My grandmother hated Florida — and she had no problem saying so. Just mention the Sunshine State and she’d routinely offer, without any coaxing, the following words.
“I hate Florida,” she’d say. “It rains on one side of the street, but not the other.”
My grandmother, by the way, never traveled to Florida. Never. Ever. All my she knew came courtesy of my grandfather, who did some basic training there before shipping off to Europe during World War II.
A few words for Wordless Wednesday. . .
It always amazes me how wildlife finds a garden. It’s kind of like Field of Dreams — if you plant it, they will come.
I went to the theater last night, a very small venue hosting a show of eight short vignettes. By the end of the fourth one, it was clear that something was wrong. Very, very wrong.
The air conditioner had stopped working — and in zone 10, that can be an issue.
At intermission, the small audience stepped outside into the 90-degree, steamy south Florida night air to cool off — and a sort of camaraderie blossomed among the theatergoers. We were all sweaty soldiers determined to see the end of the play, despite the sauna-like conditions inside.
That’s when I overheard one female audience member say to her friend, “It’s because it’s August. It’s like the worst month.”
For several nights, I kept my phone close by, waiting for a tonight’s-the-night text message from Neil, a neighbor who lives a few streets away. He was expecting, you see, and he hoped — as Joe and I hoped — that we could be there for the big moment when his night-blooming Cereus flowered.
There have been times while learning to garden in zone 10 when I’ve felt less like a gardener and more like a member of a landing party from the Starship Enterprise.
With winters that feel like summers, armies of iguanas feasting their way through yard after yard, warnings of Burmese pythons in the Everglades, and giant African-snails eating the stucco off of buildings, I sometimes wonder on what planet Florida is actually located and why Scotty isn’t beaming me up.
It’s the same thing with plants. They’re different and they’re big in this subtropical world — and each time I step outside, I might as well be boldly gardening where no one has gardened before.
It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.
Charles Dickens, in one of literature’s most well-known openings, was referring to life in London and Paris. I like to think, however, he was writing about my tomatoes.
The other day, as I was passing a local playground, I spotted a group of men who were able to throw together a random basketball, football, handball, any-kind-of-ball game without speaking any words to one another. There were some hand gestures and a few noises, and then the game began.
I’m not a fan of zombies. They’re creepy, unstoppable and incoherent. Yet, millions of people flock to their movies, read their novels, and watch their television shows. While some battle zombies in video games, others are preparing for an actual zombie apocalypse.
But they’re wasting their time. The real cause of our undoing is a creature far colder than zombies.
Iguanas.
Bougainvillea.
It’s been some time since I posted a “Bloomin’ Update,” because — well — I had nothing bloomin’ in my garden because I didn’t have a garden in zone 10.
But as 2014 changed into 2015, so too did the garden change. Where there was once only lawn, there are now beds. Where there are beds, there are now plants and pots and paths. (Speaking of paths, I’ll describe the path I took to create this garden in a future post.)
With all of the changes happening around me, I decided to make some changes to this blog. For a while, I’ve considered purchasing my own domain — which I have now done. It’s official, I am now Nitty Gritty Dirt Man dot com.
A local weather forecaster reminded me that in a few days it will be winter. The predicted high in Zone 10 for the day is 80 degrees, and I have to ask myself: “This is Christmas?”
It’s a lot like the question most people ask whenever I tell them I’m spending the holidays in south Florida. “Does it even feel like Christmas there?” they wonder. “I don’t think I would enjoy Christmas down there. How can it even feel like Christmas?”
Nitty Gritty Dirt Man 