One sweep at a time

Thanks to the rake and the broom, which you see against the column with the little creeping fig reaching around the base, we're almost back to normal, at least in front.

Well, thanks, too, to the clippers and lopping saw I got today.

My first t-shirt was soaked through by 8 a.m. I showered, put on a new one, and discovered that 20 minutes or half an hour are quite enough this time of year, no matter how many passers-by pause to say the place looks great. But string six or seven of those sweat-fests together, with lots of water in between, and you can actually get quite a bit done:

Whack the jasmine so the duranta can get some sun, clean the plumbago out of the dwarf plumeria -- and oh, yes, there's rosemary under there, completely covered -- saw out the stump of the stemmadenia with the little dildo-shaped buds that went in where the triple palm was supposed to go, but got blocked by the sewer line, yank out the dead dipladenia, prune the bougainvillea, rake, sweep, sweep, rake . . . siesta.

And by the time it was time for a glass of chianti and some parmesan and olives as the sun got lower, my usual corner of the porch (that's Marvin's chair over there as a foot rest) was ablaze in Full August.

I retreated to the other corner -- view's much better now, considering how the mussaenda has grown -- and sipped and nibbled and got significantly closer to the right place.