unexpected flowers and beginning the clean up

It turns out there were three buds with flowers descending on the pruned yellow trumpet flower branches I brought in and the first two opened fully Wednesday night and their lovely lemony scent filled the room. And then Friday morning I woke to find that two more buds had flowers descending and it looks as if at least one stalk in the water is starting to send out little root buds. The third flower opened last night.

Earlier in the week I moved the bigger plants in pots that I brought in just for this cold spell back outside and uncovered everything I had covered and while all the foliage is brown and ugly everything seems to still be green at (and below) ground level, even the tender porterweed. The one exception is the ponytail palm which I think at this point will stay green! The foliage looks good, maybe only a little damage, but as near as I can tell, all the 'necks' are firm.

Our son came out to visit Wednesday, our first time to see each other in the flesh since covid hit. Good to see him and hug him. He hadn't seen the remodeling of the house after the flood and then we went over and visited with Pam who is back from Albuquerque. Later I started cutting back all the dead plant life, so far just the ginger and firespike and all the mushy goo from bulbs of all kinds. Our crazy weather, after 5 days of arctic freeze we're now having a week of high temps in the 70˚s. Big Mama has survived once again and she was out on her sunning spot.

Nothing much going on around here, I always consider the time between Christmas and New Year's to be a lost week where no one does anything and nothing gets done, the recuperative week after several weeks of festive activity. Not that we engage in festive activities but the rest of the world that does.

I spent the day yesterday cutting back dead growth leaving piles of debris for later retrieval as I move around this half acre and that's my plan for today as well. Might even torch the burn pile. It'll take several more days to get it all. I'll leave the banana trees for last as they will be a days effort all by themselves and that's not even counting the ones over in the shop yard.

Well, I'd best get out there and get to it.

 

falling over brown stuff

I trust everyone who celebrates Christmas had a loving festive holiday. We had our usual quiet day though the twins, Jade and Autumn, came by for a visit while they're in town.

They left today, headed back to Austin as Autumn has to be back at work tomorrow. She's already gotten a promotion and raise. Jade, whose official residence is in Dallas with her great aunt, works from home so as long as she has her work computer with her she can do so anywhere. And now that she has a car, that's her (used) jeep in the picture, she's not tied to Dallas as long as her department continues to work from home. Still no car for Autumn but she has her moped which had been malfunctioning so she's been ubering to work and taking the bus home but now it seems to be fixed finally so I gave her my heavy coat since she didn't have one. She had to move, again, on the 23^rd. Her living situation is in constant flux, has moved three times since she graduated last May, but the apartment she's subletting now for the next 6 months is closer to her work and will give her some time to find permanent housing. My grandson, Audra, and my great grandgirl are supposed to be coming in later this week from Arkansas. And my sister returns from Albuquerque tomorrow.

I've basically been hunkered down in the house for the last three days though I did have to go out for birdseed. I usually buy a giant bag at Costco which is heavy on the sunflower seeds and light on the millet and that's what I ran out of. The seed I got Saturday looked to have a good proportion but in reality, it's heavy on the millet and the birds don't seem to like it as much. They like the pecans I've been putting out though. I put them out for the squirrels to keep them off the bird feeder but the blue jays have helped themselves.

Plenty of damage out there...ginger, firespike, shrimp plant, night blooming jasmine, 

confederate roses, banana trees, 

morning glory bush, yellow bells, purple orchid tree, rock rose, Mexican bird of paradise, Rangoon creeper, pink desert willow vine, Mexican petunias, toad lily, salvia, plumbago, turk's cap, white and purple Philippine lily, hummingbird bush, and lantana all frozen to the ground. Leopard plant, crinums, spider lilies, agapanthus, amaryllis, society garlic, swamp lily, some easter lily and daylily foliage all mush. Roses and azaleas damaged. 

Orange cosmos, 

marigolds, and my little broccoli/cabbage/cauliflower plants are dead. I think it will all come back (well, not the dead ones) as it has the past two winters after days of a hard freeze, except for the annuals for which I have seed. Tomorrow it should be warm enough to uncover everything out in the yard and pull back the big tarp in the garage and see what there is to see. Today was warm enough but still one more night below freezing.

It's not all dismal. Apparently two of the 10 buds on the the yellow angel trumpet branches I cut off and put in water were far enough along that the flowers have descended. It remains to be seen if they actually open.

