My hardwood mulch is growing a mushroom forest. Gray Inkcaps, lots of them. Four days of rain will do that for you. Since last Thursday more than three inches has fallen on the homestead courtesy of decaying tropical systems from Mexico and a low pressure ridge from the northwest. Every river I can name all around me is running full and the local lakes are benefitting. I hope this spasm of wet weather is a portent of better things to come. Blanco county, however, is in the grip of a drought that started in 2022 and it looks to be worse than the one we endured in 2011-2015.

The Fourth of July floods on the Guadalupe sure took the buzz off this Fourth of July weekend. I can’t stop thinking about the loss of life and especially the children, and especially the ones at camps away from their parents. If any good can come of it, I hope it’s something to help future generations remain safe. It seems the least we can do. And I hesitate to say more because the camps are already regulated, and I really have no idea what’s in place.

It rained all day yesterday. Steady. Nothing too heavy. I’ll check my rain gauge at first light. It’s likely to be close to two inches. Yesterday’s heavier rains fell west and south of here on the Guadalupe River watershed. Those rains came down fast and furious. This morning, just down the road about 30 miles in Spring Branch the river is running at 29 feet which is not the 37 feet they were forecasting, but it’s still plenty high.

It’s a drizzly, rainy morning here in central Texas which is good news if you’re a gardener, not so much if you’re a Fourth of July party planner. I’ll take the rain. At this stage of my life Fourth of July fireworks are more of a nuisance than anything else, and that was especially the case when I lived in Houston, because there was always the neighbor who liked making noise. Although if the weather improves, I might wander over to the courthouse for tonight's big show just to say I did.

I’ve been in remembering mode recently. Mostly good things. And one of those things was our first garden, early in our marriage, while I was still a student in the 70s. We lived with another couple. Communes were good. Community was good. We found a nice big old house close to downtown Houston and turned our backyard into a garden. I was an organic gardener, too, because I’d read Silent Spring and knew that while plastics might be good career advice, chemicals might not be so hot for the planet.

I’ve got four little cups of seedlings on my back porch. They’re starting to sprout. Alamo Vine and Morning Glory.  July is probably not the best time to start new plants, but I’ve got a relatively shady spot for them, and even if they don’t make it into the ground I’ve learned something from the experience that I’ll put into play going forward, and bless the internet for its help.

It’s a good feeling to sleep through to the alarm. It’s a good feeling to roll over with no pain because your DO popped your hips into alignment yesterday. It’s a good feeling to lie in bed with today’s words huddled in your brain like chickens ready to escape the coop. It’s a good feeling to sit then stand and not have the muscles in your back feel tight as knotted ropes. It’s a good feeling to know you’ll get a massage today, that will chase away the residual soreness.

It’s always interesting to me the love-hate relationship people have with plants, particularly the ones they don’t like. Crape Myrtles, for instance, are considered messy trees by some of my friends, and lantanas are equally disliked by others. We have both in our yard, and we’ve had them in every yard we ever owned. 

My run in with The Ecology of Invasion by Animals and Plants by Charles S. Elton has stirred up a lot of sediment in the old brain. I am reminded of Earth Days gone by. I remember protests on the banks of the Houston Ship Channel. I helped remove ligustrums from the park next door. I supported movements to protect animals because a short food chain is an unstable food chain. It's as though I thought the war had been won, only to realize it’s still raging. Thanks, Charlie.

Apple slices with caramel sauce is my new favorite thing. A little pleasure. Here’s another. Finding a good book. I just finished The Ecology of Invasion by Animals and Plants by Charles S. Elton. Here’s the distilled lesson I got from reading the book. The boot of mankind treads heavy on the world. Did it give me hope? No. All I need do is drive down highway 71 going into Austin and see the enormous subdivisions cluttering the hillsides to know that we’re perfectly willing to pave paradise.

I know beauty is in the eye of the beholder and I’ve puzzled sometimes over what I’m beholding, especially when it comes to my gardens because I know they are in no way classical. If anything, they look like pure chaos. Plants are thrown together and sometimes plants which in other times would have been considered weeds are allowed to stay, just to see what they do. There are days when I look at  the garden and wonder what in the world am I doing.

We have a bowl of broken glass, which is an odd thing to say because my wife has been dead for nearly five years. But old habits are hard to break and I almost always think in the plural, especially when it comes to things around the house. But back to the bowl, because saying you have one full of broken glass might also be an odd thing to say. But I’ve got one and it’s full.

Made a nice little discovery in the new garden along the north fence. Sunshine Mimosa (Mimosa strigillosa). How can you not like a plant with that name? It speaks of bright mornings, orange juice, and champagne. Plus, it’s got fern-like leaves and purple blooms. I’ll have to keep my eye on it and see what it does. It’s supposed to be a ground cover and it’s drought tolerant because it has deep roots, but so is khaki weed and I don’t want that in my garden.

Ah, the mysteries of life. One day your hdmi cable works. The next day it doesn’t. Is it the port on the computer? Or the port on the monitor. Is it the cable? You check the device manager. Nothing. You restart the computer. Nothing. You turn off the computer. Completely. Turn it back on. Voila. Everything works. No one will ever be able to explain why it stopped working. It just did. Maybe a little electron got caught going where it shouldn’t. Maybe two instructions got stuck in a digital doorway.

Maybe it’s just that time of my life, but bleakness feels omnipresent and the turmoil of the world feels as though it’s sitting at my backdoor. It’s probably my fault. I like technology and the algorithms know my desires. A deadly combination, I’m sure. Most days I can make my way to the light, but in a world where everyone wants your attention, sometimes it’s hard to ignore the noise.

I’m glad for the weekend because my back has decided to remind me that I’m an old man. Although, since I’m old and retired, I don’t really need the excuse of the weekend to sit around and do nothing. But old habits die hard and on most weekdays, I feel like I should be doing something and a bad back is a real hindrance. Luckily, I’m pretty much caught up on the yard word, so what needs doing is pretty easy.

Humanity. Sometimes I despair. It seems as though we spend an inordinate amount of time and energy trying to figure out ways to blow up people and things. Then, because we can, we do. Blow up people and things. And it seems as though everyone is fighting someone these days. Of course, it’s probably just the way of the world. Someone is always wanting something someone has, or someone has done something someone doesn’t like, and off we go.

I’ve decided I’m going to war against nutsedge. Not on a grand scale, just in what I now call the north fence garden. The problem I have is that the garden is currently mostly bare dirt and that’s just an invitation for everything to come grow. I can dig up the nutsedge as I dig up the coastal bermuda. Of course, there are poison options, but I’ve always preferred pulling and digging as my weed control option, even when I had a lawn in the suburbs.

I’m fond of expressing my appreciation for native plants, and castigating invasives but I wonder now if that language is appropriate or even helpful. Before the advent of humans, I’m fairly certain plants moved from place to place born on the wind or in the guts of birds or animals as seeds. That’s how any island developed its biosphere. So, no plant springs whole cloth from the ground. They just get somewhere. Like it. And grow.

When is a weed a weed? Answer. When you decide it is. This is particularly true when you like plants from the wild. Because almost every weed flowers and sometimes they look nice in the garden. And native plants are usually ones you find growing in the wild although I don’t believe I’ve ever run across a salvia greggi in the wild. Although maybe I just haven’t been looking. In the end, it comes down to taste and your willingness to pay attention.