Aloha. I figured I should report in from the Big Island of Hawai’i while I’m here. Once a year, wifey and I like to make a run for it to the sun in the deepest darkest winter. We couldn’t have timed it better, apparently. I’ve gotten reports that it’s been raining solid (and will continue to do so) in Portland.

Gardening related notes:

• This place is mostly lava. Amazing that anything grows, but it sure does.
• There’s no winter to speak of here. I have to wonder what that does to one’s overall relationship to the garden. I suspect there’s a measure less intensity while growing and less misery while waiting out winter. No apples, peaches, nor blueberries… no SAD, 8 hour daylight, nor icy roads.
• Why is every plumeria that I see covered with pestilence?

I’ve been reading Michael Pollan’s older book: “Second Season” about his education as a gardener (ostensibly). His tone is interesting in this one. Much more anthropocentric to my ears (contrary to protestations to the contrary in the book). It strikes me as almost apologist for human intervention in “nature.”

As is true in some of his other stuff, some assertions are made, sometimes indirectly, that get a pass on critical examination– here, I’m thinking of his discussion of a particularly sympathetic guy’s views on invasive species actually enhancing local and global genetic diversity. I don’t buy it.

For each English Ivy and Himalayan blackberry unleashed on an area, many more species must be wiped out than their introduction replaces. Besides, it completely neglects the interconnected web of species who also suffer as a result. But, it fits his premise, and so it’s stated and unchallenged.

Overall, I was a little disappointed in that it’s really not a book about gardening. It’s a book about the human-nature dichotomy. It’s a good book about that. I enjoyed it. But, I was hoping to read how one of my favorite authors learned about gardening. Instead, it’s a much deeper treatment of attitudes toward lawns, trees, nature, naturalists, aesthetics, etc. All related to gardening, sure, but in the most philosophical, abstract sense.

Again, that’s not at all to say it’s bad; I was just primed for something else.  As always, he’s thought-provoking and only slightly more pretentious in this than his later books.  I’m not a huge fan of authors making offhand references to other unlikely-to-have-been-read authors without explaining who this person was and why I care what he/she thinks.  Humor me.

I recommend it, but not nearly as strongly as “The Omnivore’s Dilemma.”

Anyway, no pictures yet since we haven’t gotten them off the camera and they’re mostly of the kids playing in the ocean.