Alf surprised me with daffodils and purple flowers that are popping up this spring. My azalea is bursting red so the garden is draped in the primary colors these days. My garden has never looked so colorful. It makes me smile.

We have the worst soil on the planet. The Mojave has more chances of sprouting flowers than my front and backyards. It’s hard clay, and when broken up with toil and sweat, it winks at you for a moment, and then scampers back to form its impenetrable layer of steel. No matter how much rich soil and delicious nutrients you pour down its black hole of a gullet, it regurgitates the clay. I’m convinced the clay runs deep to the core of the planet.

It’s a wonder Alf is succeeding where I haven’t. 

“What’s your secret?” I asked.

“Patience,” he said.

“That’s never worked for me,” I said.

“Maybe it’s the rain. That helps.”

We used to have a rainy season, but that was so long ago. I had given up on it.

“It must be the rain,” I said.

“And not my green thumb?”

“You don’t have one. You’re from New York,” I said.

“How do you think Central Park came into being then?”

I checked Wikipedia.

“Not by New Yorkers. The two landscape architects were from England and Connecticut respectively. It proves my point. Brits know a thing or two about gardens.”

“Then we should import one and really go mad,” Alf said.

Calvin says, “I love our clay soil. I like hearing the splashing sound my pee makes on it. Kills all things green. Adds character to the command, ‘Go potty!'”