17 June 2011 - The Fragrant Garden

Over the years I have been trying to add scent to the yard. In late March, the yard is so filled with the scent of lilacs that when the bloom cycle is over and the smell is gone, the loss is palpable. I have been adding plants with potent fragrances to fill in throughout the rest of the season. I have sought out roses that actually smell. Right now when the breeze is out of the south I can smell the roses when I sit on the deck.

I also have a wonderful rose that absolutely surrounds you in a sweet light perfume when you approach it. Not only is it wonderfully fragrant, but it is a many color rose. The tight buds are orange, they open yellow, turn pink, then darker rose, and finally end up with white on the outside of the petals and dark rose with red speckles as it passes peak. It is hard to believe all those colors come on one plant.  

In addition to that, the honeysuckle is now in full bloom. It is a white and yellow variety like Mother Eee had growing next to her kitchen door. Its sweet essence wafts about the yard now. Love it! The scent of these potent sweet nectar flowers reminds me of warm summer nights watching the big night moths work over the flowers. As kids we used to pull the flowers off and suck the nectar out of the tubes. Such a happy smell!

The catalpa is in full bud and should burst this weekend. That will add a spicy bouquet to the mix. The flowers are astounding, looking like clusters of miniature orchids. They are exotic.


What next?  I filled one of the raised beds with petunias. Here is a vintner-ish description of petunias: This is a sweet light floral, blended with just a hint of green for a soft, pleasing scent. Great for Summer. Soothing, spirit recharging, uplifting.

Speaking of recharging, I saw the first lightning bug tonight! Such magic.

So I am luxuriating in the heavenly scents from my garden but there is a major omission. We have no bees. By this time of year, my yard should be awash in bees. Bees bumping into each other in their pursuit of nectar and pollen. Honey bees, bumblebees, solitary bees, carpenter bees, sweat bees-- many different kinds of bees that are usually in great abundance among the flowers. Nothing!  We have seen two bumble bees, many black mud daubers, but bees? They are among the missing.

I am mystified. Yes, I have read all the articles about the decline of the honey bee, but for all the many different kinds of bees to just disappear? Was it the overly long, cold winter? Did they bees starve? Did they come out and get frozen? What?

In other news, because it is June we are getting snow. Cottonwood snow, that is. Even the slightest hint of breeze brings squalls of cottonwood seeds that float like snowflakes and create drifts.  When I drive to work in the morning, the side of the road under the big cottonwoods is usually covered with white drifts. These piles of seed are accompanied by flocks of sparrows and other seed eaters. It must be either a delicious treat, or just easy pickings, as the birds barely get out of the road when I drive by.

12 June 2011 - Cauls, cromulent and crapulent

I have a flower that I have always called a Persian Frittilaria.  Today I discovered it isn't a Frit at all, it's an allium. Allium bulgaricum, to be exact. Sometimes called a Sicilian Honey Lily. It is a sweet smeller, all right.

Funny, I didn't notice it had all the proper characteristics of the allium. Seems like a no-brainer now. But, I bought Persian Fritillaria bulbs, apparently that wasn't what I was sent, and I didn't think to question it.

What I think is interesting about this plant, in addition to the good looking flower, is that the bud is wrapped in a sheath, much like a caul. As it gets closer to opening the caul turns translucent, and you can see the individual buds inside.



As it begins to open, the caul is slit from top to bottom and the buds are packed in like sardines. One by one each bud breaks free and  bounces out to its proper place. Finally all the buds are free and the caul hangs on by a thread for a couple more days, then falls off.


In other news, I was humbled at work this past week. Grr. I hate being wrong!  Someone had used the word unpossible. Being in a snarky mood I sent an email saying "Unpossible? Really?"  The reply I received was "What? It's a perfectly cromulent word."

Cromulent?  What the heck, I'd never run into that word before. Look it up-- it's a good one. On the way to cromulent I discovered another interesting word: crapulent. And it has nothing to do with what you think it does. Just about the time I think I'm darned good with grammar, word usage, punctuation et al, something usually smacks me upside the head, shaking the complacency right out of me.  But hey, had I not been snarky, I would have missed out on two great words.

Hughie had her kittens yesterday. With all the available hidey holes in the yard and garage, she chose to ignore them all and had them under the dog house. For day-old kittens they sure can squall loudly, and do so every time Hughie leaves the nest. It will be interesting to see what and how many she has.

I have mentioned earlier what a fabulous rose display is happening in my yard right now. This weekend, Blaze, a climbing rose by my bedroom window burst into bloom. It is making a lovely arch. Reminds me of Burnett's Secret Garden.

This was another hard working weekend. Taped all the window sashing in the living room. Jack started to paint those while I taped the windows and door in the dining room. We took a break to mow the lawn and do some weeding. Painted some more. Then took another break for a trip to the Little Yellow Stand. Came home with a flat of mixed color petunias, two flats of impatiens for the berm and a few fill-ins for the perennial bed.

