..and a blue parrot in a pear tree

Preternaturally hot temperatures persisted into October but this week fall arrived with the thud of a pumpkin on a doorstep. The temps are ten full degrees cooler and it’s been raining on and off, the mornings hidden under a bank of fog. Yesterday while we were FaceTiming with friends of Jake’s who live in Sonoma California we heard a racket that sounded familiar - that of parrots flocking. Back in San Francisco we lived in a place the parrots documented in the film Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill often hung out, talking in loud voices, their jewel wings flashing through the fog. But the sound wasn’t on the California side of the call - it was on our property - specifically on our pear tree. A congregation of parrots, including two blue ones, flocked at the top of the tree, chattering.

Today the h planted spinach and carrots, also chard, purple cabbage, coriander, radishes and parsley. We like to pickle purple cabbage until it is a cool hot pink slaw that adds acid trip beauty to any dish - a rice bowl, chili, tacos, a vegan sammy, you name it. It just magics up any food it touches and now we’re not just making it we’re growing it, woot. I think we’ll make kimchee too.

The sunken garden has been completely cleared of the scrub trees and bramble that have clogged it all these years. The whole place looks like it’s had a hair cut and a shave. This will be the place on the property where one can sit under the jacarandas.

Our neighbor gave us a trumpet flower bush and our other neighbor is growing a really pretty one with white and pink flowers, so we know what kind of exposure works. I have had trumpet flowers, birds of paradise and bare naked lady lilies at some of my favorite San Francisco residences, and now I have a dozen naked ladies (pink), trumpets (yellow) and pink hydrangeas planted (also lemongrass and holly) all in one place. It’s like magic.

The h spent the weekend repairing cracks in the exterior walls. At one point he looked up to find about fifteen roosters and hens watching him closely. The h kept plastering and they all leaned a little forward to follow his progress, heads turned slightly to the left. The h says it was like being watched by an audience and found himself wanting to do a good job for his judges.

We finished planning the chicken coop. I’m feeling more anxious than ever to get them in a safe place. We’ve only lost 7 of the 39 chicks but we have lost 2 roosters in as many weeks - one killed in a rooster-napping event, one actually spirited away.

We want to prevent any more deaths and abductions and provide protection for the hens and a place for them to lay eggs. We have a big three room chicken coop and chicken courtyard to work with. We’re starting with 10 nesting boxes and using the big room for roosting. The goal is to start introducing them to their new home by the weekend, and by Christmas they should be adapted.

Today I walked 10,462 steps without ever leaving the property. I never made it back over to the building with all the stored tile beyond a quick foraging for a fistful of different designs. I am happy to use found materials to fix walls and floors and ceilings and doors and this property is full of materials like wooden beams and panes of glass and those ubiquitous red roof tiles not to mention what looks like thousands of loose ceramic tiles waiting to become architectural tattoos.

When we arrived most of the rooms of the property were stuffed with old broken furniture, filthy mattresses, rotting carpeting and dust coated drapes not to mention discarded clothes and toys and dishes and books. All of it gross and everywhere broken glass. Now most rooms are empty, and just waiting for their face lifts - a hole in a ceiling here, a hole in a floor there, dry rot needing repair, walls with cracks that need plastering and blank squares where tile used to be and now awaiting us to fill in the blanks. To everyone else it looks like we’re just getting started, no one would dream of all the dirty work it took to get to this point. I didn’t even keep photographic records, it was too disgusting and depressing. Now it’s like a big blank slate.

I thought it would take us six months to get to this point but here we are. We sat on the step at the end of the day surveying the work that's been done. The place is teeming with life. I kept thinking of those flocking parrots, all loud voices and bright feathers, like a cocktail party suddenly descending, like the ghost of holidays future making an impromptu visit.

The sun went down, me humming my new song thirty-two chicks a' cheeping, twenty roosters crowing, fifteen fruit trees fruiting, nine new plants a' growing...and a blue parrot in a pear tree....

Life is good.