A friend stopped her bicycle at the edge of my yard, guessing correctly that I would be on my knees battling Bermuda grass.

LaDona and I usually visit at her house, because she likes to feed her friends and I enjoy eating her food. I dusted off my kneecaps and gave her a tour of my squash and tomatoes, and handed off another plastic bag filled with kale seeds.

The kale has become quite an overgrown ordeal.

I could and should yank the plants from the ground. Instead, the plants have gone to seed, again. The lazy plan is to let the seeds scatter in the wind, hoping for a carpet of new seedlings I can snip with scissors. They probably won’t sprout until the fall, but I’ll be ready if and when nature does her thing.

As LaDona and I chattered about this and that, I absent-mindedly began squishing harlequin bugs with my bare hands. The kale was crawling with them.

I almost never wear garden gloves, and frankly, I didn’t think about whether LaDona would find my hand-picking barbaric. The smashing was simply a reflex. Those buggers quite clearly needed to disappear.

My habitual domination over harlequin bugs began in July 2017 when my sister and I returned from Costa Rica. The Handsome Woodsman planted the kale in October 2016, a few weeks before he died. That first year, the idea of pulling those plants would have meant destroying his final garden gift.

Now that I think about it, these are those same plants. Who knew kale could live that long? Now I can understand more clearly why the stalks look like tree trunks, three inches in diameter.

However, back in the summer heat of 2017, those plants were newly overgrown.

I had been traveling, and without my interference, there were so many harlequin bugs on the kale, it looked like my raised bed had become the H-bug travel destination. I learned to strategically position a bowl of soapy water, and whisk the critters to their death.

I searched daily and soon learned to recognize nymph H-bugs, and even the barrel-shaped, silvery eggs, which are deposited in neat rows on the underside of leaves.

When I spotted harlequin bugs again this year, I needed to remember everything I had learned and forgotten. Oh, that’s right … the bugs will suck the life out of your plants.

Kale or cabbage is often used as a lure, to keep the critters from more desirable summer producers, such as tomatoes. I must have done a good job of hand-picking over the years, because the kale plants are alive. In addition to the dried seed pods, new leaves are growing from the “trunk.”

As for the reoccurring problem with harlequin bugs, this is my own fault, as usual. The surviving (and hiding) adult bugs spend the winter in the stalk of the kale plant, which any sane gardener would have burned on a bonfire.

I’ll put some thought into whether the original plants have outlived their usefulness. In the meantime, the bug infestation has given me the opportunity to feel triumphant. I have mastered my technique of the sly-hand backslide, as well as the splash dunk.

More time for hushed observation

Harlequin bugs, the first daffodils, a ripe tomato … all can be noted as markers of time. Some days I feel like a 12-year old on summer vacation, grounded in place. The minutes pass slowly, which means I’m looking at things more closely.

I had forgotten what it feels like to sit, listen to the wind chimes, and clear all of the air from my lungs.

Recently, I unveiled a new outdoor living room.

A heavy plastic tarp is propped up on a metal frame, covering the sturdy wooden picnic table that takes four grown men to move. A string of white lights adds just enough sparkle at day’s end, and I moved my brass floor lamp under the overhang to illuminate board games.

Living the dream. If I invite only one friend for dinner, we can sit six feet apart.

More than 85 potted plants are arranged in no particular order. As a backdrop, the concrete block wall is covered in needle-nosed ivy, from the “floor” to about 14 feet into the air.

I recall the first time the wall “talked to me.” It was a warm, cloudless evening and I thought I heard the slightest patter of rain.

After a curious investigation, I found that the sound came from the green wall.

It was the ivy. Pale green pods hide under the leaves. I saw, and heard, as those pods popped open. The rain-like sound was the tiny seedlings falling onto the leaves.

This week, as a friend and I sat at the table gorging on takeout from Alibaba restaurant, it was that time again.

Patter, patter … the gentle sound of rain with a cloudless sky, nowhere to go, and all the time I needed to sit and listen.

Gardens in my neighborhood really are more beautiful than usual, and that’s not just because I’m wearing shelter-in-place glasses. On our walks in the neighborhood, my buddy and I often huff along 12th Avenue. We have admired a couple working elbow-to-elbow to transform their front yard. Each time we pass, there are more plants transferred from one-gallon containers into a careful nest of lush mulch.

When I checked my mailbox this week, I checked in with my neighbor Penny, who was painting long pieces of wood with some dun-colored goo. She was eager to share her technique for new planter boxes. First, she and her guy singed the outside of the wood with a flame thrower. I looked this up, and there is a technique called Shou Sugi Ban ), used for protecting wood in Japan. Next, they scraped off the blackness and put on a coat of some goo that should “protect the wood for 100 years,” Penny said with confidence, paintbrush in hand.

Days later, 1/4-inch mesh was neatly placed in the assembled boxes, to thwart the gophers that terrorize our neighborhood. Unloading the tow-trailer filled with soil will be the next big job.

I’m assuming that eventually, the industrious couple will buy some plants.

I wish I had put more muscle into my sheltering-in-place. For much of March, there was banging behind my back fence while they built a new two-story shed.

My excuse for not joining the home-improvement bandwagon is that I had work to do for my job at the college. My boss and I spent a week, each hunched over our keyboards in separate locations, writing a 67-page report. To celebrate the completion, I spent a day with power tools – leaf blower, lawnmower and hedge trimmer. I think there also might have been celebratory chocolate.

I read somewhere that most of the home improvement projects made to a home are completed within the first year of the home’s purchase. The remainder of home improvements is made the month prior to when the home is sold. Thanks to the Great Seclusion, folks have accomplished things that could have easily remained on a “to-do” list for decades.