I washed the mini-blinds for the dining room. Took them outside, laid them out on the line and took the hose with the nozzle to them. Sprayed them with Simple Green, hit them with a scrub brush, turned them over, repeated and hosed them off. Then I hung them from pot hangers in the maple tree to dry. Worked great! 

Today, Sunday, I got up and before I finished my first cup of coffee I was out planting all the petunias. You can't just plant. It turns into weeding, digging grass up, working the soil. Two hours later I had not only planted all the petunias, but weeded the perennial bed, watered everything in and even filled a yard waste bag with my weed piles.

I find I am channeling mother when I weed. Pull it up, pitch it behind me. Makes quite a mess. Jack wants to know why I can't pull them out and make a tidy, easy to pick up pile. Dunno. I always wondered about it when mother did it, but it never occurred to me to ask. And now I'm doing it. Mostly it just gets them out of the way.

After cleaning the yard, went back in hoping to finish the living and dining room today. Jack started in on a second coat on the window sashes. I pulled everything out of the windows around the front door, washed all the shelves, went outside washed that side as well. Taped up the ten window lights around the front door and painted all the woodwork and shelves.

Took the largest set of living room blinds outside to wash. Little Fluff was most interested and walked across them to see what it was all about. The blinds have a path of dents across them now. Great. Clean, but dented.

Jack screwed the mini-blind brackets back in the windows while I cleaned out the built in shelves to get them ready for painting. All that is left to do is the built-ins plus another coat around the front door. I pulled all the tape off the windows and other woodwork where we were through and I must admit, it looks nice. Not my colors, but it is clean and airy looking.

8 June 2011 - Painting the Roses Red

Only nine days into June and it has been eventful!  Four days with temperatures reaching the mid-90s. Yesterday we hit 96, and the forecast is the same for today. Four of those 90 plus degree days set record highs for June. Today will also be a record high if indeed we make 96 again. 

Jack thinks I obsess about the weather and doesn’t understand why.  Well, yes, I do! I’m that person who loves to check out weather records. How hot/cold is it going to get? How does that differ from last year? Five years ago? How much precipitation did we get last month versus last year? Why should scientists keep records except to excite people like me? I just like to know things. 

Meanwhile, this hot spell is drying out our raised beds in a hurry, but it is also making our veggies and other plants spring out of the ground. Peas are a foot high already.  Lettuce is ready to eat, tomatoes are forming on the plants, peppers have buds forming. Beans are turning into little bushes. Water them first thing in the morning, by the time I get home from work it seems they’ve all grown two inches. The raised beds all have a bumper crop of lamb’s quarter. I pull them up with a smile, thinking how Robin buys my weed at her local farmer’s market and eats them with delight. 

June is a funny time for me. So many plants bloom. Clematis, roses, daisies, peonies, columbine, plus the shrubs such as Black Lace Elderberry, honeysuckle, weiglia, and summer sweet are just a few in my yard ready to burst or already at peak bloom thanks to the elevated temperatures. Why is it a funny time? Intellectually, I know these all bloom in June, but in May, they are just leafing out, starting to grow. Then wham! Out of nowhere they are covered with blooms. It happens so fast, even though I walk the yard daily, weed around them, water them, watch the progress, I still get startled at the profusion of color.  

May 31^st is our last frost free day. It’s the weekend everyone is out planting tender annuals. So somehow June isn’t that far away from the mental images of frost, cold, winter.

Helen's Aloha rose

This year the roses are stars—such a profusion of flowers! All you have to do is walk by and you get bathed in their fragrance. It's pretty heady!  

Two years ago Amy had given me a couple starts of an Aloha rose that came from her mother’s garden, from the house in Dearborn where she was raised. It is a beautiful pink with a delicate fragrance. These poor roses have been moved at least three times. This year they are thriving and are covered with blooms and many buds. I looked it up and found it is classed as a Modern Large Flowered Climber.  Modern? Hybridized in 1949. That is 63 years old!  

This year, all the yuccas that I rescued from Betty’s foundation plantings are sending up bloom stalks. They had never bloomed for her—too much shade. It will be fun see the stalks in full flower.  David has a fabulous patch of yucca that are show stoppers when they bloom.  Mine will get there.  

Critter report. On Sunday, Jack and I decided it was time to finally clean all the grass out of the front chain link fence. It was a shady spot in our yard on a very hot day. We worked  across the fence from each other loosening the roots and pulling up the grass. At one point I pulled a really huge clump of roots out and disturbed a stag beetle. He was not happy about it. He stood up on his rear, balancing like a tripod with his butt and two back legs. He gnashed his mandibles and waved his other legs in a threatening manner. I ran…for my camera. He could have been a model for some SF alien. I am very proud of this photo. Check out the interesting antennae and the sensory organs at the tips. He shouldn’t have any problem locating female pheromones with those. 

