Showing posts with label Friday Flora. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Friday Flora. Show all posts
Friday, July 6, 2018
Friday Flora Farewell Edition
Today’s pic is of a Clarkia, unknown spp., up at the graveyard near our house. There’s some good spring wildflowers on the walk there, camas, trillium, rue, calichortus, and such, but spring is pretty well over—so appropriate to have a Clarkia, commonly known as “Farewell to Spring.” This is the smallest Clarkia I’ve ever seen.
Thursday, February 1, 2018
Friday Flora Familial folio edition
Another from my Mom's garden, which was, and may still be, better than yours.
My Mom was a very good artist; she had some training, a mother who illustrated her own books, and an aunt who was a professional artist working in oils (Fera Webber Shear). Her chosen medium was acrylic, and her subject botanical illustration. I encourage you to click on that photo, see it as big as possible.
I spent half of a day this week going through old holiday greeting cards sent from all my parents' friends over the last couple of years. My task was to put together the mailing list for a belated holiday card, thanking my parents' friends for their kind wishes and telling them of my Mom's passing. There were certain generational trends in evidence. Among my parents' friends of longest standing, the themes of late retirement such as travel and grandchildren mixed with brushes against morbidity and mortality. There were also a number of cards from my Dad's students, and these showed the ripeness of latter working life, children married, thoughts of retirement mixed with the highest tide of professional and social attainment.
I need to get my own personal belated holiday cards out. Looking at the mailing list, I am seeing some stereotypical themes in my own age cohort. We are, mostly, in the endurance phase of our careers. Most, though not all have children, and some of those are starting to head off to college--but a few years and they will be entering the post-children phase of their lives. I, and a few others, are on different tracks. I have switched careers rather dramatically, and am starting from the bottom. We have no human kids. I'll be looking at a rather different set of milestones, but I have to say that I do like hearing about everybody else's. It gives me a good feeling to see my friends do well.
So. I'd better get to work on that card.
My Mom was a very good artist; she had some training, a mother who illustrated her own books, and an aunt who was a professional artist working in oils (Fera Webber Shear). Her chosen medium was acrylic, and her subject botanical illustration. I encourage you to click on that photo, see it as big as possible.
I spent half of a day this week going through old holiday greeting cards sent from all my parents' friends over the last couple of years. My task was to put together the mailing list for a belated holiday card, thanking my parents' friends for their kind wishes and telling them of my Mom's passing. There were certain generational trends in evidence. Among my parents' friends of longest standing, the themes of late retirement such as travel and grandchildren mixed with brushes against morbidity and mortality. There were also a number of cards from my Dad's students, and these showed the ripeness of latter working life, children married, thoughts of retirement mixed with the highest tide of professional and social attainment.
I need to get my own personal belated holiday cards out. Looking at the mailing list, I am seeing some stereotypical themes in my own age cohort. We are, mostly, in the endurance phase of our careers. Most, though not all have children, and some of those are starting to head off to college--but a few years and they will be entering the post-children phase of their lives. I, and a few others, are on different tracks. I have switched careers rather dramatically, and am starting from the bottom. We have no human kids. I'll be looking at a rather different set of milestones, but I have to say that I do like hearing about everybody else's. It gives me a good feeling to see my friends do well.
So. I'd better get to work on that card.
Friday, November 24, 2017
Friday Flora Memorious Orchid Edition
Friday’s Flora is a striking hybrid orchid, Sophrolaeliacattleya “Red Berry.” According to the tag in my Mom’s neat script, it cost $35 at Santa Barbara Orchid Estates on October 2nd, 2010.
If you look back through this blog far enough, a line you’ll see pretty often in the first few years is “My mom’s garden is better than yours.” (Here's some examples) For a very long time, that was definitely true. Now, I can’t say that so absolutely.
My mom’s garden reflected the passion of more than a single lifetime. She was the granddaughter of a horticulturalist who literally wrote the book on citrus in California (and had the linguistic distinction of introducing the word clone into the language). She was the daughter two botanists, one of whom was head of the California citrus research station, and the other a PhD who also wrote and illustrated children’s science books. For a long time, when my brothers and I were the sort of kids who could carelessly wreck a garden, I’d say that my Grandmother’s garden was better than yours—a canyon slope in the Berkeley hills, with a majestic live oak and a wondrous array of natives and exotics growing in its shade. The porch was lined with Epiphyllum and other cacti in pots.
Although she was not a professional botanist, her background was such that my mom could not help but be knowledgeable about plants. Living in coastal Los Angeles, she had a brilliant climate in which to indulge in plant collecting as a hobby. So, while I remember a garden that had plenty of “mundane” plants such as roses and a fair amount of lawn, I also remember as a lad spending Sundays going shopping: to Lohman’s Cactus Patch and Grigsby Cactus Gardens and Abbey Gardens (all closed, alas) or to the sale days at Huntington Gardens to find a new Rebutia or Lobivia or something really odd like Lophophoria or Oberegonia. Her interest would meander—for a while, it was cacti that would be happy in a pot and produce a nice flower; then, perhaps, Asclepiads, relatives of milkweed that produce flowers that smell like dead meat; then, Aloes. And so the garden ended up having patches—a mass of one type of succulent here, a whole mess of another type of succulent over there. Eventually, my grandmother’s Epiphyllums found a home in her garden.
This pattern continued all her life—and the mundane plants, the lawn, the ground-covering ivy all got squeezed out and replaced with a class that would seize her attention for several years. Sometimes her choices were guided by travel. A Lapageria lily and a Palo Barroche were sentimental reminders of postdoctoral years in South America. A sabbatical year in Australia kindled a passion for Banksias and Grevillias. A trip to South Africa sparked a consuming interest in Cape bulbs and Aloes, which came to occupy a large area.
