no storms this weekend

Finally. A week­end with good weather and no major out­side com­mit­ments. The local paper recently noted that of eight week­ends, six had been wet and stormy. Out­door leisure busi­nesses were hurt­ing, the paper noted. I’d guess plantsellers would be in the same sit­u­a­tion, though I really think gar­den­ing is much too impor­tant a thing to even begin to call “leisure.”

One of the com­mit­ments that ate into the free time was a fam­ily birth­day that we cel­e­brated at a rental condo down on Mis­sion Beach (San Diego Beach House). That was the day of the mega-earthquake in Chile and the inter­na­tional tsunami alerts. A pretty bizarre day for a party.

Life­guards a few miles up the coast noted some abnor­mal tidal action that they thought had some­thing to do with the tsunami, but we were enough in cel­e­bra­tion mode that we didn’t notice it.

Some­where dur­ing the after­noon some­one was alert enough to spot a boat in dis­tress. Here it is through binoculars.

That was another stormy, dra­matic week­end, how­ever, and the boat’s prob­lems had more to do with the bru­tal on-shore winds and big waves.

Leav­ing the beach I pho­tographed this sign. I’d noticed it before and almost thought that it was a joke. That day I wasn’t so sure anymore.

The time at the beach with the was dra­matic as all get out, and we sure need the rain. But where there’s rain, there’s weeds.

So this week­end I’ll be spend­ing a lot of the week­end out­side, in the sun, pulling weeds. Absolutely, there are worse things to have to do, but with so many wet week­ends the weeds have got­ten so far ahead of me I hardly know where to start.

Much of the weed­ing will be like this: one tiny lit­tle keeper plant mixed in with dozens of inter­lop­ers. There’s a desert marigold seedling (Bai­leya mul­ti­ra­di­ata) mixed in this mess. Some­where.

I’ll enjoy my time in the sun, but leisure? I think not.

March 13 2010 06:30 am | Categories: gardening • my garden | Tags: • •

7 Responses to “no storms this weekend”

  1. Alice Joyce on 13 Mar 2010 at 9:28 am #

    Hi James,
    Left a note for you on Blotan­i­cal: I’m guess­ing the La Nina pat­tern has affected San Diego this win­ter, and here, as well.
    I was excited to have a cou­ple dry hours the other day and I went into the gar­den to trans­plant a bunch. For three days I’ve been barely able to move because of back pain, and hon­estly, I didn’t accom­plish much at all. It makes me crazy how this body will no longer coop­er­ate:(
    Hope you man­age some leisure moments between weed extrac­tion. That’s a prob­lem for me in the front areas that receive no sum­mer water. Insid­i­ous weeds that spread by run­ners. Don’t even know their names:^\

  2. Town Mouse on 13 Mar 2010 at 6:34 pm #

    Well, in Ger­many we say “Bad weather doesn’t exist. Wrong clothes do”. Leisure busi­nesses indeed. Can’t peo­ple put on some­thing waterproof?

    Regard­less, it’s nice to have some sun for the weed­ing. I just hope the rains will be back, we actu­ally have barely had the aver­age rainfall.

    Have fun!

  3. Pam on 13 Mar 2010 at 7:07 pm #

    There are tsunami warn­ing signs up on our coast now as well — the first time I saw one it caught me off guard. We’re def­i­nitely at risk for earth­quakes — there was a big one in the late 1800s in Charleston and every now and then, we have a lit­tle one. These larger ones in Chili and Haiti are a bit chill­ing (and so hor­ri­ble for those folks).

  4. Gayle Madwin on 13 Mar 2010 at 8:58 pm #

    It’s fas­ci­nat­ing to see how dif­fer­ent your weeds — and your soil — look from mine. My weeds are almost all grasses, and my soil is mud for half the year and dry, cracked, for­mer mud the other half.

  5. Wendy on 13 Mar 2010 at 11:39 pm #

    yes, we’re definit­ley expe­ri­enc­ing some tur­bu­lent times, huh.

  6. Country Mouse on 14 Mar 2010 at 10:41 am #

    That day of the tsunami the waves raged here. My brother’s yacht (his home) was tied up in Santa Cruz har­bor and it bumped bot­tom many times as the water rushed out of the har­bor — then rushed back in bang­ing things about. I’ve been hav­ing sim­i­lar weed­ing expe­ri­ences to you, but took a break and planted this week­end instead. Maybe I’ll paint the greenhouse!

  7. lostlandscape on 14 Mar 2010 at 7:38 pm #

    Alice, I hope you’re doing better–I know how mis­er­able things can be when the body doesn’t coop­er­ate, both phys­i­cally and emo­tion­ally when there’s so much to be done. And good luck with he weeds–down here I think I’m see­ing weeds I haven’t noticed before.

    TM, I like the line about weather and clothes. We’re pretty fair weather peo­ple in town, and I sup­pose it’s not the safest thing to do to go out skat­ing in down­pours and puddles.

    Pam, it’s a real wake-up call, isn’t it? I live pretty much on top of the major earth­quake fault that runs through San Diego. But it hasn’t slipped sig­nif­i­cantly in a thou­sand years, so denial goes a long way in coping…

    Gayle, spo­ken like a true gar­dener, com­par­ing your weeds with mine. I know you’re exper­i­ment­ing with a lot of dif­fer­ent plants. I know it’ll be just a mat­ter of time before you find some that work for your con­di­tions and don’t mind the occa­sional mis­step by the dogs.

    Wendy, lots of dis­as­ters going on, for sure. Life is short. Gar­den more.

    CM, inter­est­ing to hear of your brother’s expe­ri­ence in the har­bor. It sure per­son­al­izes a far-off event. Nice to hear you got some plant­ing done. I’ll have to admit that I played hooky today and went to look at the desert bloom. Pri­or­i­ties. Plants wait for no one.

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