Garden Woes

The Pond is looking just plain sorry this year. We've had all sorts of  property management issues even before these record high temperatures and this drought. In early Spring Blowfish put out some new high tech pre-emergent weed preventer. It has to get broadcast a goodly while before you put out the seed starter fertilizer and the grass seed. Blowfish got the soil tested at the university, spent hundreds of dollars, and  labored for hours in an effort to have a glorious lawn.  What he has is a barren, dead looking yard.  Because of the early beginnings of the drought the pre-emergent stuff was not released until Blowfish began watering his precious new seeds. Yep, you guessed it.  The  weeds  had already emerged and the newly activated pre-emergent stuff killed the new grass. Some of the weeds died too.  Now we have a front yard of dirt. Think dust bowl capped with dehydrated clover. It crunches underfoot as if you were walking on potato chips. Gross. To increase Blowfish's misery, Brian came with a big trailer to haul away his beloved, vintage, Gravely tractor. Apparently the issues with the clutching system were too complex for on site repairs.
 I swear it is not an exaggeration when I say the man is suffering from separation
anxiety for his tractor. He goes out and stares at the empty space in the garage.

Then too there is the issue of his new patch up by the row of holly trees.
That grass has come in fine but it is absolutely awash in every kind of weed you never want to see on your property. At first Blowfish thought the weeds were being carried by run off. But run off from what? Now he thinks the birds have doe it .... I think the weeds came in the expensive bags of seed. I have tried to go hand pull them all but by the time I get to one end of the patch they are growing anew on the other end.

Blowfish is an even tempered fellow but these difficulties are about to wear him to a nub. He's a man that wants to feel proud when he comes down the drive and he's a long way from that these days.  Just the other night he walked up and looked at this sorry patch and I could swear he was thinking about fetching a flame thrower. The droop in his shoulders as he turned away made me think about the same thing.

Before we started turning into the dust bowl of 2011 we had a early and  wetish Spring. So when all the new Spring growth started coming up out in the Courtyard garden we were anticipating  a bountiful, colorful, green spring. What we got was the plague. Some horrid  soil based fungi got revved up and as new shoots on the annuals started making their appearance the leaves unfurled and promptly turned black. That same horror

ruined the peonies, threatened all the Carolina Phlox , the Hydrangeas , deformed the bulb plants and even the Anemones turned black on the edges.  I took samples over to the Extension Office only to be told one has to remove all effected plant materials, letting none of the removed matter stay on the ground.  Which means a leaf by leaf  backbreaking effort. Then you have to spray everything with fungicide to prevent spread and total loss of the garden.


The first time didn't work. All new growth came up, turned splotchy, then  black and curling.
More leaf by leaf removal and more poison was required.

That was before none of the Moonflowers and dern few of the Caladiums came out. But I did notice in one of the pots we seemed to have some giant species of dahlia volunteering. We do have a whole section planted in pretty little pink "Patio Dahlias" from Parks Seed Company. I thought maybe the wind did a little transplanting but as the shaft started looking as big as Jack's stalk  and, setting largish bud,s I accepted the reality it was not going to be anything expected.  There in the midst of my pink , white and blue garden is this huge, deeply

red, 4 foot tall giant Dahlia. They could write a new  murder mystery over this bloody  thing.  It has remained only because it looks relatively healthy.


I took comfort in the thought the Hydrangeas were setting up for a big show this year. Some editing of the early growth had been required because of the fungi. Our Hydrangeas are  under a giant Oak so  they set later than ones that get more sun. I thought this was a good thing as the chemicals had been put out before most of the new growth had appeared.  I am sure you all know Hydrangeas are the litmus paper of the garden, showing out in either pink or blue depending on the soil PH.
Some years we put out amendments to make sure the blooms will be true blue, not a hint of lavender or Heaven forbid purple.


That can happen if your PH is balanced.
Which is unacceptable.

      

  Just a bit to the left of the begining of the  blue Hydrangeas is the final resting place of my mother's beloved Scottish Terrier. They were here when he died so he stayed in the garden with us. I will always remember my mother's angst over leaving him "behind". Not taking him  back to Florida with her was a painful decision. Necessary though. She had stood in the driveway by her car making me promise if I ever  moved away from the Pond I would bring Angus with me and  not leave him with strangers.  He has a St. Francis marker out there and is planted over in Lemon Balm. He, like many terrier breeds, had skin allergies so he was not always the best smelling dog. I have over the years fondly thought of him being scratch free and enjoying the crisp lemony scents. Not this year. Either the fungi, the fungicide, the drought or the combination has resulted in peaked looking, fragrance free  Lemon Balm.