Years ago I read Nor Crystal Tears by Alan Dean Foster. It is a first contact novel told from the perspective of the insectoid race, the Thranx, and deals with their encounter with the monstrous, fleshy, alien mammals known as humans. One of the things I remember best about this is that the Thranx could not show emotions due to their rigid exoskeleton and their society had come up with an intricate way of showing expressions through body part positions. Antennae, mandibles, palps and appendages were arranged just so to suggest emotions such as fifth degree of apology or third degree of subservience. I think my stag beetle is in the first degree of aggression. 

More weird critters. We have had hundreds of ants traversing our deck. Over the last weekend it became clear that we had a new variety of carpenter ant: big-headed ants.

Really odd looking ants, as you can see from the pictures. For several days I watched them run up and down the boards and considered the whys and wherefores of their over-sized heads. What would be the advantages of a bigger head? How do they carry things around as well as hauling that great big head. And what on earth would be have caused this kind of evolution?

I finally got down on hands and knees for a closer look. Ho! A surprise! They weren't big-headed at all. Each big-headed ant was merely carrying the carcass of a smaller black ant. I tried following the ants to see where the bodies were coming from but I didn't have much luck, or maybe it was a lack of patience. I can only surmise that they were raiding a nest of a smaller species of ants and bringing the bodies back to their own nest. I tried to get pictures. Do you have any idea how hard it is to focus on an ant? They are fast and travel in erratic paths.

Babies. We have robin, grackle and blue jay nests in the yard.  Two weeks ago I found a dead, gawky baby jay under the silver maple. This morning I found a live baby robin. Pin feathers were just starting to come out. It is an awful feeling to know that it will be cat food before the day is out.  

Our hollow catalpa tree is home to two kittens belonging to the tabico. Seems fitting as the tabico was born in the hollow boxelder stump. Her kittens are white, with orange ears, tails and top of head markings. Cute, but dang it, more cats? The girls have seven kittens in their yard, and Hughie is still lumbering around in a state of huge pregnancy. We thought she’d give birth a week or more ago due to her rotund state. Any day now. 

Her babies from last July: Little Fluff and Big Fluff are still living in the backyard. Big Fluff has become quite the company cat. He likes to be petted, scratched and played with. He loves to chase the end of a rope around the yard. When Jack and I are working in the yard or hanging about on the deck, he is usually not far. When he isn’t up for a pet he likes to lie a fingertip out of reach. Close enough. Big Fluff is oddly colored--head and shoulders are black and the rest of him is more brown. 

Many years ago I bought five giant allium bulbs. They have been gradually increasing. I have a beautiful purple display in May when they bloom. When the color fades, the heads remain upright for some time. As the heads fade to a straw color I have discovered I can spray paint them in bright colors to add a little zing to the May garden. This year I used a florescent pink. Zowie!

It's eye-catching. I am reminded of Alice every time I do this. 

"Would you tell me, please," said Alice, a little timidly, "why you are painting those roses?"

Five and Seven said nothing, but looked at Two. Two began, in a low voice, "Why the fact is, you see, Miss, this here ought to have been a red rose tree, and we put in a white one by mistake..."

Did we have another record high today? You betcha. Topped out at 96 degrees again. Now, at 8:45 pm it is still 91 out and 82 in.

3 June 2011 - Pop's birthday

Well, Pop, it’s your birthday today. I have been struggling with this, fluctuating between weepy and mentally giving you a piece of my mind. Still haven’t forgiven you for leaving us so unexpectedly. Robin tells me that I should find a quiet spot and talk to you. (Note to not with. Damnit.) But then I always seem to be talking to you these days, or flogging myself for not learning more from you while you were available. 

But it’s June, the rhubarb is fresh in the farmer’s market and perhaps it is time to make your birthday rhubarb-strawberry pie. I’ll bet D2 has one already made. Last I spoke with him, his rhubarb had bolted and he needed to chop those stalks down. 

This year is flying by. Jack, who has been at the Parkview house for nine months is finally home. We have been busy painting. In the abstract, it doesn’t seem all that difficult to throw some paint on the walls. In reality it is a different story.

·         Patch holes. Sand holes. Prime patching.

·         Paint the ceiling. Let it dry. Tape the ceiling.

·         Paint the molding. Let it dry. Paint second coat. Let dry. Remove ceiling tape. Tape the molding.

·         Paint the walls. Let them dry. Paint second coat. Let dry. Remove molding tape. Tape the walls and floors to paint the baseboards.

·         Paint the baseboards. 

It seems endless. Discovered that our hallway—a very short hallway has 11 doors that open into it. That’s an awful lot of woodwork to paint. However, moaning aside, we are making progress. I have big hopes of getting at least one room finished this weekend, but the forecast is talking about temps in the mid 90s. I may not be able to handle a hot house plus the humidity factor of wet paint. We shall see.

It is hard painting a house to sell. These colors are so not me. but I have to admit it looks clean, light and airy. It is a yellow based beige with white trim, so it complements the gold tones in the kitchen floor and in my oak furniture. 

