I come by it honestly, this business of picking up sticks. My grandmother did it. We all do it. Although I confess that when I do it here, I’m not collecting kindling for the fireplace.
Anyway, there were sticks on the ground this morning. It must have been a windy day, and the Ash tree has been on its last legs for some time now, and I was picking up Ash twigs that had fallen on the sidewalk and french drain.
And into the agave. An ash stick had fallen into the agave and was wanting to be cleaned up. So I leaned over the top of the agave and looked in, because you see I know that there is a lizard who lives in there — has for years. But it was cold this morning, so I figured he had retired to the nether apartments to stay warm. And based on that belief, I slowly reached in to clean out that stick.
I was wrong. He was there. As I reached in, he poked his face around the corner of the central agave spike with an alarmed look on his face.
The stick will wait.