  I shrugged off the worries about this and tried to keep focused on how bountiful the Hydrangeas were looking. When the blooms first start they are a lime green. Then they start showing color along the  perimeter before filling in with a uniform blue. This year they started filling in purple.  It is out of the question for there to be purple in my garden. Especially not adjacent to the resting place of my mothers dog.
There has never been on this Earth a human with a deeper seated loathing of the color purple than my mother.
Think of it as a violent allergy. No purple allowed is a rule all of us kids honor and respect.

 Until now.

I consulted with the extension people and yes the fungicide can change the soil PH and usually any amendments for  bloom color  must happen early in the season and blah-blah.  I tried what they recommended and kept an eye out for changes. We got them . Dark purple instead of red grape purple.
 Most mornings I start my day in the garden with a cup of tea. I wander around, listening to the birds singing their morning songs and enjoy the garden. Lately I walk outside and think "I'm so sorry Mom".  Today

                                                           I put an end to my misery . 

                                                            Bye Bye Purple Horror!


                    Then I went to lay in my broken hammock which Blowfish " fixed " for me.

                                                                              
I can swing in my hammock and just about ignore
the unplanted ferns around the Chinese Fringe Tree
Unplanted because the ground is baked into a brick
and I cannot did holes deep enough to plant the ferns.
So I must wait for Blowfish to come to my aid
with the gas powered auger.

                                                                         
                                         Pray the hammock will not break with me aboard !

Cereal Aisle Gossip

I ran into Phyllis in the cereal aisle today.
I haven't seen her in about a decade .
She looks great, pretty much the same at 70 as she did at 60.
She and Fitz sold their home of 40 years and downsized to a patio home with no maintenance. Which explains why she was suddenly shopping in our neck of the woods.

After all the pleasantries and  the usual question about how one's garden is doing in this drought she said,
" Fishy, do you remember my grand daughter Caitlyn? She is getting married today to a High-wa-yen".
Before I could put my tongue in park I said,
" As opposed to a Low- wa-yen?"
She laughed, generous as always in her forgiveness.
" No! Fishy she's marrying up with a boy  from Hawaii "
" Then why on Earth are you standing here by the Fruit Loops? Shouldn't you be down at Adeles  drinking mimosas and getting polished?"
She laughed again.

" No! Caitlyn and her man have gone modern on us.  They went off to one of those island resorts for a package wedding. They live in Washington, but some time this Fall they are coming here for a visit and we'll rustle up some kind of reception for them."     

" Well Phyllis, you don't look sad about it so you must be a thoroughly modern Granny".

The truth is Phyllis and Fitz are  allergic to weddings.
Caitlyns mother, Eryn.  had a few difficulties in that area. She walked away from Caitlyns "donor dad" a few hours before the ceremony. She walked away from her second daughter's donor too. When the girls were 6 and 4, Eryn got reacquainted with, and then actually married, her high school sweetheart.  She managed to stay put for almost a month before leaving. She forgot to take the girls with her so eventually Caitlyn called Phyllis and Fitz and asked if they would come and fetch she and her sister. Thing was Eryn was going to work everyday, talking on the phone to Phyllis regularly and just never got around to mentioning she'd left her new hubby and her daughters. When Phyllis confronted Eryn about this oversight she said, "Well, I knew you and Daddy would be fussed about this so I was trying to spare you til after all the bills had come in for the wedding. I'm real sorry  to disappoint y'all. Again."

In the midst of this family drama is when I  first met Phyllis. She and Fitz  went on and remodeled their house and made sure the girls had a stable life. They added a separate suite above the garage for the times Eryn would be living there too. It all worked out. Just last year Eryn got married and stayed put.

Thinking back to what a lovely child Caitlyn was I asked Phyllis where they were registered.
She replied, " Well, they didn't do all that. They set up a website about  ' their story'  which they update every few days. There's a place on there where you can make a " donation to happiness" and then they post about  what made them happy."

Very modern indeed.

I smiled, trying to think of a response that would not convey my  absolute shock.
Phyllis gave me a pat on the arm and said,
" I know Fishy, I know!  It sure shocked me and Fitz too"
"Phyllis, have you met him?"
" We met him at Christmas time. He came home with her then to meet everybody. He's a little bitty thing. But he's real cute being a mix and all. His mother is Portuguese and his father is a native islander. He seems devoted to Caitlyn, but Fishy I have concerns because he says his religion is nature."

" Well maybe Caitlyn will be able to bring him into the fold".