I finally got motivated Sunday and today to do my home yoga routine, even threw in some extra stuff and Minnie got a walk for the first time since last Thursday so we are slowly warming up and thawing out.

Tomorrow is Marcmas! Time marches on and birthdays add up. He'll be 71.

 

the frozen south

I thought, this time I am going to be completely prepared in advance. By Wednesday afternoon everything was pruned and covered. I was especially happy with how I had covered the enormous ponytail palm. It was only a year's growth like last winter but I have everlasting hope that this year I will save the foliage. It's planted on the south side of a concrete wall about 4' high and I always anchor the tarp along the top of the wall and down from there and then all around the bottom thinking the concrete will exude any residual heat from the day. About 5 PM Thursday I called Robin, who is house/cat sitting for my sister while she's gone, to look out the window and see if the ponytail was still covered as this front is blowing in with high winds. Yes, she says, oh wait, it's sliding off now. Well fuck. Grabbed my coat and my ropes and headed over to recover the ponytail. Robin came out to help and now that baby is covered and cinched up like a whore in a corset. But goddamn that wind was cold.

So, yeah, this arctic front, mumble mumble fucking people and global warming, is a bitch. We do not ordinarily have winters that get this cold and yet this is the third one in a row. Hey! You people up there in the frozen north, close the fucking door!

My desk with the vase of cuttings to root, my sister's gardenia bonsai, and the three yellow angel trumpet branches that had the most buds on them, maybe one or two will still open (wishful thinking there).

It dropped down to 16˚ but not until early this morning. The wind is still blowing with gusts up to 25 mph. Cat was convinced she wanted to go outside but has finally stopped bugging me. There's a 12” icicle hanging from the edge of the birdbath which is frozen solid, the turtle pond is only partially covered with ice so the birds still have access to water and I imagine Big Mama is hunkered down by the pump motor which creates some heat, and the bird feeder is almost empty so I'm going to have to brave the outdoors in a little while.

We were fairly busy at SHARE Thursday and the temp was climbing to 60˚. When it was time to leave at 1 PM and I drove around back to get the cardboard from the day to take it to the recycling center which I do every Thursday, the wind had shifted and there was a slight chill in it. I planned to go to the library on my way home but wasn't quite finished with my current book, had about 20 more pages, so I had taken it in with me and in between having to refill baskets I managed to finish so now I'm set with two books.

I took pictures of some of the personal hygiene items that were donated last week. These two pictures comprise only about half of what was donated. There was a smaller full box next to these and also doesn't count the amount that has already been brought in and organized in boxes in the back room.

I moved the bird feeder back under the hood hanging from the wire strung between trees. I watched a squirrel in this tree or that tree or the shepherd's crook or the edge of the roof or on the elephant plant stand trying to figure out how to get to the bird feeder. Eventually it or another started walking the wire. I chased it off. Several times. They are little pigs and spill more of the sunflower seeds on the ground than they eat. I have a tiny forest of sunflower sprouts under the shepherd's crook. Or did. I imagine they're frozen like everything else outside now. I finally took pity on her and put out a dish of pecans and one of cracked corn at the bottom of the tallow tree she was sitting in last. You might ask where the pecans came from since I've been moaning that I haven't gotten a single one from my trees for three years now. Someone donated a 2 year old sealed bag of pecan halves to SHARE but we can't give out food that is beyond its sell or use by date so I brought them home and threw them in the freezer thinking I would test one and see if it was edible and then forgot about them until today.

Oh, I see a squirrel in the tallow eating a pecan so I guess she found them.

If it wasn't so damn cold it would be a gorgeous day outside.

I've got dinner thawing out, stuffed cabbage casserole left over from a previous day's cooking so I think I'm going to spend the rest of the day on the couch with a book, Minnie on one side, Cat on the other, until it's time to heat it up.

 

preparations, white knuckles, J6 referrals

Minnie and Cat getting closer.

