Rock Me Amadeus 'Till I'm Stoned

A gorgeous afternoon, and a bit of time, allows a quick post on rocks and stones for this Gardening Gone Wild thing that goes on every month. I'm a virgin participator. Wanted to get in before my blog break. Stone in 3--2--1 contact!

My wife's office has an egress window. Said window area was filled with ugly pea gravel for drainage. She figured why not put a thin layer of something more attractive on top? I give you slate bits. A lovely, contemporary feel which will, I hope, soon be adorned with morning glory vines dangling down (will they succumb to my will?).

















But to the rest of the garden. Lots of stone steppers lead you through, fork at the fountain--avec river stone, perhaps not big enough river stones--and twist a bit around the not so level back yard (it slopes down in two directions: toward the house and parallel to it).



























Then there was extra stone, so I made a temporary path out front in the (mostly) shade bed betwixt the garage and sidewalk. Once, a boyscout used it with great whimsy after we ignored the doorbell. Oh, the path is temporary because I figure that young's weeping white birch will grow, unless the borers get to it first, but I'm trying to keep the soil around it how birches prefer so as to ensure its healthiness.




















Here's a stone that weighs at least 40lbs. I found it where an iris had to go. Is it a native?













And aren't mountain bluets neat? (Centaurea montana) Ciao.

Installing a Disappearing Fountain

This will not be a super detailed how to guide with pictures along the way, because along the way I got a little angry and frustrated and couldn't stop until I was done with the beast. The project shouldn't have lasted 6-7 hours, but it did.

If you do a little bit of research online, you'll see there are two basic ways to install such a fountain: dig a hole, put some liner in, cinder block to hold the pot or stone, insert pump, backfill with rock; or, dig the hole, put in a pre made plastic tub, put in cinder blocks to hold weight, put a black plastic grate on top of that, then a fine mesh layer to catch debris, then cover with rocks (don't forget to cut off a corner of the grate to get at the pump). Get that?

You are nuts to try option one--how long would it take you to get to the pump for cleaning or winter storage? And wouldn't the mesh help keep stuff away from the pump (am I dreaming?). So, I went with option two. The problem for me was that once I put the pot on top of the grate, it was quickly obvious there was not enough support to keep the pot from wobbling--even with one, then two cinder blocks beneath (the plastic grate isn't reinforced like it should be). Once I removed the grate and put the pot directly on the cinders, it was stable--and once I shimmed the pot, as it wasn't even level on the bottom! (You might not have this problem if you used a large square-based stone. BTW, getting a drilled stone about 3' tall would run you around $600 in Lincoln comma Nebraska. $300 at least for the stone, then $10 per inch to drill a hole; and this is still cheaper than buying the complete deal at a nursery or landscaper. Way outa' my price range.)

So, went to Home Depot and bought two 12" square cement steppers. Cut a 12" square hole through the grate with a saw so the steppers could fit in, giving height to the vase-shaped pot (wanted to keep the vase shape, not be buried by rock if I had just cut a round hole in the grate so the pot would sit directly on the cinder blocks). Then, I put the pot on the two steppers, which were on top of the cinder blocks. Voila.

That was harder than leveling the plastic basin on a very slight incline, and making sure the whole thing was an inch or two above grade, as an area nearby floods and holds water in a very heavy rain.

The next day after install a grackle perched on the fountain's lip and took a drink. Yes! Too bad it was a grackle.

This is not a regular pot--it is cast concrete with a covered top, which has a hole where you can screw in different fountain heads if you choose. A hose runs out the bottom (or out the side, has two holes), and connects to the pump. It's pretty heavy, and I had to move it 20 times while my wife and I figured out how to make the thing stable (it IS Nebraska = much wind). I thought about getting a regular planter, but didn't want to mess with more than I had to--like cutting pvc pipe, finding a way to secure it to the pot's bottom, dealing with leaks, et cetera.

I think it looks pretty nifty, and if it attracts more birds, cool. Right now it's on an extension cord and timer, plugged in to a gfi on the deck, but I've read it's safer to have an electrician come and install an outlet right by the fountain. $$$



















And, as an aside to this long post--I'll soon be taking a moderate hiatus from blogging to live my life for a bit (boy it's consuming)--enjoy the below pics of the incredible plum / eggplant colored smokebush leaves (royal purple), the leaves of dappled willow on a stick (a real one purchased from a real nursery), and a mourning dove watching me pull weeds.