Although though new interests would be kindled, old flames would never be forgot. A few plants died out; some were just too fussy to be bothered with, or if they grew boring they would be exiled to the nether reaches of the garden. There, some might get buried in leaves, while the near-ideal climate of coastal SoCal would let others thrive in neglect. It’s also worth noting that my mom not only grew so many plants, but painted them. So, while the Ceropegia tribe may have moved from the center of her attention, the dining room of her house still has a beautiful painting that she made of them.
Even though her location was about as good as possible for growing a wide variety of plants outdoors, her garden was by no means a low-maintenance affair. Some plants did well let alone, but others required precise watering schedules or other maintenance. In addition to the bookshelves full of botany books, there were lots of notes on the provenance and maintenance of every plant. Keeping the garden going was most what she did in retirement, and the garden kept her going.
So, there is that orchid. My mom had always had orchids, mostly Cymbidium varieties. However, the last genre that took over her attention was small orchids. I remember her describing trips to Santa Barbara Orchid Estates starting in the 2000’s, and went along with her for a couple when I was in the area. (True story—when we were checking out, the proprietor saw the name on my dad’s credit card and asked if he was related to David Appleman. It turns out that my grandfather taught the man botany at UCLA. When my dad noted that I was David Appleman’s grandson, he was amazed—“no way. He was only that tall!” He said, pointing at my sternum.) Trips to “SBOE” grew less frequent as my dad’s descent in to dementia accelerated. This orchid was bought in 2010, so it would have to have been a trip where one of my brothers or I took her along. I don’t know the date of her last plant-buying trip; I think there may have been only one after my dad was bedridden, in 2011.
Mom was able to keep up things in the garden for a while, no longer expanding or diversifying, but at least holding decay at bay. Her own health started failing, the first hints of dementia and frailty showing up about seven or eight years ago. Bits of the garden started getting somewhat less taken care of, with some weeds starting to crop up. The bit of the garden that was on the slope of the canyon, down a rickety stairway and out of sight of the house, became neglected. A balcony perched on the edge of the canyon started tilting down the slope. It was festooned with bromeliads and vining Ceropegia and Hoya succulents, which mostly did well despite a lack of tending. The Cape bulbs—Freesia species and so on—did fine, because bulbs are hard to eradicate once they’re settled; but a couple of years of drought did damage some of them.
The one constant chore in all the garden was picking leaves. There were established trees—Avocado, Gingko, Liquidambar—that were always dropping leaves, and they always needed to be picked out of this densely populated garden. My mom kept at is as long as she could. As dementia and frailty worsened, it was all she could do to get a bucket and toddle out, with a home-care nurse alongside, and fill the bucket with leaves pulled one by one out of a thicket of aloes or orchids. The nurse was always surprised by her endurance and drive to do it, but my brothers and I were not. But she pretty much stopped doing even that early last year, as health and mind failed.
Starting last year, every time I or one of my brothers went to visit, we’d take away as many plants as we could find room for. I’ve given homes to such orchids have survived, and a handful of other plants: we can grow some indoors, but Roseburg is not as hospitable to delicate flora as Pacific Palisades. Still, I cherish what I can.
My mom died earlier this year, in February, not a great time of year for gardens, but it was still possible to find some flowers to put in her room. My brothers and I reconvened in the spring, and remembered her by taking a trip out to Anza-Borrego State Park, where years ago we had followed her on quests for Elephant Trees and unusual hybrid cholla cacti. We managed to catch the tail end of a “superbloom,” which was wonderful. And, of course, we found a good, if diminished, supply of interesting flowers in my mom’s garden. Which, in my memory, will always be better than yours.
If you look back through this blog far enough, a line you’ll see pretty often in the first few years is “My mom’s garden is better than yours.” (Here's some examples) For a very long time, that was definitely true. Now, I can’t say that so absolutely.
My mom’s garden reflected the passion of more than a single lifetime. She was the granddaughter of a horticulturalist who literally wrote the book on citrus in California (and had the linguistic distinction of introducing the word clone into the language). She was the daughter two botanists, one of whom was head of the California citrus research station, and the other a PhD who also wrote and illustrated children’s science books. For a long time, when my brothers and I were the sort of kids who could carelessly wreck a garden, I’d say that my Grandmother’s garden was better than yours—a canyon slope in the Berkeley hills, with a majestic live oak and a wondrous array of natives and exotics growing in its shade. The porch was lined with Epiphyllum and other cacti in pots.
Although she was not a professional botanist, her background was such that my mom could not help but be knowledgeable about plants. Living in coastal Los Angeles, she had a brilliant climate in which to indulge in plant collecting as a hobby. So, while I remember a garden that had plenty of “mundane” plants such as roses and a fair amount of lawn, I also remember as a lad spending Sundays going shopping: to Lohman’s Cactus Patch and Grigsby Cactus Gardens and Abbey Gardens (all closed, alas) or to the sale days at Huntington Gardens to find a new Rebutia or Lobivia or something really odd like Lophophoria or Oberegonia. Her interest would meander—for a while, it was cacti that would be happy in a pot and produce a nice flower; then, perhaps, Asclepiads, relatives of milkweed that produce flowers that smell like dead meat; then, Aloes. And so the garden ended up having patches—a mass of one type of succulent here, a whole mess of another type of succulent over there. Eventually, my grandmother’s Epiphyllums found a home in her garden.
This pattern continued all her life—and the mundane plants, the lawn, the ground-covering ivy all got squeezed out and replaced with a class that would seize her attention for several years. Sometimes her choices were guided by travel. A Lapageria lily and a Palo Barroche were sentimental reminders of postdoctoral years in South America. A sabbatical year in Australia kindled a passion for Banksias and Grevillias. A trip to South Africa sparked a consuming interest in Cape bulbs and Aloes, which came to occupy a large area.
