I’m not going to rant about the election results today. I’m going to write about the flowers in my garden. Because the last thing the world needs right now is another rant.
My rant — if I were to succumb to it — would be all about how the culture wars have taken over public discourse in our country. About how self-righteous, spit-wad throwing rhetoric is distracting Americans from what really matters.
And what really matters is this: Can American citizens — every last one of them — afford shoes on their feet, food on their dinner plates, a doctor when needed, a house of their own, and a little fun once in a while?
Bernie Sanders (the progressive) put it this way the other day:
It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working-class people would find that the working class has abandoned them . . . Unbelievably, real, inflation-accounted-for weekly wages for the average American worker are actually lower now than they were 50 years ago. — Bernie Sanders
I do not know who started these infernal culture wars, but I (a knee-jerk liberal turned knee-jerk moderate) am not letting anyone off the hook here, including — especially, including — the progressives who live at what has long been my end of the political spectrum.
But — I said I’m not going to rant about the election results. I was going to write about flowers.
I’ll do that in a minute, but first, one more thing. David Brooks (the conservative) said this in his New York Times column yesterday:
As the left veered toward identitarian performance art, Donald Trump jumped into the class war with both feet . . . In 2024, he built the very thing the Democratic Party once tried to build — a multi-racial, working-class majority. — David Brooks
I’m Not Going to Rant About the Election Results, Because It’s Spring in My Garden
Now, at last, for those flowers. It’s November and it’s spring — spring! — in my garden.
The Pink-a-Boo camellia is blooming. So are the azaleas. The Mexican salvias have tossed off yet another bouquet of purple. And my scraggly coneflowers have finally remembered that they’re flowers and have squeaked out a blossom or two.
In the backyard, a creepy, but elegant, saprophyte has shown up on a log. And a few feet away, a being with teeth has gnawed through the hose that takes water down the hill to Jon’s memorial madrone trees.
My gardener noticed the mischief earlier this week when she made her monthly trek into the canyon to check on Jon’s trees. She found two parched madrones. An inspection turned up tooth marks on a severed drip line.
My gardener is good at what she does. Within minutes, she had the water line repaired and the madrones doused with an extra shot of water.
Camellias, azaleas, salvias, coneflowers, madrones. And a gardener who cares enough to make the sweaty hike downhill to watch over Jon’s trees.
That’s what showed up on my quarter-acre of the planet this week. And that’s what I’m going to spend the rest of my day thinking about.
More garden musings (apolitical) at “The Question of Flowers: Are They — Are We? — Works of Art?” Also, “I Did It. I Offed Those Frightful Snapdragons.”
