by CKR
I went to the farmers' market this morning and then checked out a garden store I've been wondering about. On the way to the store is a place where guys park with bales of hay, big rocks for your yard, sticks for coyote fences, and...agaves.
I have wanted an agave in my yard forever, but my previous house had no warm sunny but winter-protected corner for one. This one does, I realized just this summer. So I have had my eyes open for an agave. The local native plant store was the best candidate, but the ground is wet with the two inches of rain we've had this week, and there they were, waiting for me. The one I selected had lots of roots that the guy selling it told me to prune, which I did. It also had three woody plants mixed in at the roots. I planted them nearby. They looked pretty exhausted, but what the heck. The photo above is of the agave in its new home.
Lots of things are beginning to sprout since the monsoon started. This is probably a sunflower, and it's probably too late for it to do much, but we'll see. Because I planted native flower and grass seeds a while back, it's hard to tell if some of these flowers are natural or my doing. Whatever, they're welcome. I suspect the next one came from the seed packet; hardly ever see them around here, a coneflower of some sort.
Several of these, and they're starting to take off--see the brighter greeen shoots? I hope they bloom. I think they were in the yard last year, so they're probably perennials. 
I try to keep the garage door closed while I'm working outside, because the towhees love to get in and poop on the car. If the car windows are open, they'll even try to go inside. But I've had helpers doing some work around the house, and they left the door open. The other day, I saw a lizard inside. There was no way to scare him out at the time, and I figured that it wasn't too different from his usual habitat. Details, yes. It probably looked to him like those 1950s futuristic drawings of space ships and helicopters flying around look to us. But I figured there would be crickets and probably other goodies. The wind even blew some rain under the door.
Today, as I unpacked the agave and was getting implements together for planting, I saw him again, and the door was open. I was able to get behind him and herd him toward the door. He smashed into an extensive spiderweb at one point and was stuck, but I pulled it off him. He went for sunlight. He spent quite some time on the driveway, let me photograph him, probably exhausted from the long and frightening run from the giant. But after a bit, he skittered away and over the wall to the yard when I came toward him.