Take a walk into my kitchen...

Knife Tracks on Pizza Pan

Perfection ~ Imperfection

The Spices of Life

The Misadventures of a Bogus Master Gardener

She's trying to learn to embrace imperfection...she's failing...she can't keep her mouth shut.  She wants to know where he hid his master gardener's certificate.  She wants to grind it into the ground with her mud encrusted boot, pour gasoline over it, and watch the flame of the dropping match torch it into cinders.  She wants to know why he wasn't struck by a huge bolt of lightning when his large pudgy fingers wrapped themselves around that worthless piece of paper on his and hers last evening of classes.

He doesn't see a problem...all the hoopla she's created...why can't she just chill out.  So overly melodramatic...too nit witty picky...she's a pain where the sun don't shine.  She resigned to living with a mistake last time, so why can't she live with another insignificant teeny little mistake this time?  How was he supposed to know that huge purple flowering vine he crushed at the base when he backed up from weeding would have recovered if he hadn't ripped it out of the ground to cover up his mistake?  How could she have missed it that soon?  Did it scream out to her telepathically?  He thought it a bit overkill to be asked how he felt about trashing $35 and three years of her hard work down the toilet in 10 seconds flat.

Now she says she needs a break from all the extra work he's causing her.  She says she needs things done her way, not his way...to rephrase it, she said...she needs things done the right way, not the wrong way.  He thinks she's loopy...he DOES do it her way.  He went to those entire master gardener classes with her, for her.  He even agreed to stop bugging her to use her own personal money instead of household money for upkeep of the gardens.  He doesn't understand her last tizzy fit with her patch of newly planted prairie garden above the pond.  He listened to her whine about the drought tolerant plants being drought stressed, so he fixed it for her.  What's the big deal!  Why is she at the top of the pond cussing and raking off the four inches of water saturated powder-fine wood mulch he painstakingly lumped on and around her plants?

He's now banned from the gardens without adult supervision.  She says she wants him to stay away from her plants so she will still have a garden come late summer.  He doesn't quite know how to take his current situation.  He must have misunderstood her last week when she complained she no longer wanted to be his mom.  He decides to throw in the towel...no more Mr. Good Guy.  He plants himself on the cushy couch in front of the big screen television in that air conditioned room with his tall glass of iced tea and tries to avoid eye contact and feeling like a dog every time she drags in from the gardens saturated in sweat, tracking dirt across the floor looking...well, quite frankly...looking like one of those plants in her prairie garden that started wilting two days ago.

  

Nightscape

The leopard frog quietly waits beneath four bags of hardwood mulch held high from the ground by two rows of cinder blocks.  The sun has set, and he emerges into the twilight glow softly hopping across the patio into the garden beyond.

Two chirps break the hushed approach of darkness as the little tree frog inches from under a valley in the vinyl siding towards the open edge bordering the deck's sliding door.  It chirps again, and emerges poking its head out from under the trim.  Gradually it seems to float across the wall, but only when you're not looking.

Dusk begins to pulsate with sparkles as lightning bugs hover, then move silently in and out of the plant shadows.  The last bird calls of the day are fading as a few sunflower chips are plucked from the feeder by late feathered visitors.

Silk threads appear across the landscape as the night spiders begin their journey to find their special place amid the leafy tree canopy and gardens below.  The buzz of wings passes by as an invisible beetle makes its way into the black void beyond.  The air is still.

The tinkling of wind chimes suspended from the second hook of the hanging bird feeders' shepherd pole announces the opossum has found the remaining seeds, and you know that morning light will break upon an empty feeder.

You look long until the outline of the world begins to slowly emerge from the darkness, your senses begin to sharpen, and the air grows with fragrances and night sounds.  You begin to realize that you are just one in all of infinity...one thread in the woven blanket of the entire cosmos.

You sigh, lean back on the swing, and look into the heavens sparkling with a dusting of stars from horizon to horizon.  You wait for that first shooting star of the night that will make your heart light, but know that most likely the only moving lights will be planes high overhead.  No Matter.

You're happy, and it doesn't need to be any better that that.

