Oklahoma Dreaming: Walkabout, Part 2
by Donna Schoenkopf
I know. I know. It's taken THREE WEEKS to walk around my house. But don't give up.
Keep going. We have come to my DISH satellite dish. And under it grows my blackberry bushes, put there by Mother Nature. This week I have eaten three of them. They are delicious. These are the same bushes I mowed down last year. They are healthier and more lush since the mowing.
Alongside the house is my shiny, new barbecue that The Cell bought me.
(Yes. I love them.)
First John and Larry showed me the fine points, then we had a fabulous dinner for lots of people, and now I am no longer afraid to use it. (I had an irrational fear of blowing myself up from leaking propane.)
We pass my defunct lawnmower parked under a blue tarp. I can’t start it. Either the pull cord is too long or the damn thing is broken. I hate that mower. I want to take it to a lawnmower shop and trade it in for a funky old easy lawnmower but I can’t get it in my car. It’s too heavy to lift and too big to fit in the car.
I NEED A PICKUP OUT HERE!!!
We round the corner of the house to the southern side.
And there is my beautiful cottonwood tree, at least thirty feet high. When I first saw this property about five years ago, that tree was a sapling, not taller than six feet. It is spectacular now. It shades the deck, provides excellent bird watching experiences as I lie, like a beached whale, on my bed. And it gives Che the Cat something to race up when he’s in the mood.
I have a table and chairs under its graceful lower branches. I have my morning coffee out there. It’s paradise.
Keep going across the deck past the southern wall of the house with six, count ‘em, SIX, sliding glass doors. This is the heart of the my environmental energy system. The sliding glass doors let in heat in the winter (when the sun hangs low in the sky and heats my concrete floor, which acts as a heat sink) and open up for breezes in the summer.
Look left, and down the hill to the pond. The grass is two to three feet high here. But it’s not just grass ... it’s clover and sage and wildflowers, too. I can hardly bear to cut it. It is spectacularly beautiful. But I did begin the job with my rechargeable weed whacker. That little puritanical voice niggled at me till I finally obeyed its instruction to “CUT THE GRASS!! PEOPLE WILL THINK YOU ARE A LAZY, GOOD FOR NOTHING SLUG!”
“Why not let it grow?” you ask. “After all, Donna, you are a Masanobu Fukuoka follower. Let it grow!”
Well.
BESIDES my people-pleasing voice ... there are ticks there. And chiggers. So ...
I cut that giant stand of tall grass and clover and wildflowers with my weed whacker. (Because, as you have already found out, my worthless lawnmower won’t start.)
I wanted a weed whacker that was light and easy to carry. That meant rechargeable. (You don’t carry all that gasoline around with you with a rechargeable.) But because the grass and clover are so tall and tough, my little weed whacker can only do about fifteen minutes of duty. That’s fine with me. I’m ready to stop after fifteen minutes.
I do a little bit every day, now that summer is here. If you were here today you would see lush tall green on one side, filled with wildflowers and butterflies and coolness and brown stubble on the other.
There is no god.
Walking along the deck we see succulents and basil and a plumeria tree that my darling, my beautiful, my brilliant dorter, Rebecca, brought me back from Hawaii.
We are now in the western front “yard.” Brown stubble. Table and chairs. Stumpy little bushes that are supposed to turn into ten-foot-tall hedges, my deck with beautiful Grecian urns from Joe and Larry alongside the front sliding glass doors that hold two four-foot-tall evergreens, which look like upside down ice cream cones. My African stick, a long pole with colorful rags tied around it, is stuck in the ground. Some people don’t like it. Some people do.
I like it. A lot.
My statue of a Greek woman holding grapes that darling, brilliant, courageous son, John, gave me, stands alongside the wall. She toppled over in the wind last year and broke in half at the waist. I just finished Super Gluing her back together. I’m thinking of moving her to a more prominent place in the front “yard,” but the WIND leaves me undecided. The big pot of gorgeous red geraniums Aline brought sits at her feet.
There are three cottonwood saplings in the front “yard.” They are looking miserable after a good start this spring. First the caterpillars attacked and now the leaves have a purplish hue. That means they need phosphorus.
So I sprayed them with ecologically friendly dish soap and water to keep the caterpillars off and will get some phosphorus.
But dichondra LIVES. That container of dichondra seed I packed and lugged all the way from San Pedro, not knowing if it would live at all in this intensely weathered land, just taking a chance because I love dichondra so much, has taken hold.
(It has leaves like little hearts. It grows close to the ground. It is the prettiest green. It is lush.)
Let’s peel ourselves away from the dichondra and continue walking across the front deck, and lift our eyes to the flat stretch of clay and scraggles of sickly oat grass to the north and the starting point of our walkabout.
I loved having you with me. Sometimes, when I’m puttering outside, I think of you and what I will tell you next week.
Here’s a link to see pictures of everything, if you’d like.
Take care.
donna@fourstory.org
Comments
I loved the tour ! Happy Birthday !!
Barbara
2009-06-10 by Barbara Steinberg