October is planting time

Directly out my patio
Originally uploaded by hjdong

We have lives with this, and 2 1/2 acres more, dirt, for 1 1/2 years. This dirt (aka decomposing granite, but only the uber optimistic would call it soil) is the most pressing. This comes in through my sliding door, on Jamie’s feet, when Arrow decides to bathe in Jamie’s kiddie pool and then run merrily through the house, blowing through the screen door. My house is forever coated in it.

As you cannot tell from this picture, you may get some vision from pursuing the others on flickr, not taken for their photographic value, but for their help for me in drawing in plants, I live in a canyon in So CA. It has it’s own unique beauty, although most outsiders come and see the lack of trees and the brown. I live in an area of chaparral, which has it’s own amazing scent, and fauna. A list of animals, and insects, we have seen (or heard tales of, those with stars I’ve never personally seen):

Quail, just outside the fence, our “own” family
Roadrunner, also our “own”, but comes very close to the house
Various lizards
Various snakes, including western diamond rattlesnakes
Coyotes
Sparrows
Other small birds, my i.d.ing is poor, I’m hoping to get good pictures to i.d. them
Mountain Lion
Bobcat*
Scorpion
Tarantula
Red Tailed Hawk
Raven (or crow?)
Turkey Vultures
Stink bugs along with various other small, normal bugs, I’m not going to list them all unless they’re of some interest
Tarantula Hawk
Wood rat
Rabbits
Stephen’s Kangaroo Rat (endangered)*
California Gnatcatcher (endangered)* well, maybe I have seen it and just can’t tell
Various butterflies (apparently across the street lives the Quino checkerspot butterfly, also endangered, but it knows not to cross the street, because we didn’t have to pay an environmental mitigation fee for it) and moths

I’m sure I missed a bunch, that’s kind of off the top of my head. In order to move in, and to pass the “you’re not going to set the neighborhood on fire” inspection (we also live in a high fire area), we too out all the “weeds.” And, we have been basically been living with dirt since. We have some rosemary, some sage, both on the hillsides for erosion, mostly dirt.

We want to slowly begin to re-landscape. On either side, we have neighbors with different philosophies. One has the traditional So CA, IMO, over watered, luscious, lawn, tons of trees, gorgeous landscaping, but tons of water. The other has nothing. Leave it “natural.” Except, it isn’t natural. It will never be “natural;” the houses are built. But, I would like, to some extent to restore some of the landscape. Replant some native plants, with enough room in between to keep them fire safe and to maintain them. We already have some non-natives, some fruit trees, and I will (someday) have a garden. I have no issue with using the water for food for my family; I don’t intend to plant huge groves though.

Our first goal is to get the back yard planted. We have wrestled with what to do with this area. Currently, the plan is to plant “meadow type” natives, in lieu of grasses. My fear, rattlesnakes. The proverbial “snake in the grass.” One of the original purpose of “nicely manicured lawns” was to see snakes. The snake in the grass is referred to the one hidden, unseen, in the tall, meadow grass.

We have a snake fence, but no fence is snake proof. Some of you may remember we had one this year, inside the fence (two total). Darren found the hole and repaired it, but after the snake was outside my bedroom window, after the kids and dogs had to be shepherded in.

There is a snake season (spring to early summer), during which, I am fighting Jamie, constantly, to not go in the yard.

I live with my fear, quite literally. And here is my decision. Does my fear, a rational one, outweigh my responsibility to my land?