Although though new interests would be kindled, old flames would never be forgot. A few plants died out; some were just too fussy to be bothered with, or if they grew boring they would be exiled to the nether reaches of the garden. There, some might get buried in leaves, while the near-ideal climate of coastal SoCal would let others thrive in neglect. It’s also worth noting that my mom not only grew so many plants, but painted them. So, while the Ceropegia tribe may have moved from the center of her attention, the dining room of her house still has a beautiful painting that she made of them.
Even though her location was about as good as possible for growing a wide variety of plants outdoors, her garden was by no means a low-maintenance affair. Some plants did well let alone, but others required precise watering schedules or other maintenance. In addition to the bookshelves full of botany books, there were lots of notes on the provenance and maintenance of every plant. Keeping the garden going was most what she did in retirement, and the garden kept her going.
So, there is that orchid. My mom had always had orchids, mostly Cymbidium varieties. However, the last genre that took over her attention was small orchids. I remember her describing trips to Santa Barbara Orchid Estates starting in the 2000’s, and went along with her for a couple when I was in the area. (True story—when we were checking out, the proprietor saw the name on my dad’s credit card and asked if he was related to David Appleman. It turns out that my grandfather taught the man botany at UCLA. When my dad noted that I was David Appleman’s grandson, he was amazed—“no way. He was only that tall!” He said, pointing at my sternum.) Trips to “SBOE” grew less frequent as my dad’s descent in to dementia accelerated. This orchid was bought in 2010, so it would have to have been a trip where one of my brothers or I took her along. I don’t know the date of her last plant-buying trip; I think there may have been only one after my dad was bedridden, in 2011.
Mom was able to keep up things in the garden for a while, no longer expanding or diversifying, but at least holding decay at bay. Her own health started failing, the first hints of dementia and frailty showing up about seven or eight years ago. Bits of the garden started getting somewhat less taken care of, with some weeds starting to crop up. The bit of the garden that was on the slope of the canyon, down a rickety stairway and out of sight of the house, became neglected. A balcony perched on the edge of the canyon started tilting down the slope. It was festooned with bromeliads and vining Ceropegia and Hoya succulents, which mostly did well despite a lack of tending. The Cape bulbs—Freesia species and so on—did fine, because bulbs are hard to eradicate once they’re settled; but a couple of years of drought did damage some of them.
The one constant chore in all the garden was picking leaves. There were established trees—Avocado, Gingko, Liquidambar—that were always dropping leaves, and they always needed to be picked out of this densely populated garden. My mom kept at is as long as she could. As dementia and frailty worsened, it was all she could do to get a bucket and toddle out, with a home-care nurse alongside, and fill the bucket with leaves pulled one by one out of a thicket of aloes or orchids. The nurse was always surprised by her endurance and drive to do it, but my brothers and I were not. But she pretty much stopped doing even that early last year, as health and mind failed.
Starting last year, every time I or one of my brothers went to visit, we’d take away as many plants as we could find room for. I’ve given homes to such orchids have survived, and a handful of other plants: we can grow some indoors, but Roseburg is not as hospitable to delicate flora as Pacific Palisades. Still, I cherish what I can.
My mom died earlier this year, in February, not a great time of year for gardens, but it was still possible to find some flowers to put in her room. My brothers and I reconvened in the spring, and remembered her by taking a trip out to Anza-Borrego State Park, where years ago we had followed her on quests for Elephant Trees and unusual hybrid cholla cacti. We managed to catch the tail end of a “superbloom,” which was wonderful. And, of course, we found a good, if diminished, supply of interesting flowers in my mom’s garden. Which, in my memory, will always be better than yours.
Friday, September 1, 2017
Friday Fauna Green and Blue Edition
Friday, February 24, 2017
Friday Flicks, dreamy edition
This from a hundred and ten years ago was unfortunately appropriate last night:
So, there I was living the bachelor life last night while the Real Doctor was away, and because I wanted some comfort food I made Welsh rarebit and broccoli. And, because I'm used to cooking for two, I made slightly too much. And, because it was a long day, I ate it late, and went right to bed.
Ugh. Such dreams...such awful dreams.
Ugh. Such dreams...such awful dreams.
Saturday, January 21, 2017
Friday Fauna Pussy Hat edition
The news lately has got me down, way down. I live in an area where many of my neighbors--good people, really good people, as long as you are not too different from them--are giddy about Trump's election. I am not yet well-enough established in this community that I feel safe outing myself as a person who holds liberal views, but I think I am going to have to find the courage* to do so.
Meantime, I salute the people who marched today, Anne and Angie and Susan and Val and all the others, and so does Wedge. Their actions give me a glimmer of hope in a dark time. And now Wedge would like to be fed.
*Yes, I know; I wrote about courage in political expression earlier, and I didn't think too highly of the valor of those who espoused a popular view in front of a supportive, powerful audience. The folks who marched today had a better quality of courage. Their cause is popular and they had plenty of internal support, but it is still not accepted by the majority or the powers that be, nor is it truly ingrained in the culture, as evidenced by their need to state the case, again and again and again. A still stronger degree of courage, which I have heretofore been lacking, is needed here in Douglas County, where 2/3 of my neighbors enthusiastically voted for a racist, sexist, xenophobic charlatan.)
Friday, January 13, 2017
Friday Flora small world edition.
To see a world in a grain of sand
And heaven in a wild flower
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour...
(Blake, of course.)
Hmmm, that didn't work. Need to figure out how to get pix up here from the eye pad...the blogger interface is ultra-kludgy.
Saturday, April 16, 2016
Friday Flora, Jacob and Esau Edition
Friday Flora Jacob and Esau Edition
Here is the Friday Flora, the fragrant popcorn flower, Plagiobothrys figuratus. Doesn't look like much, but it almost gave me a heart attack.
It is growing in the middle of one of our pastures, between the barn and the east shelter. That pasture is a problem for us: it is the low point of the entire field, and sits on a lens of pure clay, so it becomes a vernal pool. We've done a lot of work to drain it, including cutting in drains and perf-pipe and so on. It's better than it was, but that just means that the puddles that the water goes over the tops of the feet rather than over the tops of my boots. The situation is made worse by the fact that the last two years, we've had to run heavy tractors over that pasture during the wet season, in order to get fencing put in and build shelters. It's not generally the best idea to do such construction work in February, but that was when the contractors were available.