Lilacs Smell Like Urinal Cakes

It's true. Try it. Of course, the opposite is just as true, but this is creepier.

This message brought to you by things best not discussed. (Note, the left is not a lilac, it's a hibiscus bloom, as close as I could get.)

On Plant Rights / On Wind Power

Two things today kids. The first from http://ww3.startribune.com/kerstenblog/?p=431 on Switzerland's push for plant rights. Some quotes:

The Swiss have added a provision to their constitution requiring “account to be taken of the dignity of creation when handling animals, plants and other organisms.” The Swiss were unsure what this high-flown rhetoric meant, so they did what we moderns always do when faced with such conundrums: They referred the matter to a panel of experts.

The panel’s report predictably muddied the already muddy waters with platitudes and jargon. More helpful were its concrete examples of how to negotiate this ethical swampland. Smith cites one example:

The committee offered this illustration: A farmer mows his field (apparently an acceptable action, perhaps because the hay is intended to feed the farmer’s herd–the report doesn’t say). But then, while walking home, he casually ‘decapitates’ some wildflowers with his scythe. The panel decries this act as immoral, though its members can’t agree why.

The report states, opaquely: ‘At this point it remains unclear whether this action is condemned because it expresses a particular moral stance of the farmer toward other organisms or because something bad is being done to the flowers themselves.’

I'v enothing to say about that, Gump. Here's some stuff on wind power; why our country is so butt ass backwards is beyond me! (Indeed, I use the rhetoric of the learned to make my argument.)

Two decades from now Americans could get as much electricity from windmills as from nuclear power plants, according to a government report that lays out a possible plan for wind energy growth.

The report, a collaboration between the Energy Department research labs and industry, concludes wind energy could generate 20 percent of the nation's electricity by 2030, about the same share now produced by nuclear reactors.

"The report indicates that we can do this nationally for less than half a cent per kilowatt hour if we have the vision," said Andrew Karsner, the Energy Department's assistant secretary for efficiency and renewable energy.

If achieved, it would be an astounding leap.

Wind energy today accounts for only about 1 percent of the nation's electricity, although the industry has been on a growth binge with a 45 percent jump in production last year.

"The United States possesses abundant wind resources," said the report spearheaded by DOE's National Renewable Technology Laboratory in Golden, Colo., and a 20 percent share of electricity production "while ambitious, could be feasible."

But the report cautioned that its findings were not meant to predict that such growth would, in fact, be achieved, but only that it is technically possible. And it acknowledged "there are significant costs, challenges and impacts" associated with such rapid growth.

It would require improved turbine technology, "significant changes" and expansion of power line systems and a major expansion of markets for wind energy to accommodate an annual growth rate of 16,000 megawatts of electricity a year beginning in 2018, more than five times today's annual growth.

Randall Swisher, executive director of the American Wind Energy Association, said the report confirms that wind energy "is no longer a niche" in the power industry.

http://www.startribune.com/nation/18862859.html

Yesterday, on the drive back from Omaha on I-80, I had to keep pulling my car left due to the always strong southerly winds. As I was doing this, two super long tractor trailers were heading the other direction--both carried loads of two very long turbine blades apiece. That was nice. Boy are those blades big.

Anyway, I've become a supporter for nuclear power. I don't like this, but I see it as a very viable energy source for a TRANSITION to renewable sources like wind, solar, hydrogen, and NOT ethanol. Ethanol is dumb. Unless it comes from switchgrass, then it is not dumb.

Yo, R.I.P.