The living room and dining room have all the  furniture gathered up in the center of the rooms and are covered with plastic. We are at a place where we can put the rooms back together, except that we need to have new carpet put down. Not sure whether to move stuff again, or just wait until the carpet is in. This whole process has been horse and buggy intensive. 

1 June 2011 - Be careful what you wish for

Before I launch into June, just a few notes on the end of May. May was cold and rainy. So rainy that we ended the month with 6.49 inches of rain, making it the 5th wettest May on record. All that rain filled the roadside ditches. In the 32 years we have lived here, we have never before had water standing in our front ditches. This May we had a foot and a half of water. Wow. Our side ditch still has standing water, and is breeding mosquitoes like crazy. I should go buy some of those larva killers, but I need to find out what else they might hurt, first.  The last two days of May were crazy hot. We went from low 70s up to the low 90s. It was a shock to the body, but it surely made the seeds pop right out of the ground.

For years I have lamented that April and May are over too soon. In the last 7 years we have reached the mid 80s in April accompanied by a hot wind. Fortunately this doesn't last long, but what it does is blow all the flowering trees and bulbs into bloom. With temperatures this high, flowers don't last. I have lusted after a long cool spring, where the flowers would reach their full potential--mostly because my garden is spectacular in May, and just once I would like to see it in a slow climb to the peak then a slow descent.

This year I had a long cold  spring. Cold and rainy. Often the flowers that actually showed up were promptly frozen or had their petals pummeled to the ground by the rain.

In spite of that I did get some color to enjoy. The forget-me-nots made a lovely blue carpet under the flowering crabs. The tulips floated over the sea of blue like exclamation points. Jack answered the doorbell one day, to find a woman wanting to take pictures of the garden. She came back a day or two later with a page of flower photos for us.

As a gardener, one of the many things I love is the juxtaposition of color, size, and shape.

For example, this hosta with its large leaves surrounded by tiny forget-me-nots. By the time the forget-me-nots are spent and the plants removed, the leaves on this hosta will have tripled in size filling the space.

 Here large tulips in pink echo the same color of the tiny blooms in the ground cover. It's a bit hard to see in the picture, but up close in person it's lovely.

Wondering what all this is? The clusters of blue bells are mertensia, the small pink in the back is an early blooming pulminaria, the yellow is golden poppy.

I seem to have a problem with aggressive plants. So many plants that I have spread or reseed rapidly. I let them bloom then ruthlessly pull the extras out. By then they have spread enough seeds to make a huge show the following year. That bank of forget-me-nots? That is the result of three small plants.

Each golden poppy flower results in hundreds of seeds. Fortunately they are easy to pull out.

The cool weather plus last fall's pruning resulted in the best lilac display we have had since we've been here. Not only were the bushes loaded to the point of drooping, but oh! The fragrance was amazing, overwhelming at times, yet so sweet. And the flowers and scent lasted for over two weeks.

It was amazing, beautiful and a sensory delight. Plenty for bouquets in the house and for my desk at work without even touching the display outside.

The fauna in my yard has been interesting. Three different toads in three days. Turns out that all three are Bufo americanus, the common american toad, but they were all so different in size and coloring. Turns out toads can change colors with temperature and lighting. We have had toads in the yard for years: brownish or blackish toads.

I was sitting on the deck with a cup of coffee when movement caught my eye. Big fat toad on the deck. He was gold with bright gold eyes. I ran for my camera. The ferals, Hughie and Big Fluff were interested in what I was doing, but were totally indifferent to the toad. They practically stepped on it while watching me.

At one point, Big Fluff became interested in the toad and gave it a gentle little push with his paw.

The toad reared up into what I can only imagine was a defensive position. His back was hunched up into the air and he was practically standing on his head and balanced on his tip toes. Odd.   He stayed this way for about 10 minutes.

Big Fluff is mighty cute. You can see his huge extra toe in this picture. His mother, Hughie, is also polydactyl on her front feet as well.

I think he was quite smitten with the toad, after he finally saw it. He didn't hurt it at all, just watched.



 

The very next morning I was looking out the window to see what the ferals were up to and I see Little Fluff bouncing around with something. I finally realize she has a mouse or a vole, so I trek outside to see if it can be saved. Surprise! She is bouncing a small toad. I chase her off and the toad dashes to the base of the maple tree where he disappears. Protective coloration is an amazing thing!

Adding to the continuing toad story, the next morning I am weeding and bagging like mad so I can get the sacks out before the yard waste truck comes by. In my maniacal state, I'm grabbing huge handfuls of the nasty ground ivy and yanking it out of the ground. I pull a toad right out of his cozy little tunnel. Oops. This toad, no picture, was a very brown toad. I herded him gently into another area of the garden.  I love having toads. 

May 19 - Birds on buildings

Here in Michigan, we have a lot of Canada Geese. Actually, "a lot" is rather an understatement. In the spring it isn't unusual to have flocks in the parking lot where I work. There is a two week span where the geese will pair up and walk around on the roof, and honk loudly. You can hear them inside the building. Even though this happens every year, it is still a surprise to look up and see them on the roof edge.