Now, though, the pasture is drying out, and is merely muddy, rather than wet. The popcorn flower's plant grows while inundated, and blooms as the last water disappears. Our rutted, soggy pasture is now sprinkled with these cheerful little blooms.
If you live in Douglas County and talk with ecologists, or look for information on popcorn flowers in Douglas County, you will hear and see much about the rough popcorn flower, Plagiobothrys hirtus. It is downright famous, and rightly so; it is one of the most critically endangered flora in the world, and it grows only in three sites, all in the drainage of the North Umpqua river in Douglas County Oregon--nowhere else in the world. When I talked with the NRCS and USDA people about starting the fencing project, they always mentioned that we'd have to do a pro forma ecological survey, and that it would find nothing but it's obligatory because of the rough popcorn flower. That was a couple of years ago.
A few evenings ago I was out doing the evening chores and in the dimming light I see this little flower, which jiggled a couple of loose neurons and brought up the name "popcorn flower." It being 2016, I whipped out my iPhone and Googled "popcorn flower Douglas County Oregon" and the great Google coughed up a slew of pictures and information, all about P hirtus. Here, for comparison, is a picture of the flower of P hirtus:
When you're doing chores, and light is dimming, and you've got a lot to get done, and you're unaware of the existence of any other Plagiobothrys species because one is hogging all the bandwidth, it is easy to come to the conclusion that you've just found the mother of all white elephants--an endangered species in one of your pastures right in the middle of your farm that you're trying to develop. It took some pretty focused effort later that night to reveal that there are other species of popcorn flower in Douglas County. Also, they look nearly identical to the rough popcorn flower, but they are as common as dirt and can be found from here to Illinois.
So, here we have P figuratus, in all its diminutive and unendangered glory. How can I be sure? One source mentions that absolutely certain identification depends upon microscopic examination of the scisson scars on the 1.5 milimeter seeds, but the quick-and-dirty way is to look at the stems. P hirtus is a hairy plant, while its brother P figuratus is smooth.
When I went out the next morning to do the chores, I was immensely relieved to see smooth stems holding up those cute flowers. Now I just go on my way, doing chores and enjoying the sight of these charming little flowers, enjoying their company as I do with the buttercups and clover and the rest. Every once in a while, I will even step on one, accidentally.
Here is the Friday Flora, the fragrant popcorn flower, Plagiobothrys figuratus. Doesn't look like much, but it almost gave me a heart attack.
It is growing in the middle of one of our pastures, between the barn and the east shelter. That pasture is a problem for us: it is the low point of the entire field, and sits on a lens of pure clay, so it becomes a vernal pool. We've done a lot of work to drain it, including cutting in drains and perf-pipe and so on. It's better than it was, but that just means that the puddles that the water goes over the tops of the feet rather than over the tops of my boots. The situation is made worse by the fact that the last two years, we've had to run heavy tractors over that pasture during the wet season, in order to get fencing put in and build shelters. It's not generally the best idea to do such construction work in February, but that was when the contractors were available.
Now, though, the pasture is drying out, and is merely muddy, rather than wet. The popcorn flower's plant grows while inundated, and blooms as the last water disappears. Our rutted, soggy pasture is now sprinkled with these cheerful little blooms.
If you live in Douglas County and talk with ecologists, or look for information on popcorn flowers in Douglas County, you will hear and see much about the rough popcorn flower, Plagiobothrys hirtus. It is downright famous, and rightly so; it is one of the most critically endangered flora in the world, and it grows only in three sites, all in the drainage of the North Umpqua river in Douglas County Oregon--nowhere else in the world. When I talked with the NRCS and USDA people about starting the fencing project, they always mentioned that we'd have to do a pro forma ecological survey, and that it would find nothing but it's obligatory because of the rough popcorn flower. That was a couple of years ago.
A few evenings ago I was out doing the evening chores and in the dimming light I see this little flower, which jiggled a couple of loose neurons and brought up the name "popcorn flower." It being 2016, I whipped out my iPhone and Googled "popcorn flower Douglas County Oregon" and the great Google coughed up a slew of pictures and information, all about P hirtus. Here, for comparison, is a picture of the flower of P hirtus:
When you're doing chores, and light is dimming, and you've got a lot to get done, and you're unaware of the existence of any other Plagiobothrys species because one is hogging all the bandwidth, it is easy to come to the conclusion that you've just found the mother of all white elephants--an endangered species in one of your pastures right in the middle of your farm that you're trying to develop. It took some pretty focused effort later that night to reveal that there are other species of popcorn flower in Douglas County. Also, they look nearly identical to the rough popcorn flower, but they are as common as dirt and can be found from here to Illinois.
So, here we have P figuratus, in all its diminutive and unendangered glory. How can I be sure? One source mentions that absolutely certain identification depends upon microscopic examination of the scisson scars on the 1.5 milimeter seeds, but the quick-and-dirty way is to look at the stems. P hirtus is a hairy plant, while its brother P figuratus is smooth.
When I went out the next morning to do the chores, I was immensely relieved to see smooth stems holding up those cute flowers. Now I just go on my way, doing chores and enjoying the sight of these charming little flowers, enjoying their company as I do with the buttercups and clover and the rest. Every once in a while, I will even step on one, accidentally.
Friday, January 29, 2016
Friday fauna: Where Eagles Dare to Eat Lunch
(Warning, kinda graphic image of dead animal further down the page, skip this one if you're squeamish.)
One of the noticeable steps in the transition from city slicker to farmer involves one's regard of the local fauna.