Angelica Gigas
Korean Angelica

Campanula trachelium ‘Bernice’
Throatwort / Nettle-Leafed Bellflower

Ceratostigma plumbaginoides
Hardy Plumbago

Clematis heracleifolia ‘China Purple’
Tube Clematis

Dianthus caryophyllus
‘Prairie Pink’

Dianthus x ‘Double Spotty’

Heuchera ‘Marmalade’
Coral Bells

Lobelia cardinalis (wet winter feet?)
Cardinal Flower

Lobelia cardinalis ‘Queen Victoria’ (wet winter feet?)
Cardinal Flower

Penstemon x mexicalli ‘Red Rocks’
Beardtongue

Blackberry Poems

I recently purchased a black chokeberry--not the same thing, but the two poems below are ones that always seem to haunt my writing (a good thing), and the shrub made me think of them.
-------------------

Meditation at Lagunitas

All the new thinking is about loss.
In this it resembles all the old thinking.
The idea, for example, that each particular erases
the luminous clarity of a general idea. That the clown-
faced woodpecker probing the dead sculpted trunk
of that black birch is, by his presence,
some tragic falling off from a first world
of undivided light. Or the other notion that,
because there is in this world no one thing
to which the bramble of blackberry corresponds,
a word is elegy to what it signifies.
We talked about it late last night and in the voice
of my friend, there was a thin wire of grief, a tone
almost querulous. After a while I understood that,
talking this way, everything dissolves: justice,
pine, hair, woman, you and I. There was a woman
I made love to and I remembered how, holding
her small shoulders in my hands sometimes,
I felt a violent wonder at her presence
like a thirst for salt, for my childhood river
with its island willows, silly music from the pleasure boat,
muddy places where we caught the little orange-silver fish
called pumpkinseed. It hardly had to do with her.
Longing, we say, because desire is full
of endless distances. I must have been the same to her.
But I remember so much, the way her hands dismantled bread,
the thing her father said that hurt her, what
she dreamed. There are moments when the body is as numinous
as words, days that are the good flesh continuing.
Such tenderness, those afternoons and evenings,
saying blackberry, blackberry, blackberry.

--Robert Haas

-----------------------

Blackberry Eating

I love to go out in late September
among the fat, overripe, icy, black blackberries
to eat blackberries for breakfast,
the stalks very prickly, a penalty
they earn for knowing the black art
of blackberry-making; and as I stand among them
lifting the stalks to my mouth, the ripest berries
fall almost unbidden to my tongue,
as words sometimes do, certain peculiar words
like strengths or squinched,
many-lettered, one-syllabled lumps,
which I squeeze, squinch open, and splurge well
in the silent, startled, icy, black language
of blackberry-eating in late September.

--Galway Kinnell

While Grading Papers the Air Force Arrives

So much depends

upon

an afternoon

grading

at the kitchen

table with

B-52s

and various

birds lined

in red

I heard the loudest rush of jetness in my life, and for good reason. The B-52 is the largest bomber in the world and has 8 engines--all needed to make its very tight turn in high wind for the runway, and luckily not over my house. It has tiny wheels at each wing tip because when it lands the length and weight makes each wing touch the ground. Eh. This one did around 3-4 touch and goes at the airport, and being a military plane nerd I enjoyed seeing my first one in person. (I'm eclectic--I like poetry, war movies, middle eastern music, gardening, cleaning up hairballs, failing students, and eating very expensive desserts for dinner. Not in that order.)

And birds. We had birds today. Red house finches, yellow finches, a grackle, the cardinal couple which must be nesting so very close by, a robin, a possible sparrow, red wing blackbirds, and a mourning dove.

We've new neighbors slowly moving in next door--please, please do not have big loud dogs or a trailer to adorn the driveway. And please don't stand on your deck overlooking my garden, holding a beer, scratching your belly, just staring at me with a glossy-eyed look that I could interpret in any number of creepy ways (a previous neighbor). The river birch can't grow fast enough along that side of the house.

Speaking of the garden: we've got the young and brightly variegated leaves of Eupatorium altissimum ‘Prairie Jewel’ Mistflower; Viola 'Ultima Morpho'; Ivory Halo dogwood #1; a very Mellow Yellow spirea; and the only two colors of tulips I'll ever have--blackish purple and white.

Tale of Two Clematis--Terniflora vs. Virginiana

Warning: native vs. non native treasure hunt story and dismay at nurseries in 3...2....

So, I bought a C. terniflora last fall from some mail order place. I thought, cool, fast grower, tons of white flowers in late summer and fall when all else is ugly. Luckily, it has appeared to die--luckily because I've researched just how terribly invasive and non native (Asia) the thing was.

