The presentation which I have been working on, off and on, for the past two days was this morning. I made all of my points in the time allotted. The audience was helpful, their interaction plentiful. I couldn’t quite get them to thing about the subject matter at the level I’d hoped, but that was my fault.
Several people thanked me when it was over. Two stayed to chat. Someone said it was an amazing presentation. Amazingly, that person was not me. The guy in the second row who slept through most of it would have disagreed, but this did not throw me. I am, after all, a veteran somnolence distribution technician.
The first time I put someone to sleep during a speech was in 1995. It’s a tiny bit harder to keep score these days. Students will hide behind their monitors in the classroom. But this guy today? Head down, sprawled out, mouth open. He might have drooled. Happily, he did not snore.
I don’t suppose he cares much for sports in general, or perhaps baseball or gambling in particular. But the rest of the room followed along and if it was any good, they’re why. Ultimately, I was pleased with the presentation, and the rest of the day surrounding it.
Let’s check in on the fig tree. We covered it — and, thanks to the wind, recovered it three times — during the winter. We stuffed the soil surrounding the roots with leaves. And now we are waiting on it to bud and burst back to life.
So we didn’t kill it in our first winter. Hooray!
Our neighbor said that the people they bought their house from left them a great history of their place. From all of that, they believe that our fig tree came from a cutting of their own fig tree. They think their fig tree is 100 years old or so. That’s within the realm of possibility for fig trees, but doesn’t make a lot of sense given the neighborhood. Of course, that could have been millennial slang. Or perhaps their fig tree descended from another that is 100 years old. All the trees came from somewhere, right?
Whatever the real story, I’m glad to see it starting to come back to life now that we’ve taken the canvas wrap off the thing. Now make a lot of leafs and an overwhelming amount of fruit, fig tree.
This is maybe an arrowwood, or Korean spice viburnum, Viburnum carlesii. A deciduous bush, it will yield some small fruit, too. Mostly for the birds. The smells are for everyone, though. That’s a fragrant flowering scent, and you can tell why this was planted in such a way to be near our delightful little garden path — or vice versa.
I didn’t notice this bush at all last summer. It was a bit … overgrown. But, it too, is doing well in the early spring.
These are, I assure you, different videos from what I shared yesterday. I figure that if you needed a little mental vacation from Wednesday, I could offer you a similar one from a Thursday. Plus, who’s getting tired of this incredible vista view anytime soon?
And this is the penultimate slow motion video from the California collection.
Not to worry, there’s still something like a dozen or so videos I plan to share here in the coming days.
I’m taking to heart the Cambria, California-inspired mantra, Relax Enjoy Repeat.
