Color commentary

It's a beautiful almost Fall battle of the complementary colors. Cheerleaders shake their pompons for the yellow and purple teams.  It's good to be outside watching the cosmic competition for bees. Just when it seemed purple would be the clear winner, yellow forced the game into overtime.

Spiny Eryngo, Eryngium leavenworthii, Heard Nature Sanctuary, McKinney, TX. Note tiny spider cheering for purple.

Water lilies, Dallas Arboretum.

Purple findings while walking Prairie Creek Park, Richardson, TX. (Over an inverted photo of a passion flower at the Heard.)

Morning glories, Arboretum All American Selections Trial garden.

Halftime.

 Tiger swallowtail on lantana at the Heard.

One of seven sunflowers along the fence of our school garden, Richardson, TX.

 Spider cheering for yellow.

Mystery eggs on one sunflower.

Overtime--Opening school sunflower vs. Dale Chihuly glass art installation at the Arboretum.

© 2012 Nancy L. Ruder

Wallowing in self pity and melted Parmesan

Nobody wants to hear my whole tale of woe. It's not the sort of stuff for Fox News or CNN or even Judge Judy. Instead I will offer two enchanting new short reads and two tiny tales, just little woe-Lite. I will alternate, beginning with a woelette so as to end with an upper. Okay?

• The squash vine borers found our brand new zucchini sprouts in the garden.  After the fancy dressing "bad boys" killed our first zucchini the schoolchildren dug and improved the soil and built a mound. They planted the seeds and waited for the sprouts. They decided which three sprouts looked the strongest, and pulled out the wimps. And the very next day the squash vine borers reappear. A five year old spotted the and started the special clapping signal for everyone to race to the garden. "This is gonna be BAD!," she announced. 

• Chapman's Odyssey, by Paul Bailey is the stream-of-conscious life-passing-before-his-eyes tale of a British poet/actor/professor/novelist. While not as fabulous as I'd hoped, it gave me a new way to think of some of my father's ramblings toward the end of his life.

• Seriously wiped out after my preschool day I got groceries and came home. Put things away in the kitchen, then spent a couple hours with a platypus. When I took the reusable bags back out to the car trunk I found the $3.76 container of shredded Parmesan behind the jumper cables.  The contents were melted into a solid glob.

• Albert of Adelaide is the can't-put-down tale of the platypus by New Mexico lawyer Howard L. Anderson. It's delightful, but hard to explain.  The best description I've seen is "if Larry McMurtry had written Wind in the Willows", although I might have said it was The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly crossed with Watership Down. You will be amazed how suspended your disbelief can be!

Much have I not travell'd in the realms of gold*, silver, and bronze, but I did catch a segment on NBC Sunday recalling Olga Korbut at the 1972 Olympics. Found myself suddenly misty-eyed.

© 2012 Nancy L. Ruder

Twilight Zone on the playground

Yes, this cicada tried to fly off with our picnic table.




















b

Two rowdy hawks have been perching on the telephone poles near the playground for three days.  They screech loudly, and sometimes fly off together.  A third hawk appears sometimes looking rather ruffed up or ruffled.  We don't understand the avian soap opera.  We need subtitles.

But what really knocked me out was your cheap sunglasses.






© 2012 Nancy L. Ruder

Weird world of insects

Oh, no, not another bug post. Yes another bug post, and with no pronunciation. But first a bit of culture. I always love seeing the Bruce Wood Dance Project perform. His choreography is so fresh and different from anything else.  And inspirational.*

My volunteer watermelon is hanging from a tomato cage, but now it has support hose.

The same watermelon plant was the scene of nature in action, straight out of Marlin Perkins and Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom.  This teeny predator stunned a fly and dragged it across the leaf and  to the underside to get away from the camera lady. 

This gorgeous visitor to the school zucchini plant has fuzzy pantaloons AND iridescent wings. He even wears a black cape sometimes. Naturally, he is a bad boy, but wouldn't that be a fabulous dance costume?

Squash vine borer

And two moths had me searching for the "belief in things unseen" quote.

Catocala moths at Oak Point Nature Preserve

Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

*Martha Graham, not Bruce Wood.

© 2012 Nancy L. Ruder

The United States of Tomatoes

At last, something we might all be able to agree on! Pulled these treasures out of a sack from a gardening friend and had a moment of unity and harmony, gratitude and optimism.

Maybe we could all just agree to agree about one thing.  In our divisive, polarized, obstructionist, toxic political climate could we all just get together behind homegrown tomatoes? I know you know deep in your core that there is nothing finer than a homegrown tomato.