A couple of years ago, I would occasionally see a pair of bald eagles flying overhead, commuting back and forth between their nest somewhere and the river to our northwest. I'd stop whatever I was doing and gawk. Eagles! They are big, they are impressive, they are beautiful as adults, they are symbolic, and really, they are well worth stopping and admiring. The pair became a trio, and the juvenile spent a couple of weeks along our creek before it moved away to find new territory.
We are less than a month away from lambing and kidding here--a lot of the surrounding farms have lambs on the ground already--and I am mentally getting into the mode of worrying more about my animals. A bald eagle will happily eat anything that looks dead, and a golden will kill for its lunch. So my attitude towards the eagles has changed. When I see when flying overhead, especially if they're flying kind of low, my thoughts tend towards "Hey, @#$%, get the &^%$# out of here and don't even $%#^ing look at my $%@*ing animals!!! @#$%!!!"
Well, yesterday was a busy day here for the eagles, and they had me good and riled up. Adult and juvenile, bald and golden, they were flying over us all day, screaming and fussing. It didn't take too long to realize that they were not worked up about any of our beasts, but instead about something just across the creek from us.
Our neighbor J. runs cattle over there, and his cows have been calving recently. One little calf didn't make it--I couldn't tell whether it was killed by a predator or one of the myriad things that can off a young ruminant. Whatever the cause, a day's work by the eagles left it rather diminished:
I didn't have the long lens that I needed to capture what I saw through binoculars as I approached the carcass, and which really can push you away from the "majestic symbol of our country" view of eagles and towards a more farmer-ish view. It was a juvenile (but full-sized) golden eagle that had hit the calf buffet a bit too hard. It had tried flying, but was weighed down with excess giblets. So it just sat on the hillside above the carcass, basking in the afternoon sun, visibly engorged. Through the lens, it looked less the majestic eagle and more like a sumo wrestler regretting that last helping of pie. @$#%* better stay away from my animals.
One of the noticeable steps in the transition from city slicker to farmer involves one's regard of the local fauna.
A couple of years ago, I would occasionally see a pair of bald eagles flying overhead, commuting back and forth between their nest somewhere and the river to our northwest. I'd stop whatever I was doing and gawk. Eagles! They are big, they are impressive, they are beautiful as adults, they are symbolic, and really, they are well worth stopping and admiring. The pair became a trio, and the juvenile spent a couple of weeks along our creek before it moved away to find new territory.
We are less than a month away from lambing and kidding here--a lot of the surrounding farms have lambs on the ground already--and I am mentally getting into the mode of worrying more about my animals. A bald eagle will happily eat anything that looks dead, and a golden will kill for its lunch. So my attitude towards the eagles has changed. When I see when flying overhead, especially if they're flying kind of low, my thoughts tend towards "Hey, @#$%, get the &^%$# out of here and don't even $%#^ing look at my $%@*ing animals!!! @#$%!!!"
Well, yesterday was a busy day here for the eagles, and they had me good and riled up. Adult and juvenile, bald and golden, they were flying over us all day, screaming and fussing. It didn't take too long to realize that they were not worked up about any of our beasts, but instead about something just across the creek from us.
Our neighbor J. runs cattle over there, and his cows have been calving recently. One little calf didn't make it--I couldn't tell whether it was killed by a predator or one of the myriad things that can off a young ruminant. Whatever the cause, a day's work by the eagles left it rather diminished:
I didn't have the long lens that I needed to capture what I saw through binoculars as I approached the carcass, and which really can push you away from the "majestic symbol of our country" view of eagles and towards a more farmer-ish view. It was a juvenile (but full-sized) golden eagle that had hit the calf buffet a bit too hard. It had tried flying, but was weighed down with excess giblets. So it just sat on the hillside above the carcass, basking in the afternoon sun, visibly engorged. Through the lens, it looked less the majestic eagle and more like a sumo wrestler regretting that last helping of pie. @$#%* better stay away from my animals.
Saturday, December 26, 2015
Friday Fungus
We took advantage of a pause in the rain to go for a walk on the hills across the creek from us. They graze cattle there, and the land is severely affected by this--grazed to nubbins and pretty tired looking. But it's a good-sized plot, draped over some hilly terrain; intensely managed grazing for soil health would be very expensive and require a smaller herd and a long time before it made economic sense. There's also tradition to contend with: the cemetery next to us has several generations of the grazier's family resting in it. So, it's unlikely that things will change.
There are a few copses of oaks on the hills, and some lovely fungus-food lying on the ground. Most of what we saw was tough shelf fungus and turkey-tails. There was one large clump of oyster fungus that would have made us a nice dinner had we been there a few days earlier. And there are little cute gems like this, bursting out of the wood they've been digesting, adding a jolt of color to grey decay.
Friday, December 19, 2014
Friday Flora can't wait to leave the nest edition
We have a teasel problem. They are an invasive weed without even the redeeming qualities of blackberries. They are kind of pretty, though.
But invasive. The seeds often sprout before they've left the seed head. They remind me of aphids, born pregnant.
Friday, November 21, 2014
Friday Flora Didn't Get the Memo Edition
Sunday, November 9, 2014
Sunday Slime
That brilliant orange slime mold I posted on Friday? I forgot the follow-up. In the space of six hours, it turns into something like this:
and in a day, those little pellets crumble into dust. Pretty impressive. Just think of the metabolism involved in converting all that orange pigment into purple-black.
Here's a couple more slimes for your delectation:
I just love the little stalks. Each mushroom is about 1mm.
Kind of impressionistic, the larger blobs are a couple of mm.
and in a day, those little pellets crumble into dust. Pretty impressive. Just think of the metabolism involved in converting all that orange pigment into purple-black.
Here's a couple more slimes for your delectation:
Friday, November 7, 2014
Friday Flora...well, not truly flora, but still...
Rainy season is here. The fungi have awoken from their summer slumber, and are spreading their umbrellas all over the place. But they're not really flora.
