I turned on the soaker hose in the bean bed, and this little sagebrush lizard instantly darted out from the edge of the bed, directly to a drop on the hose, where it stayed for several minutes. A startling, pleasant surprise, this little lizard, as it sprang from nowhere toward the water, spontaneous opportunist.I’m grateful for new neighbors ,new friends who could pick up a prescription in town and drop it off as they picked up the last of the orphan vegetable starts. I’m grateful the babies I propagated now have a good garden home and chance of survival, fruition. The bag I expected to hold only one bottle of pills instead was stuffed like a concert swag bag. I’m grateful to Kroger’s for taking the pandemic seriously, and doing their part to convince the American public by giving away free masks and disinfectants; a pleasant surprise that says to me they understand, This thing is real: just deal with it.. This blue ephedra, planted years ago and now starting to spread a bit: It’s lived here for years and I’ve never seen it fruit like it has this extraordinary drought year. So unspectacular in bloom they are I didn’t even notice the flowers: I turned around yesterday and suddenly noticed the fruits, glowing red in the sunlight. A pleasant surprise!
I’m grateful for most surprises these days, as I can experience them as neutral at worst most of the time, and good, fascinating, or delightful at best in almost every case. I can imagine some surprises that would be distressing, but why? Why would I want to make myself suffer even more than everyday life itself demands?
I was just about to call It is what it is on the desert willow, when I walked past it this evening and noticed the first tiny bit of new green growth. It’s just a hint, but I think all I’ll have to do will be way cut back the dead limbs and give it some TLC before we see if it can make it with a new resource allocator in town.
Love that beautiful lizard, and the free masks…. and I never new Ephedra made those gorgeous red fruits!
If I have seen those fruits before, they were so sparse as to be unremarkable. This bounty was a startling surprise!
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