Home Again, Home Again

Travel wears me out anymore (how do you like the use of the "positive anymore"?) When I touched base with the contractors this morning and found out they wouldn't be coming today, I'll admit I was giddily relieved. I was less sanguine at 8:30 when I remembered that I had a drawing class at 9:30 and I was barely out of bed. But I made it to class and had my first lesson in shading. It was a beautiful day today, and when I arrived on campus for class I looked up to see all of the peafowl roosting in the live oak outside of my classroom. No one had noticed them before I spotted them and stopped to take pictures. Just goes to show, people don't look up.

After class I headed to Jerry's Artarama to pick up a new sketchbook (mine went missing in the the last studio move from Atlanta) and some other supplies. On the way I stopped and picked up Jessie from school and took her for a quick McDonald's lunch. Amazingly enough I was able to meet her in the office at school, go through the McD drive-through, shop at Jerry's, and have her back at school in time for her next class 30 minutes later. It was some quality mother-daughter time, McNuggets and all.

When I got home I tackled organizing the gardening books. I have loosely grouped them before, but I never separated them and shelved them by categories. It was a good exercise for finding duplicates, of which there were a handful, and it helps me gear up for the upcoming garden creation marathon. Although I am having doubts about starting it. This may very well be the last really big garden project I undertake. So do I just continue with my current plan of raised beds, trellis, pond, benches and beehives, and scattered benches and places for sculpture, or do I hold off for another year? I could put just the beehives in now--they can always be moved. Then I could spend the rest of the year going through all the garden design books I have been collected and creating a design based on all the things I've always wanted to do.

I know that gardens change over time, but the fundamental architecture, the bones that you initially lay out provide the framework for the growth of the garden. If you don't get the bones right, you can stunt it with a bad design. Of course that's not the end of the world as nothing living and growing is permanent, but I feel a bout of cold feet coming on. And I need to consider the needs of the peacocks in the design too (I am hoping that was some quality husband-scaring). Whether I go forward with the full thing now or wait, tomorrow the guys will be here to clear out overgrown brush and thin out scruffy juniper cedar and low thicket. Then I'll be able to see what I have in order to better make a decision.