Which brought me to our native and very similar C. virginiana. Also a fast grower to around 15' tall, white flowers a bit earlier, pretty much the same deal. Also a bit invasive it seems, but much less, and it's native. I'd been reading horror stories about terniflora choking native woods and colonizing gardens and neighboring yards (even years after it'd been removed).

Before I went to buy a replacement, hoping to find the native locally and avoid ordering one online, I discovered nurseries may sell both under the same common name: sweet autumn clematis. Deal is, the leaves are very different, as you can see below from the first two pics (#1 is terniflora, #2 is virginiana).

At the nursery then to buy an expensive vine ($25 seems steep to me, but I know it's not for a clematis). Looking through the plants to confirm these are indeed the non native, I come across a very few labeled as terniflora, but clearly have different leaves. Huh? Could it be that among the foreign invaders some natives have been wrongly labeled? Or, is it that in the nursery trade one sweet autumn clematis really is like another no matter what? (And how stupid is that? And why are they selling the aggressive non native anyway?) You be the judge: doesn't it look like I got C. virginiana? Pat on the back anyone? I will pat myself, anyway. Pat pat pat. Ruuuuub. Ummm, that sure feels good. Want to go back to my place?

Damn Word Verifications on Blogs

I enjoy visiting other blogs, and I enjoy writing comments on interesting posts. However, I do not enjoy it so much that I want to spend an extra 30 seconds trying to figure out what those squiggly-smashed-together-help-me-I'm-melting letters might really be. How many times have I typed in a comment, then typed in the letters and numbers to verify I ain't spam, only to find out the "j" was an "i" or the "l" a "z" (seriously), and THEN lose my comment to a page refresh. Then I give up. Then I rant here.

To Kill or Not to Kill the Yellowjackets

I'm having my first insect eco awareness crisis. Usually, I'd have already sprayed the growing nests in the corner of my fence, between the planks and the corner post. This corner, where the wasps are congregating, is sorta out of the way, about 8' from the garden path. But I'm terribly afraid of them, much more so then pretty much any other insect, including bees. When I was pulling weeds yesterday a wasp buzzed right by me a few times--was I too close? I was not too close--it's my yard.

So, do I leave them be (er, wasp), and hope they keep bad insects at bay and / or do some pollinating? Do I try to ignore my huge fear? Or, do I just do what most people do and Raid their nest?

I don't know if I've suddenly become too sensitive on this issue and now what was once a simple decision becomes a long drawn out reflection and blog entry. It's silly, really. I'm a fairly decisive person, mainly because I get impatient about such trivial things. (I may already be walking outside to spray, then.) Some will laud my careful feelings, but I don't want to be praised--I want to be normal. I want to be fast--this whole thing makes me feel slow, older, too methodical, unwilling to move on (this is not meant as a shot at people older than me, just an awareness of my changing perspectives and priorities in the world).

I blame this squarely on Douglas Tallamy and his Bringing Nature Home. Oh, and Wild Flora.

Spring Affair Plant Sale

You always spend more than you think you will--even if the containers are small, even plugs. I thought I had $50 worth. I had twice that. Luckily, I'm always dismayed at the quality of lawn art, otherwise, the bill would've been higher.

Sponsored by the NE Statewide Arboretum, UNL Botanical Garden, and the State Fair Park, it was my 2nd time to this cRaZy madhouse of plants. Last year I was overwhelmed and got nothing. This year I came knowing FAR more about plants and what I was looking for and what would work in my garden, and I bought many cool cool cool things--especially variegated iris, sedum, and a Caryopteris. Anything named "gold" or "aurea" or had dark / variegated leaves just jumped in my flat, as some would say. Devilish plants. In no special order:

