tweet of the day, III
The official flower of the state of Texas is Meat
— Fake Wikipedia (@FakeWikipedia) January 18, 2012
from the comments
I love it when a garden plant takes off like that, although sometimes it makes me worry that the soil has some kind of errant isotope in it (50s giant ant movies). I had a banana pepper plant like that a couple of years ago that must have crossed with an anaheim pepper plant because it had the cool sweetness of a banana pepper and a bite, too. That one plant produced like the one Derek mentions here.
Also, isn’t there a dish served in Mexico called Pulpo in su Tincto? Octopus cooked in its own ink. Why is there so much gastronomic technique that heads straight for morbid irony? Lark tongues in honey, porcupine-kabobs…. Maybe it’s because tired minds (mine) register form even in a daze.
Mistletoe Shortage
There’s a mistletoe shortage in Texas, due to drought. But some people don’t care.
“In 1901 you needed to be under the mistletoe to steal a kiss in public,” said Mr. George. “In 2011, you can do just about anything you want in public and it goes unnoticed.” When asked about the shortage, Mr. George was confident there would be no love lost.
from the comments
Meaning: no way am I touching my fake bush till Christmas Day.
headline of the day, II
Shape-Shifting Donkey Prostitute Strikes Again
photo out of context
headline of the day
Artificial Leaf Moves Two Steps Closer to Reality
photo out of context
from the comments
The tree is a huge native holly, from a distance it looks like a magnolia. And as the ice thaws, the birds swarm their favorite party tree, stripping it of fermented berries. They create a ruckus, but not the high, shrill din the hawk’s appearances bring. More like they’re sitting on bar stools, trying to out-cheep each other. Little drunkards.
from the comments
In other news (because I feel like it’s too soon for me to post headline of the day, III):
Drunken elk rescued from Swede’s apple tree
…And from what Johansson could gather, this particular animal had been on a day-long bender.
headline of the day, II
Brooklyn’s Famed Vagina Tree Felled by Irene
Earthquakes and Hurricanes
Irene roughed up my flowers and our psyches. Both are recovering nicely. As the storm moved toward us Friday night, we popped out to the John Prine concert. We sat on the expansive lawn of northern Virginia’s Wolf Trap concert pavilion. People were mellow, nibbling picnic food, drinking wine, chastened by a week of unexpected earthquakes and then, what next, a hurricane.
Night settled in and I pulled my wrap around me. I was carried away by the opening act, British singer/guitarist Richard Thompson. I closed my eyes and soared. He was dynamite, pumped up maybe by the hurricane mustering strength in the Atlantic. Then the Iowan bolted. He’d gotten a call — Home Depot, a shipment had arrived, the backup sump pump might be in. He was in natural disaster mode. So we left, rushed for the depot. I didn’t mind. The Iowan had talked me into going to the concert. I would have sat at home working and worrying. I got to see Thompson, I’d seen Prine several times. I got home and readied for the next day.
There was no sump pump backup (but of course). I went to bed, got up early on Saturday and shoveled copy all day as the winds blew and rains slammed. The Iowan went next door for happy hour, hurricane parties are big here. He was looking out the window when a big limb crashed down on the neighbors’ car. Later, the wind knocked down half of my “green screen” on the back porch, my outdoor living room, a mesh netting of climbing plants I put in to replace the running bamboo (!) the ambassador’s wife placed there as privacy for the (now gone) hot tub. The Iowan said “we’ll fix it in the morning.” But he got on the phone, and I got my little hammer and nails and slipped outside. I climbed up on the white wicker settee and tap tap tap in the wind and rain and set it to rights before the yelling started: “GET IN HERE WHAT ARE YOU DOING WE ARE HAVING A HURRICANE!”
Finally, to bed around midnight to sleep in fits and starts. The Iowan stayed up, prowling the blue house, stacks of old towels at the ready to fight off any water encroachment from the not-so-finished side of the basement to the other. I found the stub of a cigar on the porch the next day, dregs of red wine in a crystal stem on a side table next to the back door. I could see him in the mind’s eye, leaving the the covered back porch, stalking across the open deck, glaring into the black sky, pelted by rain but staring Irene down, daring her, don’t even think about it.
Sunday. Rainy but calmer. We were still standing, a few small tree limbs down (thank you, my talented tree trimmer). The sump pump held. We never lost power. I worked into the early evening.Sunday night. Drained.
We’ve had a week.
What Happened When We Moved Out Here
It’s a little out of the way. We love our new home but the location is relatively remote. Not Montana prairie far, and not Desolation of Mordor far, but you have to drive for almost fifteen minutes to get a gallon of gas or milk. We’re twenty-five minutes from the Interstate, so for the first time in decades I cannot sit on my porch and hear the hum of highway traffic. Are these the metrics that define civilization? Do you choose isolation or insulation?
from the comments
Cindy, my little friends the birds were really quiet before the quake hit. I was out in the garden and wondered where they were. They’ve been hiding all week. I look for them everyday as I go around picking up the pots of Angel’s Trumpet that keep getting knocked over by aftershocks. Now the birds are up in the trees, invisible, but causing a ruckus. Hurricane Irene?
We are living in interesting times.
headline of the day, II
Arizona man accused of stuffing snakes down shorts
Tabling and Cutting Broom-Corn
Fig. 3 from Broom-Corn and Brooms. A Treatise on Raising Broom-Corn and Making Brooms, on a Small or Large Scale. Circa 1879.
I expect I will be working on rather a small scale.
from the comments
We’re in harmony with all of nature, except for plants. Fuck plants.
tweet of the day
photo in context
question out of context
You gave your talk at the TED conference last week wearing your mushroom death suit. How does the suit work?
from the comments
One thing the seemingly bloodied yarrow umbrel you picked brought to mind was this: evolution: the plants are looking for wounds to staunch, so the valued medicinal property will rescue them from the oblivion of tall grasses.
Achillea millefolium
“Common yarrow [Achillea millefolium] is frequently found in the mildly disturbed soil of grasslands and open forests.”
I snipped my yarrow at midnight by the light of the moon, standing in grasses up to my chin.
Other names for yarrow are devil’s nettle, sanguinary, milfoil, and soldier’s woundwort.
I especially like sanguinary, as one traditional use of yarrow is the stanching of wounds. When I got my yarrow indoors under lamplight, I noticed that one of the blossom clusters was tinged with something that looked like a blood clot.
Which makes the odd splotch on my chin in this mobile phone photo all the more interesting to me.
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.”
lilacs
The lilacs have started blooming in our Pittsburgh backyard. Spring, for sure, and I’m glad to be posting here again after a break.
Trees cocooned in spider webs after flooding in Sindh, Pakistan
(Via @josephpearson)
