short stories part whatever, more bloomey things

I subscribe to a newsletter called Nautilus. You have to pay to play to get access to all the articles in every daily email but they always include one free article and they are fascinating. Most recently I read one titled How Life Works by Philip Ball. It’s talking about genes and gave forth this interesting tidbit, that we are not complex forms because we have an abundance of genes, in fact we have barely half of the amount in a banana, but because of the way our genes are regulated. We are half of a banana, I found that amusing for some reason.  Other essays I’ve read via Nautilus recently: Never Underestimate The Intelligence Of Trees by Brandon Keim and How To Quiet Your Brain Chatter by Liz Greene. I have several more still in my inbox I want to read. The one about trees was really no surprise because I’ve held the belief that trees are sentient beings with all the attributes of sentience since my early 20s. In fact I believe all life is sentient. How can it not be and survive?

When my brother was here the topic of ear worms came up. He said that the way to combat one driving you crazy is to mentally replace it with a vigorous marching tune. So I tried it this morning, tired of the short refrain from a song I can’t remember the last time I heard it and had been hanging around for a couple of days (and why does my brain pick these off the wall refrains?), and it worked. Of course now I have this Philip Souza type marching melody bouncing around but not as often and infinitely better because it has no words! And later in the day even it was gone.

We’ve been have really nice weather this last week; cool nights and mornings, low humidity, blue sky days, lows in the 60s, highs in the low 80s. That’s changing this week as highs will get into the 90s and lows in the 70s while the hill country will be broiling. Summer is creeping in.

This is the Chinese tallow tree in the little backyard directly across from the back door on the east side of the property inside the fence and shades the yard and house from the hot summer morning sun. It drops its leaves in the fall and if we get an early cold snap they turn yellow, red, and orange. Even without a cold snap they get speckled with all colors just not all at once. The leaves I drew last fall were from this tree. It’s old, average lifespan 30 - 50 years, and I imagine it’s close to 50, but can live up to 100 in optimal conditions. I love this old tree that gives us shade and color and shelter for birds and squirrels.

You might remember that I got a letter from a Frank Hofer, an account manager with a reputable Investment Bank in Canada offering me half of $9+M for submitting me as the heir to Alan Abbott’s estate who died with no kin to claim said estate. Well, it turns out that Frank is a piker because I got another letter from Noah Mark Esq., an attorney and notary public, also in Canada contacting me about an unclaimed “permanent life insurance policy” held by his client the LATE JEFFER ABBOTT, a real estate investor, who was also a cancer victim and died about four years ago with no heirs coming forth and had a “Life Insurance Policy” savings monetary deposit of $49,375,735.47 (gotta love the 47¢, makes it more authentic don’t you think?) which he will happily split 50/50 with me for submitting me as the heir. Oh and time is of the essence since the money will have to be turned over to the state after being unclaimed for four years. Boy, am I glad I didn’t jump on that first offer. Now I can go for the big money.

A week later and my eye feels almost normal. The graininess and gooey feeling is gone, mostly I’m just aware of it. It feels like there is a bit of a glare on the outside edge but now I’m thinking that’s just because I’m getting more light in compared to the other eye. And I swear, my eye is a different color. I’d been in the habit of using my glasses to watch tv so things were better in focus but now of course my glasses are useless. I was watching tv Saturday night and I suddenly became aware of how sharp, in focus, it was and while I need cheaters to read a book or look at my phone (computer screen is fine) where before I didn’t, my mid range vision is excellent and I’m not really sure how far that extends. Pretty far seems like. 

A few more blooming things: in this picture byzantine gladiolus, day lilies, society garlic;

spiderwort, one of my favorite day lilies, carolina wild petunia which I dug up out of an easement in my old city neighborhood and which has spread all over the little backyard.

ditch work, butchered tree, pho, and flowers

The plan was to get up early yesterday morning and get out there with the trimmer and do the ditch. Best laid plans and all that. I didn’t wake up, deep in dreams, until my pill alarm went off at 8:30. So it was after 11 before I got out there and oh yay, I needed gas for the trimmer. One more delay but I finally got going about noon. Did the longest half and started on the other half when the second tank of gas ran out and I was done. Two full tanks of gas in a row is about all I’m good for. Today I got out there a little after 11 and finished the other side and then since there was still plenty of gas in the trimmer I went around the edges of the flower beds and around the trees in the big back yard and omg why won’t this thing run dry! Finally, hot and sweaty, I came in a little before noon. I figure it takes about 45 minutes to use up a full tank of gas. It took a good 25 minutes under the fan on high before I cooled off enough to take a shower before we went out for lunch.