Achillea 'Apricot' Milfoil Yarrow
Monarda 'Jacob Cline'
Penstemon 'Husker Red' (already have one, and it's COOL)
Viola 'Ultima Morpho'
Viola cornuta 'Johnny-Jump-Up'
Viola pedata Bird's Foot (for the endangered regal fritillary butterfly)
Sedum grisbachii
Sedum kamtschaticum 'The Edge'
Sedum spurium 'Fuldaglut' and 'Tricolor'
Herniaria glabra 'Sea Foam' (good for urinary problems!)
Sempervivum braunii Hen and Chicks (for my grandma)
Sagina subulata 'Aurea' Corsican Pearlwort
Caryopteris x clandonensis 'Longwood Blue'
Iris ensata 'Variegata'
Asclepias incarnata 'Ice Ballet' Swamp Milkweed (for the monarchs)
Asclepias tuberosa Butterfly Weed (monarchs...)
Agastache cana 'Sinning' Sonoran Sunset (my lord these smell GOOD)
Veronica fasciculata Ironweed
Acorus calamus Sweet Flag
Acorus G 'Minimus Aureus' Variegated Sweet Flag
Eupatorium rugosom 'Chocolate' Mist Flower (can never have enough of these!)
Liatris punctata Blazing Star
Sundown and Twilight coneflowers (will these die on me again?)
Actaea (cimicifuga) ramosa 'Pink Spike' Bugbane
Caryopteris x clandonensis 'Worcester Gold'

What's Wrong With My Graft???

Long story short, I bought a Salix integra 'Hakuro Nishiki' on a standard from Home Depot. Before you purists harangue me, note 95% of my plants come from local and indie nurseries. The shrub on a stick was just so darn NEAT. And I'm trying to help out with this Arbor Day thing. Yeah.

Being a tad blind, I bought it without noticing the graft union. This doesn't look right, does it. Is there anything I can do to help it? Was I a sucker? (It's not planted yet, either.) The twigs look good, it's leafing out, so things must be working, but I'm concerned about pests and diseases. I've included pics of two sides--there are two sides to every graft, you know. Click for bigger image.

Submission Failure

Since August, and mainly last fall, I sent out my largest blitz of writing ever. The results? Dismal.

Literary Journals:
66 sent to
51 rejected
15 still out
1 accepted

Contests (individual poems or essay):
15 sent to
9 rejected
8 still out

Full Length Poetry Book Contests / Open Reading Periods:
11 sent to
3 rejected
8 still out

Chapbook Contests:
6 sent to
2 rejected
4 still out

Why Are People Afraid of Poetry?

I was talking with someone today (now I've done it) about why so many folks would rather read a piece of prose--any piece of prose--over a poem. The reasoning is that it takes many reads to "get" a poem, so it's harder to engage. When I teach, even in poetry classes with poetry students, the same issues come up:

--Why don't I get this? Should I? What am I missing?
--What does the author mean?
--I know I should like this, but I don't.
--I'm pretty sure this is well written, but it's hard to know.
--This sounds beautiful, but I still don't get it.

My answer to the above is at first an angry hmph, then it's a questioning about our FAILED attempts at educating or teaching poetry, about poetry as one necessary part to living are lives more richly. Our history with reading poetry is one where we either read langauge that isn't contemporary and so alienates us, or language that is self gratifying and not an act of communication. It's masturbating. I said it. It's 98% of poetry published today. So, I'd answer the above questions with:

--If you don't get it then the poet either failed as an artist (and that's ok) and / or it's just not your cup of tea (and that's ok).
--Who cares? Move on if it doesn't click with you. Life's too short.
--No you shouldn't. Life's too short....
--It very well might be well written, it might be gorgeous language, but poetry fails because it doesn't do both essential things for a poem to be great: communicate via fresh clarity of thought and sound.
--I don't get it either. Life's too short....

Poetry fails us because it's losing out to a visual dumbing down of culture where we want immediacy and someone else to think for us (I don't get who wants to be thought for, but whatever). Instant gratification. Poetry CAN do this, but does such poetry fail? Does it become too simple? Does a simple poem ask us to still read it over and over searching for some deeper meaning, some theory? Why can't a poem be a poem, a moment of grace, a moment of focused intensity, a sublime cherry on the desert of life? I hate what I just said.

The Red Wheelbarrow (William Carlos Williams)

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

A simple poem. An elegant poem. English academics have studied this poem to death and talked out their posteriors so much that the room needs a good venting. So much depends upon a red wheelbarrow. Yes. It does. Can't you imagine having this moment in your life? Sitting somewhere, seeing a wheelbarrow, thinking this? Isn't that a wonderful moment? Isn't that just a pure and right moment where you feel connected to the world around you, richer, living your life more deeply? Isn't that enough? Isn't it MORE than enough?

