Wind and Fire

It's windy today with 55mph wind gusts.  Last time this happened we had a fire in Reno that made national news.  About a dozen homes were burnt and a lot of land charred.  We lost part of our fence.

I took a break from blogging to pick up my child from school and the second I walk out the door I could smell it in the air....another fire in the area.  Our firefighters are really working hard for their money. These wind fueled fires are so hard to contain because they can't use airplanes or helicopters, only ground firefighters and the paved roads only go so far.  I pray no one looses their home.

 On a lighter note, I recently did some winter sowing in some containers..  I planted some chinese lantern, guara, armeria, lupine, blue flax, snow-in-the-summer, cleome, portulaca and some varieties of hollyhock.

Excuse this poor picture, but what you see here is the bane of my existance.  Let me explain.  The perimeter of my yard is covered with various layers substances that keep me from turning my yard into the paradise that I have imagined. First, I have a layer of what started off as a decorative grass which has become invasive. Next I have a layer of landscape rock followed by a sheet of thick landscape fabric which has the roots of the grass growing right through it and last but highly significant is the hard concrete-like clay soil. I've been working at removing these rocks small sections at a time and it's taking forever.  I also have a growing pile of rocks on the side of the house and I'm running out of room.  I need to place an ad on craigslist to get rid of these rocks

My back and fingers hurt just from the sight of this picture.

A picture of Lake Tahoe.