 mph winds can do.
Balboa Park, San Diego California
And then when I got home, I fell these mini trees…of broccoli.
And one of my friends that buys my extra eggs shared this photo with me of one of my backyard chicken eggs next to a store-bought egg.
Let’s see, what else has happened? Oh, these amazing wildflowers are growing behind my museum. They give me great peace when my stress meter hits the roof.
And lastly I will share this snapshot I took of one of the many garden guardians I have hidden throughout my yard. This one is called Juan Buddha. When South meets East, if you will.
Juan Buddha
Nirvana without siesta is taxing at best.
Okay campers, that’s about all the steam I have left in me at the moment. I’m typing very poorly and there will be little to no spell-checking going on up in here tonight! Plus, those potato wedges really depreciate in value when the heat leaves them. AND Sasha needs belly rubs like crazy right now.
I DO have tons to share with you about my garden and stuff. Including root knot nematode battles so please bear with me. I’ll also be in Mexico City for work for a week and change this month. But I’m hoping to have time to write a bunch of stuff on the cargo plane…
Again, so sorry and I love you all with all of my being. that may be the sleep-dep talking…
We don’t get much snow here in San Diego but in a stormy winter like this one, you can drive an hour from the beach and be in snowy mountains. An extreme juxtaposition indeed! Geez, I really hope you gardening folk like photos of dogs, because you’re about to get an overload of them!
My girl Sasha is a husky-lab mix who has never ever seen a single snowflake in her short life. An unthinkable scenario given her breed. The song of her ancestors sings to her of the cold blue biting blindness but she has no frame of reference. I imagine her soul was sick as a result.
Well, no longer! Because for Sasha, das wunderhund, Winter has come! She was so excited and amazed and confused she didn’t know how to handle herself. She’d dart in one direction, freeze, spin and then flop around burying herself into the snow.
Here she is in a gleeful sprint. Just look at that face!
Sasha’s First Run in the Snow.
And she wasn’t alone, she had her two friends with her, Noe and Edie. It was another dog party up on Mount Laguna, part of the Cleveland National Forest. Here’s a whole mess of photos from our delightful day…
A Three Dog Night (Well, day).
Sasha’s mind being blown
A break from the excitement
Mouse hunt
Mouse hunt
Mouse hunt
A snow dog with hot chocolate flavor
The call of the wild
sitting pretty
profile
Unwise to start a snowball fight with a man from Buffalo
Snow angel
Snow angel
Edie navigates the deep snow
landscape with Sasha
Noe throwing a snowball-good aim
too tired for silly games
Pretty girl
Noe is such a lover
Step aside miss-the men have it
That’s good enough for a snowman
my goofy family
Outro with love
It was good for all of us to see snow again. Being from Buffalo, I have a love/hate relationship with it. That is to say, I adore hating the snow. I’ve been served three lifetimes worth of it and am quite content not seeing it anymore.
At least that’s what I thought before last Sunday. But after seeing the dogs romp and play, building a monster snowball and being foolishly challenged by my girlfriend into a snowball fight; I’ve come around. Sorta.
Actually, I’m not sure Nury challenged me outright. Perhaps with her eyes she said, “Have at you sir!”
Either way, challenge excepted!
Oh, there was also a moment where old aunt Edie thought that Sasha’s face was edible (Thanks for the image Nara).
I find it slightly poetic that while one of my heroes was slipping away into the East coast evening, my adorable girl Sasha was having one of the most mind blowing and amazing experiences ever. As one door closes, another opens. It’s been over a week and I still find myself trapped in the grip of melancholy. I spent two hours last night looking at images and video of all my lost glam rockers (Mark Bolan, David Bowie, etc.). If The Universe takes away Brian Eno, I’m not gonna play with it anymore. Looking at the photos above really helps me to shake that feeling. I hope it also gives you a smile and some much needed perspective.
“The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.”