I could go on, but I'm not wanting to write an essay on a blog. I am a poet. I am a poet because I notice things, write them down, and happen to do a decent job of it once and a while if I work hard. Sometimes I don't have to work hard, but that's because I've worked hard all the other times. Poetry is valuable only in as much as it communicates a moment to us and moves us on some level. If we don't click with that moment, there will be other poems, other moments--all we need is one moment, one poem, to have our perspective changed forever.

My fear is that, in a rush rush visual culture that seeks to destroy individuality and moments of solace and introspection and independent thought, will there be any moments left for poems to enliven us? Will poems that effect us matter? (Should we force poetry classes on students just to get them to settle down, focus, and have moments again? Like quiet time in preschool or recess?) As Christian Wiman says, "[...] we now live in a world that seems almost designed to eradicate the inner life. When a real poem falls on such soil, how is it supposed to take root?”

A More Sublime Post on Buckthorn, Loosestrife, Teaching

An evening in the upper 70s will change a man (woman, too, I'd imagine). Things sure did pop today--warmest day of the year. Both maples are near bloom, the willows are very green, and below the Mellow Yellow spiraea has begun to bloom. The variegated foliage of Lysimachia punctata ‘Alexander’ yellow loosestrife is pink in spring, but that'll turn to cream with yellow flowers in summer. (don't confuse this plant with that nasty invasive purple kind)














The freaky awards go to Sambucus nigra 'Black Lace' elderberry and Rhamnus frangula ‘Ron Williams’ Fine Line buckthorn. Like spiders or something halloween-ish.

And the wasps are back; can't say I missed those much. One buzzed me. Pollinators or not, yellowjackets and me are like eggs and tabasco sauce--it's just wrong. However, our regular evening diners were here again tonight: a pair of cardinals. The male always gets the feeder, the female the grass below. What patriarchy have we here? But he does swoop down a few feet from her, hops over, and I swear they kiss--they do actually touch beaks, but only briefly. I've seen this several times now. Please, no one email me and tell me he's regurgitating seeds for her.

The end of the school year is two weeks away and I am sad and excited. Sad because 1) so much grading is coming up and 2) I've had (who knows if my students have had) my favorite class to teach ever in my 7 years of college educatin' (well, it's maybe more like a tie, a close tie). It helps that roughly half want to be there, given it's upper level poetry literature--a break from freshman comp was also fan-freaking-tastic--but it also helps that they are all terribly bright, engaging, and fun to talk to in class or out. There's so much more I wanted to cover with them but didn't--I mean this not in the sense of boy, there's so much poetry to look at, but boy there's so much more I wanted to challenge them with because I know they'd run with it in exciting ways and there's a lot I wanted to hear their opinions on. I will miss them. I hope they are not reading this post right now--I know some have found my blog, and I'm a bit vulnerable right now.

Why Spring Stinks

Someone has been grinding up the world's largest tree all afternoon. People mow their lawns at the first hint of new growth (why?); then these same zealots begin the 24 application regimen of fertilizing their yard and polluting my water (which they also do by taking tylenol and hormones and antacids and...).

While gardening, I no longer hear just the prison loudspeakers in the exercise yard, but the framers singing to Bon Jovi on the radio as they build the house across the streeet, people somewhere in the trees sharing lewd jokes, the scrape and rattle of strollers on the street with parents talking (screaming) to each other about what to have for dinner, the back neighbor practicing his golf swing and finding golf balls near--not yet in--my yard, the air force reserve refuling tankers having more touch and go runs than usual (runway is just a few miles north).

I could just stay inside, couldn't I? But then how could I be a 31 year old curmudgeon? Some day my shrubs and trees will buffer me, hide me, protect me, envelop me, and we'll commiserate together in the solace of our smugness and absence. Until then, anyone want to go pull weeds?

Got My Sambucus

But first, a sign you might find at the Electric Company:

"We would be delighted if you send in your payment.
However, if you don't, you will be."