" This all seems so different than anything I ever expected.  You know Fitz and I came up with rules. You courted for a year, were engaged for 2 years, married for life. We've rarely missed a service or a bible study in all these years and we've gone on just about every marriage retreat the Presbyterian church has offered.
Times change.   I guess Caitlyn has made  a necessary choice by moving across the country and finding her own way so far from any family.  Her High-wa-yen  has a good education, a fine job, he's 29, never been married, hasn't fathered any children and doesn't have diseases. These days that's about all you can hope."

To hear something so bleak delivered with a smile and a laugh is ... disturbing.
Made me wish they were handing out mimosas instead of apple juice in the next aisle over.
I cannot begin to imagine what Blowfish would think if I came home to say I thought the pertinent criteria for a mate was no diseases, no donor children, no divorces, educated and employed.

I will never , ever understand women who spill their guts like that.
Telling every detail of everything they know.

I doubt Phyllis has ever had a secret in her entire 70 years and  I know for certain I would never tell her one. I hope for Caitlyn this is the beginning of a wonderful marriage. I will not be sending a donation to their happiness. The very idea of setting up a website to solicit monetary donations to your packaged wedding with strangers is offensive to me.   I  did say a prayer of gratitude that Phyllis did not seem a bit distressed over not being invited to the wedding of the grand daughter she raised. 

I also offered up a prayer of hope that Phyllis's viewpoint of  our current culture is an aberration not the norm.
But I think I heard a statistic recently which indicated  only 50 percent of couples  living together today are married.  This disturbs on countless levels. It's even a bit frightening. Not because I am the parent of a 20 something daughter. No. It's about the speed at which our culture is changing. Like the other side took over the world while some of  us had our heads down hoeing our rows, paying taxes and  gratefully making it to our Sunday pews.



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Haiku Monday: Funny Bone

That 4 hour warning thing:

Viagra alert!
Users may experience
funny bone results 

Mama's wisdom

A few years back my Mama tried hard to teach me an important life lesson. I am not sure I was a very apt student.

I was visiting  her at the time of year when the great grands were having their season ending ballet performances. Mama's love of ballet is notorious as is  her witty commentary about Dame Margot Fontaine, Nureyev and Barishnakov to name a few. Some sisters and I all had the starter lessons at 5 or 6 but I don't recall any  proud moment Mama stories about our talents.  It's different with these E-Ticket  greats. These girls produce  proud moment stories for three generations of  Mamas. A proud for them Aunt Fishy too. All justifiable as the word talent, used with these girls, is an understatement.     They have got the goods.

 

  For this particular visit, I was the point person for getting Mama to the ballet. This means arriving hours early to help Mama get dressed in her going out social clothes, hair and makeup and , getting her transferred to a travel wheelchair. It really isn't unusual for the temperatures in Florida to be in the 90's on a late Spring afternoon. This means the temperature in a parked car, in the sun,  is maybe 120 and therefore, unsuitable for little old ladies in wheel chairs. So somewhere in the getting Mama ready activities, when you think you might be  getting close to a possible departure, you must run get the car started and the AC blasting  but you cannot move it to the entrance of the ALF.  Once you are ready to depart you must wheel the chair to the entrance,get Mama signed out, get her situated in the vestibule where the automatic doors will not impact the wheelchair, fetch the car, fetch  Mama and the chair from the vestibule, get her transferred, get the wheelchair stowed all without breaking a sweat, wrinkling your own clothes or God forbid, getting  wheelchair tracks across your lap. It isn' t hard to do, but it can be ridiculously stressing.

Once we were in the car speeding across town in the horror traffic Mama said,
" Fishy, we have to stop at a florist to get bouquets made for our girls".
" We can't", I reply " We'll miss the curtain."
" Fishy, you know I am not stepping out of this car without flowers "
" Yes Ma'am"
On that we could agree, "stepping" out of cars for Mama was history.
I never could fool her and this time was no different.
" I believe there is a florist on the corner of blank and blank, we'll stop there".
" We cannot. We will be lucky to not be late without stopping. But I tell you what,  we can call the florist now, order the bouquets and I will sneak out and pick them up during intermission."
" It isn't safe to talk on cell phones while driving. That's on the news every night"
" Fine, here's the phone, you make the call"
" Truth is Fishy, I want to stop and pick the flowers myself"
Feeling frazzled  I replied,
" We cannot stop! We are already rushing to just  get there!
I cannot get you and the chair in and out of the car rapidly.
I'm sorry but this just  isn't going to happen."
I could feel her stiffen as she turned her face to the side window.
Silence.
She was acutely disappointed.
It is hard, hard, hard to no longer captain your own ship and suffer disobedient offspring.
Harder still to feel a glimmer of your old self only to be confronted with your broken body reality.
I reached over to give her a comforting pat which garnered me a withering look.
She did not speak to me the rest of the journey.

