Sunday, June 21, 2020

Weather Statistics


Weather: Today is the solstice.

Last minimal rain: 6/14. Week’s low: 45 degrees F. Week’s high: 90 degrees F in the shade. Relative humidity was down to 4% in Los Alamos and Santa Fé. Winds were up to 35 mph in Santa Fé.

What’s blooming in the area: Hybrid roses, yellow-flowered potentilla, fern bush, trumpet creeper, red-tipped yuccas, Regale lilies, daylilies, red hot poker, Spanish broom, sweet pea, silver lace vine, blue flax, purple salvia, hollyhocks, winecup mallow, bouncing Bess, yellow yarrow, blanket flower, coreopsis

What’s blooming beyond the walls and fences: Apache plume, cholla cactus, alfilerillo, fern leaf globe mallow, datura, green leaf five-eyes, bindweed, silver leaf nightshade, alfalfa, yellow sweet clover, velvet weed, showy milkweed, toothed spurge, buffalo gourd, bindweed, Hopi tea, flea bane, plains paper flower, goat’s beard, native dandelions, strap leaf and golden hairy asters, cheat and three-awn grasses

What’s blooming in my yard: Miniature and Dorothy Perkins roses, desert willow, Asiatic lily, coral bells, Maltese cross peaked, pink evening primrose, Rumanian sage, catmints, Johnson Blue geranium, blue salvia, perennial four o’clock, larkspur, sidalcea, tomatillo, California poppies, white spurge, coral beard tongues, ladybells, Queen Anne’s lace, chocolate flower, white yarrow, Ozark coneflower, Mexican hats, black-eyed Susans, plains coreopsis, bachelor buttons

Bedding and house plants: Snapdragons, zonal geraniums

Tasks: There are fires in the Gila and Apache Kid wilderness, as well as some in Arizona and México. The smoke in the upper atmosphere makes it impossible to spend any time outside. I tried early in the week. I wore a mask and sat removing cheat grass from gravel paths. It didn’t take energy and so was just possible.

Then, Thursday and Friday we had air quality alerts. I decided if I had to wear a mask to turn on the water, I shouldn’t consider working outside. What’s possible isn’t always what’s wise.

Smoke is more inhibiting than Coronavirus because it can’t be avoided.

Animal sightings: Rabbit, small birds, quail, geckos, cabbage butterflies, bumble bees, hornets, grasshoppers, sound of crickets, sidewalk ants


Weekly update: I read that May was the hottest May on record (a mere hundred or so years of the eons of life on the planet). The global average temperature was 60.3 degrees. This May, the lowest afternoon high temperature in my yard was 70 degrees F, the highest high was 91, and the average afternoon high was 87 degrees.

Then I read farther. NOAA said the average increase for the month was "1.7 degrees higher than the 20th century average for Earth."

That’s where I lose perspective. 1.7 degrees doesn’t sound like much. I calculated the average difference in afternoon highs in my yard between 2019 and 2020 was 8.258 degrees.

How, you wonder, can such a small number mean so much, especially when it doesn’t fit our experience?

My statistics were simple. Anyone could do them. I just recorded the high and low each day. Excel ran the averages.

But what is an average temperature? How often do scientists check? Do they have equipment that can make automatic readings every 5 minutes, every hour? In how many places? Anything that averages the temperatures at the poles with those at the equator is going to smooth all the extremes into a great lumpen mass.

I see the difference between the average and the extreme in my yard. Because temperatures were so warm, I planted seeds in May. However, the average morning temperature was 42.26 so the soil wasn’t warmed enough to nurture them. They either didn’t come up, or didn’t progress beyond the first leaves.

The ones I planted later, when the soil was warmer, haven’t gone beyond the first leaves because the air is too warm and too dry in the afternoons.

Sometimes I wonder, if the purpose of publishing statistics is to influence action, why do we bother with global averages? Wouldn’t the averages at the poles be more relevant to global warming, since that’s where the effects on the masses of ice is greatest? What’s happening in Brazil isn’t important.

I realize the specific components of a statistic don’t matter. What’s important is that every calculation uses the same kind of data. The comparisons may not reflect the reality I feel on my skin, but they do become a reliable tracking metric. A small change can be significant in that abstracted universe.

The problem is the language of scientists is not that of laymen or of politicians. Telling congressmen temperatures changed by 8 degrees in their home districts probably won’t motivate them to act, unless you can add farmers are having problems sowing their crops. Telling them the world changed by 1.7 degrees has no meaning.


