Michelle stopped by a bit, reporting that there had been a baby squirrel pawing at the window next to the door trying to figure out why it couldn’t just walk through that solid nothingness and go on in. She said it was very cute and it wasn’t afraid of her.

Right, you have to teach a city squirrel to be afraid.

She was telling me this just as a mama black squirrel and her slightly grayer baby were walking carefully, slowly down the fence line next to the kitchen, looking like it was its first exploration out into the world. I went from feeling like, you can’t humor those things! to, oh, that little one was just so cute. Even if I wish the squirrels didn’t produce a second crop of babies in August, I have enough of them to thwart. Adorable!

Two days ago I was telling Richard the squirrels had taken a deep bite out of a zucchini and left the rest–apparently they didn’t like it either. He chuckled. Today that zucchini was bigger and they actually somehow picked the thing and tried to haul it up the fence.

Good luck with that.

As far as I can tell they touched just the one and left the rest alone rather than taking a single bite out of everything and ruining the others to sit and rot. Given that they used to strip my underripe Fujis in a day–pick, bite, toss, repeat till gone–this was kind of amazing.

I think it means they’re hungry out there.

So far my now-clamshelled apples are still safe. Little fruity windows. No you can’t come in.

It shouldn’t bother me that much. I told myself that for fifteen years. I should just let it go. I’ve tried to talk to her, she’s blown me off every time, how much does it really matter, I should just let it go. Let it go.

I was almost good at that, too. For a long time. If only the problem weren’t quite so big and bright in my face every single day.

I tried to think through how it would feel if I got what I wanted–would it have been worth it? The answer was a clear, if I do it in any degree of anger whatsoever on my part or, and this is the hard part, theirs, the answer was definitely no, and so I stalemated myself.

We have an annual block party every Labor Day and it’s a wonderful tradition where everybody gets to know each other. When there was a city issue needing discussion, we widened it to several blocks and found the more really was the merrier.

At last year’s, though, when I tried again, wanting to discuss at least a possible change of placement with M, she cut me off with, “I don’t want to be a bad neighbor” and walked briskly away as if that fixed that.

I recently tried running tape–shipping tape so it would hold–from my side of the fence to the belly of her tall Snoopy perched on the fence shading my peach so the tree could get a little more sunlight. The thing had long since ceased being a fixed object; here, point this way.

Someone yanked my tape off my side of the fence and set it back the way they wanted. Full shade.

After all the… But I knew they didn’t know just where my fruit trees were. Still, I was afraid the whole thing would at long last trip me up on Monday. I needed to finally deal with this, and better I do in time for both sides to think and come to an agreement before we see each other.

Another neighbor had their email. Score. If you loved the Anne of Green Gables books as a kid like I did, one of Anne’s lines stuck with me for life: “Paper is patient.” You can take the time to say what you want to say the way you want to say it without having emotional triggers trip you up. You can more easily be kind even when you’re bugged when nobody’s interrupting and it’s just you writing away.

You can delete, too.

And so I spent several days composing a letter to the Ms. I had to notify them anyway that they had several things sprouting up behind their hedge right against the fence where I could see them and they couldn’t and that they needed to do something about quickly before there was damage.

There was the fig tree on my side a few years earlier that, no matter how much I’d wanted one, I took it out as soon as she requested it; it was only right. It was their fence too. I had a new one now planted in a pot where it couldn’t intrude on anyone, and I thanked her for her common sense and said she had been right.

I rehearsed the story of the Snoopy and Woodstock figurines: how they’d suddenly appeared on top of the then-new fence right outside my living room windows and that for all the years since I had had an ongoing visual reminder that had made me sad for her that she’d felt more afraid of being told no than of the appearance of being rude: she’d asked no permission and allowed no input, even when I’d wanted to ask her to just move them down the fence a bit so as to be out of my direct sight.

One arm of the Snoopy snapped jaggedly years ago, ending its weathervane function.

And then someone on their side lifted it out, turned the broken side to face my windows and not theirs, and shortly after added the bright yellow Woodstock.

We were not strangers; I had been in their home back when we’d discussed the best way to replace our mutual fence and I’d invited them to mine, I knew she knew how to reach me. It was the ongoing struggle not to feel insulted that was the hardest. (I didn’t mention that.)

Over fifteen years those wooden figures continued to disintegrate.

