The sky reflects in the washed sand.

The rabbit has been at my roses again. Gary put wire around the denuded stripy rambler and it leafed out again and bloomed, though it did not have the energy to send out much new growth. The other new, pink, rose in the front came back without help, but apparently the rabbit has been only waiting on salad. The stems are naked. Again.

We like the rabbits even so.

Gary and I have been out in the garden each day, attacking the escalonia, potting up flowers. There are little plants coming up all over the front yard where the deck used to be. The montbrecia came up first and the rabbit bites off a blade in the middle and then chews it right up to the end. Since then, snow-in-summer and violets and lamb’s ears are coming along.

We have been watching the Monty Don gardening shows, including Gardeners’ World. The BBC presenter talks about gardening in ways I have never heard in an American show or from any American nurseryman. Don puts up netting and wire against invading rabbits and cabbage worm, but he spends a lot more time talking about flowers and other plants and environments that attract and feed bees and moths, birds and other wildlife. Wildlife is a priority. He also realistically and explicitly addresses the challenges of gardeners’ more urban environments and the growing impact of climate change. Heat and drier summers. The challenge of new pests and the loss of native plants unable to survive the new normal. The world is changing.

On our two-hour walk yesterday we saw a little display, a faerie-fort created by some visiting children. There are painted messages and careful arrangements of vegetation they found on the shore.

Where we live.

World bird populations are in trouble. A recent study by Cornell shows a 30% drop of breeding birds, and loss of many species. In the mean time, an organization did a brown pelican count recently and decided they are doing fine. Most days I have counted a dozen or more each day. On a good day, there are too many to count—a great squadron or scoop or pod (or maybe a group of pelicans is called a “colony”?) flies on and offshore. We used to hardly see them, and then ten or fifteen years ago fourteen stayed all summer. It’s been a growing population.

We got our flu shots today and put the quilt back on the bed. The weather is changing from summer to autumn. It is a pleasure not to have to consider the heat.

I have been staring at the inner border of the orange and purple quilt for a few days, moving strips here and there, cutting new stripes, and I think it is ready to be sewn. I even took the step of applying for a show. I don’t expect to win one, but I have enough work to share. Either that or shift the quilts on four beds for newer ones.

Some change is good.