I felt wretched.
This was such an eagerly anticipated outing how could I possibly compromise her joy? And yet, being late wasn't an option either. If we arrived after the curtain I would not be able to wheel her
to the third row reserved seating with the rest of the family until intermission. I wasn't sure if the girls parts occurred before or after the intermission. I did know if we were in the very back she would not be able to recognize them.  We simply could not stop. I felt  terribly sad.


Arriving is departing reversed.
Get to the drop, put on the flashers, fetch the wheelchair, practice all the safety precautions for wheelchair transfers, don't get wrinkled, dirty or sweat. Get Mama inside to the air conditioning  and handed over to the care of other loves. Rush back to the car, park 2 blocks away in the asphalt sea and run in heels back to the theatre  because rental cars don't come with handicap permits.

When I got back to the lobby Mama was holding court. A talent I've always admired but did not inherit.
She was vibrant, charming, witty. Excited to be out in the world and ,she was picking flowers. Some smart fund raising group had a booth in the lobby. Thank God there were pink roses and white roses. Mama, of course, knew the names of every rose, even the detested red and lavender ones. She was making selections, charming the volunteers and all of us extended family present. Mama was beautiful, happy, engaging and fully living  in the moment.

Of course the ballet was fabulous.
Of course our E-ticket ballerinas were the best of the best.
Of course our  girls were the prettiest too, not just the most talented.

Afterwards the girls, still in costumes and theatrical make-up, came out to join their waiting family fans.
Proud parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins  were all beaming with open arms. The girls made a beeline for Mama, chirping  their excitement like brightly colored birds. Mama knows exactly the questions to ask so the girls responses  and their joy spilled  forth without reservations.  I caught a glimpse of their  beaming Dad  watching his daughters rush to be with his adored  grandmother.  He had that expression that says,

" It doesn't get any better than this."

It doesn't.
But in this era of busy, busy lives it wasn't long before folks started turning cell phones back on and made ready to depart. There was no family after party scheduled.. The Lobby visits before the ballet, the intermission and this mini celebration  for bouquet waving and picture taking  were the 'social hour' for this outing. It was plenty. Mama loved it all.

I went to get the car cooled down.
Mama was mostly quiet on the return trip.
She made a few comments about the roses, the girls, the costumes, what people wore to the ballet these days.  We were no longer traveling in a strained silence but we were a long way from chatty.
We were a good many years past the days where Mama could go out to eat after an event.  But we did stop at a favorite drive thru for a Mocha milkshake, her favorite.

By the time I got Mama back to her recliner she was exhausted.
It  had been a busy day and a big outing for her. I knew the following day she would want to chat plenty about all that had been seen and heard but not then. This abrupt exhaustion of the elderly is not terribly different from toddlers.  As we all know, a toddler can be  running one minute and the next drop to the floor reaching a deep sleep in seconds. Mama, a former insomniac, could now beat a toddlers record for reaching  REM sleep. One of her few pleasures of aging. She would be asleep in her recliner  within seconds of my departure.  I gave her a hug and turned to leave when she said,
" Don't be sad Fishy, live your moments."
" Ma'am?"
" None of our tomorrows will be the same as our todays. Even here, in this facility, where there is monotony and bleakness everywhere, each day is different. Don't be sad about what has gone before and will never be again. Find the joy in the moment and live it."











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Haiku Monday: Cliche`

The fat lady sings
Our  red, white and blue high notes
While patriots weep


                                                                                  

Our balancing act?
We weigh our bad paper now,
not golden eagles

If I am lying
I am dying to see you
standing tall again

It's a crying shame
These legislators blame game
forfeit our good name

Twits n Tweets

Last week I scheduled a one on one tutoring session on my new camera. Blowfish and Mermaid gave me this awesome piece of equipment.  As a joke, or an oversight, the manual is in Spanish. I was okay with that for the first few chapters, and the areas with enough pictographs for me to follow. Once I  turned the page on the  technical stuff  on shutter priorities and metering I was in trouble.


On the way to the lesson in nearby Big City, while stopped in traffic,  I observed a sign in a dry cleaners window.  It said:

Help wanted!

Twittery people do not apply!

