Sam and I could use a little leaf-raking therapy. First time the sun pokes its nose from behind the clouds we’re going to head out to the garage, grab a lawn rake and tackle the leaves in our yard.
“ Oh boy!” Sam says, doing a little dance on my lap. “I can sniff around our bushes, pee on the trees and chase birds.”
While Sam is doing his thing, I intend to rake. But my good intentions probably will soon give way to daydreaming. Daydreaming is the real therapy. I often daydream about turning our yard into an oasis of beautiful plants and flowers with lacy trees overhanging the patio, like something out of Sunset Magazine or Home and Garden.
I built a new concrete tile patio last summer and Kathleen planted a few bushes along the back perimeter but we need something to block the sun at about eleven o’clock position as it moves from east to west, because if we sit out on the patio at that time of day the sun is directly in our eyes. We have tall trees that provide shade over our shoulders as the sun moves farther east in the afternoon, but we just need something smallish (not too blocking) at eleven o’clock. The last thing you want to do in the Pacific Northwest is totally blot out the sun.
When I get carried away in my therapy session I dream about remodeling the house, expanding our family room a few feet, installing French doors along the south wall so the place looks like something out of Architectural Digest. Right now though, Kathleen and I would settle for remodeling the kitchen - installing a gas stove - opening the cooking area up more to the family area.
My daydreaming most likely will segue into planning/plotting a road trip to California again. All four of our kids and all our grandchildren live in California, plus brothers, sisters, cousins, nieces and nephews; trouble is they’re spread out from one end of the state to the other. It’s a challenge to catch up with everybody on one trip, especially if travel time is limited.
Driving the length of California, if you’re not too rushed, is great though. I especially like driving down Highway 101 or Highway 1; both of them hug the Pacific Ocean coastline most of the way, and say what I might about California being too crowded, and too this and too that, you want to see really beautiful coastline, drive California.
Other parts of a California road trip are just as beautiful, depending on your definition of beauty. One inland stretch of 101, between Willits and a little spot-in-the-road called Hopland, is my favorite drive of all. I’ve hurtled up and a down that stretch of road alongside the Russian River so many times, I know every bend in the road and the river better than I know the bends in the road right outside my neighborhood. Another stretch of road that I particularly like is Highway 20 where it veers east off 101 around Calpella and runs over to Lakeport. Near Lakeport I like to take Highway 29 south to Napa Valley.
One time I stopped on the shoulder of Highway 20 to photograph these huge bushes alongside this creek. The bushes were cloaked in a riotous profusion of spectacular pink blossoms. I just missed the photo-op of a lifetime when a coyote jumped across the creek as I was attempting to climb over a barbed-wire fence.
Ah well, back to raking. Sam will be lying down under a tree now, panting with tired pleasure. I’ll soon need to lay down on the couch and take a nap. Boy, life is good after leaf raking therapy.
And that’s no poop!
No comments:
Post a Comment