We found out there is a Vietnamese restaurant in Eagle Lake, a very small town, less than 3500 residents about 26 miles away so we decided to try it as we both like Vietnamese food and haven’t been to one since we moved out here where barbecue and Mexican food are about your only choices. There is a new Italian restaurant (the previous one closed) but we haven’t been there as Italian food isn’t high on our list. Anyway, the Vietnamese place is primarily a pho and fried rice menu with some beef and chicken dishes and the typical appetizers. I’ve had pho - basically a big bowl of broth filled with asian noodles and meat or shrimp with a side plate of bean sprouts, cilantro, and other green herbs that you add to your taste - once before and wasn’t all that wowed but I thought I’d try it again. It was decent but still not wowed so I doubt I’ll ever order pho again.

Friday it appeared the people who bought the house across the street were having the live oak in the front yard taken down, a mature gorgeous maybe even 70 year old tree. The previous residents would have a crew come in every year and do good tree work, trimming back the branches that were growing over the roof but keeping the shape of the canopy. The crew that showed up yesterday were cutting off/out whole limbs. It’s a shame and a sin and just downright heartbreaking and I imagine their electric bill is going to double at the very least. Why would anyone cut down a glorious shade tree when our summers here are climbing to triple digits for months. This is what it looked like this morning after they cut on that tree all day yesterday. 

OK, so I guess they aren’t cutting down the whole tree. The crew came back today to cut a little more out but mostly just cut up the stuff still on the ground from yesterday and hauled it all away. They seem to be gone for good but they butchered the fuck out of that tree, cutting any hope that even the tiniest branch had of maybe growing towards the roof, completely denuded bluntly cut limbs sticking out. Why they didn’t just take those naked limbs off completely I have no idea.

In the yard…the amaryllis are almost done but the byzantine gladioli are starting up.

I had three or four poppies come up this year, one of which was the multi frilly petaled one that looks like a pom-pom.

A shot of the back flower bed with tomatoes, squash, and potatoes in front; confederate rose, poppies, crinum lilies  and banana trees getting bigger behind that; and behind that clasping leaved coneflowers coming into bloom and waning evening primrose.

A nice clump of love-in-a-mist over at the other house.

There was a queen butterfly on the german verbena but the camera wouldn’t focus on it but I did get this good pic of a fritillary.

sexing a cat and dying trees

It turns out that the girl kitten may not be a girl. Her markings are very similar to Momcat’s but where Momcat’s predominant color is dark gray on light gray, Girlcat’s is darker. Since s/he is the most wary and will only let me pet her/him while s/he is eating and because this kitten never walks around with her/his tail upright like the other two little boys and Momcat and because her markings are so similar to Momcat I assumed s/he was a she. 

s/he

But Thursday night, Robin was out there with me while I was feeding them and we both got several quick glimpses of her/his rear end and it certainly looks like s/he has balls. That coupled with s/he has almost identical markings and color to Robin’s boy cat Noodle, is making us think she is really a he. So Friday evening I put a little food down in the shed so that I could get around behind her and try to sneakily lift up her tail and get a good look. Let me just say it was dramatically unsuccessful. I guess I’ll find out for sure next week when I try and trap that one first.

The rain is over for now and we're back to our normal winter weather...lows in the 40s, highs in the 60s. Today we have a blue sky day. It was overcast yesterday but I got out there anyway and started cutting back some of the dead foliage and have three piles to pick up, filled the garden cart with other tree debris including four of the sections of that big limb that fell earlier. Picked up the last handful of pecans and added them to my tally for a total of 201 pounds from my three trees.

Speaking of trees, there are two tallows beside the driveway and the first killer arctic vortex of 2021 nearly killed both trees, and did kill others around town. 

More than half my two trees did leaf out in the spring but they have been struggling ever since as every winter since we have had temps in the 20s and teens of different durations with less and less leafing out. Earlier in the fall we had a man cut out the dead wood in both trees but now it looks like this winter with just four nights in the 20s and teens that another half of the one on the right has died. After our three days of rain last week, last Friday I noticed that two of the trunks are covered in this white fungus. I’ll wait til spring to see if any of it leafs out but we should just go ahead and cut it down.