Notes on photographs: All were taken 21 June 2020.
1. Cardinal climber (Ipomoea coccina) planted May 11; germinate May 28; second leaves May 31. The brick is 2" high.

2. Zinnias (Zinnia elegans) planted May 4; germinate May 15; second leaves May 31. The gray block is 2" high.

3. Watermelons (Citrullus vulgaris) planted April 29; germinate May 13; second leaves June 10.

End notes: Associated Press. "Temperature Spike: Earth Ties Record High Heat May Reading." Published by Politico website. 12 June 2020.

Wednesday, June 10, 2020

Wind


Weather: We had a series of days with very high afternoon temperatures, which affected the roses. Then, following winds that knocked off petals, temperatures fell. It was 98 on Friday, June 5, and 73 yesterday, June 9.

Last rain: 6/6. Week’s low: 43 degrees F. Week’s high: 98 degrees F in the shade.

What’s blooming in the area: Doctor Huey and hybrid roses, yellow-flowered potentilla, catalpa, trumpet creeper, red-tipped yuccas, daylilies, red hot poker, Spanish broom, sweet pea, silver lace vine, Japanese honeysuckle, blue flax, Jupiter’s beard, golden spur columbine, purple salvia, winecup mallow, yellow yarrow, blanket flower, coreopsis

What’s blooming beyond the walls and fences: Apache plume, prickly pear and cholla cacti, alfilerillo, fern leaf globe mallow, datura, green leaf five-eyes, bindweed, silver lead nightshade, alfalfa, yellow sweet clover, wild licorice, velvet weed, showy milkweed, toothed spurge, buffalo gourd, bindweed, Hopi tea, flea bane, plains paper flower, goat’s beard, native dandelions, strap leaf aster, cheat, brome, and three-awn grasses

What’s blooming in my yard: Miniature and floribunda roses, Asiatic lily, coral bells, Maltese cross, bouncing Bess, pink evening primrose, Dutch clover, Rumanian sage, catmints, Johnson Blue geranium, blue salvia, perennial four o’clock, larkspur, California poppies, white spurge, wintered-over pansy and snapdragon, coral, purple, fox glove and smooth beard tongues, ladybells, Queen Anne’s lace, Shasta daisy, anthemis, chocolate flower, white yarrow, Ozark coneflower, Mexican hats

What’s emerging: Watermelon seeds

Bedding and house plants: Snapdragons, zonal geraniums, pansies

Tasks: I’ve been pulling cheat grass, and dropping seeds of a native grass into the disturbed soil. In some places, some blades have emerged. I won’t know for a while whether they’re a desirable or undesirable type. I’ve discovered, whenever you plant seeds the first things up are weeds that were waiting to be replanted. Like as not, they look very much like what was planted and so disguise themselves.

Animal sightings: Sounds of small birds, gecko, cabbage butterflies, bumble and small bees, two large red dragonflies, hornets, grasshoppers, sound of crickets, sidewalk ants


Weekly update: Weather follows cycles, and, because I don’t have a great memory, it always seems new. We had rain the morning of June 6, and strong winds in the afternoon. They reached 49 mph in Santa Fé.

The winds continued the next two days, while the humidity fell. It was 5% in Santa Fé on June 8.

The source of the rain was a bit of a mystery. The NOOA satellite picture showed it emerging suddenly from southern Arizona. I know that’s not possible. The area is desert. Mirages do not produce water.

I think a tropical depression, which appeared off the coast of Guatemala on May 31, crossed central American and became Cristobal. As it continued east into the Caribbean, it got stronger and moved north. The last I saw it was in Wisconsin.

The immediate area west of the tropical storm was dry; the moisture was on the east side. But, one thing I’ve learned is that there’s often another band of moisture beyond the dry belt. That might have been what materialized in Arizona.

Smoke from Mexico and dust from Arizona often arrive with wind. And, sure enough, the atmosphere was filled with smoke on June 8. Some came from Mexico and some from fires ignited by the weather in the southwestern part of the state. A small fire erupted in El Rito on June 9.

Because of the intensity of the winds in the first part of June, I though this was some aberration. Well the difference between memory and history is written records. My old files corrected me.

Last year, on May 24, we had smoke and rain. Winds in Santa Fé reached 59 mph. They’d gotten up to 51 the day before. That was about three weeks earlier than this year.

2018 didn’t have the same confluence of elements. Winds reached 62 mph on April 17, and dirty air from fires arrived on June 11. The same extreme events, but in a different configuration.

My notes tell me my perceptions are wrong. The plants second me.

The winds buffeted branches, and lowered them. I have a path between a purple sandcherry on one side and a Dr. Huey rose on the other. Last week I cut a cane that was intruding into my path. Yesterday, branches from both the shrub and the rose were blocking the path. I doubt either grew a foot in two days.

The effects of wind are all about movements that are directed by surface objects. On Monday, the wind blew my neighbor’s emptied trash can across the road, and left mine alone. They were less than 25' apart, but his was in the path of winds that whipped around his house and mine was just enough removed not to be affected.

I’m sure the more horizontal branch of the forsythia is lower, because branches are in a path that I knew was clear before the winds. It’s against a fence, and the wind roars down that alley. It probably blew through the two limbs.

The plants that protested the most were the red hot pokers. The ones in the main bed, sheltered somewhat by the house, remained erect. The one that was farther to the north got blown around. The stems on the west side were moved more than those on the east.

The next day the stems remained at angles, but the flower heads had re-erected themselves. What are normally straight lines had become angles. I don’t remember seeing that before.


Notes on photographs: Red hot pokers (Kniphofia uvaria) taken 8 June 2010.
1. This is what they’re supposed to look like. A plant near the house.

2. This is not what poker’s do. This was the farthest west stem on a plant eight more feet away from the house.

3. Another stem on the same plant as #2.

End notes: NOAA photographs show the United States and large bodies of water. I’m not sure if they bother with internal Mexican weather. The imagination begins when facts end.

Sunday, May 31, 2020

Olmsted on Slavery


Weather: Afternoons were progressively warmer, until we got some rain on Saturday afternoon. The hot days shortened blooming periods for area peonies, if they bloomed at all. The only ones I have still in bloom are in shadows that protect them from the sun and keep them cool.

Last rain: 5/130. Week’s low: 37 degrees F. Week’s high: 94 degrees F in the shade.

What’s blooming in the area: Persian yellow, Doctor Huey, wild pink and hybrid roses, yellow-flowered potentilla, Arizona and red-tipped yuccas, Spanish broom, silver lace vine, red hot poker, blue flax, snow-in-summer, Jupiter’s beard, golden spur columbine, purple salvia, yellow yarrow

What’s blooming beyond the walls and fences: Apache plume, alfilerillo, tumble mustard, fern leaf globe mallow, green leaf five-eyes, bindweed, alfalfa, yellow sweet clover, wild licorice, velvet weed, showy milkweed, flea bane, plains paper flower, goat’s beard, common and native dandelions, strap leaf aster, cheat, brome, and three-awn grasses

What’s blooming in my yard: Miniature and floribunda roses, cliff rose, spirea, catalpa, chives, coral bells, Bath pinks, Maltese cross, winecup mallow, pink evening primrose, pink and white sweet peas, Dutch clover, Rumanian sage, catmints, Johnson Blue geranium, perennial four o’clock, California poppies, wintered-over pansy and snapdragon, coral, purple and smooth beard tongues, Shasta daisy, chocolate flower, coreopsis, blanket flower, white yarrow, Ozark coneflower

What’s emerging: Some melon, cardinal climber, and Sensation cosmos seedlings. Sour cherries forming, although I never saw any flowers.

Bedding and house plants: Snapdragons, zonal geraniums, pansies

Tasks: Farmers finished the first hay cut of the season. The man who places plastic cans around his plants put them out; I think it’s to protect the plants from rabbits as much as from the weather.

I’ve started the routine weeding. I keep seeing elm seeds, and have to be careful not to plant them.

Animal sightings: Rabbit, chickadees, house wrens, quail, gecko, cabbage butterflies, bumble and small bees, hornets, grasshoppers, sound of crickets, sidewalk ants


Weekly update: Often when I’m sitting on the ground doing work I could hire no one to do, I think about plantation slavery. This week it was cheat grass that brought it to mind. A weed eater will slice it down, but the heads continue to ripen. The only way to remove it is to pull it by hand.

If one is serious about the task, one could spend every day doing, because it comes back in the night. Nothing else would ever be attempted. It was the kind of repetitious work slave owners might have given children: it requires no strength and little skill.