An opportunity to savor the freshness and tangy juiciness, not to mention the glorious color, is just too good to waste with bombastic rhetoric, mud-slinging, or filibusters.  Nobody would hurl that gorgeous fruit at an opponent across the aisle if they could eat those lovely slices instead. Let's pass the globes gently with open hands.


We don't need to agree if the tomato is a vegetable or a fruit*.  The debate would keep us from the moment of bliss. We don't need to agree about bacon for a BLT.  How we each enjoy the homegrown tomato in the privacy of our own home is okay.  I'm just hoping for one simple point of agreement across the extremes. From that one tiny intersection, maybe a new spirit of compromise and constructive collaboration might spark.  


Maybe we could blur the lines a bit between the divisions in our country so that we could move on to cooperative efforts like pasta sauce and tomato/basil bisque. We could be less shrill and more savory.  And when we sit down together for a meal we might be able to agree to be grateful and polite, and then enjoy.


*So, the answer to the question is that a tomato is technically the fruit of the tomato plant, but it's used as a vegetable in cooking.


© 2012 Nancy L. Ruder

Unintentional watermelon/uncooperative lime

Life is good.  Limes are good.  Key limes would be nice.

I received a Key lime tree at the teacher appreciation luncheon, but my patio doesn't have enough pollinators to prod the blossoms toward fruit.

That's why I've been donning butterfly wings and rushing outside with my pollinator paintbrush shortly after sunrise.

So far no baby limes, but citrus hope springs eternal.  That's why I was so dashed when I started seeing green debris on the patio.  And then there was that influx of unwanted rodentia.

Let me just say I'm totally opposed to any rodents in the condo complex setting.  I don't care if it's an escaped gerbil, or a hormonal hamster.  So why are these rodents rushing my patio?  To eat little green things!  The LGTs are not baby limes.  Instead they are falling from the sky to bonk Chicken Little upside the head.

Actually, a squirrel was up in the neighbor's soapberry tree devouring green seeds, and knocking many more to the ground for other rodent marauders.  The soapberry tree is about ten years old.  It volunteered after a nice shade tree fell over.

Ten years makes a lot of winter soapberry mess falling on my patio.  On the upside, it's a lot of red admiral butterflies and hummingbirds, too.  But this is the first I remember of summer LGT mess:

Finally have a result of my pollen fairy dances.  It looks like a watermelon, not a zucchini.  Some rodent will probably bite into it soon.

I'll have to keep hoping for the limes.

© 2012 Nancy L. Ruder

What happens to an avocado pit?

Never have had a speck of luck with Sputnik avocado pit sprouting. Whichever end is up is always wrong, although it would be incorrect to accuse the pit of spite.

Cannas love me by comparison. Pull them out midseason and toss the bulbs over the fence, give them no respect. Whichever, wherever way they land, they are sprouting again within a couple weeks.

Pineapples, gotta love 'em. Lop the top off. Stick the top in a pot of dirt and screw it down a bit like Donald Trump's toupee. The plant will grow handsome gray-green spikes in sun or shade until freezing weather comes. We've had one growing in our classroom for at least three years. True, it would be difficult to plant it upside down. That would be an uncomfortable toupee.

Once or twice since I encountered guacamole in college the pit I've thrown out in dispair has grown a foot and a half with four leaves before dying. In the jelly jar, nada. So I started throwing the pit into the worm composting bin along with the avocado peels.

Red wigglers get all excited about avocado peels. They use them for worm yurts, kivas, and hookah dens. They use eggshells for igloos, or put on thick spectacles and pretend to be Buckminster Fuller, those frolicking eisenia foetida!

What about the pits?  They break down very slowly, aided by the red worms and by harmless white mites that assist the decomposition process. Today I raked the pits out of the bin and threw them into my accidental garden.  I hold no expectations for their future.Maybe this is the year avocado pits dock with the International Space Station, but I'm not holding my breath. Critters have mowed off the volunteer tomato plants AGAIN. The mystery guest from the squash/melon family is taking over the patio and climbing the wire tomato cages. It tried to ensnarl the gas grill. There's a lime the size of a pencil top eraser growing on the teacher appreciation tree. Anole lizards are pleased with the situation.  Life is good, and decomposition is not bad, either.

© 2012 Nancy L. Ruder

School gardens & the future of education

On the plane back from Oregon I still got the middle seat, but my aisle neighbor was a delightful, not-too-talkative young mommy who found her own seat belt and had no service dog. My window neighbor was a large man drinking Heinekens who ate a whole can of Pringles, then snored and drooled. But the delightful mother of five had children attending Stonewall Jackson Elementary in the Dallas school district. We talked about the value of school gardens to inspire kids in studies across many subjects.