My pocket sized point and shoot camera wasn't in my purse.  The new Nikon was in the cargo bay tucked into it's compartmented bag with the lenses.  The distance was too far for the  phone camera.  There wasn't time to stop, get the camera, take some pics and get to the lesson on time. Too bad. I think I would have enjoyed interviewing the employer as no doubt there is a good story behind that sign. 

I take that back! There is not a "good" story behind that sign. There is tragedy.  Probably we all have experienced our fair share of  irritation with those who are hired to provide "customer service" but cannot  be interrupted to perform these responsibilities because they are too busy tweeting/texting. I have been chastised by a  teen sales twit for interrupting her obviously personal phone use by asking if she would soon be available to answer a question about a product.  No doubt she had to tweet all her friends about how awful it is they expect her to actually do something to receive a paycheck. It does NOT count as an awesome accomplishment to just show up.


The camera tutorial  was informative.  Not too overwhelming. Maybe.


After the lesson, since I was in  Big City, I went by the largest regional mall to check on a few things. Sometimes clients ask me about the quality of products  at various retailers so when possible I take a look. On the way to Pottery Barn I was approached by a charming young man who informed me my skin was in tragic need of nourishment from dead sea salts which were right over here at his kiosk. Hard to believe I turned this down right? He was undaunted saying,
"I see you keep your nails natural, I can make them healthier". I am sure he could but as I was side stepping and he was refusing to take "no" for an answer his phone barked which made him abruptly turn and walk the opposite direction gesticulating with  abandon and bellowing in his undecipherable native tongue.  For once I was glad personal issues trumped the professional. I did wonder  though, if he would have taken the call   had  I succumbed to  his pitch for a public sea salted massage?


As always, when I walk into a Pottery Barn, Restoration Hardware, Anthropologie , West Elm or Crate and Barrel, I had that gut squeezing clutch. I CAN damn well imagine what I would do in a store of that size with that endless budget. I will never have the budget. Maybe I should just succumb to the lust and apply to be the "visual designer" for others.


That too is getting phased out. Did you know Restoration Hardware is closing stores? Their E Business is up so there is less need for physical locations. They are spending investment dollars in state of the art automated logistics, not real estate.  They also have a great program for buying designer rooms. Just  scroll through the collection,   pick a room you like, send them dimensions and they will ship it all to you. Rug, art, furniture, lamps, window treatments, accessories. Sort of a high end RTG.
If you see a room you love but you spouse is away, not to worry, you can  tweet the entire package with a single click. If you are a developer in need of a furnished model just contact their commercial division, they'll ship and install.
Just pick you rooms off the website.

Later I was in a department store when I heard one staff member say to another , " Ready? We've got about 90 seconds." I looked around  but everything appeared normal to me.  Had I known what was coming I would have used the 90 seconds to flee! Ignorance is not bliss in all circumstances. What happened was the store had just tweeted  members of their "juniors club" a one hour special on a particular brand of jeans. In seconds I was in a screaming teen mob scene of hellish nightmares. First I cursed the proximity of the shoe department to the teen department . Next I stopped to observe the frenzy and thought, " I need to find a way for this to work in the design industry. I would be richer than Tweet"!


I puzzled on that on my way home.


So I'm asking you bloggers  this question
" Do you sign up to get tweets?"
Say I was  at a market and encountered an awesome company which will turn a photo of your dog into rocking dog art? Or a dog from your past? They do custom as well as  inventory the popular breeds.  Suppose I tweeted this and took pictures and orders for the rockers? Would you do this?

 
Or, say I was traveling in Charleston and encountered an artist who weaves exceptional seagrass baskets. If I tweeted  a  one hour window for orders to be placed, would you do this? Do you do this? How do you choose with whom to do this?

Is this THE way? 

If Chickory is at the Farmer's Market and she has the  e-mail addresses for  persons who  bought apples locally could she tweet them with: I will be here for three hours; 8 paintings, great veggies and amazing flowers available til noon! 
Could Moi and Aunty send out a tweet offering a special on 5000 words? 
Can Boxer clear her warehouse with a  single tweet?

Would  enough come for Chickory to return home with an empty truck?
Can this work for micro businesses as well as big retailers? Is this possible without harassing everyone you ever met or will meet?  Would you find this rational if you did not know the person or recognize a business name?


It might be I need a sign which reads:
" Twittery people apply  here."

Haiku Monday: First Kiss

Family History:



Enthusiastic
Canine kisser of wee babe
Guardian of love










 Anxiety:

What about noses?
Tilt right? Tilt left? Collision!
Kiss my racing heart. 

 American History:

Johnny kiss'd sweet Rose
sparkin' the  feud atween them
Hatfields and McCoys