Under siege

I was reading Walden in the back yard and, ironically, contemplating the out-of-season colors (russet and dark gold) of the moss on the roof of the house where the yappy dog lives, when abruptly it started. Our neighbors on the south side, whose roof is not 10' (on the horizontal plane) from my organic vegetable beds nor 15' from my bedroom window, are having their roof power-washed, with lord knows what herbicide in there to retard future moss growth. Even now clumps of moss are thumping against my window, having been blasted airborne. I've covered the vegetable beds with tarp and the strawberry barrel with some round piece of plastic.

I want to know what chemical I'm being subjected to, and yet I don't. It's not like I could do anything about it. After all, these are the neighbors who -- with similar lack of warning -- pulled down the charming old wooden fence between our yards and slapped up chain link, interwoven with white plastic, with workers treading heavily in our flowerbeds and on my Sappho's resting place. And then were astonished that we had any opinions on the matter. (Thank heaven R. was willing to learn fence-building, though a double-fenced boundary seems a bit silly.) Considering that their environmental sensitivities apparently don't even extend towards giving their cats actual names, nor wondering what happened to the one who died elsewhere a few years back, I can't exactly expect them to grasp the concept of "chemical sensitivity."

I hope it rains soon.

Meanwhile, extended sunshine does wonders for the appearance of quince flowers, which look finer this year than ever in my memory: