Springtime is flowers, morning coffees on lazy Saturdays, sunny mornings that still feel too chilly to take my coffee out to the deck… and seasonal allergies. Yeesh. These fragile meat suits we wrap ourselves in to tackle this mortal lifetime are annoyingly prone to stuffy heads and sneezes.

The pollen count is high. Trees are blooming. My Traveling Partner’s Spring allergies are going absolutely nuts. Mine are not so bad, but they crop up in Spring. There’s some particular tree… I’m not sure which one. It isn’t all of them, and it’s a brief period in the season, for me. I know other people whose seasonal allergies associated with pollen are all Spring, all of the summer, and right into autumn when the last of blooming things gets done with blooming. My mother didn’t care for flowers, much, her allergies were pretty bad. I could – for most of my life – bury my face in flowers loaded with Spring pollen and have no reaction other than pure delight in their fragrance. That’s less true now, than it was then, but my allergies are nothing like his. As I said… there’s a particular tree. It happens to grow plentifully in our community here… whatever it is. LOL

I’m not really bitching about my allergies. They’re not that bad. Maybe you’ve got it much worse? If so, it may dull the shine of Spring for you, and if so, you have my sympathy, and my well-wishes: I hope you find relief. Allergies suck. If you’re among the ludicrously robust and strong-of-constitution, be kind to those who suffer. Just saying, the suffering is very real.

I see the sunny day beyond the neighbor’s fence. There are two pear trees and a cherry tree in my neighbor’s yard. They’re blooming. It’s quite lovely. There is so much I love about Spring. I’ve been watching a lot of gardening content on YouTube. By far my favorite gardening content, at least right now, is from a UK gardener named Huw Richards. His climate is rather similar to the climate here in McMinnville in most regards. His philosophy and practical approach suit my own inclinations. I’ve got a much smaller space, but the basics are the basics – are they not? I bought his book. lol It’s excellent with my morning coffee on a Spring morning.

I spent a portion of yesterday’s sunshine out in the garden, planting kitchen herbs in the front flower beds. I’m not personally a fan of the American “standard Pleasant Valley Sunday suburban curb appeal landscaping” that is so common in suburban communities and neighborhoods. I know, it’s a template that’s easy to work from, but omg – so lazy, and unpleasantly homogenous! I get that developers building a community of homes to sell to consumers would want to be easily (and cheaply) able to purchase and plant the necessary landscape, but for fucks’ sake would it really be that hard to provide some variety? In the case of this little house of ours, it’s easy to point back at the developer although the house is 18 years old; it was clear that most of the landscaping was wholly original, never altered by the previous owner. He wasn’t a gardening sort. lol (I’m sure the handful of recently-added primroses in the flower beds was something the realtor thought of to prepare the house for sale.) Now, a couple cycles of seasons has passed, and I’ve got a sense of where I’d like to take this garden… it’s time to get to work out there!

…It was very satisfying planting some thyme, oregano, sage, and flowers. The lupines and nasturtiums that I had planted last year are making an appearance this year. That delights me. The roses are wide awake and growing fast – soon the small buds will be blossoms! (Well… soon-ish.) The veggies are planted in grow bags, along the rock walk that tops the retaining wall, just past the deck. Later, when the weather is warmer, I’ll plant peppers in hydroponic buckets. I also plan to have some Japanese eggplant (most of the veggies this year are chosen for stir fries, which I’m doing a lot). The eggplant has a lovely form and flowers; I’ll tuck a couple of those into the front flower beds as “showy annuals”. 😀

My thoughts are in the garden on this lovely Spring morning… it’s a distraction from the task ahead. I’m taking down my aquarium today, permanently. Oh, no tragedy, it’s not like that. It simply takes a lot of time to maintain, and in this little house there just isn’t an ideal location for it that suits the purpose. Where it sits now, it is too close to a big sunny window, which has led algae to proliferate and I’m over fighting with it. It’s noisy to live with, and it’s adjacent to the bedroom wall… and the entire point originally was a soothing “noise cancelling” device to allow my living space to preserve some sense of privacy and solitude in the midst of a noisy household that was triggering my PTSD regularly. I don’t need that, now. Now the noise is an unwelcome distraction, and the tank has become problematic to maintain. So.

…The hardest part has been re-homing “Teller”, my now-at-least-seven-year-old clown pleco. He’s the one creature in that tank that is truly “a pet” to me. The rest are well-cared for, greatly enjoyed, delightful décor. Hardly seems reasonable to keep creatures captive for that purpose. So… today I will carefully remove the creatures and take them to their new home. I’ll shut down the filter pump and the heater. Tomorrow I’ll finish taking down the aquarium. In the long term, that’s one less complex, highly demanding, time-sensitive household chore to tackle every week. I could use that added bit of ease; I no longer have the boundless energy of my youth, and honestly, I’m neither surprised nor complaining. I’m just taking care of myself the best way I can figure out how to do. There have been a few intensely poignant moments along the way – making the decision was the hardest part. Writing about it? Probably the next most difficult piece; just saying it, acknowledging it, and allowing it to be part of my reality. 🙂

…Not all of our choices, however wise they seem, or may in fact be, are easy to make – or to implement. It’s a very human experience…

It’s time to begin again.