Message in a Dream
A neighbor asked me over last week to look at his American elm seeds. He is trying to grow new trees from a large healthy one that somehow has managed to escape Dutch elm disease. This is part of an effort to grow new American elms in our county in Virginia. But the neighbor has sprouted only a few seeds from dozens of attempts. And they don’t look so good.
My yard was very conservative when I moved in last summer. Within weeks it was bright and beautiful with exotic flowers that bloomed until December, then burst into life again a couple of months later. This earned me a bit of a witchy reputation. But my experience is limited to flowers, fruits and vegetables. I am not a tree person. But I told the neighbor I would see what I could find out. I started researching online. I found some information, but it was confusing. I was frustrated. Later in the week, I had a dream. I was walking with my father in the woods. He was the kind of person who could go straight to a stand of trees that had been declared extinct, or nearly. No big deal. It was like he could smell them out.
In the dream, my father bent down and started digging with his hands in the forest soil, pulling away the organic matter on top. He pushed deep into the packed earth and pulled that up in his fists. He held out the rich soil to me. I woke up thinking about the elms.
Yesterday, I told the neighbor I wanted some of the seeds. I mentioned the soil in the woods where I often roam near the trail near here (the Iowan sits on the bench and waits for me to get my fill). I did not mention the dead father and dream. But, I said, “I’m in.”
Death Bloom
Last weekend, Daryl cut down our 25-year-old sweetgum tree. Dallas soil is wrong for sweetgums; it is too alkaline and causes iron deficiencies in the trees. But the prior owners had planted one, and it was beautiful, so we fretted over it for the 20 years we have lived here. Daryl would give it iron supplements, but it always looked anemic. It was beautiful, even as it failed to thrive. Last year, though, the tree was spectacular. The leaves were a rich green, its foilage full, and we thought perhaps a tap root had broken through the alkaline soil to a richer level. We realized this spring that last year’s performance had been the tree’s death bloom. It called on all of its resources for a final showing, in an attempt to make seeds that would carry on. It used itself up in a glorious display, then died.
This here is scarecrow country
Since a few years ago, when I started properly trying to get to know the part of rural Britain where I live, instead of just repeatedly driving from my house to B&Q, Starbucks, Borders and Sainsbury’s and missing all the interesting bits, I’ve taken photographs of around 300 scarecrows – or “mawkins”, as they’re known here in Norfolk. In order to do this, I’ve got off trains before my scheduled stop and made myself late for meetings, almost been run over at least three times, and put my life at risk trespassing on a variety of East Anglian allotments. I’ve snapped scarecrows who look like floating ghosts, scarecrows who look like futuristic horse people from outer space, scarecrows with their own pet scarecrow foxes, chav scarecrows, disco scarecrows, scarecrows with drawn-on gnashing teeth that could haunt your dreams more than any George A Romero film.
from the comments
At bean salad’ll stay like it is in the compost pile while all the rest goes dirt vagina.
Trees cocooned in spider webs after flooding in Sindh, Pakistan
(Via @josephpearson)
Flower of the Deep South
This is a crimson red Camellia I planted last fall beside the front door. I have four in all with names like “Tom Knudsen” and “April Tryst.” They bloom in the cold/cool weather. The Camellia, the Alabama state flower, can be tricky to grow in northern climates. But I had to risk it. They remind me of home.
This is a response to the photo of Daryl’s beautiful Iris.
Stamen Shadows
from the comments
Penny Peeper picked a peck of pickled peenies.
from the archives: March 18, 2010
Damn, this was fine.
Like you’d expect, it started out good and the comments made it all more betterer.
searching for the house of Ruben Bustes
Daryl, Sheila and I saw something today we think is the setting for a story. Driving through an old Oak Cliff neighborhood, looking for the house of Ruben Bustes (that’s a story in itself), we came across a one story ranch on a corner lot. The back was fenced with low chain link fortified inside with cactus. Inside the yard was another fence, also fortified with cactus, that housed a small dog house. I think that’s all we’ve got. Please tell us what it means.
Oh. Dem Watermelons.
Grew up on this mess. No wonder I bent so twisted.
Dear Clusterflock
My understanding of etiquette dictates that when asked to pass an item (e.g. salt), one should not use the item as it passes. Does this stricture apply beyond the dinner table?
Dear Clusterflock: The New Year…
Hopes? Dreams? Aspirations?
from the comments
Did I ever tell y’all about the time Daryl and I went to a reading by Mark Richard? It was in Dallas at the Border’s at Preston/Royal, and he was doing a tour for Fishboy. I remember being beside myself that we were going to hear him read. Only six or seven people were there — I couldn’t believe it. Anyway, the reading was great, and he took questions, and someone asked whether there was a story behind his writing of “Happiness of the Garden Variety.” And he said, well, he and his friend, Steve, were living in this place where they did work in change for rent, and there was this horse named Buster, and they really did pull it out into the bay after it died of bloat in the tomato patch. But when it washed up at the motel, it wasn’t really at the Armada Inn, like in the story. It was at the Ramada Inn. He’d changed that part.
from the comments
I actually was told today that there is a use for MALE urine to keep pesties from bothering your garden. Apparently they are not the least bit intimidated by female urine. The male of the human species being considered ultimate predators by rabbits and other creatures that like to nibble on lettuce and what have you. I have not verified this. I may have the Iowan be a test subject, though.
sad sac
Is masturbating to Christine O’Donnell a political act?
Update: Dan Savage beat me to it.
Dolly Freed
The delightfully unusual woman, Dolly Freed:
Between August 1, 1975, and August 1, 1976, Dolly and her father, a.k.a. “the Old Fool,” spent $1,498.75. “When I totaled up the figures and handed them to Daddy, his face went all white,” she wrote. “Then he sat down and checked that his heart was still working okay. ‘Impossible!’ he shouted. ‘Where did it all go?’”
