Up in the Clouds

And now I am indistinguishable from a person at Home Depot swooning over the potted azaleas. I bought a heavy-duty wheelbarrow, to be delivered tomorrow, which just seemed like something a serious gardener (weeder) should have. I also bought a jumbo-size container of Green Gobbler, a small metal trash can with a lid specifically for cat poop, and the extension cord I will need for my garage-ready freezer. (What is a garage-ready freezer? One that is meant to withstand ambient temperatures from very cold to very hot.)

My parents had a chest freezer in the garage that was completely crammed with stuff, including about 15 different kinds of flour. My mother liked to have every possible thing for the activity of interest: every kind of flour, markers in every tip width and every color … my mind is kind of going blank as I try to remember, but anyway, that freezer was dauntingly full. You had to dig for whatever you wanted out of it. It is gone now. I announced to my sister that I would not be having a chest freezer in the garage. She smirked when I announced that I am now shopping for a chest freezer for the garage. 

This is because Arbor Farms does not stock the three-pound bag of Stalhbush organic frozen blueberries, but will be happy to do a special order, but only of a case, which in this instance is six bags. So the new chest freezer in the garage will be for 18 pounds of frozen blueberries, mainly. 

Nightly, I scoop the poop and pee clumps out of two litter boxes and clean the areas where the litter boxes are located. In San Francisco, each night I dropped a bag with cat poop in it down the trash chute outside. Here I had been putting the bag in the giant trash bin in my driveway, which sits in the sun, so when the lid was opened, the smell was pretty overwhelming: gently toasted cat poop (I think you can get more for it if you call it sun-dried). I brought the trash bin into the garage, which will probably help, as it shouldn’t get so warm there, but my sister suggested having a little metal trash bin with a lid just for this purpose, and I think that will be even better. I can transfer the contents of the little metal trash can to the giant trash bin before I put the latter at the curb each Sunday.

Today the fellow who periodically does heavier or more time-consuming yard work came over with his crew. They spent a few hours and got a lot done. I had been waiting for the tree guy to come; he ended up coming today, as well, with one other person. The main thing they did was to start the process of taking out two dying hawthorns. I really like the tree guy and also his crew member. The latter has an exceedingly still, alert air about him. He once pointed out to me a bird’s nest I would never have spotted that was about six inches from my eyeballs. He seems very grounded, not missing the smallest thing, but at the same time, there is something very light and airy about him, as if, should you turn your back on him for a moment, you might turn around again to find that he had drifted up into the clouds.