I got me an elderberry that no one in Lincoln has--went to Omaha (where a fountain will be coming from, HUGE nursery, my lands). Sambucus racemosa 'Sutherland Gold.' I'm excited about this plant if it looks anything like Nan Ondra's . So, for $25 it's 18" tall and wide and in a 5 gallon container. Not bad, I think. Plus I hear it's a fast grower? Will it cross pollinate with the Black Lace thirty feet away? Sutherland is in front of some dark green cedars, beneath a tall mystery-deciduous tree, and behind a bench, where it's full glory will tickle one's cranium in a few years. Np pictures cuz it's pointless.

The garden is greening up (reddening and oranging and yellowing and pinking, too). A few first blooms on the Spiraea thunbergii 'Ogon' Mellow Yellow. Cascade willow leafing out. I planted some milkweed seeds today, enjoying the 68 degrees, sun, no wind, and no rain--we've had 4" in our yard over the last 8-9 days. Silly post this is. Move on, now.

Mascot

Some days I wish I could walk around in one of those smiling, happy-faced mascot suits; that way no one would have to know what kind of day I'm really having and won't be affected negatively by it (I don't hide my emotions very well).

Other benefits include:

--Don't have to shower
--Don't have to dress nice
--Can flick people off at will
--Can make snide comments and faces
--Will stay warm and dry
--Better able to absorb impacts
--Though not the intent, people will avoid you at all costs

Ohhhh yeah.

(Seriously, don't you wonder about those people, who they are, what they're doing under that get up?)

Before a Departure in Spring

Once more it is April with the first light sifting
through the young leaves heavy with dew making the colors
remember who they are the new pink of the cinnamon tree
the gilded lichens of the bamboo the shadowed bronze
of the kamani and the blue day opening
as the sunlight descends through it all like the return
of a spirit touching without touch and unable
to believe it is here and here again and awake
reaching out in silence into the cool breath
of the garden just risen from darkness and days of rain
it is only a moment the birds fly through it calling
to each other and are gone with their few notes and the flash
of their flight that had vanished before we ever knew it
we watch without touching any of it and we
can tell ourselves only that this is April this is the morning
this never happened before and we both remember it

W.S. Merwin, The River Sound


(blogger won't let me indent the even numbered lines, so apologies, Mr. Merwin)

Viburnums, Coppertina, Maple, Compost, Anxiety

Monday morning I went to the dump and got 6 or so bins of compost--all that could fit in my hatchback. It sure is BLACK. Wow. God save the city of Lincoln and their free compost.

Then I moved 3 shrubs and planted 5: mostly planted some viburnum like winterthur, brandywine, and blue muffin (no botanical names for you). Also planted an ivory halo red twig dogwood. I do believe I need a pollinator yet for blue muffin. Winterthur and brandywine, both nudums, should work for each other if they bloom in sync--blue muffin looks like it'll bloom by May, much further ahead. I am so very sore today. I'm 31 for Pete Sampras' sake, but I did forget to stretch before planting, which I used to be religious about.

Then there's a pic of an October Glory maple thingy doing its thingy, and ninebark 'coppertina' has new coppery-yellow leaves. Angelina Jolie sedum looks good, too--that's what I call it now. I'm putting this post up today somewhat frantically in order to divert myself from general and specific anxieties--but you know, whenever it's windy outside (30-50mph today), I always feel more anxious anyway. Why is that? What does wind do, or mean, or say to me to create such a response? What resonance is this in me? Who or what is out of tune, or too in tune? Why can't it snow? I always feel calm when it snows.

Got Copper? Are You Sure It's Still There?

I've heard about thieves here in Lincoln comma Nebraska stealing copper wiring from cell phone towers, but hadn't heard about them actually living in foreclosed / vacant / listed homes for a few days to get the copper pipes, sinks, electrical wiring, et cetera. At $3 a pound, it makes sense. Apparently the best crews make $20k a month.

"It's an international problem with local repercussions. From the theft of large copper statues in England, to millions of dollars of missing copper in post-Katrina New Orleans, to a $300,000 copper heist from the irrigation system of an Arizona farm, the thieves have caused financial havoc.

In Minnesota, scavengers have dismembered a copper-coated Buddha, stolen statues from Theodore Wirth Park, snatched plates off of graves and stripped warehouses and construction sites of tens of thousands of dollars worth of the precious metal."