Frederick Law Olmsted observed rice plantations in South Carolina before the Civil War, and noted the many ways slaves avoided doing tasks or did them as badly as possible. [1] One suspects children would have been sure to pull out the desirable plants at the same time. Passive resistance took many forms and was learned early.

Olmsted noted almost no plantation used a plow. [2] As a northerner he was used to thinking in terms of productivity. He implied it was because the slaves would resist using them, or damage them.

He didn’t mention the other possibility, that one only spends money on tools when labor is not available. If I could control cheat grass by hand, I wouldn’t bother with a weed eater.

Slave owners were chronically in debt. Very often their creditors were the very men who were suppling their slaves. Those middlemen would have had no incentive to lend money that would had gone into other people’s pockets. The salve trade itself perpetuated some of its worst practices.

At one point, Olmsted wrote:

"It is a common thing, I am told, to see a large gang of negroes, each carrying about four shovelsful of earth upon a board balanced on his head, walking slowly along on the embankment, so as to travel around two sides of a large field, perhaps for a mile, to fill a breach—a job which an equal number of Irishmen would accomplish, by laying planks across the field and running wheelbarrows upon them, in a tenth of the time." [3]

The difference is compensation. The Irishmen were paid by the task, and had an incentive to finish. Slaves knew that if they finished something early, the owner, overseer, or driver would simply find more work for them to do. There were no rewards for doing something well.

Slaves had been forcibly removed from their homelands. Many resisted being robbed of every piece of their culture. One suspects that carrying a load on his head was one way a man could maintain some tie with his past. The retention of culture was the greatest form of protest.


Notes on photographs: All taken today, 31 May 2020.
1. I bought two golden spur columbines (Aquilegia chrysantha) in 1997. They went to seed and continually threaten to take over whatever bed they land in.

2. Pink evening primroses (Oenothera speciosa) constantly are colonizing my walking path; I let them move spread elsewhere as they like.

3. I didn’t plant either of these in this place. Some rose reverted to the Dr. Huey rootstock. The sweet peas (Lathyrus latifolia) just moved in. I’ve left them with the roses, but am constantly cutting the vines that invade the primroses.

End notes:
1. Frederick Law Olmsted. A Journey in the Southern Slave States. New York: Dix and Edwards, 1856. 480–481. Melville J. Herskovits brought this to my attention in The Myth of the Negro Past. Boston: Beacon Press, 1941, 1958 edition. 99–101.

2. Olmsted. 481–482.
3. Olmsted. 481.

Sunday, May 24, 2020

Of Things Invisible


Weather: The weather continues to seesaw between late spring and mid-summer. After temperatures in the 90s on Monday and Tuesday, the mornings were below freezing on Thursday and Friday.

Strong winds started bringing smoke from Mexican wild fires on Monday, when the weather bureau Air Quality map showed the area covered in gray. The pattern lasted through Wednesday. Saturday, dust from the west was forecast.

None of these particulates are visible, and I think the smoke lingers even after there’s not enough left to trigger a spot on the Air Quality map. Then, I only know about them when I have trouble breathing or my stomach hurts or I get weak just walking outside. I didn’t work outside three days this week.

Last rain: 5/11. Week’s low: 28 degrees F. Week’s high: 91 degrees F in the shade. Relative humidity down to 4% in Santa Fé. Wind gusts to 48 mph in Santa Fé.

What’s blooming in the area: Persian yellow, Doctor Huey, wild pink and hybrid roses, yellow-flowered potentilla, spirea, pyracantha, purple locust, Spanish broom, beauty bush, silver lace vine, bearded iris, red hot poker, peonies, oriental poppy, blue flax, snow-in-summer, Jupiter’s beard, golden spur columbine, purple salvia

What’s blooming beyond the walls and fences: Apache plume, alfilerillo, tumble mustard, fern leaf globe mallow, green leaf five-eyes, bindweed, alfalfa, yellow sweet clover, tufted white evening primrose, flea bane, goat’s beard, common and native dandelions, strap leaf aster, June, needle, rice, cheat, brome, and three-awn grasses

My daily attempt to control weeds by picking flowers before they go to seed has changed from dandelions to goat’s beards. The dandelions always have small insects on them. One this week attracted a large bumble bee.

The most common weeds I’ve been removing are wild lettuce and pigweed.

