It's Fall! ...in January? (and we're all gunna drown)

It's already next year but... we still haven't finished last year. At least as far as the seasons go. The leaves only just started falling from the trees last week. At this rate, it won't be winter until July... and summer won't come until... Christmas?

Good thing that's not how it works. I love our climate* even for all it's strangeness.
*As long as we're not on fire... or having a that which must not be named.

The main source of all this juvenile compost?

Meet my towering garden guardian: Probably Ash Tree, aka Pat.

 

This may surpise you... but I think he's an ash. If you recognize him as something else, let me know! But use your magic powers to ensure it's, like, an elm or an oak or something. I need a vowel. I don't want to end up calling him Dwt just because he turns out to be 'definitely walnut tree.' 

Pat going blond.

See the palm tree in the top right corner of this photo? That's Jerkface. He desperately needs a beard shave *coughcuelandlord. Because while I love dodging 5 foot long saw blades falling 40ft from the sky... well, I don't.  More on Jerkface and his horrorshow appendages in another post.

Jerkface's extended family posing dramatically. Above the telephone pole, you can see a free range police helicopter off in search of prey.

We've also been having partially cloudy skies of late, which is such a nice break from the intense and glaring direct sun we usually have. To take advantage of it, I've been rushing to do any/all double digging and heavy thing moving work that needs to get done. And boy, I'm sore from it... it's easy to forget how many muscles there are in the body until all of them hurt.

The last item of news is also weather... and one of the main reasons I'm hauling ass on my digging projects this weekend:

If you haven't been keeping track of our weather here (and why would you be) we haven't had rain since... well, lemme think about it. August was the last rain big rain I remember. It was so memorable, I even made a whole post about it. After that, well... we had a brief overnight sprinkle in early September? Which warranted a mention in a post at least.

So yeah... it's been a bit.

The yellow underlining is mine, because it's that part that concerns me the most. It's not so much an issue for me or my garden, but very much an issue for the more than 300,000 acres burned up by wildfires in December alone. The LA and surrounding areas are a series of hills and valleys. Most of these valley floors are urban; most of the hills are uncultivated and often difficult to access, with the exception of some wealthy sprawling neighborhoods which mostly occupy the foothills.

And since much of the recent fire damage was in the hills... the foothills and surrounding areas are now primed to get buried in mudslides.

Right now, as I look out the window, the sun has broken through the clouds. The garden is basking, growing happily. It's 12:15pm. 70 degrees. Hard to imagine that in 24 hours roads will be flooded, and we may be digging our friend's houses out of the hillsides.

We'll see how it plays out.

But not to end on a dark note, here's a long overdue picture of my partner in crime, the many nicknamed inherited miniature grey panther of lore: Greyson Greyweiner Greybutt Poose Bunny Goober Noodle, the first.

Greyson dudeface eatin' weeds, with a Moriarty the Eggplant photobomb.

And yeah... that's lawn weed grass whatever stuff he's eating. I actually had to dig and pot it up, just for him. It's his favorite thing ever. I don't know why... but hey, if it keeps him out of the corn patch (which he also has a thing for) then I figure I can indulge him this one thing.

Weeds in a pot, sure. Why not.

What a cow.