April April fools …. None! | SCT Online

April Fool’s Day joke? We do not want! Indeed, we do not want the President to listen to this microphone for an daily update this afternoon and announce to the state that the whole thing with coronavirus is just one big joke from April. We do not want. Unfortunately this is not the case.

While quarantined, this weekend I did much needed yard work on two fronts. On Saturday, I cleaned a large messy place in the tank house where several large crepe myrtles finally succumbed, this winter, to injuries sustained when our jeep exploded in the middle of the night four years ago.

Then on Sunday afternoon, when we got home to Sebastopol, we saw firsthand how fast bamboo cane can go through after recently wiping out all of the moisture.

Crepe myrtles first. When we bought the house 23 years ago, these trees were beautiful along the back edge of the driveway. Since I was much younger and more stable at the time, I cleaned them and built a beautiful lined flower bed.

My wife, Danny, and I planted races of rose and rootstock there. Her mom died the same year and we dug a few things out of her yard and transplanted them there along with Calla Lily someone sent to the funeral.

That lily bloomed this year and I felt a responsibility to clean around and get rid of overgrown dead tree parts and some massive racing rose that grew to the tops of crepes and created a really beautiful canopy when it blooms, but with the death of the tree it became a danger to vehicles and people trying to get in and out of them.

Once that was done, the white lily was really pretty dark green foliage and I proclaimed it from my mother-in-law showed that everything would be fine with the world in the midst of this pandemic. Thanks, Bobbie Joe, I keep you on this promise, it’s no joke April Fool, okay?

And now the bamboo cane.

Sunday afternoon, as we pulled back toward the house in Sebastopol, glanced quickly toward the top of the hill, beneath the massive oak on which the swinging trees would swing, it was the least nasty to say.

The area where the bulk of the bamboo was cut three weeks ago looked a lot like whiskey on a man’s face under a high power microscope. It’s only been three days since Danny and I were walking outside and pushing down a whole bunch of delicate bamboo shoots, and on Sunday, they were covered again, some things already in their knees.

Having completed yard work from the previous day in a myrtle bed, along with picking up sticks and mowing grass under the massive pines in Rez, I think I was kind of bothering and laughing, realizing at the same time there would be no rest for the weary on Sunday.

The rain had already made the yard lush, and the spring sun was still not hot enough to hum the weeds of winter, so much had to be done before dinner time, and before everything became too established to cause more pain. It really wasn’t as much physical exertion as the day before because our mower is pretty big and bamboo was just getting started. I actually enjoyed watching those bamboo shoots suffer. Get that bamboo, get it!

I guess it’s safe to say that if we look around us, we have a lot to do in these times of quarantine and social distance. It is also safe to say that I find it difficult to find motivation. I think it’s just a shock that the whole world has changed so dramatically so quickly.

However, we cannot deal with this further. We have to deal with all things and go as best we can.

Plus, when all this is over and the world – even our small part of it – returns to its new normal state, we can swing at that new momentum and wallow in the wars we have won …. the world vs the virus, and the bamboo battle!

And that, my friends, is no joke April Fool!