Wandering further, phylogenetically, each rain brings forth a bloom of slime molds--not flora, not even fungi--more closely related to us, actually. They are mostly inconspicuous. But one of them really jumps out after every rain:
It's not Fuligo, who has strutted across this stage before. I'm guessing it's one of the Plasmodial slime molds, but beyond that, I don't know. Anybody know?
More slimeys later--it's no longer flower season, it's the season of fungi and their allies.
Wandering further, phylogenetically, each rain brings forth a bloom of slime molds--not flora, not even fungi--more closely related to us, actually. They are mostly inconspicuous. But one of them really jumps out after every rain:
More slimeys later--it's no longer flower season, it's the season of fungi and their allies.
Friday, September 26, 2014
Friday Flora Fuming Fewments Edition
This week's flora are an anonymous consortium of thermophilic anaerobic microbes. They are not much to look at, so no picture, and until such time as the internet can transmit odor, I can't really convey their impact.
In the African nation of Gabon, there is a town called Oklo that stands atop some rich deposits of uranium. Time and the geology of the area created a circumstance that has been observed only once. Some billions of years ago, the concentration of fissionable uranium in these deposits was high enough that they could form a natural nuclear reactor. By itself, though, the uranium was not sufficient. The spontaneous fission of a U235 nucleus releases a neutron too energetic to trigger the fission of another U235 nucleus. As in any human-made reactor, a "moderator" is required to slow the neutrons, and as in many human-made reactors, water served this role. At Oklo--and as far as we know, only at Oklo--groundwater flowed through the uranium deposits, slowing the neutrons, allowing a chain reaction, which then released energy.
However, this release of energy, as heat, caused the groundwater to boil. The reactor effectively killed itself--until it could cool down, and water flowed into it, bringing it back to life. Some modeling and experimentation suggests that the reactor would be "on" for about a half hour, and "off" for two and a half, and that this cycle lasted for thousands of years.
Today, tucked away in a corner of our main pasture, there stands a majestic compost pile. I'm kind of embarrassed by it; it is in a poor location, on soil rather than concrete, and it is not covered. It reminds me of the Oklo reactor because of its relationship to water. It has been accumulating raw material all summer, and with each new dose--which carried with it a deal of moisture--it would ferment, steam, fume and stink for a few days. It would cook off all the freshly added water, and the reactions would slow down and stop. After a light rain earlier this summer, it again seethed for a bit, and died.
The reactions, of course, are not nuclear. There's a lot of fermentation, to be sure--the sheep's manure and used bedding contains lots of reduced carbon. Where there's fermentation and anaerobiosis, there's going to be methanogenesis and acetogenesis, forms of respiration using carbon dioxide in the place of oxygen. There's also respiration going on using sulfate in place of oxygen; the stink of hydrogen sulfide attests to that fact. All these reactions produce energy for the microbes carrying them out. The second law of thermodynamics tells us that the universe can't allow any reaction to happen without a tax being paid to entropy, so a sizeable chunk of the energy from these reactions is lost as heat--heat that makes the compost warm to the touch, and that has dried the pile out every time it has been wetted.
Now we've just had a good rainfall, thoroughly soaking the pile. Hoooo-weee! It is reacting like mad, smelling and steaming. And so the cycle repeats, a natural reactor getting drenched with water and generating heat to turn itself off, then cooling down and starting over--though probably not for thousands of years, and while the stink might be annoying, it's not producing anything as bad as plutonium.
In the African nation of Gabon, there is a town called Oklo that stands atop some rich deposits of uranium. Time and the geology of the area created a circumstance that has been observed only once. Some billions of years ago, the concentration of fissionable uranium in these deposits was high enough that they could form a natural nuclear reactor. By itself, though, the uranium was not sufficient. The spontaneous fission of a U235 nucleus releases a neutron too energetic to trigger the fission of another U235 nucleus. As in any human-made reactor, a "moderator" is required to slow the neutrons, and as in many human-made reactors, water served this role. At Oklo--and as far as we know, only at Oklo--groundwater flowed through the uranium deposits, slowing the neutrons, allowing a chain reaction, which then released energy.
However, this release of energy, as heat, caused the groundwater to boil. The reactor effectively killed itself--until it could cool down, and water flowed into it, bringing it back to life. Some modeling and experimentation suggests that the reactor would be "on" for about a half hour, and "off" for two and a half, and that this cycle lasted for thousands of years.
...........................................................
Today, tucked away in a corner of our main pasture, there stands a majestic compost pile. I'm kind of embarrassed by it; it is in a poor location, on soil rather than concrete, and it is not covered. It reminds me of the Oklo reactor because of its relationship to water. It has been accumulating raw material all summer, and with each new dose--which carried with it a deal of moisture--it would ferment, steam, fume and stink for a few days. It would cook off all the freshly added water, and the reactions would slow down and stop. After a light rain earlier this summer, it again seethed for a bit, and died.
The reactions, of course, are not nuclear. There's a lot of fermentation, to be sure--the sheep's manure and used bedding contains lots of reduced carbon. Where there's fermentation and anaerobiosis, there's going to be methanogenesis and acetogenesis, forms of respiration using carbon dioxide in the place of oxygen. There's also respiration going on using sulfate in place of oxygen; the stink of hydrogen sulfide attests to that fact. All these reactions produce energy for the microbes carrying them out. The second law of thermodynamics tells us that the universe can't allow any reaction to happen without a tax being paid to entropy, so a sizeable chunk of the energy from these reactions is lost as heat--heat that makes the compost warm to the touch, and that has dried the pile out every time it has been wetted.
Now we've just had a good rainfall, thoroughly soaking the pile. Hoooo-weee! It is reacting like mad, smelling and steaming. And so the cycle repeats, a natural reactor getting drenched with water and generating heat to turn itself off, then cooling down and starting over--though probably not for thousands of years, and while the stink might be annoying, it's not producing anything as bad as plutonium.