And speaking of rain, my neighbor Gary thinks my rain gauge is wrong because it always shows more than his and our other neighbor’s gauges which always measure the same. He only showed about 5 1/2” of rain to my 7.5+”. He’s probably right which bums me out if I can’t rely on it. I’m going to take my tube down to his house with two or three inches of water in it and pour it into his gauge and see what it says.

trees and ants and meds

A couple of the commenters on my last post offered suggestions on watering my pecan trees and they both had one thing in common, placing the source of water at the bottom of the trunk. The problem with that, according to the certified arborist that spoke at one of the EarthLabs, is that there aren't any feeder roots at the base of the tree, just the big artery roots. The small feeder roots are spread out under the canopy and only in the top 15” - 18” of ground.

Using a search engine to further clarify, one site says the critical watering zone is two thirds of the height of the tree away from the trunk with a soaker hose spread around the tree or a sprinkler or just letting the water run or a 5 gallon bucket with holes in the bottom for small newly planted trees.

I looked at several sites and they all say basically the same. I use either a sprinkler on low that throws a circle of water out about 4' or 5' in diameter but not up in the air or just turn the hose on low flow and let it run under the canopy, usually about 10' – 15' away from the trunk, which is what I'm doing this Sunday morning because I only have one sprinkler and I'm using it elsewhere. The birds, btw, are loving the sprinkler. They dart in and out of the spray, hang out on whatever plant or shrub.

My trees are mature, 25” - 35” diameters. Two of them are on either side of the septic drain field so I figure they are getting some water from that. The third does not and it seems to be the one that's dropping the most green pecans though the other two are as well. I've filled the 5 gallon bucket from the previous post to the rim and am starting on another.

Sunday the ants were on the kitchen counter when we got up, seemed to be ignoring the bait trap but by mid morning they were gone for the day at least. I located an area in the upper cabinet to seal and did that. Today, Monday they were back on the kitchen counter ignoring the bait trap so I followed their trail and dammit all to hell, they were coming in and out of the third prong hole from the outlet the coffee pot and grinder are plugged into, neither of which have that third prong. The little faces look dismayed do they not? 

How the fuck do I stop that up? I put a piece of tape over it. Speak no evil, especially ants.

Friday I spent a good deal of time on the phone trying to get meds straightened out. August 20 I renewed my two meds for the afib, sotolol and eliquis. A few days later I got an email that their pharmacist was holding up the eliquis and they had tried to reach my doctor to no avail but my other scrip was on it's way only they sent out the larger dose instead of the one I ordered. Three phone calls from me to the online pharmacy and one to my doctor's office and two return calls from his nurse who also called the online pharmacy and it was finally straightened out and the eliquis is on it's way. But while I had the nurse on the phone I told her I didn't think the lower dose of the sotolol the doctor put me on 3 months ago was doing the job, that I was having way more frequent and sometimes long breakthrough episodes. She told me to go back on the larger dose since I tolerated it well, that the doctor had lowered the dose because he thought I had complained about not having any energy (which I think he probably must have misunderstood something I said, maybe confusing motivation with energy, because he did say something about more energy), and I remember telling my husband when I got home that more energy was the last thing I needed. And then, of course, the heat dome came and sat on us and that was the end of any energy.

P.S. I'm trying to be better about replying to comments which you may or may not have noticed.

One last little observation. White wing doves, when they sit on a branch looking down, look like miniature vultures. 

because the extreme heat and drought weren't bad enough...

Everyone I know is sick of this heat and drought. I just looked at the weather forecast. Triple digits for the next seven days, zero chance of rain for the next ten. I am weary of watering every fucking day. I'd let the zinnias which are on their last legs just dry up and die except butterflies are still visiting them.

I haven't walked the dog in weeks but this morning I noticed that the street was mostly in shade so I put the halter on Minnie and off we went. I was sweating profusely by the time we walked to the other end of the street and back even if most of it was in shade. My neighbor Gary has been asking me if my pecan trees have webworms and yes one of the big ones by the house has some about 25' up and the native at the back of the lot has some. He's been telling me that they started at the far end of the street from me and have been moving my way, that the trees at the other end were almost completely denuded, never seen them this bad. I haven't really been worried about it. We usually get a little every year and they don't do much if any damage. Then I walked Minnie this morning and oh my fucking god!

This is horrible! Everyone's trees are covered with pecans, big clusters of fat developing pecans after three years of nothing and now with the trees denuded by the webworms, they might not have the ability to continue to develop the nuts. Or, as Gary says, once the worms die off the trees will try to regenerate using up their reserves that they would use next spring to leaf out. He asked if I wanted him to come and spray the webworms in my tree but the webs are too high for his sprayer to reach.

It's not just that we may all lose our pecans but people are losing their shade. This is a picture of my neighbor's side yard. I don't know if you can really see how much difference a good shade tree makes but the only place the grass is still green is directly under the canopies of those three trees and he's getting webworms in his trees as well.