Down the Yellow Brick Road

Home...where the heart and most of the work is.  The feline trio of disharmony...Lacey - rising ruler of the House of Vic, Zoe - rising revolutionist of the House of Vic, Andee - rising fence straddler of the House of Vic, and Dustin - just a dog of the House of Vic.  ALL my pets were abandoned before they crossed my path.  I've never been loved by an abandoned animal that didn't have lifelong health issues that drain the dollars right out of my lifestyle.  I adapt.  I feel a responsibility to be the best I can be when it comes to the lives of those entrusted in my care.

Andee was on one experiment after another in his earlier years to come up with a healthy preventive solution to an ongoing crystal in the urine issue from being too alkaline.  After that was accomplished he seemed to have a re-occurrence, but it was determined the symptoms only mimicked the urine issues.  He was put on joint care maintenance and problem solved.  Then problems again, an endocrine imbalance, and he was put on a preventive shot routine, one shot every three weeks for the rest of his life.  Our household converted to healthier cleaning products to prevent the problem with any newer pets.  Now in the beginning stages of kidney disease, we're on a search to see if we can slow down the disease's progress.  He's my million dollar cat.  Emergency clinic vet charges are surrealistic, and I cannot ever remember a pet having a life threatening situation when my regular vet clinic was open.

Zoe had heart-worms when she was added to our family and in order to not kill her, we had to let the worms run their course and hope she survived.  She did...but with issues involving her heart and lungs.  She's on a series of holistic and supplemental additives to hopefully correct a heart murmur and strengthen her lungs.  We don't know how short her life will be, but I'm hoping to lengthen it a bit, if possible.

  

Dustin came to me already sick with a tick disease that I cannot even spell, let alone pronounce.  It's one of those diseases that never leaves one's life.  He's on preventive maintenance to hopefully prevent another re-occurrence with the disease.

Lacey's latest was a lung infection, and now we're trying to minimize the gurgles, growling, moaning, and groaning coming from her stomach that can be heard loudly from one end of the living room to the other.  The sound is hard to ignore.  Treatment for two types of worms has cut the loudness in half.  She's currently on a pro-biotic, enzyme, and a few other additives, but her musical addition to our evenings is still a regular occurrence.

The Ant Farm

I often joke that if anyone stands too long in any one spot in my yard, they will be eaten alive by ants.  Of course, it's not really a joke...it's probably closer to the truth than anyone would care to know.  I certainly would not be sleeping on a cot at night in the middle of my patio unless I had sprayed the parameter and underneath with poisons, and I would never be placing that cot on the bare ground...never.

I do knock the little buggers off now and then with the borax meals, but I have plenty of toads and frogs that snack on these tasty morsels, so I must be very careful and covert to minimize the risk of ending my toad and frog population.  The borax comes out when the Gulf Fritillary caterpillars on the passion vines are being harassed by the ants living in the nearby compost bins.

It's difficult placing a plant in a freshly dug hole swarming with ants.  Sometimes waiting until they disperse works...sometimes spritzing them with a bit of pyrethrum is all that works.  It's risky business, and I've evolved to playing it precisely with perfection.  I'm so full of it ;)

As a whole, I pretty well just let ants be ants in the gardens.  The home front is a different story.  I'm boraxing ants for weeks at a time if their foraging trails lead to the walls of my home or the posts on the front porch.  I serve borax meals a lot.  It's a pain-in-the-butt.  I found out almost the hard way that structure invading ants like to snack on sick pets in the home.  I'm always on a mission to control them.

Different ant's living different ways or maybe it's the same ant's living different ways, whatever...ant expert isn't on my resume.  I just observe and sometimes act.  There are ants that will nest under a trash can lid lying on the concrete patio for too long, ants that nest on the surface of the ground underneath a leaf in the garden, ants that nest under rocks and stepping stone pathways, ants that nest in tunnels in the ground - probably the same ones that nest in the compost bins, ants that nest inside the hollow stems of plants, ants that tunnel and nest in dead wood or live wood, ants that nest in the foundation or walls of a home...you name it, there's probably an ant type that uses it.  They are an extremely opportunistic race of social insects, and my biggest migraine in wildlife gardening.