Friday, August 22, 2014
Friday flora--annoying Armenian rubes
There are folks who are just annoying. They seem to always be present, and loud, and
in your way, clingy and hard to escape.
They do exactly the wrong thing at the wrong time, and can’t help but be
unhelpful. They make it hard to get work
done, and hinder your friends. They are
not necessarily evil, indeed, their actions are not personal at all. It’s just that they are a pain through and
through.
Imagine such a person, a total jerk 364 days of the
year. Then one day, that person drops a
really lovely, absolutely exquisite gift on you: a gift that is much
appreciated, that makes your life better for a long time, and actually improves
your social standing.
This week’s flora is the vegetal embodiment of that person—the
Himalayan Blackberry, aka the Armenian Blackberry, aka Rubus armeniacus aka Rubus
discolor. We are at war with this
plant; when we purchased this place, it had a blackberry problem that was
visible from space, or at least on Google maps.
We have been mowing it and siccing our goats on it and spraying it ever
since, and we will be continuing to do so for as long as we are here.
However, once a year, the plants are less odious. For a few days, even in a droughty year such
as this, they are covered with shiny black, plump berries. They are luscious, inviting, compelling,
tart, and other adjectives one might apply to something suggesting moral laxity. So, one goes out with a bucket and a sun hat
and shears and starts gathering berries, one for me, one for the bucket, one
for me, one for the bucket…until one has enough to make some jam or sorbet or
pie. Brother M happened to be here with
his sweetie for a day, and they came, picked, jammed, and left. I spent an afternoon last week doing the
same.
For the record, an hour and a half of picking converts to
five liters of berries, which converts to two and a half liters of juice and
six hundred grams of seeds and pulp. Add
pectin and eleven cups of sugar (interestingly, blackberry seeds sink in
blackberry juice, but the addition of sugar increases the specific gravity
enough that the seeds will float), cook and can, and you’ll end up with just
shy of four liters of jam.
So, now we have a lot
of jam, and it is delicious. It is a universally
fungible as a bribe or lagniappe. It
will be bringing a dose of summer’s sunshine and warmth to a chilly, rainy
March.
Friday, September 20, 2013
Friday Flora It Might As Well Be Spring Edition
Might as well. These popped up after that rainfall that came our way a couple of weeks ago.
It rained again today, pretty hard for a bit, and pounded them to shreds.
It rained again today, pretty hard for a bit, and pounded them to shreds.
Saturday, September 7, 2013
Friday Flora Late Summer edition
I can't remember who said it, or whether they were describing the 200 meter or the 400 meter sprint, but they might as well have been describing grazing in the local climate: "The first half you sprint as hard as you can, and the second half you hang on and hope you don't die." We came out of the blocks early in the year with lush green fields from a nice soggy winter. None of the animals really wanted any hay or anything, just lovely pasture. They didn't even really drink much, getting most of their water from the grass and dew. The ewes and does were gestating, but not nursing. Everybody was getting fat and happy.
Around about July, this year--earlier than is normal--things started to dry out. The hay began to look more appetizing. The moms were busy nursing, trying to get calories and nutrients for themselves and two lambs. And now, here we are in September. The lambs are weaned, but still growing and very hungry. The moms, who by the end of July were so depleted that they resembled woolly skeletons, are being stuffed with as much hay and grain as they can eat. Thankfully, they are starting to put on some weight, but they are still too skinny to breed. The fields are dry, the grass mostly dead and mostly void of nutrition. I've been hard pressed for time, so I haven't been able to move the animals to fresh pasture recently, though it wouldn't make too much difference. We are going through hay at an alarming rate.
Everybody else has the same weather. The hay growers also didn't get a lot of rain, so hay's expensive. All the other folks with sheep and goats and cows didn't get much rain, so they need more hay than usual. The co-op has put a limit of six bales per day per customer on hay purchases. Those six bales will run over a hundred dollars, and feed my beasties for about a week--along with grain mix, corn, fermented alfalfa, and alfalfa pellets. Everybody's in that last leg of the sprint, looking for the finish line when the ground will start to feed the animals again.
So, it's a nice start to the year--l'Shana Tova, y'all--that we had a real rainstorm move through yesterday. Along with a couple of other squalls, we've gotten maybe as much as a half inch of precipitation in the last few weeks. It's not the end of summer, but it's been enough to wake up some of the seeds and perk up the mosses, and just make me feel a little bit better. Much as I'm panicking about the stuff that's got to be done before the wet season, I'm glad that we can glimpse the end of the dry.
Friday, August 2, 2013
Friday Flora Old Growth edition
I haven't posted much about the work on the house of late, largely because there hasn't been any work on the house of late. However, we are getting the house painted, and as part of the preparation, I had to repair some of the siding. The siding on the "old" part of the house is, we think, original, 1936. The siding on the addition, which I installed, is standard stuff from one of the local mills, probably only a few years old and grown in a monoculture factory forest. It's revealing to look at a slice of each. Do click on the picture, the wood is quite beautiful:
One can state neutral facts about each: the old growth is fantastic wood. The boards are ten feet long and completely clear, and there's over 20 rings going across that board. They've lasted nigh on eighty years, and while the wood is somewhat brittle (see the chip on the lower left) and has been home to carpenter ants (the holes on the right), it continues to hold up wonderfully well. It seems to have only had one coat of paint, ever. The new wood, with its widely spaced rings, just looks cheap in comparison--it's cupped, and to get ten feet of board, the mill splices together a bunch of segments of two to six feet. The soft part of the bands breaks out easily, and I had a difficult time getting a thin slice--see the jagged bottom edge, and the giant chunk on the right.
