The Nature of Things

Dorothy Parker certainly had a way with words and a quirky sense of humor. Both are displayed to full effect in her poem "One Perfect Rose." One Perfect Rose by Dorothy Parker A single flow'r he sent me, since we met. All tenderly his messenger he chose; Deep-hearted, pure, with scented dew still wet - One perfect rose.  I knew the language of the floweret; 'My fragile leaves,' it said, 'his heart enclose.' Love long has taken for his amulet One perfect rose. Why is it no one ever sent me yet One perfect limousine, do you suppose? Ah no, it's always just my luck to get One perfect rose. Not perfect perhaps, but still nice for November.

A roundup of the week's news of birds and the environment : The Whooping Cranes of the Canada/Texas migratory flock are returning to their winter home at Aransas National Wildlife Refuge on the Texas coast. Meanwhile, the young birds (called colts) from this year's hatch from the eastern (Wisconsin/Florida) migratory flock are being encouraged to follow adult cranes on their migration route rather than being led by ultralight aircraft as they have been in the past. It is hoped that this method will prove to be more successful in establishing the birds in a viable eastern flock. *~*~*~* The newly-elected administration in Washington plans to strip NASA's Earth science division of funding in order to eliminate its climate change research. This means the elimination of NASA's world-renowned research into temperature, ice, clouds, and other climate phenomena. *~*~*~* Arctic scientists are warning that the increasingly rapid melting of the polar ice cap ris...

The man called Ove is fifty-nine years old and all he wants in life is to die. His sole purpose for living, the only thing he truly loved, left his world six months before when his wife of almost forty years, Sonja, died. Ove is a man for whom life is black or white. There is a right way and a wrong way of doing things. Ove adheres to the right way, the way his father taught him. His ambition is to be as little different from his father as is possible. Most of the rest of the world does things the wrong way and this makes Ove the irascible man that people see him to be. Sonja saw the world in bright hues. She was interested in the people around her and lived to make their lives better. She was a teacher who was assigned to teach ADHD children "before ADHD was invented." She took to her job with passion and belief in the children's ability to learn. She got them to read Shakespeare.  Sonja loved cats. Ove didn't. Ove and Sonja had lived in the same neighborh...

Gobble, gobble!

Not a butterfly but a butterfly-like insect, the Melanchroia chephise is, in fact, a moth. Its common name is White-tipped Black. You can see why. This pollinator is particularly drawn to Eupatorium plants such is this white boneset. It doesn't even seem to matter that many of the blooms are well past their prime. The larva of this moth is one of the caterpillars commonly called inchworms. (The ones that "measure the marigolds" - remember that old song?) Its host plant is the snowbush and it is sometimes called the snowbush caterpillar. On the day that I took these pictures, there were at least a dozen of the moths on the plant and they were joined by several butterflies including a Common Buckeye and a Queen. There were also other pollinators present, like this bee that you can see on the upper left side of the picture. Boneset plants really are magnets for all kinds of pollinators. In the United States the White-tipped Black is found mostly in st...

"The essence of wisdom is to know when to be doing, and when it's useless even to try."   -   Mary Stewart in The Last Enchantment Seldom in Mary Stewart's telling of the Arthurian legend has it been useless for Merlin to try to affect events, and never when he's tried has he failed. But in this third installment of her series, Merlin is winding down. He feels his powers waning and longs to be able to pass off those powers to a worthy successor. Fortuitously, he finds such a successor - a most surprising successor. Or perhaps the successor was brought to him by his god, even though Merlin had believed that the god had withdrawn his hand from his life. This story, as in the two previous books, is once again told entirely in Merlin's voice, and after a while that makes for a pretty static narrative even when he is describing very active events. Arthur, in Merlin's telling, is never less than virtuous, honorable, magnanimous, and noble. Most of the...

Laser eye surgery last week put a real crimp in my reading schedule. As it happened, the book I was reading at the time was not exactly scintillating so I didn't feel the loss as much as I might have.  I did resent the fact that I wasn't able to work in the garden for a couple of days, because before I was interrupted I had been on a roll, completing some of my fall chores such as weeding, adding compost to beds, cutting back perennials, moving plants, adding new plants, and doing general clean-up.  Even on the days when I wasn't able to actually work though, I spent a lot of time in the garden, mostly contemplating life and the garden and changes that I wanted to make in both, and being aided in my meditations by my two eager garden helpers, Oliver and Perkins (aka Purrkins).   Oliver Perkins They are six-month-old novices but eager to learn and especially good at helping me dig holes and at chasing fallen leaves. Once I was able to get back in the swi...

In a few days, we will be celebrating Thanksgiving once again. It has always been my favorite among the major holidays, probably because of my childhood memories of the day when many among my extended family would gather at our house. My mother spent most of the day slaving in the kitchen to provide a feast for us all, and, of course, I never appreciated any of that until it was much too late. Now, on Thanksgiving, our extended family who live in the area gather at our house for the feast. But everybody brings at least one special dish for the meal. My brother-in-law even brings the smoked turkey, so I only have to prepare the dressing (old family recipe) and the rolls and maybe one or two side dishes. And after our feast, my husband, sometimes with help from the daughters, loads the dishwasher. Things have improved in that regard since my mother's era. We tend to think of Thanksgiving as a uniquely American holiday, but maybe we don't realize just how American it is. Long ...

A roundup of the week's news of birds and the environment : One day this week, I distinctly heard my first American Goldfinch of the season as it flew over my yard, giving its flight call. Another day, late on a very windy afternoon, I thought I heard a flock of Cedar Waxwings down the street in a neighbor's tree that is a favorite of theirs every year. But usually we don't get waxwings for a few more weeks, so was it really them or was it wind? The parade of winter birds continues.   *~*~*~* Saying that the "fragile and unique" Arctic ecosystem would face "significant risks" if drilling were allowed in the Chukchi or Beaufort Seas, which lie off Alaska, the Obama Administration has ruled out drilling for oil or gas in the pristine Arctic Ocean. The Department of the Interior added in its statement that the high costs of drilling combined with the low price for oil would probably discourage fossil fuel companies from wanting to enter the area...

How fair is a garden amid the trials and passions of existence.   - Benjamin Disraeli Gardens are comforting places, places that can remind us that Nature goes on amidst all the "trials and passions" that human society can visit upon us. My garden has especially been a place of comfort to me in recent days, a place that I have turned to often for solace in troubled times.  The garden is well into autumn now. Leaves are falling and mornings are brisk and cool. Daytime temperatures have been in the 70s F. But still the last blooms of autumn hang on. Let me share some of them with you.  The bronze chrysanthemums that lived in a pot by my front entry last autumn were planted in the ground when they stopped blooming and now they are blooming once again. The bronze Esperanza, too, is still putting forth blooms. As is the yellow variety of Esperanza, called "yellow bells." White mistflower is very attractive to all kinds of pollinators. ...