Hibiscus

Dan and Tobi didn't come to coffee this morning because they are going to Mendocino to celebrate their anniversary and ride the Skunk Train, a historic steam train ride through the redwoods. When we took this ride over fifty years ago I was about eight months pregnant with Dana and several hours on a hard wooden bench seat was not comfortable. By the time the ride was over I was feeling like Ronald Reagan who I believe is the one who said, 'When you've seen one redwood, you've seen them all.'
Of course this isn't true and the redwood groves all over Northern California are spectacular, cathedral like experiences. Our timing just wasn't very good....

Redwood trees are protected even here in Santa Rosa. They are all over and cannot be cut down. We had friends who bought a lot in Santa Rosa on which they planned to build their dream home. It was covered with trees and Jerry had done his due diligence, checking with the city about cutting trees down. He was told that he needed to pay a mitigation fee to cover planting trees elsewhere to make up for trees he cut down. It wasn't until after he purchased the lot and was planning the house that he learned that he couldn't cut down any redwoods. His architect figured out how to fit a house amongst the trees,  but they never liked it. Redwood trees are messy and tall. They're not really good landscaping trees. They wound up selling the house and moving to a smaller tract home which they loved. Both houses burned down in the 2017 Tubbs fire....

But I digress...Gail and Bob were at coffee and  Mamadou came and tiptoed past Spike without speaking, but Spike still knew he was there. He got his Puppaccino. Mamadou is selling Cafe Frida and told us about some of the hoops the health department is making him jump through before the sale can be completed. Apparently they are things the same health inspector never mentioned on his regular inspections....Maggie came and we talked about how we preferred Pilates mat classes to equipment ones and how much we appreciated her Zoom class. We all agreed that it would be even nicer if we could find a place to do it in person. 

After coffee we walked with Spike through Juilliard Park, admiring all the specimen trees planted there by Luther Burbank. I've always liked all the street  trees in Santa Rosa, and there is one street downtown where the herons come every year to roost. Maybe we have Luther Burbank to thank for so many trees.

I did get to prune the olive tree today and I think it looks better. I could probably do more but maybe we'll have a look at it at wine time and decide comfortably seated in the shade and not crouched under the tree in the sun which is pretty hot here even if the temperature on the thermometer isn't that high...a fact that I don't seem to be able to get across to John. He, the numbers man, puts more faith in the thermometer when deciding if he needs an extra layer, whereas I tend to  walk outside and see how it feels!

Even though it doesn't really make any difference when you're retired, I'm still glad it's Friday!