Archive for June 9th, 2009

Oh Halo, There's a bit of magic happening in the lower orchard. I am reminded each morning as i make the rounds feeding the knuckleheads and watching the ducks emerge from the underbrush or fly down at me from all sides and apply full flaps at the last minute to land in less than classic fashion. Note to self: get "Ducks at War" flight simulation software.

The magic begins when I get a whiff of the scent of the Malabar Chestnut flower. There is nothing tangible about scent. It's a molecular phenomenon and as such not something we can grab or hold on to, but my, oh my, oh my, can it ever stop us in our tracks. Malabar Chestnut (Pachira aquatica) is a water loving, palmate leafed and spreading tree that can reach thirty or forty feet in the tropics and produce pods full of seeds that are nutlike, yummy and full of good stuffs. The creamy white flower projects hundreds of golden tipped four or five inch stamens in a showy display of seduction to any flying insect passerby. Sort of like walking by the open door to a bakery with a craving for eclairs and a sawbuck in your pocket. The flower is very short lived, and here's why. I can pick up the scent released by the dawn sunlight and carried by a mild zephyr at upwards of a hundred feet away and because I've forgotten that i had the same experience the day before at dawn, it startles and enraptures me anew. So potent is the seduction that it need only express itself for a short time to accomplish its goal. Like a Lola Falana lap dance. Such is the nature of molecular matter to infuse us with inspiration, to envelop us without clinging and disappear without a trace. Springtime brings so many scents. It should be inherant to any "complete" design model that scent adorn the proceedings at every possible opportunity and make us turn our minds to the expansive and inclusive nature felt in these interfaces with the molecular world. Speaking of which, i had an o.o.b.ex. once. I have this old bud name of Curly Clamberok who had a house in the coastal mountains south of San Francisco, out La honda way. I'd go visit from time to time to escape the smog of Menlo Park and commune with the trees and the bees and the buds. Now one time i was up there and we had commenced to playing some music and burning some gage and quaffing some chianti. It was one of those nights where the border between bodies and the space between bodies began to blurrrrr. There was a fire going in the wood stove and Curlys dog Peabrain was lying there doing his fetal position impression and an inch away from burning his tail off, as usual. As the evening wound down with the glowing embers, we all drifted off to our cozy spaces, leaving the warmth of the fire for goosedown bags and foam softened floors. As I lay there like one of those embers, i sat upright in a body made of tingling energy. There was no mistaking the fact that this other body was having a bit of a stretch, and no mistaking the fact that it was made of much finer stuff than the meatsack. It was still "me" and still vaguely defined, but liberated from any and all sense of limitation, like a scent on the breeze. So of course i freaked and as quickly as "i" had sat up, i lay back down, but with the sure and certain knowledge that embedded in this fleshsickle resides a flashy new ride just itchin' to cruise the galaxy. Comfort food for the Fear. The late Spring heat is coming on like a histamine cascade after a pollen release. What little firmness imparted to the surface of the soil by the recent rains has turned to dust and things start looking droopy by ten, ten thirty. Most of the green gardens have trees or edible hibiscus planted that will eventually provide shade for the more delicate stuff, but for now it's hand watering and quiet encouragment. Have been grateful for the late morning cloud cover and the mild winds. The big news is that the naranjilla tree which has been flowering for quite some time now, is beginning to set fruit. Boooya. Indigenous to Peru and points south the fruit, which looks a bit like a small orange, is used mainly for its juice but also eaten out of hand. It is a remarkably beautiful plant with large fuzzy green leaves bordered with dark violet piping with midrib and veins accented purple and white. I'm looking forward to the first taste of yard juice made from naranjilla mixed with mango or white sapote or papaya or lemon or surinam cherry or jaboticaba or tangor or lilikoi or duck pond water. Nurse Lindsay, a.k.a. genius girl, has us on the verge of entering cyberspace with a brand spankin' new website. We're working out the details and hope to be up and strumming in a week or two @ www.ranchorelaxzo.com. We've had a changing of the guard here as the couple from Iceland has departed, leaving eleven of their bereft of money suitcases for the burn pile (they look so deflated and sad). If i had a nickle for every piece of brickabrack that the neo-hips leave in their wake, i'd have about three fitty. They've been replaced by some old timers pushin' forty. He's a moose of a man with bright eyed energy brimming over and she, a lovely refugee from the world of painted faces. Since they only have to put in four hours work a day, they walk around afterwards in what could be described as a dither over what to do next. I suggested the usual things: pickin' and grinnin', smokin' and jokin', snoozin' and cruisin'. Told them to give it two weeks and they'd be figuring ways to shave their hours when I wasn't looking. I'm nothing if not the kindly modern day feudal lord who treats his serfs well. I remember asking a history professor what he thought the best form of government would be and he said, "a benevolent dictatorship with me at the helm". Me likey. Nurse Lindsey has fashioned the perfect replacement for the chocavopousse when we're running short on avos and long on bananas. After hours of painstaking sampling, she's come up with the chocbananpousse. A marriage of flavors which in some ways surpasses even the scent of Pachira aquatica in sublime olfactory reverie. One of those combos so pleasing to the palate that a pile of it the size of a t-rex turd wouldn't phase you. You'd just ask for a bigger spoon. And so it is here at Rancho Relaxzo where brainstorming is the soup du jour and anything goes comes a la carte. The more you show, the more we'll grow. Peace, Jp