In other news the bird feeder has been mobbed with white wing doves the last few days. There are 16 in this picture (taken on zoom through a dirty window). 

Also after months of no squirrels on the bird feeder, one bastard of a squirrel has been able to foil my deterrence and for the last three days straight, I have seen it on the bird feeder but have not seen it actually get up there so I don't know how it's doing it. This morning, peanuts and cracked corn and spilled sunflower seeds on the ground and this bastard is sitting on my bird feeder. I moved the ceramic elephant plant stand much farther away in case it was leaping from there and raised the downspout section so it was under the dome by propping it up with bricks but what I really need is a longer section of downspout.

But this morning I saw something unexpected. My bougainvillea froze down during last winter's arctic freeze and never came back and eventually I just quit checking on it but look what I saw today when I was out watering.

Surprise!

 

no kiln (yet), no rain (still), no pecans (again)

Another look see at the newer kiln and turns out there wasn't a wire loose after all. The controller on the newer kiln will function but the kiln doesn't start up. There are two knobs/switches that regulate...something...that aren't coming on and unless they come on the kiln doesn't come on. So today he took the knobs/switches that lit up on the old kiln and replaced the ones in the newer kiln aaaaaand, they didn't come on. And then a little wire did come loose but he got it put back in place and those switches still didn't come on. So now he's working on taking the relays out of the old kiln to replace the ones in the newer kiln.

I've had to start watering my two gingko trees. They started dropping leaves a couple of weeks ago and the squirrels are peeling the bark off some of the limbs and I think they've killed at least one or two limbs as they have no leaves on them and long stretches of no bark. I don't know why they are doing that, stripping the bark from the branches but the ground is littered with pieces of bark about two inches by a half inch. Further investigation says squirrels do it to thin barked trees to get to the sweet sap layer or to line their nests and happens most frequently in winter or spring but I've only ever had it happen in the middle of summer. Perhaps they're desperate for food though I put out cracked corn for them and they have access to water. They've done it before but this is the worst. They've attacked quite a few branches on both trees.

And because of the heat and the drought there are no pecans on my trees for the third year in a row and the few on my neighbor's tree are being got by the squirrels. My trees bloomed and set nuts but they only got about a half inch long before they started drying up and falling off.

We got the truck emptied and the burn pile piled higher and here's what the shop yard looks like. 

And the frustrating thing is that twice this week I looked across the cotton field and I could see it raining in the distance so I get the nervous freaky dog from the rumbling of thunder but no rain to at least make up for that. There's some kind of dome over this town that causes storms to bypass us, sometimes splitting in two with one half passing us in the north and the other half passing us in the south. Well, at least someone is getting rain. We all need it.

My turn to make dinner tonight...cheese enchiladas with meat sauce.

Saharan dust and more progress on the coral reef waxes

Tuesday the sky was white again (and today) and not from clouds though there are some clouds up there.

Looking across my neighbor's yard and the cotton field, it is hazy.

I think I made a decent start on the coral sculpture for the top of the box on Monday and Tuesday, mostly just working on individual corals using the small rocks as a base to build them up on though there won't be any consistency as relates to where in the world any particular coral grows or as it relates to relative size of one coral to another. Today I finished the one in progress from yesterday and then worked on smoothing out and cleaning up the four I already have constructed.

These are small, about 1 1/2” longest dimension. Top left is from a reproduction mold I made years ago of a piece of coral. I think I'll make at least two more, giving me 7 corals and the little crab,

before I start trying to composes all the elements into some sort of cohesive arrangement.

I didn't go to yoga class in El Campo at all last week and it's canceled for this week. Abby was out of pocket last week and recovering from being sick this week. I have been making an effort at my home practice, even managed 5 days in a row last week but only 2 so far this week though I have been pretty consistent putting in two hours a day in the studio as I need to get all the wax models done and move on to the next step.

The crepe myrtles are blooming. These are two of the three across the front of the house. I don't think they have ever bloomed this well since we've been here. Apparently they like the hot dry weather. 

another mold in progress and misc. pictures

Sunday I unloaded the car and put away the display, rehung the work I had taken down to take, and in general put it all to bed til the next time. Monday, I selected the colors and color combinations from my samples for the luna moth mold and pulled all the frit out.

Tuesday, I measured out all the initial amounts of all the colors and color combinations, even sifting the frit of some of the colors to winnow out the smallest particles, in between powder and 'fine', for the small spaces. I don't usually do that. Usually I measure out a color when I'm ready to use it and I have never sifted out the finer particles before but I think it will be beneficial, in fact, I can't believe I never thought of doing this before now. So now I'm ready to actually start filling the mold. I hope that measuring out the initial amounts in advance will speed up the process.