Grave markers? That's classy. But I wonder, too--what about gardens? What about my 100% copper trellis, obelisk, rain gauge, and fountain? I love copper in the garden, but will I wake up one day to find nothing left but morning glory and clematis vines dementedly wagging in the breeze?

Metal scrap shops have installed video cameras and signs in an attempt to make transactees more honest, and / or to aid in police investigations. I imagine it's in their best interest, too, as far as a bottom line--that copper will be bagged and tagged for the cops if it's ill gotten, and they'd be out some benjamins (that's right, "ill gotten" and "benjamins" in the same sentence).

Stop Mailing Me Crap I Paid For!!!

My wife and I were maligned the other day reflecting on the poor quality of our mail. Generally, like most, it's credit card offers (offers you thought you headed off by signing up for some "leave me the heck alone" service or other). Then there's also catalogs, but only ones we buy from--for me, that's 10 gardeny ones and Eddie Bauer. Rejection letters for my writing, too, 6 last week (working on a 99.5% rate since August). Bills. Bills. Bills. Death threats. Some I send.

Then we've got environmental organizations. Children's cancer research funds. And all of "those" things, worthy and good in their own right. So two years ago I gave some money to the National Parks Conservation Association, The Nature Conservancy, and the Rainforest Alliance. Fine, I felt like I could afford it, I believe in that stuff, I was happy I could help.

Apparently, they all hold strategy sessions in far off mystical places on how to market themselves via my contribution. "How can we spend this sucker's money? We need more members. In fact, we need more members with the same name and address. Send him some stuff."

Alas. I have too many stickers and return address labels, and now, this week, wrapping paper. Wrapping paper. With gift tags.

The National Wildlife Federation promises a backpack. I apparently "Love St. Jude." I have to save the Save-the Redwoods League. The Wildlife Land Trust sent me stickers my grandma would've liked, or any old lady. Barf. I have to save the polar bears, too--the lovey-dovey images of mom and cubs tell me so. Don't I just feel awful? The Center for Biological Diversity's slogan says I should donate "Because Life is Good." Is it? I was driving behind an idiot from planet stupid this morning going a full 10 under speed limit, clearly confused as to why he was driving a car, so he swung over two lanes to turn left without ever signaling. The wind is at 45mph and it's 30 something degrees. My neck hurts. People who shouldn't be sick or homeless are sick and homeless. Just lost a football-field-sized chunk of rainforest. And another. And another. And another.

And look what I just got in the mail!

If I give you 10, 20, or even 40 bucks, it means leave me the hell alone. Not to get you off my back, and most CERTAINLY not to get you to spend my money on sending me crap, but because I simply feel moved to.

Speaking of which--when I moved this summer I cleaned out my stamps and labels drawer. I had about 5 billion address labels I'd never use, and a gazillion stickers from every season, holiday, and moonrise from the last four years. I sometimes put two dozen stickers on a letter just to get rid of them. I'm thinking of doing this IF and WHEN I give money to such organizations as the above again. Maybe I could pay in stickers? Wrapping paper? That'd make life good.

Indoor Gardening Tips from a Man Who's Very Scared of Plants

Christopher Walken was on SNL this weekend, the only reason to ever watch the show. I can't seem to embed the video here, so follow the link. Anytime he says "googly eyes" I bust a gut (he sticks googly eyes on plants because he's afraid they'll kill him--well duh, who doesn't think that).

Apologies to others I've seen who've posted on this--I am riding coattails, but I must spread the good word.

Happy 7th Birthday, V

Why won't cats ever be cooperative? Why? Because this is what makes them wonderful. "You want me to wear this, huh? Not going to happen dip-wad. And once I get it off, I'm gonna tear your face off ever so gently. Then you're gonna feed me five pounds of whatever I want. Shortly thereafter I will regift the food as a smorgasbord of plastic wrap, hairball, stomach acid, and down feathers. You will love me for this."

Well, happy brithday V, you're the best cat a guy could ask for (and that's saying a lot given the other cats I've had in my life). It was worth driving up to Cleveland and forking over real money for a pure bred manx such as yourself.