The Fear
Thursday, July 9th, 2009
So, yeah, I’ve been a little removed for the past month or so. Just surviving, really. The heat came early this summer and hit hard and won’t stop. Living in Texas, as far as I can tell, used to be all about counting the number of 100-degree days in July and August. This year, like last year, the 100-degree days started in early June, and all-time record highs continue to be set what feels like every other day. 105. 107. Oof. My trees and plants have all gone into shock. My garden is dead, save for a sweet potato vine that’s flourishing and some hardy basil that’s contributed to five or six batches of pesto (along with the pecans off my tree) and that I am now propagating, piece by piece, in cups of water scattered throughout the house. My relationship with the outdoors has been pretty much put on hold lately. All projects stopped. And then the other morning, when it was only 90 degrees outside, I made this fence thing at the very front of my front yard. It’s going to look much cooler, at least from the street, once I have attached the pieces of weathered cedar fencing I scavenged several months back. I intend it to function as more of a berm than anything, a little hill that keeps rainwater on my property instead of trickling off. Plus, in the process of digging the dirt to make these berms I will be creating little depressions where that water will hopefully end up. Here, I intend to plant hardy native plants that can survive on their own from one good soaking to the next. This was something I have been wanting to do ever since I saw Brad Lancaster speak. He transformed his tiny lot in Tuscon from a barren desert into a lush oasis simply by designing his landscape in such a way that every drop of rain that hit his property stayed on his property. Sinking water into your soil, our soil, may be the greatest investment you ever make, for there vegetation and the creatures that feed on it will flourish. Meanwhile, the City of Austin continues to chop down trees because, get this, they were getting old. As if trees don’t know how to die on their own.