If you could blow this picture up, you could see that the goose on the right is honking up a storm. His beak is open and you can see his pink tongue. They are on top of a three story office building.

The point of this is that I'm used to seeing large birds on buildings. But today... what a surprise!  I was walking down the aisle to my cubicle and in my peripheral vision I thought I saw some strange new apparatus on the building across the lot from my window. I took another look and nearly fell over when I realized there were two turkey buzzards sunning their wings on the roof.

 We get a lot of buzzards here, but I've only seen them circling overhead in the sky. I ran for my camera, but between the windows and the reflections, I didn't get a good picture. 

It has been quite the week for birds. On Tuesday, I was in Ann Arbor at our Sleeping Bear Press office. They are in a new office park with ponds and green space. From the conference room window I could overlook the pond where a Great Blue Heron was busy stalking around the perimeter.


He did have plenty of company though.This duck had a head that was florescent! An amazing green color. I'm sure it was one of the ubiquitous mallards, but the sun was catching the head just right so it glowed.

 And just to top off the entire occasion, how about a swan, a Canada, and eight (count 'em!) great egrets. Wow.

On top of that, we have had so much rain, 3.48 inches so far in May, that every low spot has a puddle. And there are ducks in all the puddles. On my drive to work there is a little puddle in the lawn beside the road. It usually has a mix of Canadas and ducks. Yesterday the Canadas were further back under the trees with their younglings, so the ducks had control.

Wonder what I'll see tomorrow!

May 13 - What a difference a week makes

In the first ten days of May, spring has just exploded. We went from temps in the 40s up to 83 today. Wow! And during this warm up, we have had torrential rain, incredible lightning and thunder storms and exponential plant growth. I know, this is what spring is all about, but it never fails to amaze me just how fast the world changes around you when it finally happens. In twelve days we have mowed the lawn three times. The lilacs have moved from tiny green leaf buds to full bloom. Even now the fragrance is pouring in through the window. It is a heady time of year.

Crabapple trees, pear and apple trees are all in full bloom along with ornamentals such as redbuds, weeping cherries, Cleveland pears, magnolias and dogwoods. And because this is such a late spring, there are many shrubs still blooming that would normally be long done—forsythia, azaleas and rhododendrons are adding to the show. It’s hard for me to drive to work when my head is swiveling on my neck as I try to take it all in.

My May garden show is spectacular. Right now I have several hundred daffodils in many color varieties and sizes. They are punctuated by bright orange fritillaria. The berm is a sea of blue forget-me-nots with tulips floating over the top. Golden poppies, blue mertensia and bleeding hearts all complement each other. The hostas are unfurling their tight spikes. Each day brings change and new beauty. Every day finds me looking about in awe. 

This year the bleeding hearts are just spectacular. I finally have them in a spot that makes them happy, and the flowers are the reward. Amazing what a bit more sun will do for a plant. And as usual, I can never see bleeding hearts without thinking of Grace Alder and how beautiful her long bank of hearts was.

I also love the pulmonarias. I have the Mrs Moon variety which has blue and pink flowers on the same plant, in the same floret. It is magic. It is also one of the first flowers to bloom in the spring which makes it even more welcome. In years past they have bloomed in late February or early March as the snow melts.

On Monday, I went to a Monks and Friars meeting in Ann Arbor, where Jim Horton lives on ten acres of woods. The trees had not yet leafed out, but the forest floor was covered in trillium and jack-in-the-pulpit. When I expressed my amazement to Jim, he promptly said “Let’s take a walk!” The four of us who had arrived early headed for the woods. Jim pointed out Cutleaf Toothwort. That was new to me! He also had lots of Mayapple, yellow violets, spring beauty, and trout lilies. What fun!

I had a major moment in establishing my credibility at this meeting. Some of us were downstairs in the shop where Jim was showing us his new Prouty, a mighty sweet press about the size of my Improved Pearl. He was telling us he hoped Joe Warren could come look at it because the ink disk wouldn’t cycle. In about two seconds Phil and I were behind and under the press looking at the mechanism. We were turning the flywheel, watching what was turning or not turning and trying different solutions. I finally realized that the collar holding the ink disk up was upside down. When I pointed this out, the guys were stunned. I got some high fives and some major points. It was great!  Now if I could do the same thing on my own problem press I’d feel even better.

Jim’s entire basement is a wholly dedicated print shop. He also has a greenhouse type addition to the house, where he has more equipment. It is a gorgeous space to work. Windows on three sides, plus the top. I could live that way.  But wait--I do, sort of. My shop in the backroom has windows running the length of two walls—I’m not looking out at woods, but still, it’s better than a basement. 