That peach shading went on for as much as an hour and a half in the early afternoon in June–there has been no flowering under that direct shade line. I told them I certainly have no say regarding their trees in their yard and wouldn’t expect to, but on items on a fence that I own too? That, I do. I commit my water towards future fruit and I had a problem.

Now, while I was struggling to figure out how to say any of this in a way that might be kind and that might be heard, in a way that I hoped both they and I could be comfortable with after the fact, Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, bless her, wrote a blog post that totally saved me: she wrote about how when she and Joe are upset with each other they work on being extra kind to each other to help work themselves through that, fake it till you make it when you have to, she said.

Sheer genius. And boy had I needed that right then, thank you, Stephanie, and Joe, too. What I had been needing to do, both for the Ms and for me, was something nice, something positive, anything. (Well, duh! Sometimes I can be SO slow.)

The squirrels would have stolen any tomato before I’d even closed the door going back in–and so it was one of my cupcake zucchinis that got plunked up between Snoopy and his sidekick before I ever sent off a word. From my garden; have some!

Then, and only then, did I feel ready to start writing; I had the right attitude I’d been searching for and it was a relief.

I found myself checking again and again in happy anticipation: had they taken it yet? No? Now? After several days, at last they did. Bon appetit!

I wanted them to enjoy their figurines, I said, and I imagine there must be some happy story, some strong connection that’s kept them there all this time and that if I only knew what it was it would have been easier to deal with them; I’d like them to enjoy them on their side now.

Add no no no okay you got that out of your system but that’s way too self-righteous delete that try again okay getting better.

Paper is patient.

Finally tonight I had the right mixture of this is why this has bothered me. This is why it’s more of an issue now. You are someone I can count on to do the right thing, I am glad you’re my neighbors, and if you liked the zucchini please let me know because there are a ton more where that came from and I’d love the help using it up. Etc.

I prayed long and hard before sending it off–and felt no, not quite. I studied it, caught a phrase that wasn’t quite…, prayed again. Very close. What more could I…? Oh, I see it plain as day there, okay, thank you.

After repeating that process several times it finally felt right, really right, and taking a deep breath, hoping hard for the best neighborliness forever, I hit–there’s no going back, ready? You sure? Yes. Send.

I opened the sliding doors and walked outside after dinner to see if my baby fig in its pot needed any water and in the time it took me to check out the growth on the warned-about saplings at the far end of the yard and then over to the fig and back across towards the door, Snoopy and Woodstock vanished.

Only the long metal nails remained.

Y E S !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And I came back in and wrote them a very grateful, Thank you, that was VERY kind of you!

The shawl: blocked. Done. I totally love it.

Remember the bubblewrap around the awning pole to keep the squirrels from jumping onto my bird feeder? It worked for months.

Yesterday, however, the lower two-thirds of it disappeared. What was left was still around the pole–but chewed on. What on earth eats bubble wrap?! I could not find the rest anywhere.

Till suddenly in the early evening there it was running down the fence line, a squirrel tripping over it each step as it glanced sideways at me with its mouth very full, looking at me like, I *know* you want this, it’s MINE now! It leaped into the tree in a sudden panic, struggled mightily to continue, snagged the thing and gave up and fled.

Oh now that looks lovely. (I apologized to my neighbors. They laughed and said they couldn’t even see it from their side.) That’s their tree growing straight over our property in front of the redwood, and under there is the 60-year-old corrugated roof to our shed gently blanketed in decades’ worth of redwood needles. There’s no climbing on that thing–it would collapse in a heartbeat. The limb lopper can’t reach. At least it’s not at the top of the redwood.

But I guess for the moment we’ll just have to let its freak flag fly.

Meantime, we got a card in the mail from the Census Bureau, which was doing a mid-decade test to see if they could move the whole process online. And so by force of law our household was to fill out their questionnaire at this URL by tomorrow, with a phone number to call if that weren’t possible, in which case they would send out an in-person census taker.

The thing checked out and yes they were actually them so I took care of it.

Richard walked in the door tonight to find me doing my best John Denver impersonation. Sing it with me: “I Filled Out Your Census!”

I was missing being able to eat a just-picked ripe peach or plum but wishing for a trip to Mariani’s was as close as I was going to be able to get. Today was not a turn for the better and I’m thinking I’ll take the doctor up on her offer come Monday of making sure I don’t have pneumonia.

