Dirt

I’ve got two prissy full-bred poodles and one dirt devil poodle mixed mutt. (I had no idea how to punctuate that, so I didn’t). The purebreds spend their days perched on the finest (and largest) pillows possible.

But the mixed mutt (aka Kira) is a nut case. A mutt-nut. Or maybe just a normal dog. She fetches the ball in the dirt, the rolls in the dirt, and she runs inside and shakes the dirt in my kitchen.

Have you ever stayed the night at someone’s house and there’s so much cat hair, or so much smoke smell, or mildew smell or whatever, that when you get home you have to wash all your clothes, even the ones you didn’t wear? Yeah. Well, that just happened to me at my own house in Placitas. Except it was construction dust and the smell of something off-gassing from the oils and sealants on the new floors – and plain old desert dirt.

I suggested to John that we might want to start planning some landscaping, and he couldn’t wrap his brain around even talking about it yet, because we are still so far behind with the remodel. But then we had the dogs in Placitas for a couple of days, and suddenly he’s talking about landscaping. Uh huh. See?

And it’s no better in Santa Fe. One day I got home and my bedroom floor looked like this. Seriously. How is that even possible? That’s my bedroom!

Well, here’s what the backyard looks like in Santa Fe. Kira rolls in that.

In Placitas we are happy John has finished the courtyard gates, but the yard itself is just rubble.

Many of you saw our yard in California when we were done landscaping. It turned out so well; I really miss it. It’s hard to have to start all over again. At least this time we know not to put the pond where the crazy mutt dog can get into it. Because that was her favorite trick. She’d jump all the way into the deepest section of water, come dashing in the doggie door, and shake pond water and mud all over the living room!

Here’s where the smaller, desert-appropriate pond will be someday. (This is outside the fenced section of yard – so the dogs can’t get to it.)

Right now it sorta looks like we’re planning on burying somebody but couldn’t manage to dig deep enough in the caliche. (Caliche…a hardened natural cement of calcium carbonate that binds other materials—such as gravel, sand, clay, and silt. It occurs worldwide, in aridisol and mollisol soil orders—generally in arid or semiarid regions, including in central and western Australia, in the Kalahari Desert, in the High Plains of the western USA, in the Sonoran Desert and Mojave Desert, and in Eastern Saudi Arabia Al-Hasa. Caliche is also known as hardpan, calcrete, kankar (in India), or duricrust. The term caliche is Spanish and is originally from the Latin calx, meaning lime. – credit: Wikipedia)

Also in case you’re wondering, is that fog down there in the valley in the distance? No, I wish. That’s more dirt – blowing dirt. We’re getting high winds at the moment.

I’m not sure if that link works, but don’t worry if it doesn’t, it’s only the insanely desolate howling of the wind.

Speaking of desolate, here is the desolately empty outdoor plant section at Lowes. It’s not yet time for planting.

But even if it was spring, we wouldn’t be ready. We need to design the layout, get the rubble removed, irrigation installed, topsoil installed…and John doesn’t want to hire help, and I just can’t see how it will ever happen. It’s very discouraging.

So for now I’m going to focus on the yard in Santa Fe, because that’s the one I can make progress on without John needing to be involved. I’m going to brick over the cement pad, and also expand the size of the patio. I’m hiring the same guy as did the interior brick floors in the Placitas house. He does good work, but is extremely slow. I will have to practice patience.

We went to the brick supplier to pick out brick this morning.

This is down south of Albuquerque, and quite a trek from Santa Fe, but a lot more cost effective than just letting a full-service landscaping company do it all. Hiring our slow guy (who’s actually quite talented) and buying the materials ourselves directly from the suppliers, cuts our total bill by 50% or more. So I was able to splurge the extra two hundred bucks for real brick instead of pavers.

I’ve decided not to redo the mediocre irrigation system, just due to the expense. I’m going to try to make the sort-of system work ok for now (hopefully with John’s help). And then I’m going to add tons of flowering plants. It’s the desert, but there are a lot of low-water plants that flower. I am hanging onto the comfort of the vision of a riot of colors by late spring – or at least by summer, which is when we get most of our rain.

Some of you remember the transformation of the smallish backyard in Albuquerque – it only took 5 years! This is the “before” shot. Look at all those smiling, young faces! Our friends, and John and Laura. This was taken 10 years ago – can you believe it’s been that long?

And look at the neighbor windows looking directly into the backyard. That always bugged me, and I was always careful after that not to buy a house with that flaw again. Even the rentals we bought this summer don’t have neighbor’s windows looking that directly into the backyards.

Anyway, here’s what it looked like 5 years later.

I need to remind myself that even the gorgeous yard we had in California was once mostly dirt.

Here it is, only two years later, right before we sold it.

Seriously? I lived in that beautiful place? Sigh. I’m so tired of starting all over with dirt every few years.