However, this is timber country, and around here, it's impossible to be neutral about these two pieces of wood. The economy of this area pretty much grew on that old growth wood, and now that harvesting has been curtailed, the economy has been contracting for a couple of decades. No really satisfactory replacement for the timber industry has been found. There are lots of towns--counties even--with futures that look grim on this account. Just up the road from us is Glide, a small town. No stop lights, but it's got a P.O., an old elementary school, a newer high school, a bunch of churches, etc. In the center of town, there's a mothballed lumber mill, still with weathered stacks of logs and lumber that haven't been bothered by human hands in years. There were a handful of cafes and shops and the like, but most have closed; sometimes the town looks like its dying from the inside out. I wouldn't bet that the town will have half of its current population in fifty years.*
Almost every resident of Glide would see the story of their town in those two pieces of wood. Certainly, every contractor who's worked here has seen a similar story when they see the wood this house is built with. A couple have given me lengthy arguments about why it's environmentally irresponsible not to harvest old growth timber: Old-growth forests are stagnant, equilibrated. There was this one watershed where clear-cutting actually increased the number of trout in the streams. If we're concerned about global warming, then we should want clear-cutting since new forests capture much more carbon than old-growth. (The next day the same guy went on a rant about how global warming is bunk, certainly not anthropogenic, and if does exist, it's most likely due to H-bomb tests and sunspots.) The timber industry has even put out a Bizarro-world version of the Lorax, called "Truax", which blurts out most of the same, along with the salient point that nobody really cares if a few species you've never seen go extinct.
Before I lived here, it was much easier to say that there was no merit to the arguments supporting harvest of old-growth forest. I'm still opposed to it, but the cost is in my face; I'm saying that the old growth has greater value than the town of Glide. If I have my way, these towns will have a radically different (and worse) future, and previously open roads to prosperity are closed.
I still see myself, at least in part, as a teacher, with a set of skills that I've worked hard to develop. However, today, the power of money is pushing standardized testing and MOOCs, and pushing me to obsolescence. So, I can definitely sympathise with Glide. Me, the lumberjack, Glide, the northern spotted owl, Detroit--we are all trying to figure out how to cope with uncomfortably reduced livelihoods and futures where we may be obsolete.
*Timber is most of the story, but not all; the venality of 19th-century robber barons and railroad swindlers actually plays some role--look into the history of the Oregon and California Railway for more info.
However, this is timber country, and around here, it's impossible to be neutral about these two pieces of wood. The economy of this area pretty much grew on that old growth wood, and now that harvesting has been curtailed, the economy has been contracting for a couple of decades. No really satisfactory replacement for the timber industry has been found. There are lots of towns--counties even--with futures that look grim on this account. Just up the road from us is Glide, a small town. No stop lights, but it's got a P.O., an old elementary school, a newer high school, a bunch of churches, etc. In the center of town, there's a mothballed lumber mill, still with weathered stacks of logs and lumber that haven't been bothered by human hands in years. There were a handful of cafes and shops and the like, but most have closed; sometimes the town looks like its dying from the inside out. I wouldn't bet that the town will have half of its current population in fifty years.*
Almost every resident of Glide would see the story of their town in those two pieces of wood. Certainly, every contractor who's worked here has seen a similar story when they see the wood this house is built with. A couple have given me lengthy arguments about why it's environmentally irresponsible not to harvest old growth timber: Old-growth forests are stagnant, equilibrated. There was this one watershed where clear-cutting actually increased the number of trout in the streams. If we're concerned about global warming, then we should want clear-cutting since new forests capture much more carbon than old-growth. (The next day the same guy went on a rant about how global warming is bunk, certainly not anthropogenic, and if does exist, it's most likely due to H-bomb tests and sunspots.) The timber industry has even put out a Bizarro-world version of the Lorax, called "Truax", which blurts out most of the same, along with the salient point that nobody really cares if a few species you've never seen go extinct.
Before I lived here, it was much easier to say that there was no merit to the arguments supporting harvest of old-growth forest. I'm still opposed to it, but the cost is in my face; I'm saying that the old growth has greater value than the town of Glide. If I have my way, these towns will have a radically different (and worse) future, and previously open roads to prosperity are closed.
I still see myself, at least in part, as a teacher, with a set of skills that I've worked hard to develop. However, today, the power of money is pushing standardized testing and MOOCs, and pushing me to obsolescence. So, I can definitely sympathise with Glide. Me, the lumberjack, Glide, the northern spotted owl, Detroit--we are all trying to figure out how to cope with uncomfortably reduced livelihoods and futures where we may be obsolete.
*Timber is most of the story, but not all; the venality of 19th-century robber barons and railroad swindlers actually plays some role--look into the history of the Oregon and California Railway for more info.
Friday, July 12, 2013
Friday Flora Littoral/litter edition
Some sand verbena (Abronia latifolia), Oregon Dunes.
A lovely day at the dunes a week or so ago. The dunes are a most interesting ecosystem--it seems you always find fascinating ecosystems in crappy environments, and a sand dune is a pretty crappy environment for a plant. The beach is also of interest, at low tide it's flat and well over a hundred meters from dunes to water.
This being a Pacific coast beach in 2013, there was plenty of garbage to be picked up. I hiked out with thirty pounds of fishing float and styrofoam and nylon rope on a stick, carried like a yoke. Brother M. & sweetie carried crammed-full knapsacks and bags of plastic bottles from Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, and elsewhere. The beach is lovely, but it is so hard to see all the debris we have put there and not think of this. Warning--link will make you feel very, very bad.
A lovely day at the dunes a week or so ago. The dunes are a most interesting ecosystem--it seems you always find fascinating ecosystems in crappy environments, and a sand dune is a pretty crappy environment for a plant. The beach is also of interest, at low tide it's flat and well over a hundred meters from dunes to water.
This being a Pacific coast beach in 2013, there was plenty of garbage to be picked up. I hiked out with thirty pounds of fishing float and styrofoam and nylon rope on a stick, carried like a yoke. Brother M. & sweetie carried crammed-full knapsacks and bags of plastic bottles from Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, and elsewhere. The beach is lovely, but it is so hard to see all the debris we have put there and not think of this. Warning--link will make you feel very, very bad.
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