this year's muddle
Every year is different. And I'm not just saying that. When it comes to flora and fauna, there is no normal. 2009 is all about cottonwood and robins. Mr. Blog wonders if there's a connection. The cottonwoods went ape-shit this year. They spit and spit and spit cotton wads. And robins! Yesterday afternoon I walked up the driveway and counted seven robins hanging around in a group, like a robin cocktail party. 2009 is also about very little fruit due to a badly timed freeze: almost no peaches, no crab apples, two Honeycrisps, although there are a fair number of knobby little apples from the ancient trees, and the figs were unfazed. The fig tree has gotten BIG, all of a sudden. I'm actually relieved about the less fruit thing. I get tired of dealing with the fruit. La-zy. Last year we had a ton of common amaranth (weed), this year, hardly any. This year, the roses were beautiful (due in part to spraying them with water every morning to get rid of aphids), last year they put on a sad display (due in part to me NOT spraying them with water every morning). The only thing that never seems to change is the skunk. Every year we have one skunk terrorizing the property.