What’s blooming in my yard: Miniature and floribunda roses, cliff rose, chives, vinca, coral bells, Bath pinks, Maltese cross, winecup mallow, pink evening primrose, pink and white sweet peas, Dutch clover, catmint, baptisia, Johnson Blue geranium, wintered-over pansy and snapdragon, Shasta daisy, chocolate flower, coreopsis

What’s emerging: Toothed spurge and prostrate knotweed; first goat head in my neighbor’s part of the drive way; zinnia seeds

Bedding and house plants: Snapdragons, zonal geraniums, pansies, petunias

Tasks: Something has upset the quail who used to live out on the prairie. Starting in February they’ve been on my back porch. When I chase them off, they fly to my neighbor’s porch or Siberian elm tree. At different times, I hear their raucous cries from other directions.

In April, I used a broom to knock down sticks from one of the rafters. This week I’ve been finding piles of sticks interwoven in the ends of Dr. Huey rose canes, in the sweet peas below, and on the porch. I removed them a week ago Friday and again this Friday. There was a new batch by 11 am Saturday morning.

They don’t just bring in sticks. I’ve found pieces of thorny Russian thistle and pigweed. Humans aren’t the only ones who spread noxious weeds.

I don’t know anything about the intelligence of quail, and it’s not something I wish to research. However, I do wonder about a heavy bird that continues to think a rose cane can support its weight.

Animal sightings: Chickadees, house wrens, hummingbird, quail, gecko, cabbage and small orange butterflies, bumble and small bees, hornets, newly hatched grasshoppers, sound of crickets, sidewalk ants, earthworms

Someone down the road has a rooster that crows between 6 and 8 am, and again at twilight. When I worked in Santa Fé, I was told one of my coworkers raised fighting cocks. That disabused me of my naive assumption that everyone who had a male chicken was like my neighbor who hoped to gather eggs.


Weekly update: People who take a literal view of Genesis must have a difficult time comprehending the Coronavirus. It says plants were created on day three; birds, fishes and other sea creatures on day five, and animals that move on the land on day six.

A virus is neither an animal nor a plant, but a disembodied piece of DNA or RNA. Those who grew up with a Linnean view of the order of the universe were forced to create a new realm, viria. The particular one that is causing infections today has the following placement:

Family: Coronaviruses
Subfamily: Orthocoronavirinae
Genus: Betacoronavirus
Subgenus: Sarbecovirus
Lineage: B
Species: SARS-CoV (severe acute respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus)
Strain: SARS-CoV-2 [1]

So many more layers than the ones I learned when I was taking biology in ninth grade. The sheer volume of viruses — more than 7,000 have been named — has stretched the Linnean structure. Latin names no longer are used for species, and even common names don’t exist. We just call viruses, bugs.

This particular virus had several, equally abstract, tags before enough was known to settle on the current one. The disease it causes was labeled Covid-19 for the year it was discovered.

Viruses are one of those invisible things, like germs and genes, whose existence was hypothesized before they were verified by increasingly more sophisticated laboratory tools. Louis Pasteur, who identified so many diseases in the late nineteenth century, "speculated about a pathogen too small to be detected by microscopes." [2] The existence of viruses wasn’t confirmed until the electron microscope was invented. The first image of a virus was taken in 1939. [3]

Scientists, who do believe in evolution, argue about its location in the chronology of development. Since a virus isn’t even a cell, but must enter a cell to reproduce, most argue it came after the single celled organisms. Exactly when is what’s debated.

Some even question whether a virus is, in fact, a life form. Most say it is because they "evolve by natural selection." [4] Recently scientists acting on that assumption studied the genomes of 160 cases, and found that after SARS-CoV-2 jumped from bats, the ancestral A node spawned two more nodes. B only is known in Asia, while A and C have spread. Mutations exist within each that reflect transmission routes. [5]

This is the first time may of us have been in a situation where nothing is known, and what is assumed, based on past experiences, may be disproved. The closest thing in anyone’s experience was HIV. Perhaps the closest in history is the Bubonic plague.

Surprisingly, there have been few alternative Biblical explanations for the virus. No mentions of Satanic creation, no allusions to End Times. [6] Attempts to suggest it was manmade haven’t resonated. The only alternative that seems popular is that the whole thing is a hoax.

It simply may be a matter of theology. The idea of the Rapture became popular in the 1970s, and remains so. In this scenario, God will rescue His believers before life becomes unbearable in the final days. Alternatively, for many interpretations exist of the book of Revelation, the faithful simply will be spared while the heathen suffer.

