The Perfection of the World Outside

Part of why I am not blogging much lately is that the world outside my door is so devastatingly perfect right now. The weather is fabulous - sunny, dry, seventy degrees. When it is a bit cool, the sun shines on my back deck and it feels heavenly. Everything smells great.

We have more or less finished our back yard terracing project and are now just tending all the little plants we have installed. All my wildflower and native grass seeds are up and turning into cute little plants. Many of the larger plants are in bloom - mexican mint marigold, scarlet sage, lantana, and copper canyon daisy.

My husband has been clearing out little juniper trees beyond the garden area. This opens up the view a little and makes all the other interesting plants more visible. We've also blazed a trail to the back of our lot - 500 feet beyond our house. This has been really fun. Our ravine is so beautiful - a series of travertine and limestone waterfalls under the canopy of big oaks and juniper trees. We can now easily go down there any time. I feel twelve years old when I am down there, like my husband and I are two children playing together in the woods. We've been working on the trail making it easy to negotiate. At some point, I will plant some shade loving native plants along the way. Right now, there are a fair number of nolinas, yuccas, sages, and yaupon hollies along the way. But I will add some columbine, turk's cap and cedar sage as well.

When we bought the house, I suspected that the land would give us a lot of pleasure, but it has far exceeded my expectations. The sensory experience of just being in my own back yard is something I just cannot get too much of.