Today was Friday the 13th, and quite an auspicious day it turned out to be! After a day and a half of intense reorganization planning, my boss told us all to go home at noon. I was exhausted. It had been a hard week. Prepare for the reorg task force. Fly to Tulsa to meet with the CBA rep, get a 6am flight home in order to attend a meeting from 1:30 to 5:00 pm, then have two days of task force with the Cengage folks. Whew.

Got home and Jack and I took a little nap. Nicely refreshed we went off to the Yellow Stand and bought some tomatoes, zucchini, summer squash, essential herbs like cilantro, basil and flat leaf parsley.  We've been buying plants there for years, and they know us quite well, so when our favorite gal saw I was buying a Sweet 100 tomato she talked me into getting a Sunsweet tomato as well. She guaranteed it would be sweeter and I'd like it better. The problem was they only came in four-packs. We may share a couple plants with the girls across the street. We got all the vegies planted. And Jack put in seeds for Sugar Snap peas, and purple and yellow wax beans. Yum. 

We also moved the last cement step from the middle of the yard and set it on top of the other one by the raised beds. It is now tall enough to be a perfect spot for a sit. Just one step was a little bit low, and made it really hard to stand back up.

Fully pooped, we quit and adjourned for dinner.  We still need to plant seeds for lettuce, spinach and chard. We are supposed to get rain tonight, tomorrow and Sunday. So those seeds might not get planted until Monday. No matter.

May 2 - Turned my back

I have been out of town for two weeks. I thought I'd be coming home to spring. Green! Leaves! Tulips! Flowing trees!  Nope. Michigan was under the continuing cold spell that we left. Cool, rain mixed with snow. But even cool weather can't stop everything. 

On my way to work this morning I saw a pair of Canadas with their little kids being carefully herded in between them-- three little goslings about the size of a tennis ball with legs and heads. I wonder what happened to the rest of the babies? Eaten by cats? Snapping turtles? Victims of unconscious drivers?  Not a very pleasant contemplation. Easier to think about the doting parents and sweet babes.

Did I tell you we are moving to Utah? So far we have a foot in each camp: working on a house to sell and working on a house to live in. The Parkview ornithology is going to be just as interesting as what we have here in Michigan.  Growing up in that house, it never seemed like there were many birds. However Jack has been keeping feeders filled for the last six months. The yard is alive with what David calls tweety-birds, meaning who knows what that fast little shy bird is.

The thistle feeders are covered with Pine Siskins and House Finches. The sunflower feeders are being enjoyed by chickadees, downy woodpeckers, and scrub jays. The magpies, flickers, jays and downies fuss over the suet. Ground feeders like juncos scrabble under the feeders. Saw a rufous sided towhee very busy digging through the pine needles to find edibles underneath. And the pair of Peregrine's that nested in the yard last year were very busy in overhead circles, but I didn't see them land in the yard. (darn!)

It is interesting how bird species are being categorized. Growing up we had juncos. They were slate gray with darker heads and lighter gray breasts. There were different species of juncos in the east and in California. Now the bird experts say they are all the same junco, just some color variations. Okaay. So welcome to the world of subspecies. What used to be four separate species are now just one, but one with great diversity.  The juncos that I saw in the Parkview yard were what is now called a Grayheaded Junco and have rufous side patches. Interesting.

I was also able to add two birds to my life list! A Townsend's Solitaire and what I'm about 90% sure was a Bushtit, both hung around the pine tree outside of the kitchen window long enough for me to grab the Audubon book and identify them. Cool!

The photo to the right is the Townsend's Solitaire. It has a distinctive light circle around the eye, and a very sharp black beak.

Jack identified a very odd oversized bird working over the feeder. Turns out the deer like sunflower seeds. They would come up and lick the side of the feeder. (No, we are not putting out salted sunflower seeds, before you ask.)  They would also paw through the snow and clean up all the discarded hulls. That's some kind of roughage!

Meanwhile it is finally starting to warm up. The mid-50s and perhaps even a day in the 60s are in our upcoming forecast. Can't wait!

The early spring bloomers that are usually at peak in mid April are finally starting to open up. Amy's yellow primroses, blue and pink anemones are getting bigger every day. A few pansies overwintered and are blooming as well. The daffodils are starting. The lovely little pulmenarias that usually bloom in March as the snow melts are finally opening up as well. I can see the first dark tips of mertensia poking up and the tulips are about 8 inches high. The maples are finally budding so while there are still many many bare limbs on trees that bud later on, the world is slowly shifting to a blush of chartreuse.

The grass is even looking plumped up and greener. Time to start the daily walks around the yard to see what is new, what's about to bloom or bud out. It's a great time to be alive.

29 March 2011 - Contrails

I love clouds. I have literally hundreds of photographs of clouds. Many of them have been taken through the window of an airplane. Looking down on clouds is so different than looking up. Yes, I have seen clouds from both sides. What is particularly interesting about looking at clouds from above, is that you can see the effect of the wind patterns in the formations. You can’t always see enough sky from the ground to see these patterns.  In my list of obsessions, clouds are right up there with pupating insects, the moon, ant risings, gnat tunnels and other favorite oddities. 