For them, the potential challenge a virus makes to Genesis is unimportant. What matters is the possibility of immunity through salvation.


Notes on photographs: Driveway plants, 23 May 2020. These are native plants I let grow because they bloom, stay low, don’t get woody stems, don’t have thorns, and don’t produce annoying seeds. They bloom in different seasons and different times of the day.

1. Alfilerillo (Erodium circutarium), 7:50 am; a morning flower; it’s season has peaked.

2. Strap leaf aster (Xanthisma spinulosum spinulosum), 11:26 am; a daytime flower; it’s just beginning to bloom.

3. Green leaf five-eyes (Chamaesaracha coronopus), 11:27 am; an evening flower; it’s been blooming for a few weeks.

End notes:
1. Constructed from Wikipedia. "Betacoronavirus," "Coronavirus," "Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2," and "Virus."

2. G. Bordenave. "Louis Pasteur (1822-1895)." Microbes and Infection. 5:553–560:2003. Cited by Wikipedia, Virus.

3. Wikipedia. "Tobacco Mosaic Virus." It had been identified a few years earlier by Wendell Meredith Stanley. The image was made by Gustav Kausche, Edgar Pfankuch and Helmut Ruska.

4. E. C. Holmes. "Viral Evolution in the Genomic Age." PLOS Biology 5:e278:October 2007. Cited by Wikipedia, Virus.

5. Peter Forster, Lucy Forster, Colin Renfrew, and Michael Forster. "Phylogenetic Network Analysis of SARS-CoV-2 Genomes." National Academy of Sciences. Proceedings 117:9241-9243:2020.

6. As near as I can tell, there have been more posts on the internet explaining why any attempt to connect the current disease to doomsday follows from a misunderstanding of Revelation than ones that do so. Even the minister who made news for suggesting homosexuality excited God’s wrath, denied he was connecting them with the disease. [7]

7. Brooke Sopelsa. "Trump Cabinet’s Bible Teacher Says Gays Cause ‘God’s Wrath’ in COVID-19 Blog Post." NBC News website. 25 March 2020. The minister was Ralph Drollinger.

Sunday, May 17, 2020

Mail Order Plants


Weather: Some rain Tuesday, almost a month after the last snow. Winds nearly every day, though only high a few times.

The moisture we got this winter apparently was diverted from the west coast of México. Now, grass and brush fires are raging in places there. So far the smoke has gone into south Texas, but I suspect some pollutants are reaching us.

Last rain: 5/11. Week’s low: 36 degrees F. Week’s high: 83 degrees F in the shade.

What’s blooming in the area: Austrian copper, Persian yellow, Doctor Huey, and wild pink roses, yellow-flowered potentilla, spirea, pyracantha, beauty bush, snowball, bearded iris, red hot poker, oriental poppy, blue flax, snow-in-summer, Jupiter’s beard, golden spur columbine

What’s blooming beyond the walls and fences: Tamarix, alfilerillo, tumble mustard, fern leaf globe mallow, green leaf five-eyes, alfalfa, flea bane, goat’s beard, common and native dandelions, June, needle, rice, cheat, brome, and three-awn grasses

What’s blooming in my yard: Apache plume, cliff rose, chives, vinca, coral bells, Bath pinks, winecup mallow, pink evening primrose, Dutch clover, catmint, baptisia, wintered-over pansy and snapdragon, Shasta daisy

What’s emerging: corn in a market garden, tomatillos, a few morning glory and annual four o’clock seeds

Bedding and house plants: Snapdragons, zonal geraniums, pansies

Tasks: I’ve been planting seeds, although few have come up. I suspect that while the soil is warm enough to handle, it’s not warm enough to nurture seeds. The hours of cool, including the nights, are longer than the hours of warmth.

Animal sightings: Chickadees, house wrens, quail, gecko, cabbage and small orange butterflies, bumble and bees, hornets, heard crickets, sidewalk ants


Weekly update: Buying plants from a mail-order nursery is always a crap shoot. You never know when they’re going to arrive.

All too often, companies have some map that places us in the same area as Albuquerque. I get things when the ground is too cold to work, and have to hold them on the back porch. Sometimes that’s weeks, by which time the plants have deteriorated and no longer are worth planting.