I must remain positive about my ant farm that's too big to take to any show and tell program.  I remind people that ants are both the vultures and alligators of the gardens...they go after anything dead or alive.  I try to convince myself that they are more efficient at aerating the soil than any colony of earthworms.  I refuse to believe that they are here only to give me that final tap on the forehead pushing me over the edge of sanity into the abyss of insanity every gardener toys with...you know...thinking that your work will be complete and you can enjoy the rewards of your labor before the first snowfall.

************

                                                 Dream on,

                                                 dream on,

                                                 you romantic idiot...

                                                 Reality deserted

                                                 your sinking ship

                                                 ages ago...

                                                 That glow

                                                 at the end

                                                 of all those

                                                 everlasting projects...

                                                 Just a tease

                                                 that you never

                                                 really seem

                                                 to understand.



EXTRA BITS:

Plants tucked into the gardens this year.

• Dumbo Ears Coneflower (Rudbeckia maxima)
• Celandine Poppy
• Eastern Bergamot (Monarda bradburiana)
• Apple Blossom Grass (Gaura lindheimeri)
• Pachysandra, Allegheny Spurge
• Royal Catchfly (Silene regia)
• Indian Pink (Spigelia marilandica)
• Netted Clematis (Clematis reticulate)
• Pitcher's Leather Flower (Clematis pitcher)
• Purple Love Grass
• White Prairie Clover (Dalea candida)
• Button Blazing Star (Liatris squarosa)
• "Petite Pink" Gaura lindheimeri
• Lemon Thyme
• Hardy Sage
• "Munstead" Lavender
• "Blue Star" Juniper
• "Mother Lode" Juniper
• "Munchkin" Oakleaf Hydrangea
• "Little Susie" Semi dwarf native Witch Hazel

Vic's being a terrific sport about the gardens...ooops...Vic just read this and informed me that the correct praise is...Vic's being an exceptionally loving husband, removing the super aggressive native wild oat grass, Carolina rose, and tree seedlings that pop up every year and are a continuous headache...seedlings like cork branched elms, Bradford pears, Ailanthus, red maple, and something I haven't been able to identify.  The project has consumed his days for weeks and he's still at it.  I mark everything that has to go with that 3-inch wide bright yellow caution tape...it looks like a gigantic crime scene out there.  He's my hero!

The Bermuda grass is another story.  The survivors in the prairie garden pretty much hold their own against that grass that wants to choke everything demure out of existence, and it HAS killed everything in there that was a bit shy.  It's terrifically hard to keep it under control without killing everything else around it.  It's hindered a bit with dabs of Round Up, but eradication probably never will happen, as the yard to our left is the one with the Bermuda grass lawn.  I'd like to drench that lawn in a Round Up cocktail, but I'm short of funds at the moment.  Our neighbors always remember to cut their lawn only after it has seeded...BAD NEIGHBORS!

Every year the gardens change...one of the advantages or disadvantages of native gardening, as areas mature and crowd out the little guys, or new friendly seedlings need to be relocated.  Pathways succumbing to the surrounding vegetation are pruned and weed whacked back into existence, as nature rightly wants to reclaim her entire earth.  I try to harness her, and force her to live by my choices.  She's always planning and executing jail break after jail break.  She's a wild thing, and I love her; although I do try to make her semi-wild on my very small patch of ground.  It's a battle I'm losing.

Veggie Gardening Non-Deluxe

Black Cherry Tomato

Pink Brandywine Tomato

One Lonely Ice Cycle Radish

I'm traveling almost to Houston by car (don't ask), my chauffeur (husband), me, and a can of flea and tick spray...I really am.  I'm going to pester my mom a bit, and check out my younger sister and husband's digs way out in the sticks of nowhere land, I am.  Their goat farm's gone...kapoot!  Lots of work it was.  It's now chickens that pop out those eggs of green and blue.  Lots of work it isn't.  I plan to sizzle and wilt in the glory of Texas.
 

Tenacity and Fortitude