I got up Sunday morning and checked the weather app hoping hoping hoping that the low of 21˚ on Thursday night had been revised upward. It had been revised all right but not upward. Now the predicted low for Thursday is 15˚!!! And 19˚ Friday night, 31˚ Saturday night so I spent the day pruning back the pink angel trumpet and the begonia and brought them and my tall cactus/succulent in the house, pruned the tops of the wedding bouquet plumerias so the big tarp would cover them in the garage, took cuttings of the firespike and morning glory bush which will freeze to the ground but I don't know if they'll come back, moved the two potted altheas into the garage, moved the big pot of walking iris in the house, snugged the white orchid tree up against the house protected on the north and west side, cut back the porterweed and bougainvillea in preparation for being covered both of which probably won't survive the teens anyway as well as the bird of paradise and gardenia which I will also cover. I'll have to cut the yellow trumpet flower back hard to cover it and it's just now covered with buds. I'll have to cover the ponytail palm too but I don't expect the foliage to survive the teens and twenties. It will be the third year in a row that its growth gets frozen down to the bulb. We're looking at 36 – 48 continuous hours well below freezing. The ginger, the shrimp plant which just started blooming, the leopard plant, the confederate roses, the crinums, the banana trees, the morning glory bush, the firespike, the yellow bells will all freeze to the ground. Some of those may not come back and I'm afraid this might just kill my azaleas. It took them til this summer to really recover from the arctic blast two winters ago and my sweet little Japanese azalea is so small.

I'll cover it but not the rest of the azaleas because I just don't have the material to cover everything. Hopefully it will finally kill off the white fly on my camellia that has resisted my efforts just so long as my camellia doesn't die as well.

I know my readers up north are probably rolling their eyes since they deal with temperatures like this and worse every winter plus snow and ice but I live on the coastal plain of Texas. It's not supposed to get this cold here. Just looked at the revised forecast...now four nights: 15˚, 19˚, 19˚, 25˚.

I did all that yesterday so that I can start getting things covered Tuesday and Wednesday. Today rain was predicted and I needed to take my sister to the airport this morning, an hour there and an hour back, for her flight to spend the holiday with her daughter in Albuquerque. It sprinkled/drizzled a little bit on the way there but mostly no rain at all and for the first half hour on the way back, but the last half hour was through a near zero visibility hard rain white knuckle drive. Seriously, if the vehicle in front of me was white, I basically couldn't see it unless they tapped their brakes and then I could see the tail lights. Fortunately I made it home without incident.

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The last J6 committee hearing was today and they reviewed their previous findings which findings they felt were enough for criminal referrals of Trump and unnamed 'others' (possibly Eastman, Meadows, Giuliani, and Clark) to the DOJ for:

1. Obstruction of an Official Proceeding - Title 18 Section 1512

2. Conspiracy to Defraud the United States – Title 18 Section 371

3. Conspiracy to Make a False Statement – Title 18 Section 1001

4. “Incite”, “Assist” or “Aid or Comfort” an Insurrection – Title 18 Section 2383

Unfortunately a referral doesn't mean the DOJ will follow up with an investigation and indictment but we have high hopes that this DOJ will proceed on the recommendations of the J6 Committee. In addition to these criminal referrals, the J6 Committee recommended 4 House members, including McCarthy, to the House ethics committee for refusing to honor subpoenas. That will likely go nowhere once the new House is sworn in since republicans have a slim majority. And of course the usual House republicans and the MAGAts over at the cesspool Twitter has become are going nuts.

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Well, I totally messed up my 'finished with my task' post. I meant to juxtapose the starting picture (which is really first day progress picture because, well, me who always forgets to take a before picture) with the finished picture. So I know we are all tired of seeing these pictures but I'm going to post the two anyway because I want to see them together. You don't have to look at them or comment on them. You can see the hackberry tree in both pictures that I still need to cut down.

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Alright, tomorrow is grocery shop day and my night to fix dinner which I think I'm going to make a lentil stew and in between those tasks I'll start covering stuff.

monster task, monster, monster bush

Friday I headed over to the shop yard with cart, hoe, and loppers determined to git 'er done. It took me less than two hours I think but man, that section had some monstrous roots; big, thick, long, ropy roots. 

where I left off

finished

The only reason I was able to do it at all is because all that dirt is not the dirt the ground around here consists of. This is bought high quality garden soil, about 8 yards or so, loose sandy loam which made it so easy to hoe it out and pull roots loose. Well, easier. It would have been an impossible task for a person with a hoe and loppers if it was our heavy clingy clayey dirt. I wished many times that I could shovel it up into a wheelbarrow and use it in the low spots at home. But all those roots made that just a pipe dream.

