Succulents and More™

New Year’s Eve was rainy and extremely windy—University Airport on the edge of the University of California Davis campus recorded gusts close to 50 mph. In our backyard, the sun sail tore lose from two of its four anchor points, and the wind chimes were clanging like crazy. Thousands of households in Davis lost power from downed lines. Fortunately, we were spared, but when our friend, who’d been over for New Year’s Eve, was leaving, we saw this: Yep, that’s a tree on top of our van. Never a good thing! As it turned out, the trunk of our ‘Desert Museum’ palo verde had snapped off and the tree had fallen over. Here are some photos I took the next morning, New Year’s Day: The high winds also knocked most of the remaining Bearss limes into the gutter. We now have hundreds upon hundreds of limes, literally. If anybody local wants some, let me know! Back to our palo verde: Fortunately, what landed on the van was the top of the crown, not the much heavier trunk: At first glance, it didn’t see...

↪ This is the continuation of Monday's post Sunday morning, 7:00 am. The dog has been fed, coffee is brewing, the house is quiet because the dog and I are the only ones up. Waiting for the coffee, I look out the dining room slider. Something isn't quite right, but it takes me a few moments to realize what it is. The tree aloe, which was getting close to touching the palo verde branch above it, is standing proud and tall, silhouetted against the morning sky. Unobstructed. Wait, where's the palo verde it was about to bump up against? No palo verde in sight. Dread is mounting as I rush outside. This is what I see: For a heart-stopping second I'm not sure if anything is trapped under the fallen tree. Fortunately, not. But the tree does block more than half of the street. That's a problem, even on a quiet weekend on this quiet cul-de-sac in our quiet neighborhood.