Worlds collide

They're repaving our road, so I came the loong way home. Cunningly, I chose a road that was blocked by housing construction, and had to detour through the new streets surrounding piles of dirt and weeds. When the huge belly dumper and roller got out of the way, I was just about to pull back onto the main road. But a little flurry caught my eye just ahead.

A mother duck was walking her brood of six chicks from the construction site, down across the road to the creek. What she didn't see was that a red-tailed hawk was stooping on her/them. What the red-tail didn't see was that two blackbirds were dive-bombing him/her. What the blackbirds didn't see was the car coming from the opposite direction.

I flashed my lights. The car stopped. One of the blackbirds whacked the hawk. The hawk flew off. The blackbirds went on about their business. The duck family continued waddling across the road and disappeared into the grass. The people in the other car stopped when they came abreast of me and said, "What do you think of that?"

I think it was good luck they were paving our road. Well, not for the hawk.

Close call

In fits of spring fever, we've gorged on new plants, and are tucking them into their new beds as fast as we can, and not without problems. There were a pair of salvia I bought impulsively, thinking they'd bring late summer color to the edge of a bed. The tag wasn't alarming, but yesterday - after I'd planted them - I looked them up on a lark. They grow up to six feet tall! Not so much of a foreground plant, after all - but easily moved still.

I'm always doing that - I pick out something that seems like a good idea when I'm at the nursery, and then wander around (sometimes for weeks) wondering why I thought I'd want another four cistus when they already seem to be in every spot one could conceivably grow.

Or, worse, I finally find the one plant I've been after for years, and find that all the spots it could go are filled with the pale imitations I bought in a moment of despair over ever finding the one perfect one. So do I euthenize perfectly good plants? Try to fob them off on unsuspecting friends? Move them somewhere less high-profile?

And, at the Saturday Market where I'm trying to decide whether four types of basil are enough, and he says, "Did you want chard?",Chard Bright Lights

I don't hesitate. I'm a goner as soon as he hands me the tray of seedlings. Are six plants too many? Sure they are, but I know I'll find room for them somehow, because they will dazzle both in the vegetable bed and on the dinner plate, never mind what they'll do at the cellular level.

The real reason people have babies

Because they do funny things like this when they're sleepy.

I think it will take more than 12 steps

I'm restless, distracted, moody... I reach for the phone every 10 minutes. If I don't get help I'll soon be dressing the cats.

Do I miss my grandson and want to be around him all the time? You bet I do. But he's being mothered and fathered most tenderly. Although it conjures unfortunate strains of "McArthur Park", we grandparents can only be the icing on a grandchild's cake - delightful in modest amounts.

No, it's the mothering I'm missing - taking care of the new mother and father as they find their way to being a family. They will certainly be fine without me around; it's my need I'm speaking of, not theirs.