Today, I tackled black spot mold on our climbing roses on the side of the house. This area gets slammed every year by the thrice-cursed horror, making once beautiful shiny leaves turn into speckled yellow death throes before they curl up and die. So every year, I pick the diseased leaves off and spray them with homemade black spot spray which works well but you have to keep spraying. A LOT.
Gardening is like meditation for me, a perfect escape from deadlines and horror, which is what I’m writing about at the moment. My Charlie was such a hero in my life, and an incredible hero in the war. All his Marine buddies are beloved to me through his stories, and I have to be so brutal to them. I have to write about what they went through, how they were hit, how some cracked, how so many of them died. I must and will stay true to their reality but it’s hard. But I’m not going to dishonor Charlie or any of them by making anything up. And my friends, it was awful. It is also true.