On the move

And now, with all that idle energy put to good use, the Great Awakening has begun. Gov. Gavin Newsom announced we’re transitioning to Phase II of the pandemic precautions. What this will look like, exactly is still unclear. However, I think it has something to do with haircuts and I might shave my legs.

On my birthday a few weeks back, I knew I would feel lonesome and sad if I stayed home and scrolled through “happy birthday” messages on Facebook, listening to the radio to drown out the quiet.

I invited myself to my Mom’s house about an hour away and we sat in her backyard. This was nice, and despite the lack of hugs, it seemed like life the way we once knew it.

The next day, Anina had a little backyard gathering, again, with everyone in lawn chairs and entering through the side gate. We each brought our own snacks, which is a lot like the old days when we brought our own beer.

Sitting with people, talking with people, face-to-face, without Zoom — what a small but necessary joy!

I think I’ll continue this re-enter to society cautiously. I’m not ready to join the beer pong Cinco de Mayo party that was held on the front lawn down the street. I’m also not quite ready for a visit to the beach.

More recently, friends made excuses to entice me to see them face-to-face. Roger Aylworth and his wife Susan called ostensibly to ask advice buying star jasmine. They could have easily have googled the topic, but I agreed we were overdue for a chat. We met on a rainy day at Magnolia Gift and Garden, where everyone was wearing masks and meandering gently among the greenery. The shop has a table of vegetables from the Butte College Horticulture group and another long display from Spring Valley Nursery. If I had recently built raised beds that will last 100 years, I could have easily spent hundreds of dollars on plants.

With certainly, I can’t be the only socially-distanced, questionably-sane coronavirus avoider doing some wacky things during the Great Seclusion.

Nobody’s watching. There’s no one to impress. One day I looked down and realized I had been wearing the same shirt for three days in a row. For a while, I decided not to wear deodorant, just as an anti-social experiment, but soon realized I was just annoying myself.

Wild garlic

For decades, I have celebrated the destruction of the three-cornered leek, AKA Allium vineale.

If you live in Chico, you know this flower. It bloomed last week and the week before, with cheery white blooms upon thin, bulb-like stalks.

Decidedly, they’re pretty for a minute. When I first knew the plant, I gathered the flowers and put them in vases. Soon you learn that once the weather warms, the leaves flop over into a matted straw-colored mass, killing your grass within an 18-inch radius. But that’s not the end. Before the ugly retreat, the plant reproduces bulbs underground, as well as the black, foot-ball shaped seeds within each flower. The flowers flop over, as previously mentioned, spreading the overall “territory” of this momentarily-attractive weed.

Right about now, you can spot neglected yards all around town with a tall stand of white flowers and green leaves, which turn to the aforementioned blah brown mess for the entire summer.

My friend Bonnie moved into such a yard. When she had a new beau, he worked hard to be indispensable, including touring the yard with a weed whacker. The entire neighborhood smelled like garlic for days and the dog hid indoors.

Did I mention that Allium vineale is also known as wild garlic?

Yes, you can eat it

Why not?

During the Great Seclusion, I’m not rushing to the farmers market every week. My research reassured me that yes, you can eat the leek, which I have disdained these past 30 years.

I yanked a few small bulbs, diced them into tiny bits, and added some flavor to the black skillet filled with chard from LaDona’s back yard.

The taste is more pungent than the garlic chives I regularly grow in my raised beds.

A permaculture website in the United Kingdom goes a step further to recommend eating all parts of the plant. Gardener Chris Hope harvests the leaves in fall and winter, to use like chives or green onion tops. When the brown leaves flop over, she harvests the bulbs, just as we would do with regular garlic.

The garden writer has many other articles about commonly overlooked plants suitable for the dinner plate, including dandelion and rosehips. If you like what she has to say, you can buy her deck of edible plant playing cards.

For now, in this time of bitter choices, I’ll continue to experiment with three-cornered leek. I still consider them weeds in my own yard. Yet, I can find a steady supply in other people’s yards.

Along comes a wild hair

There’s not much that is glamorous about the Great Seclusion.

When I returned from a trip to Washington, D.C., in March, I decided to see what it would look like if I stopped shaving my legs. I’ve shaved the bottom half of my legs since early high school, and I was bored and curious. My vision was that the hair would be like the soft light hairs I never shave above the knee.

Nope.

If things keep growing the way they are, my calves may soon look like the tops of Bilbo Baggins’ feet.

When I saw my friend Robert at the post office weeks ago, he had a scraggly beard, and said he had been growing it for no particular reason other than a private personal protest.

However, Robert looked quite handsome as a shaggy man. I predict my gams would look something like Cousin It.

I certainly hope I do not offend anyone who makes a plush choice. My online research revealed several articles about the rise of shaving legs in America, which sounds like an evil collaboration by the fashion industry and razor companies. When hemlines rose in the 1920s, razor companies began to hair-shame. According to Allure magazine, something like 75-85 percent of American women currently slathers and shave. I’m just not ready to join the other 15-25 percent.

A few weeks ago, there came a critical juncture in my experiment with hairy legs. A new guy sent me a note and asked if I wanted to go for a walk.

Hmmm. Should I shave my legs? At this point, my calves were still at the scruffy stage, and not yet half-way unruly.

I sent out a note to my girlfriends via social media to ask for advice.

A photo was attached.

“I know you own tights,” Tania said.

“It’s a new guy, shave them puppies,” my best friend from high school advised.

“Denude,” “Be true to yourself,” the opinions varied.

I brushed my hair, changed my shirt and even painted my toes. However, I’m not done with my experiment.

When we took the walk through the Chico State campus, we stopped for a socially-distanced chat on the steps at the amphitheater. I propped my legs up on the rock wall. With the reflection of light from the creek, I hoped he was mesmerized by my smile.

He was nice. Yet, he has not called for another walk.