Today I discovered that I’m not the only one. There is a Cloud Appreciation Society, founded by Gavin Pretor-Pinney in the UK, and he has just published a book called The Cloud Collector’s Handbook. Now here’s a man after my own heart.  In the article about his new book there were two quotes that I love: 

o     “You just need to look and observe,” he said. “Sometimes getting too trained up  
        in something narrows your vision.”

·            o   As Mr. Pretor-Pinney sees it, you don’t have to possess something to collect it: 
                 “You just have to notice it and record it.

        

That perfectly defines how I feel about watching my backyard flora and fauna. Not to mention my love of cloud spotting. 

 I saw this amazing cloud formation while I was driving south on Middlebelt last May for my annual trip to the nurseries.  It was extremely windy so the formation did not last very long. I happened to look up and see what looked like a row of huge round hay bales. The bottom of this formation could not have been straighter if it was sitting on a flat surface. I pulled over into a parking lot to get the picture. In those few moments of parking and getting out of the car, the round bales were beginning to transform into a more oblong shape.




    Last September I went to Tollgate Gardens for a walk in their woods, and time away from people. It is a gorgeous setting: big pond, community gardens, orchard, alfalfa fields, children's garden. There is a lot to see and enjoy and rarely are there other people. Here's a row of hale bales that look very much like my hay bale clouds. I did a bit of research last May, trying to find out if that formation had a name. I found something similar that was called billows. I'm not sure if this is the same thing. I kind of like the idea of calling them hay bale clouds.


In the Pet Peeve department, one of my current  peeves is contrails. Over the last several years I have noticed how contrails don't disappear anymore. They spread out and become clouds. You get up in the morning to a perfect blue sky. By mid-afternoon the sky is no longer blue and is covered by hazy-white left from all the contrails that have blown out into clouds. This has been an unstated annoyance in my life view. 


All the clouds in this photo are contrails being blown out into cirrus type clouds.

While looking up cloud formations on the web I discovered I'm not the only one annoyed by this. And what a surprise to find that contrails are hugely controversial. The airlines want the public to believe that contrails are perfectly harmless and are just water vapor. However, there is a lot of research going on that shows it is not just water vapor. The researchers refer to these as chemtrails. In 1999 the Environmental Protection Agency put out a report  that verified jet fuel is highly toxic and that any persistent jet contrail plume will be laced with these toxic chemicals which negatively impact human health, agriculture, plants and animals. 


The report went on to say that these toxic ingredients may be the cause of:
      • Increases in dead and dying trees. The U.S. Forest Service notes changes in destructive forest fires  and relates this to increasing releases of combustible toxic chemicals in our atmospheric heating and testing programs and persistent jet contrails exacerbating climate change?

     • There are sharp increases in childhood rickets in many areas of the United States related to increasing cloud cover. A lack of Vitamin D is showing up in pregnant women and young children along with other associated health effects. There appears to be a breast cancer connection to Vitamin D deficiencies noted in recent studies.

• Global Dimming Studies are showing that less sunlight is reaching the earth but temperatures are increasing 

• There are sharp increases in clinical depression since the late 1980s, which could be related to less direct sunlight reaching the earth.

• When jet contrails and man-made clouds are coupled with NOAA’s 60+ listing of unregulated current and ongoing experimental weather modification programs in the United States, the synergistic effects could create enormous climate changes disrupting crop production, micro-climates, and plant health.

•  Increases, in molds, mildews, fungus, flue viruses and pests from increased night temperatures, due to man-made clouds which exacerbate global warming and change the climate, are escalating with limited studies being conducted.

• There are sharp increases in atmospheric water vapor which are caused and exacerbated by jet engine emissions, persistent jet contrails and man-made clouds trapping warmth in the atmosphere. According to the 2007 Climate Change Study, water vapor is one of the most important gases contributing to the greenhouse effect.

Wow.  And here I am merely annoyed they are covering up my blue sky. Who knew? Apparently planes are flying at higher altitudes now, and this allows the bigger, longer lasting and further reaching contrails. 

Granted, contrails make for dramatic sky photos, especially at sunset, but the consequences are something else to worry about.

20 March 2011 - Waiting on the rain

Today I am waiting on the rain. I want a heavy soaking rain that will wash away the last of winter. I want it to wash away the piles of cinders left over from the dirty snow. I want the matted, yellowed winter grass to be revived. I want the rain to be a sign to all the dormant bushes that they should leaf out, bloom, grow! It's a big want list, but not unreasonable.

The barometer plummeted, the sky is dark, the wind is out of the east and I'm waiting. I waited it out all morning in a practical way. Went out and raked the ditches, the berm and some of lawn. Picked up branches, filled 9 yard waste bags with leaves. Under the layers of leaves I found the bright red points of peonies, daffs, tulips, the beginning green-up of perennials such as golden poppy, mertensia, lung wort. And new little plants from heavy reseeders like larkspur. It was wonderful.