Wednesday I started filling the luna moth mold and right off the bat I messed up. Started with the moth body and got it all nice and tidy and then looked at the picture and realized I hadn't put the band of maroon in that goes from wing tip to wing tip and across the body. Sigh. Took it all back out and started over. I thought I had a check up this morning with the electrophysiologist but they never called to confirm and it turns out I don't have an appointment for today, Robin has a late shift so I basically have a free day today to make more progress.

Some miscellaneous pics...my confederate rose was very late to bloom and the first ones to open were stunted but it finally gave me some pretty blooms.

I have given volunteers to two of my neighbors and theirs bloomed fully before mine. A couple of weeks ago another neighbor knocked on the door after one of them told her I had given them the plant wondering if she could have one too. I happened to have a small one in a pot in my 'plant nursery' under the magnolia tree that I had dug up in the spring and happily gave it to her.

I guess we finally had some cold enough nights to finally trigger a color change in some of the trees and leaf drop over the weekend. The ginkgoes turned yellow and the tallows turned red and orange. Some of the other area trees also turned color like the sweet gum I pass by and the bradford pears.

With every gust of wind it rains leaves. There's a solid blanket on the ground now.

I popped in to see Miss Paisleigh yesterday when I took Robin home after work. She's two months old tomorrow.

My morning oatmeal loves me.

This morning's progress.

more progress, rethinking, and other miscellanea

Thursday, my SHARE volunteer day, was the last time we will be open before Thanksgiving and it was our busiest day so far with 35 families. We also had had a big food drive donation come in the previous Monday and another one come in Thursday. There was so much food and nowhere to put it as we had had a big delivery from the food bank the week before. I guess it's a good thing we had so many families because Jan kept bring cans into my station apologizing because there was no where else to put it but it was fine as I was loading it into baskets as fast as she was bringing it in. Robin was helping me the first two hours but then it was time to take her to work.

Friday about the only thing I got accomplished was cutting the new four pieces of trim and fixing dinner which was stuffed bell peppers, vegetarian version. I used a blend of barley, lentils, and split peas cooked with a little chicken bouillon, sauteed onions and mushrooms, and some leftover spinach mixed in. Sorry, no pic.

Today another day in the shop and I got one of the shadow boxes put together. What I didn't mention in my last post was that I went into Lowe's on Monday to get the new piece of trim and hopefully find a teeny tiny drill bit. No such luck but when I got home and rummaged through the little plastic box of dremel tool accessories, I found exactly what I needed and yes, I had already looked through that very same box before I headed out. Anyway I fit it into my hand drill and that's what I used to drill the holes in the trim pieces today.

a little suggestive, don't you think?

The plan was to leave the back piece the natural wood color and paint the trim pieces. In retrospect I should have just left 3/4” clearance around the cast piece instead of an inch (going with it anyway, not redoing it) and I'm not sure painting just that narrow border trim will be enough to offset the wood wood behind the cast piece. Right now it doesn't look 'finished' and I'm thinking maybe the whole thing needs to be painted. What I wanted was birch plywood, not pine, which is prettier and I think I would have been fine leaving the birch unpainted. 

I don't know, there's just something about pine that looks cheap, unfinished. I haven't glued the glass in yet and the background color is a little off because there's blue tape behind it (I don't want that part to be sealed or painted). If I don't paint the whole thing, just the trim, I was thinking white or yellow, but maybe it needs to be black. Fortunately, Rocky cut me two of each of the plywoods so I can play with the other ones.

I've got all the holes drilled in the trim pieces for the other one, the one on the red oak plywood and Rocky mused about staining the trim pieces instead of painting them. Something to think about.

Tomorrow I'm heading down to Matagorda to the beach, about an hour's drive each way, to see two of my river guide buddies whom I haven't seen in at least 15 years, probably longer. John and Elise moved to Tennessee after we all stopped guiding. Now that they've both retired, they RV all over the country and they're parked for the weekend at an RV park on the beach, heading west on Monday. 

As I've repeated ad nauseum, the arctic freeze did a number of everything here and things either didn't bloom or bloomed late. I got a few puny attempts from the yellow butterfly ginger earlier but this week two have bloomed nicely.

And I've noticed on my walks with the dog that my neighbor's live oak has produced an enormous amount of acorns this year. Live oaks are evergreens and all the ones here lost all their leaves from the freeze, so apparently they thought they're dying (they're not).

a typical sample of the ground beneath that tree