Frank and Dolly had never planned to drop out of society—they just sort of woke up one day and were doing it, or at least the money part of it. They weren’t socially isolated—Dolly would have boyfriends and go out with friends—they simply needed far less than other people did, especially when it came to possessions and status.
Surrendering
There’s a bird on my head in this picture. I’m posting it to demonstrate my ease in the natural world. But that has not been the case in my dealings with the inanimate, ever. I was thinking about this after Shelia helped me work out a vexing problem with website posting that doesn’t bother anyone else in the least.
I started out young in this. I could not wear a watch. My uncle, who owned a jewelry store, said there are people who demagnetize them. He would give me a watch to wear to see how long it would take to stop, then he would fix it and observe. When battery watches became popular, apparently I “stripped the power” from them. I started wearing watch pendants. They stayed powered up longer because of the clothing barrier.
Later, the head tech at the news service where I worked said I could “walk into a room and throw a bank of teletypes out of whack.” When I was named bureau chief in Baltimore, my boss told me to use the office fund to buy that tech his favorite Jack Daniel’s to make sure the experts stayed on the BW Parkway keeping my computers running “because you especially need them.”
All of these hardware issues contributed to my phobia/fears about computers. But my relationship with the inanimate world has been getting better of late. I surrendered to it, stopped fighting and getting mad. I would say to these technical things “it’s all okay.” I am not intuitive about them, still, but I am no longer breaking them when I walk into a room. Maybe if I start loving them, somehow, the way I love plants, who knows what could happen. I can even wear watches now as long as I baby them a bit. I alternate them now and then, giving them each little rests.
quote out of context
Start your journey by exploring Peckerwood.
(thanks, Aaron)
Spiny Black Orb Weaver Spider
These spiders had to have been designed by Tim Burton.
Update: see closeup below fold
Tiger Swallowtail
They’re back. I always like to watch them visit the zinnia bed. This one has been chewed on a bit, but was still able to make the rounds of many flowers.
from the comments
For a while I couldn’t allow anyone to throw out plants. I had to rescue them. A little girl started to cry when I took away a ragged fig shoved in a dark corner, barely hanging on to life. “She’ll take good care of it, we can’t keep it anymore,” her mother said.
The fig is thriving now. I pass by it and see the little girl’s face.
from the comments
I was no more than two, and was playing in a pile of sand in the back yard. I rolled down the pile and came to rest near a weed called sensitive briar–or “cat’s claw”–that has pink puff flowers that look like what Horton was holding in Horton Hears a Who. The bloom is pink, like a mimosa bloom, but round, and the tips of the pink spikes have a bit of yellow pollen on them. I looked at them and fell into the beauty–then looked up and vaguely saw my parents walking around to the front of the house without me. They were probably just moving water hoses, but in that instant I knew that I could be forgotten. I still love those flowers. And it seems right that it is regarded as a weed.
Meet the flockers: Carole Corlew
I am the poster also known as Cece.
I’m a freelancer, living in Northern Virginia. For years I worked in the news business, which I considered a legitimate cover for just being nosy.
I cry at operas. In the hobby department, I make a little jewelry and something called wire art. And I am crazy in love with gardening. I write, confer, research and obsess about gardening, losing all sense of time in the flower patches.
Unsuspecting strollers might find me kneeling in the dirt at night, inhaling near the lip of a bloom. Sometimes, during a full moon, I swear I can see a bud opening, ever so slowly.
I was born in Texas, but we moved when I was five to a house in the middle of an Alabama cotton field. I still have friends from first grade. I moved to Washington, D.C., for work and lingered for 30 years, which is surprising, because political talk can drive me to clamp my hands over my ears.
My husband is from Iowa. Every year I hear him drawling a few more words – fiiivvviiii sted five, for instance.
I’m fascinated with the things we can’t see or measure. There are people who are so very sure of their beliefs. But how do they know?
That’s probably why I’m so drawn to Clusterflock. I knew the minute I landed. Y’all know you don’t know. So you — we — are looking and watching, eyes wide open. And that, my friends, helps me breathe. Deeply.
It is an honor. Thank you for having me.
Eat Me: I ate a Jewboy at Shopsin’s.
I would like to share with you peeps one of my favorite blogs: The Tipsy Baker. She discusses food, family, and cooking (and drinking) in a hilarious, neurotic, obsessive, honest, and casual way and makes most other food writing seem tedious and f’in boring. She raises animals (often illegally), drives hours out of her way for random and annoying ingredients, and gives serious consideration to the psychological torture she inflicts on her family by cooking everything and anything (including pig ears). She is also a fantastic writer, and it’s a pleasure to read her posts not just for the food but for the witty shit she regularly crafts:
I hope you’re reading this, Kenny Shopsin. Do you have a Google Alert set up with your name? Awesome. Your coleslaw recipe sucks. A full tablespoon of salt for half a head of cabbage? Are you fucking with us?
I’m not generally a profane person, but
a. Kenny Shopsin is, and I spent three hours last night rereading his fantastically entertaining book.
b. He ruined my coleslaw.But here’s the kicker. I had a few big glasses of red wine last night and what with the wine and the supersalty coleslaw, I woke up at midnight with a bit of a thirst. So, I made one of Shopsin’s egg creams. Drank it down. Made another. Worth the price of the book.
Her photos are at times unappetizing and often horrifying, but I make no effort to hide my deep desire to make this cardamom cake.
p.s. posted by Ronya. I’m good with the first name.
quote out of context
Without carbon, my trees would die. Carbon occurs naturally.
