Digital Dirt    January 25, 2002

It's About Time

Question: Is this a beautiful sight or am I really that hard up?

More than two months have passed since I last updated this digital diary and I can only blame the weather. Utterly uninspiring. Until this week, that is, when despite the darkness, the first flowers of the new year have begun to bloom. I'm not saying you can actually see them, but at least you can tell where they're going to be: at the tips of these wiry red branches that breathe life into my parking strip (ah, the joys of urban gardening). Feast your eyes, then, on the botanic specimen to the right, and behold the promise of the flowering currant, Ribes sanguineum 'White Icicle'.

Or is this the cultivar 'Hannaman White'? I forget. I had both at my last garden and left one of them behind (smothered, sigh, in creamsicle crocus and 'Spring Green' tulips; I was way too good to my landlords). Never mind, let it go, and think about what you gained (a mortgage?), though on a day like today, even my snappy new fence looks a big haggard.

If there's any doubt which way the wind's been blowing, it blows for thee, beloved Acacia.

But never mind, how dare I kvetch with such a stunning specimen of Acacia pravissima right outside my front door? This so-called oven's wattle from Australia -- with its beguiling little shovel-shaped leaves -- is bearing up through this wet (if warm) winter with a weather-beaten optimism I can only admire.

And so: On that note, on this day, I slide down the slippery slope of 49...

            

 

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