Stonewall Jackson's 20,000 square foot garden is one of the most acclaimed school gardens in the country, but in 2008 the Dallas Independent School District eliminated the position of Mark Painter, the gardener/outdoor lab science teacher. School parents and area businesses had to form a 501c nonprofit, Stonewall Gardens, to keep Painter employed and the garden going.  It figures. If something is working in our schools, cut the funding, quick!

Remembering the in-flight conversation I stopped at Wilson Middle School just down the street from home. The school already has a butterfly garden along Custer Road, but I wanted to see the new vegetable garden that's taking shape this year. All these photos are from my walk-through in the early evening last Saturday. Life Skills teacher Sharon Russell was nominated for Plano Teacher of the Year 2012.  She is obviously a woman with a passion for connecting kids with learning through gardening. Do teachers get to have passion and model creativity and problem-solving for kids? Or is it all about measurable performance?


My little Montessori school's garden is about seventy square feet if I can trust my three a.m. calculations. It's basically the same size as the dirt area next to my back patio at the condo.  In this space the kids are growing tomatoes, peppers, radishes, dill, basil, red salvia, daisies, zucchini.What are the preschoolers learning?

Plants need water and sunshine. We can take turns with the watering cans. You have to hold the watering can underwater in the big bucket to fill it. Carry a watering can so your shoes don't get all wet. We don't waste water by sprinkling the sidewalk.

We can see how plants change.  They start little and get bigger. We can draw the sequence. We can make a story about what we see. It's fun to tell our friends when we notice something different in the garden.

It tastes good to eat the fruits of our effort.We can be brave and taste new things. If you pick a green tomato your friends can't ever eat it at snack time. Food isn't always cellophane-wrapped in a styrofoam container. If you pick a green tomato your friends can't ever eat it at snack time.

It feels good to dig and take rocks out of the dirt. Worms and grubs live underground. We wash our hands after we work in the garden.

Bees help plants grow. Bees are not really interested in you. Spiders make pretty webs. Spiders and ants are not that interested or dangerous, either, and it is fun to name them. It is more fun to watch an insect than to step on it.

Caterpillars eat dill. Dill smells good! It is fun to cut dill, basil, and rosemary to feed the class pet rabbit, Norton. It feels good to think of others. We have to remember to carry the bucket of food inside!

Animals visit our garden at night! What animal stole the whole strawberry plant?

Tony Wagner, author of Creating Innovators : The Making of Young People Who Will Change the World writes about developing a culture of innovation based on collaboration, interdisciplinary problem-solving, and intrinsic motivation.  Even at the preschool level that sounds like the job description for a school garden!

© 2012 Nancy L. Ruder

The lime tree that Jack grew

It started with the Teacher Appreciation lunch. We were being appreciated in such a creative way. The parents had brought story books to accompany their food contributions, and excerpts were read to us while we dined on fabulous veggie soup, Indian chicken, artichoke bread, spinach quiche (Green Eggs and Ham, of course), fruit salad (The Very Hungry Caterpillar), and so on through the chocolate parfaits. The centerpiece was sculptures from Play With Your Food.

Then we were each given a lime tree with a reading of a poem by a parent about nurturing children. Wow! My very own thornless key lime pie, no I meant TREE, with matching lime green gardening gloves. So I stopped at Calloways Nursery on the way home to get expert advice, a very large pot, a saucer with wheels, plus a big bag of tree/shrub soil mix. The tree has to grow in full sun outside, but be covered it if gets below forty degrees, and brought inside if it gets below thirty degrees. This is way beyond my normal gardening method of sticking plant in pot and promptly forgetting it.

When I took the trash to the dumpster I met my neighbor's son who was digging out bushes on the side of a condo building. The condo association is gradually moving to heat/drought resistant landscaping, so Knock-out roses will be planted. Plus an older woman who lives in that unit will be safer without overgrown shrubs hiding her entry. I talked to the son about removing my patio bushes. I don't know what the bushes are, except that they are prone to some kind of mite infestation and have an unruly growth pattern. Every few years I take out my frustration and prune them way back. I've only kept them because the anole lizards use them for cover.

One thing led to another and I started sawing the bushes. It was therapeutic. Got four out of five down to the stumps before the rain started. I'll get the son to remove the stumps. I'm hoping to move all my cannas right next to the fence so the lizards will have their shaded hiding places back. Then there will be room to transplant some of my other plants in front of the cannas and reclaim most of the paved patio for humans, chairs, and grill. The hardy mint, mums, and giant sedum might be able to fight back against the aggressive myrtle.

I get volunteer plants sprouting from the vermicompost I add to the pots. Some sort of surprise squash plant was already growing up and over the ugly bushes and blooming.  It might not survive transplanting. And then there's the volunteer tomato that is doing better than the intentional tomatoes of last summer. Add a hummingbird feeder, and let the wild rumpus start!.