I did have the one single Indian Free peach from my new tree that I picked about a week ago, maybe as much as a month early, to give the tree a rest and to thwart the critters–after all this waiting I thought it better that we get it imperfect than that the squirrels get it all.

Today: hey look–it had softened up and was ready. And so after all these months of anticipation, knowing we weren’t going to get it at its best, we cut it in half.

One side was white, the other a deep rosy pink. It was sweet enough and there were already nuances of flavors you don’t get from a grocery-store peach–wow, just wait till we get these at full ripeness. What a marvelous tree. This was already good.

But one very small peach. One could only wish for more.

Someone loves me. And the folks at Andy Mariani’s sent a get-well message home with the box.

Still not free of fever at night, still sick, but today I could do stuff. (Yeah, I watered the trees Tuesday because I had no choice. It was a near thing, though.)

Today I saw a green pop-up ad selling olives and I wasn’t buying–I went out there this evening, clippers in hand.

When the tree guys stump-grindered the last of that dying olive tree, there was this wide, deep pile of sawdust afterwards. Not long after I planted my sour cherry in the middle of it and hoped.

It’s still this tiny little thing.

In the last month somehow clusters of quickly-hardening stalks have risen from the dust in a half-circle at the outer perimeter there. The first time surprised me; after that I kept an eye out and got to them earlier. I put large rocks where they’d been but wait a week and up they come again, sometimes in a new spot.

It’s not much of a contest, though, especially the ones trying to work their way out from those rocks. But it does make me wonder how much the English Morello has had to fight for root space–and it came with a broken-off major root. You don’t get first pick on bare-roots in March. But I did get my tree.

And so, wearing a flouncy silk skirt that I put on this morning to make myself feel better even if my body didn’t just then and knowing I was clothed ridiculously for working in the dirt (but eh, it handwashes), I got the tips of those clippers down below the soil line and just cut cut cut.

Because if I stopped and rested and changed I knew I might not get it done.

And then here’s the amazing thing: in March it was all yellow layered flat flakes of sawdust there. What was coming up in my hands was a well-crumbled rich, rich black soil any gardener would leap to have.

I think that sour cherry is going to end up just fine.

I was watering one of the peach trees tonight and standing maybe three feet from the Meyer lemon when movement right at the near edge of it caught my eye.

The only time I’ve ever seen a California Gnatcatcher up close before was when one was fleeing crows and struck the window, falling onto the sidewalk. Joe Lerma saw it happen, the guy working that day installing our new furnace and ductwork, and the little thing’s recovery awhile later meant the world to him. Good guy.

Right there three feet away, then another, then another, a trio flitting through my dwarf lemon with more dancing just over the fence.

It felt like having that Disney Snow White thing down just so.

They were apparently eating the mosquitos that had been trying to home in on me. Hey! Cool! Help yourselves! An ant on that leaf? Dessert.

The lemon tree must have been the perfect spot for them: lots of dense thorny cover to zip in and out of.

I had my iPhone in my pocket for the timer function re my hose and when I pulled it slowly out and aimed it at them they allowed it. I snapped away, trying hard to get them and that hummingbird that zoomed into the almost spent flower I had nearly cut down not five minutes earlier but had left for that very reason.

I know there’s one and I think there were two gnatcatchers in this photo. Tiny little birds. All cheer, no fear.

There was this volunteer tomato plant that showed up the last day of June, and I wish I’d taken a picture of it before sunset today–it’s bursting out the sides of my 36″ netting tent and covered in tiny yellow blossoms against the dark green leaves, very pretty. The first few clusters have grown up.

Cherry tomatoes.

I saw a glimpse of orange and lifted that cover to reach a bit blindly under the thicket of leaves for the first ripe ones–I’d never bothered to stake the thing in any way. I figured if one came right off in my hands it was ripe if not it wasn’t. That was a good one, and wait, here comes another, and another… I was surprised to get a range from ripe to greenish from that cluster but they’ll all be fully orange soon enough–clearly these don’t cling to the stem for dear life quite like my others.

They are the two on the left.  They’re larger than my Sungolds. I ate the ripest right there on the spot and noted that it had less flavor, less sweetness, was a lot more like store-boughts, but still, homegrown and they are (thank you vertical trampolines) squirrel- and pecking-free. Probably not the plant’s fault, come to think of it–you don’t get the sweetening effect of the sun when they’re hidden deep under there.

The other volunteer tomato, being up against the raised bed, it was like marking off a child’s growth against a doorjamb: I got to watch its height change. By the day. Four inches below, then four inches above the top of the planks across the weekend.

It’s starting to bloom too now. The first clusters of buds could be cherries…but there aren’t as many of them set together. The critters did get some of my heirlooms last year. Curious. I guess I’ll find out soon enough.

I dangled what I hoped would be happy anticipation: I put this picture on Facebook with how to make it and said I had a lot more of these zucchini/pattypan hybrid squashes to bring to knit night.

So. Cut cupcake squash in half and place cut side down on plate.  Add a spoonful of water; nuke for three to four minutes till soft. Turn right side up again and scoop out seeds. Fill each with a big spoonful of Alfredo sauce mixed with one egg, sharp cheddar (or blue cheese and/or parmesan as you choose) and cherry tomato halves. Bacon bits if desired. Bake at 350 for 25 minutes.

Found one more squash this morning, but to be sure before heading out tonight I checked under those huge leaves one more time and found two more of a good size: how on earth had I missed those? (Well hey. Zucchini.) Seven went into a cloth bag.

All the way to Purlescence I was seeing the most unusual cloud formations–dalmation dog. Leopard print. Lots of little clouds against lots of blue.

Reactions when I put those green balls on the table ranged from oh cool! to oh okay to facial expressions of no no no please keep those far far away from me.

David came out of the back at the last and his face totally lit up when he saw those last two squash and I thought, okay, now I know who saw that post and was hoping. All yours, hon, please, take them–I have five more tiny ones and these have got to go. (I did not count the blossoms. I couldn’t bring myself to. I know you can stir fry those but an awful lot of them seemed to already have even tinier squashes already attached.)

He totally made my day as he made off with them in great delight.

Just before the shop closed down for the night, someone threw the doors open so we could hear the sounds and smell the ozone: it was RAINING! In August! And no it had not been in the forecast. A little, then more, then a good steady rain and lightning as I drove home. Rain rain actual rain, .04″ worth.

Those five tiny squash? With that extra water I’m guessing they’ll be full grown in time to try to ditch them at church.

Ellen got to see all the fruit trees last week while she was here, and walking around the yard she said she loved how the place had all these nooks and crannies.

In the drought-absence of a lawn I have gained a respect for the lowly dandelion: they don’t stab and they don’t grab or prickle and they delight little children at every stage. I have just a few.

But the ones that love a desert… I’ve got the worst of them by now but I want the rest gone before the rains come. I’ve seen how fast they can flower after a shower–one day. One. Day. Across species.

And so, it being our allotted watering evening (9-6: not allowed) rather than coming inside between trees as I moved the hose around, timer in my pocket, I stayed out there, my entire upper body against the little pricker factories, pulling as many up by the taproots before sundown as I could.

And came in at last, dead tired, and explained to Richard why I hadn’t come in during each eight minute interlude to, y’know, go knit or something: “I was weeding a good nook.”

Drying: a warm hat in half bamboo half pearl flecks. (My airport project a few weeks ago, finally blocked.)

Yet more zucchini to ditch somewhere on someone. Maybe I’ll take some to knit night tomorrow.

With Ellen. Twinset Ellen of Minnesota, who propelled the whole Warm Hats Not Hot Heads campaign, where she got about a hundred knitters together online, with India T of New Hampshire as our third organizer/cheerleader. The idea was to create a hand knit hat for every member of Congress to send them tangible testimony from their constituents that we wanted them to stop fighting and to sit down and do their jobs working together, and one House member actually referenced our campaign in a speech on the floor! He wanted us to succeed and that did us a ton of good. We felt heard.

We didn’t quite make it before the weather got too warm to consider wearing hats and people kind of gave out. But we got one for every Senator and at least half of the House and mostly coming from the members’ own districts.

It’s all her fault. I threw out a stray what if/if only and she went YES if, let’s *do* it!

A huge thank you to every one of you out there who knitted those.

She’ll be here. I get to finally meet her in person, and we’re going to Purlescence together. To say I. Can’t WAIT! does not begin to tell it.

And now it’s the Gold Nugget mandarin that’s got one little flower blooming all over again to go with its dozen or so fruit that set some time ago.

And there is a beautiful little boy with thick blond hair who turned two today (correction: yesterday. I’m late here.) Hayes’s daddy shared a picture of him with a big mischievous grin on his face.

And of another back when, remembering…

The bramble coming over the fence: as much as I could pull up into view is gone now, and thank you all for the advice on what it was and what to do about it.

The yarn: Wink, a get-well gift from Karin of Periwinkle Sheep, set on one of my get-well afghans from six years ago.

I’ve mentioned previously that up till last August we had a whole line of weed eucalyptus trees sprouting profusely from a sucker running along the fence line. They grew to where they completely shaded the back half of the Fuji apple tree and then started to arch over the rest of it. The side that had been shadowed the most gradually became diseased and blackened, the leaves crumpling and falling off and the blotchy branches no longer growing. What was left looked so bad I was afraid it was going to spread and we were going to lose the whole tree.

I read up on apple diseases and the most hopeful thing said that simply solving the lack of light could give the tree a chance to recover and fight the disease off. The eucalpytuses had to go anyway for the sake of saving the fence (and they are ferociously flammable! You do not want eucalyptuses in California, even if they planted a lot of them in the 1800s) and so we did.

This is not quite a year later. In the foreground to the left is the edge of the Yellow Transparent apple and to the right the planted-this-year Black Jack fig. And then there is the big Fuji apple tree. All those branches on the right side of the main trunk are growing and green as of just this one year and it amazes me that it has gone from being very lopsided to what it looks like now. There was nothing alive in most of that area before. It recovered that fast.

All it needed was sunlight and a little looking out for it.

It’s going to need some pretty good pruning soon, and that’s a problem I didn’t think I would get to have.

The pattern continues: Tuesday is our allowed watering day and I discovered yet another volunteer that was not there the previous week. (We were already at fig tree, fig tree, tomato, and lettuce.) So much for this living in a desert idea. The squirrels seem to particularly like to tuck seeds near anything made of wood.

I actually thought I saw something else yesterday and went out to check near the mango tree, but it was just a weed: no grand discoveries on Mondays allowed–you have to wait a day. It’s the rule.

I did, however, find what I assume is a rose bush coming up over the fence from the neighbors a few days ago and I’m quite sure they have no idea it’s there. I’m curious to see what we get but not enough to let it climb my peach tree. Maybe I’ll train it along the top of the fence? It needs to prove itself before I put work into it, and soon, or it’s Get Back To Where You Once Belonged.

So the volunteer: did I really need another tomato plant, but hey, it’s mine now. That makes two of unknown variety. I should mention the random strawberries turned out to be wild strawberries like the delightful little ones of my childhood (I had to Google to see that they really do grow on this coast, too, the birds will be thrilled), and I just can’t quite make myself taste-test that lettuce. But you can’t go wrong with tomatoes.

Meantime, the water hit the paper towel around the most ripe of my big ones and of course it instantly showed the color beneath (don’t show the squirrels!)  To my surprise it was quite red already. I figured I was pushing my luck enough and beat them to it.

Monday it was a gray squirrel that leaped and did a faceplant into the birdnetting around the mandarin, bouncing back towards me in the middle of trying desperately to get away.

You could just see its brain: Oh… so *that’s* why the others stay far away from here!

Meantime, I got some Karin knitting done.

Took some friends some homegrown yellow cherry tomatoes after dinner, a pretty perfect little snack, and we all chatted for three hours.

Speaking of which.

The squirrels occasionally get past my attempts at barriers and raid those, sucking the juices and spitting out the rest because they don’t actually like tomatoes. There’s not been much loss because they don’t seem to go for seconds and the things were pretty small to begin with.

And plentiful. The Sungold is super-productive, so losing one or two of them a day isn’t a big deal. I also planted a big red type but as the Sungold branches spread out all around the other much slower plant, the one in the center grew a grand total of three fruits. Almost no blossoming.

But so I really want those three tomatoes once they’re ripe: all that water and anticipation for such a small payoff. They’d gone from green to greenish-white and clearly the red was coming soon and I was keeping a wary eye on the critters when I happened to mention this to my friend Robin at the beginning of the week. She told me to do something I’d never heard of before: take some white paper towels, soak them, and wrap one around each tomato. They will dry as white husks encasing and hiding them.

And they did! So far so good! (Do NOT peek during the daylight. They do watch and learn fast. But I’ve learned too.)

Paper towels. Wet white (no dyes seems a good idea) paper towels. I don’t know who thought of this, but clearly they were a (desperate) gardener. And a genius!