Day 3 Gratitude & Cleanup (My Sacred Life)

Thankfully, the Santa Ana winds have subsided and we have a light onshore breeze this morning. There's ash everywhere and I'm sure the air isn't clean because all the smoke hanging off shore will blow back through as the winds pick up and continue to shift, but Molly and I needed some "outside" time and a break from the ongoing Southern California fire coverage.

In a little less than three hours, I've cleaned up the front yard, almost completely filling one large trash can. Because the Korean grass is bumpy, rakes and brooms did little to remove the thousands of palm seeds nested therein ... so I did most of the work sitting on my rolling "Lawn Buddy" ... leaning over while using my hands to gather seeds & debris in the same way I do regular weeding ... meditatively. I noticed about a dozen Daffodil sprouts already peeking through the grass so they'll bloom early again. Last year after the lawn was stripped, the bulbs went crazy as this photo illustrates.

One lovely pink and three apricot roses greeted me this morning. In addition to the lawn and the roses, several Periwinkle, Heaven's Breath, and Giant Impatiens plants (along with the Potentilla ground cover) weathered the winds as did the lime & lemon trees, but most everything else is in sad shape. Hopefully the Endless Summer Hydrangea will bounce back. I'll plant new flowers in the next few weeks.

I took a few pictures this morning as I worked (before, during and after) but will need to wait to transfer them from the camera to my computer & add them here because McAfee is doing it's weekly security scan of my laptop, significantly slowing things down. This reminds me, belatedly, that I've missed my usual Weight Watcher's meeting ... forgetting today is Thursday, so I'll look for another meeting before the week ends. Because I don't know how to add photos within the post, I'll probably create a "continuation" for today as I did previously.

For now ... I continue to count my blessings, pray for all affected by these fires, and feel encouraged to learn that fire-fighters have "contained" some & are more proactively "fighting" other fires in addition to defensively protecting structures.