© 2012 Nancy L. Ruder

Aerial Zucchini Circus

Of course he won't mind
When he finds that he has
A big circus behind.*

Ms. Sneelock reporting in on my big circus behind.

Okay, not that big of a behind, and a pig is not really a circus performer. The circus out back is more of a high wire act with leaping lizards and dueling hummingbirds. It's a Barnum and Bailey backyard.

Thank heaven for the three ring diversion.  This circus puts on a show every evening when I get home after work and spoon-feeding my father's supper.  Dad's decline is slow, variable,  insistent.

Life in the patio circus is speeding-bullet fast.  I transition from letting go at a snail's pace to grabbing on like lightning.

A single zucchini seed sprouted in an old Rubbermaid tub filled with good dirt.  With amazing speed the vine climbed the tomato cage nearby and began its aerial feats.

Moving past the tomato cage, it climbed a pepper plant, but kept reaching further.  I plunked a garden stake in a pot of basil.  The zucchini tendrils grabbed on.  Another stake in the marigold pot, and more tendrils grabbed for the glory.  Nearly every day, I move a pot into position, add a stake or two, and before I can say, "Ringling Brothers," the tendrils have twined around the stakes.  One of these evenings I'll surely spot a trapeze act between the stakes and vines.

In the meantime, there's a cute little insect who thinks he's a mountain goat yodeling around the zucchini blossoms. AND, the lizards are leaping! There may even be a baby zucchini in the future.

 

*If I Ran the Circus, by Dr. Seuss.








© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Go Big Red

Please make this drought go away.  Bring on the rain! The map is red, but the plantings along the freeway on my commute are brown crispy critters.  It's a highly flammable world.

Please let Big Red keep helping Dad.  She is a gift for my spirit, and for Dad's connection to the here and now.  When Big Red, aka Penelope, offers her hand to shake Dad's, he still pulls his hand from under the blanket to shake.  She calls Dad, "Papa", and "My friend".  Her compassion, openness, and humor are the best medicine.  She can tell me in one breath that Dad tossed his lunch tray on the floor AGAIN, and in the next say she's about ready to start throwing things herself!  Oh, Lordy, don't we all have days like that at our jobs?  Then she has a bowl of tomato vegetable soup saved back for Dad when he gets hungry at the wrong time.

Grow big, red cannas.  Keep attracting those hilarious, healing hummingbirds.  I love their ruby-throated antics and territorial aerial battles.  The cannas are taller than the privacy fence.

  


© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

No more suctioning

Was thrilled when my eye doctor did not dilate my eyes last week.  If he had, he would have used Atropine.  This medication is also used to decrease bronchial secretions.  It's now on the "as needed" list for my dad, along with Mucinex.  


Rx googling might be unhealthy, but I found the information about Atropine on Wikipedia appropriate:


Atropine is a naturally occurring tropane alkaloid extracted from deadly nightshade (Atropa belladonna), jimsonweed (Datura stramonium), mandrake (Mandragora officinarum) and other plants of the family Solanaceae. It is a ... drug with a wide variety of effects....[The name] derive[s] from Atropos, one of the three Fates who, according to Greek mythology, chose how a person was to die. Atropine is a core medicine in theWorld Health Organization's "Essential Drugs List", which is a list of minimum medical needs for a basic health care system.


Well, dang, I just put Edith Hamilton back on the shelf since she didn't mention Thor's goats!  This time she writes on page 44:


Very important, but assigned to no abode whether in heaven or on the earth were THE FATES, Moirae in Greek, Parcae in Latin, who, Hesiod says, give to men at birth evil and good to have.  They were three, Clotho, the Spinner, who spun the thread of life; Lachesis, the Disposer of Lots, who assigned to each man his destiny; Atropos, she who could not be turned, who carried "the abhorred shears" and cut the thread at death.

I don't have much luck growing datura aka jimsonweed aka moonflower in Texas, but we grew it from seed every year in Omaha.  It attracted lovely evening moths around our deck.  I took this photo at Texas Discovery Gardens, so datura can be grown here, just not by me (a common refrain of my brown thumb gardening song).

Working with the hospice aide and RN, the skilled care facility nurse, I got a new order in place banning all future use of the dreadful ineffective airway suctioning device.  Proactive use of nebulizer breathing treatments and the medications to decrease bronchial secretions will be used instead.  Dad's blood oxygen level is good now, so he can use oxygen just when it makes him more comfortable.  

While Dad napped I finished reading Caleb's Crossing by Geraldine Brooks.  Hellebore is the plant used to induce visions by the Wompaontoaonk people in the book.  Hellebore is from a different family than datura.  Just thought you would want to know.  

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder