LEMON TREE LIVES!

Halfway between equinox and solstice, it’s hard to get kiddo to sleep “on time” with the sun setting so late.

.

This photo is me unwrapping a big surprise a couple weeks ago (mid-april) when we returned home after roading tripping for a couple weeks. We had been up in Oregon and had watched Towhees gather moss for nests, rabbits nibbling grass, baby spiders shimmering gold and trees just starting to flower.

.

The return view when we pulled back into the driveway after a couple weeks was stunning. The mass of greenery around our home easily tripled in the couple weeks we were away! There was a new mockingbird nest in the kumquat. The veggie garden had been neat rows of lettuce and chard when we left and was a forest of arugula flowers when we returned. The front yard oaks and redbuds were fully leafed out.

.

We had pretty much given up on #littlelissettalemontree but I pulled the exuberant fo ti vine away from her just in case and found more new growth on this tree than we have seen since we moved her in March 2019! Pulling the fo ti away was like unwrapping a present!

.

Today’s Beltane seasonal benchmarking: started a batch of calendula oil, backyard oats are milky, comfrey has flowered and is so gorgeous, lettuce harvest abundant, cilantro bolted, peas delicious, blooming roses are uncountable. Mockingbirds, bushtits, house sparrows and a very friendly hummingbird hanging about.