I'm glad I got it all done Friday because the weather did turn colder today and the next four days with overcast or rain, highs in the 50s, lows in the 40s until next Thursday when the low is predicted to plunge to 21˚. This does not make me happy. The banana trees will freeze to the ground, the ginger will too but then it does even with a moderate freeze. The porterweed will have to be cut back and covered and it may still die but that's OK as I've potted up several volunteers, the pink and yellow angel trumpet will have to be cut back drastically so I can cover them though I may be able to get the pink in the house and of course the yellow has started blooming for the first time this year. I'll have to bring in the begonias, cover the ponytail palm but all the foliage will still die off...again. Will have to cover the bird of paradise and the bougainvillea and the gardenia. Fuck! And I hope to all the powers that be that the brand new water pipes in the shop don't explode like they did last year. I'll have to do a better job of draining them. I'm still hoping against hope that as we get closer they'll revise the low upwards.

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I'm sure we've all seen by now the Major Announcement by Trump on Thursday for his NFT digital trading cards, for which he has been roundly mocked, showing him as a superhero and other ridiculous comic book depictions of him all tough, buff, and muscular (and if you haven't seen his video announcement, it is hilarious) which could be purchased with cryptocurrency or credit card. I had to google NFTs which are supposed to be connected to blockchain (which I don't really understand) which is supposed to make them secure and uncopyable, like your domain name. Apparently NFTs are becoming very popular for original content by artists of all genres. What I did find out is that first you have to establish a digital wallet, then when you purchase your NFT it is sent to your digital wallet from which you can access the image or game or video or music or writing or whatever. This makes sense to me if what you purchased is a game or video or music or even essays or other writing that you would need a device for to use but not for digital art. At least for me. I tried to find out if you could print out your digital art you purchased to have a hard copy but I haven't been able to determine this yet. I gather not. Personally, if I buy a piece of art, even if it is a ridiculous trading card, I want to be able to hang it on my wall where I can see it ll the time. Instead, I assume, the only way to gaze upon your purchase is through a device when you go to your digital wallet. The other thing about NFTs is that as an investment, you can resell it but 10% of the sale price goes back to the original creator (which for artists is a good thing) and there would probably be a fee from whatever platform you use to sell it on.

According to the site through which these cards could be purchased, they sold out 45,000 for $99 each in less than 24 hours, which I find extremely hard to believe, and the percentage of the purchase price that goes to Trump, however much that is depending on the licensing agreement he signed, goes straight into his personal pocket. At any rate, the site now says sold out. Here's a link to a very good article, Trump's Trading Card Grift Is Worse Than You Think by Kurt Eichenwald, about how it all works, who is behind it, etc. To say that the whole thing is very hinky is putting it mildly. Speculation is that sales were not by individuals who probably didn't understand what they were buying or how to access it (and Allison posted some tweets about that) so much as big money players supporting Trump's divisiveness in American society. They see a divided America as a weak America.

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So to end with something a little more uplifting here's a picture of the monster heritage rose bush blooming now. 

another day's effort, donations, and deflated baby

Cold front blew in Wednesday, very windy and overcast. That was early yesterday morning. About 11:30 I hauled the garden cart over to the shop yard and started hacking away with the hoe, getting out the roots, and spreading out the dirt and before too long the sky cleared up. I started at the other end this time and finally managed to get the last side of sheet metal out. As I thought, the very end had way more roots in it than the other half, almost solid for the first 6” or so. By the time I'd worked my way in about 3' the cart already had more roots in it than the whole 8' section I did Saturday. By the time I quit not quite through at 1:15, it was mounded up pretty high.

I could have persevered and finished spreading out the last of mound but it was time to go in for lunch which the dog was reminding me of. So, dumped that load on the burn pile and trundled back home. The weather should still be good enough Friday to get out there and finish that, not too hot, not too cold, sunny enough, and start on the last mound of dirt which is 4' x 8' but not as deep as the previous ones so less volume of dirt to move. Still full of roots though. I will be glad to be done with this task.

before

after

I brought home a bag of frozen perch fillets from SHARE last week so that's what I fixed for dinner Tuesday night, brown butter fried perch fillets and zucchini tots which are grated zucchini, minced onion, finely grated cheddar cheese, breadcrumbs, and an egg. Squeeze all the water out of the zucchini, mix all ingredients, form about a tablespoon of mix into an oval and bake, flipping midway. Not too much trouble and really good.

