Avast! There she blows! There she blows! A hump like a snow-hill! It is Moby Dick!

Something is about to blow here - can you spot it? Oh dear.

Gardening. A noble craft, but somehow a most melancholy! All noble things are touched with that.

Here's our lovely big Agave americana, that we named "Moby Dick" thanks to its spouting form, whale-like heaviness during planting, and epic profile in our fledgling garden.

It has grown here since 2009, and now it is flowering. Which means it will die. And yes, I'm a bit sad, but at the same time we can replace it with another epic Agave. And anyway, dying plants? I am past scorching; not easily can’st thou scorch a scar.

It's always hard work digging Agaves to move them, and usually someone gets scratched, stabbed or otherwise lightly maimed.  But you have to laugh.

There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.

So we got 7 good years out of this plant, and the flowering will take 3 or more months in a great, final display.

I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I'll go to it laughing.

A cookie to the person who can spot all the Herman Melville quotes in this post! Call me to let me know - call me Ishmael. :P