The rain was supposed to start around two, rain all afternoon and then turn into thunderstorms for evening and overnight. At 5pm, still no rain, but if I look at the radar map on the bug, it should be pouring out there. humph.

The silver maples' buds have burst open into bloom. They are small insignificant flowers, but en masse they put on quite a show. Especially when the sun hits the stamens and makes everything shimmer.

Depending on the weather, and the latitude, they bloom anywhere from February through March. I always wondered what early bee would pollinate these flowers, but I just recently learned they are wind pollinated. No wonder there are so many thousands of seedpods. While the resultant helicopters are a pain to gardeners: they're messy and they germinate immediately, they have their place in the world as foodstuff for squirrels and a wide range of birds. Since the buds first swell in February, they are important for squirrels whose food supply is usually depleted in late winter. 

Last night was the equinox accompanied by the full moon in perigee. When the moon first appeared low on the horizon it was a deep gold, and almost obscured by all the trees.

I spent the evening popping outside every 15 minutes, waiting for it clear the trees. As it rose and got brighter, the sky around the moon was light--almost blue.

When it cleared the trees, it was so bright, it was almost hard to look at. A slight haze increased the aura around it. 

I am so glad the night was clear and that I didn't miss any of this. Witnessing such spectacles are a holy experience for me. Sometimes I think I will self-combust from rapture.

Meanwhile, I am waiting for the rain.

18 March 2011 - Full Moon Equinox

The last of the snow melted today! I think Lewis Carroll said it best.
'O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
He chortled in his joy.

Believe me, this is definitely worth chortling about. Two days away from the equinox, the birds are all back, the crocuses are blooming, the lawn is greening up, the perennials are unfurling the first tight buds, it is a joyous time.

Better yet, it is beginning to warm up. 40s? That feels right warm compared to what we've been through. Last weekend the sun was out and warmed up the brick and the deck area. I dragged two chairs and the patio table out of the garage. Spent an hour last Saturday morning sitting in the warm sun with a cup (okay, several) of coffee and absolutely delighted in doing nothing but feeling the heat through my jeans and listening to the birds.

I have previously mentioned my six o'clock ducks. They are still doing fly-bys at 6 pm, but in addition to that I now have morning geese. Unlike my whispering ducks, the geese are noisy. Sounds like they are all honking at the same time, some inner vee dispute about which way to fly?  They fly overhead between 8 and 8:30 am. I usually hear them coming from some distance, so I can go out and watch them pass over. Lately I have been getting 3 large vees of geese about 5 minutes apart. Maybe all the honking is to keep in touch with the vees behind them.

The moon will be full on the equinox and will be in perigee to boot! It will be the biggest moon in 18 years. Even tonight, almost full, it hung so close in the sky. Beautiful. I ran out for pictures tonight in case we get the promised rain and I won't be able to see her at the fullest point. 

Early in the evening, while low on the horizon it was caught behind all the trees. Here it looks as though the globe is being held between two long skinny fingers.  It is also interesting that there were several branches that crossed in front of the moon, but she was putting out so much light that it blew them right out of the picture.

 

 An hour or so later I went out to check on her upward progress. The sky had a light cloud cover and she was drifting through it like an exotic dancer with veils of chiffon. Tantalizing and mysterious.

Saturday, March 19

I had big plans for today. I was going to paint the ceilings in the dining and living rooms. If I was on a roll I was going to continue down the hall. It was a plan. But plans change.

We are supposed to get rain tomorrow. All the snow is gone and I had to get out in the yard. So far I have raked all the leaves, branches and other winter detritus out of the front flower bed, the bed in front of the house, and the big fern bed under the kitchen window. I was going to stop at the point, but I couldn't let the March blooming lung wort languish under a heavy layer of wet leaves.Now that they are exposed to sun and air, I'll bet they will be blooming in a couple of days.

I was surprised to see how many spiders and small beetles were scuttling under the leaves I was raking. I would have thought it was too early for bugs, but I was happy to see them. Gives the birds something to eat. 

I have a pair of tufted titmouses very busy in the yard and on the feeder. I also saw a pair of goldfinches. He was starting to lose his olive drab. Wasn't bright yellow, but kind of buttery.

In other first sightings, I saw a turkey vulture (or buzzard) today. Just one, making big circles over the neighborhood, slowly moving north. March 15 is the official day that buzzards come back to Hinckley Ohio. Hinckley is about halfway between Cleveland and Akron, a three hour drive from Detroit. I guess one left the party early.

The moonrise was exquisite tonight. Low on the horizon it was golden, getting lighter and whiter as it rose in the sky. The light it was putting out cast shadows on the ground.  According to NASA Science New, perigee moons are about 14% bigger and 30% brighter than lesser moons that occur on the apogee side of the Moon's orbit. I can certainly vouch for the brightness. Even though we had slight haziness, the light burned through it, but the haze also made a halo effect around the moon. Amazing.