Thanks giving

It's still early but barely early enough to be getting an early start as the exodus has begun, families in vehicles skipping school and feeding the freeway roar on the way to points beyond here more interesting Palm Springs Las Vegas San Francisco or more significant Stagecoach Nevada to spend Thanksgiving. A little later today people, myself included will scurry around getting that last minute provision. Then things will quiet down as those folks who have stayed home in OC for the holiday contemplate . . . whether or not to add booze to the cranberry sauce this year.

It's the busiest travel day of the year and I have this to be thankful for: I'm going nowhere. I'll be staying home, aside from a hunting foray for that gravy coloring or maybe wandering over to the farmers' market to get a pesticide free pumpkin from the pumpkin and melon man. I'm thankful I have a home to stay at, given the expensive real estate market we have here. I'm thankful the home I have is a funky old thing not ashamed to be surrounded by bug and gnome infested gardens.

This time of year especially I'm thankful for salvias. There's nine species in bloom right now at home, including the extra spectacular salvia madrensis. It's towering eight feet overhead dripping sun-yellow blossoms. I do like yellow flowers on a late-November day.

I'm also glad the myrtus communis has fruits on it this time of year. They lend a harvest-y touch to the garden. Feed the birds. And the berries contrast nicely with bright green bugs that happen to be standing on them when I walk by with the camera.



When I was a kid my parents gave me the example of a love for gardening, and I thank them for setting me on a path to happiness. Now my mom gives me weird and wonderful things to put in the garden, like this giant spinning lighted yellow flower that this particular spider likes to hang out in.



But mostly I'm grateful for the bugs. They are an exuberant expression of life's will to live; an unrepressed cornucopia of genetic variation on display daily just outside my door. How poor would this planet be without, for example, the buzz of late November honeybees mellowing out the freeway's drone on the busiest travel day of the year?