Let's visit the garden, shall we?

I keep on wanting to write updates about the progress of the garden, but then I get worried that said updates will get kind of long and tedious as I try to describe the scene. It's easier to just take you for a quick stroll around the garden, to inspect the progress of various plants. We've been enjoying some splendid rain this winter - when I rode past the western dams on the lake this morning, all four dams were down, and water was gushing over. The mountainsides are all green right now, and wildflowers are beginning to burst into color. The rain has helped the garden tremendously. The only things I did not manage to photograph were the artichoke plants. You'll just have to trust me when I say they are pretty much doubling in size every week. They might even make some flowers, hurrah!

Looking at the garden, I'm struck by the strange growing seasons in Arizona. While most parts of the country try to hurry, hurry, hurry in advance of winter, here we have to hurry, hurry, hurry in advance of summer. I don't have a good guess as to when the garden will start to shut down this year, because I've never had this kind of growing success before. My best guess is that things will wind down in May. But I could be wrong - things could keep going, if I plant a bunch of heat-tolerant stuff now. I'm still not sure about the corn garden, as nothing has sprouted up. Perhaps the corn kernels are uncomfortably cold, or perhaps I planted them too deeply. We shall see.

( okay, time for some pictures. as always, click on them for larger versions. )

Drawing drawing drawing

Somehow or another, I need to do a lot of drawing. Here's what's on my list:

-shark (for J, whose bicycle keeps shark attacking people)
-pigeon (for B, who hit a pigeon with his bike)
-bike ninja (for "Don't Be A Bike Ninja")
-bike salmon (see above)
-Phoenix Bike (for PhxBAG or for the cover of the Phoenix Bike Guide)
-diagrams for "Ride Like a Vehicle" that demonstrate problem scenarios and avoidance methods in a cute, humorous way
-awesome ant drawing(s)

Yep, almost all bicycles. At least I got the farmer's market bicycle drawing finished today. At some point, I might end up writing a post about my conceptions of myself as an artist. We shall see.