Speaking of SHARE, Monday was our little holiday potluck 'social'. Pleasant enough and I got lunch out of it. And today, of course, was my SHARE day. Some company had a drive and donated a huge amount of personal hygiene items...toothpaste, tooth brushes, razors, soap, shampoo, shave cream, lotion, creams, and I don't know what all, enough to fill four grocery store carts to overflowing, at least, stuff people don't usually think of donating. And socks. Of course I didn't think to take a picture while I was there but it was really an impressive sight.

So, yeah, the christmas season. Outdoor decorations are popping up, or rather inflating and deflating. I don't really care for those inflatables and the reason is people tend to only have them 'on' at night. Puddles of fabric on the lawn during the day don't really exude 'festive'. This is one neighbor so I do see it inflated and illuminated. Another neighbor has an inflatable creche. Poor little baby Jesus, a puddle on the ground, seems almost sacrilegious. 

the yard chore, flowers, and thoughts on bringing Griner home

Another day Saturday working on the old raised garden bed site. I got half the 16' long bed of dirt spread out and roots cut. 

The second half will take longer I think as it appears to have many more roots in it than the half I did. And still need to spread out and de-root the first bed on the left. Speaking of which, those red leaves in the picture below sprouting from the stalks is virginia creeper already starting to grow again from the roots/vines I cut when I first started.

My little camellia has bloomed. Last year I only got two flowers, this year, eight. Only one open now and one more to go.

Also blooming is the little Japanese azalea. I expected it to bloom in the spring but this exceptional heat confused it I guess. The petals are long and narrow and the flowers have a sweet scent. This is the first time it's bloomed in the two years I've had it.

Thunderstorm with lots of lightning and thunder and hard rain at times around dawn this morning giving us about 1 3/4” so I won't be chopping and spreading dirt today. Plenty of chores in the house or maybe I'll start a watercolor. Been thinking about it. Pansies maybe.

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Here's some things to consider about Brittany Griner and her arrest in Russia and the trade Biden made to bring her home. In Russia, the penalty for possessing up to 6 grams of marijuana is a fine or 15 day detention. Griner had less than a gram but because she brought it with her when she entered the country, she uses it medically, they charged her with smuggling, punishable by 5 – 10 years in prison and gave her 9 years for less than a gram. Griner is a two time Olympic gold medal winner, an extraordinary athlete who also happens to be a black lesbian. She was in Russia to play in a Russian league during the off season in America. If our female sports teams were given the same respect and income as our male sports teams, our women wouldn't need to play elsewhere in the off season. I can't help but think that if Griner was a white heterosexual male, there would not have been an outcry against the trade, as there was against Griner, with the haters saying she got what she deserved in Russia and that she hates America because she engages in peaceful protest to point out the institutionalized racism against POC in this country as well as the hate and discrimination towards the other gendered.

Whelan, who holds citizenship in four countries, UK, Canada, Ireland, and the US, is an ex-Marine who was dishonorably discharged for theft, lying, and other charges. After his court marshal he worked for different companies engaging in global security and investigations. He was arrested in Russia on charges of spying which he denies, there is a report he was receiving a list of intelligence officials, and was sentenced to 16 years. Biden tried to include him in this trade but Russia would not even discuss Whelan's release. It's likely they only allowed Griner to leave to create division here in America, knowing how the right wing would react. The more Putin can divide us, the better for him and the right wingers play right into his hands. I find the hysteria from the far right about Biden's failure to win his release to be just a little contrived especially since Whelan was arrested when Trump was president and Russia offered him in an exchange for Bout and Trump refused.

Bout, the 'merchant of death', had been retired for 10 years when the sting operation by the US lured him out. He has already served 10 years in prison and would be released in a few more so the man is 20 years out of the loop of weapons procurement. I think it's doubtful that he will start selling weapons again. As for that, the biggest weapons dealer in the world is the US. We sell them above and below the table, have no problem providing weapons to insurgents to take down our opponents or governments we don't like...like the Taliban, Saddam Hussein, Iran/contra deal just to name a few. And we need look no further than our own homeland to see how much America loves guns and gun violence. The uproar about releasing an arms merchant falls a little flat since apparently selling death is OK as long as it's us doing it.