This year, I tried specifying May 4 as a preferred ship day. My reasoning was our last frost day used to be May 1. Since the 4th was a Monday, that would mean I would get the plants by Friday, and they wouldn’t spend a weekend in uncontrolled storage.

One nursery called and said I was in zone 5, and they normally begin shipping to that zone the first of March.

Exactly my problem. It was 22 degrees on my porch on March 1. The afternoon high of 63 was irrelevant.

After some discussion, I mentioned our last frost date. That was something the other person understood, and said she would talk to her supervisor.

The plants arrived May 13. They probably were shipped May 4, but the company used the UPS post office option. I’ve learned that is absolutely the slowest way to ship. Things arrive on the last promised date. It does not take 9 days for anything to travel from one part of this country to another, not even from Hawaii to Bangor, Maine.

Who knew in late January, this year would simply elide a month. We had snow on April 13, and morning temperatures down to 15 on April 15. Then, afternoons returned to the 70s.

I’m getting the plants when I asked for them, but this year it’s way too late. We still have morning temperatures in the high 30s, but the afternoons resemble mid-summer. Plants simply can’t adapt in those conditions.

It wouldn’t have made any difference if I had waited to buy things in a local nursery. Normally, they don’t get their stock until late April. The period from May 1 to Mother’s Day is their busiest time.

That’s when I usually can find snapdragons and pansies. They’re cold weather annuals, and early May is the end of their spring bloom period. They rarely survive into fall.

Who knew in January all the nurseries would be closed in April by a virus. On May 1, one could place a phone order and pick it up at the curb.

The exception was hardware stores and big boxes. They were deemed essential businesses, and never closed. One could use them, if one was brave enough. I went to the local big box on Good Friday, and never returned. Even if I though it had something I wanted, it wasn’t worth dying for.

Everything I bought this year was from one of my two local hardware stores. I couldn’t get an insecticide that specified it treated aphids, and I ran out of fertilizer. Nothing critical. Things have survived every kind of neglect, except drought.

Now, I worry the local nurseries may not survive as long as my pansies.


Notes on photographs: All taken 16 May 2020.
1. Spring Matrix Sangria pansy (Viola wittrockiana) under the peach tree.

2. White Rocket snapdragon (Antirrhinum majus) with Queen Anne’s lace (Daucus carpta) in back.

3. Easter Bonnet sweet alyssum (Lobularia maritima) going out of bloom while it’s hardening and waiting for the last shipment from someone using UPS. The breeder dropped the pretense it’s fragrant, and simply call it alyssum.

Sunday, May 10, 2020

Weed Eating


Weather: Afternoon temperatures have remained in the 80s, and humidity has fallen below 10% in Santa Fé and Los Alamos. However, the sun isn’t as intense as it is after the solstice, and so the heat hasn’t bothered plants as much as it will in summer.

Last snow: 4/13. Week’s low: 33 degrees F. Week’s high: 85 degrees F in the shade.

What’s blooming in the area: Austrian copper and Persian yellow roses, yellow-flowered potentilla, spirea, snowball, bearded iris, blue flax, snow-in-summer, Jupiter’s beard, golden spur columbine

What’s blooming beyond the walls and fences: Tamarix, alfilerillo, western stickseeds, tumble mustard, fern leaf globe mallow, green leaf five-eyes, phacelia, flea bane, goat’s beard, common and native dandelions, June, needle, rice, cheat, brome, and three-awn grasses

What’s blooming in my yard: Woods rose, beauty bush, chives, star of Bethlehem, vinca, coral bells, Bath pinks, winecup mallow, pink evening primrose, wintered-over pansy

What’s emerging: Roses of Sharon, desert willow, tree of heaven, Russian sage.

It’s the time when the seeds I planted haven’t germinated, but all the weed seeds that were in the bed are coming up, especially alfalfa, white sweet clover, and Queen Anne’s lace.

Bedding and house plants: Snapdragons, zonal geraniums

Tasks: Cheat grass is in seed. I’ve been trying different ways to remove it, including pulling it from beds and mowing it down in open areas.

Animal sightings: Calico cat, two rabbits, chickadees, house wrens, quail, gecko, bumble bees, hornets, crickets, sidewalk ants.

Outside cats don’t do anything to discourage birds or rabbits. They only help with the mice if that’s their hobby. The calico is too well fed to bother. The one animal they seem to scare is the ground squirrel.


Weekly update: When I was a child, my father used to complain about a neighbor who mowed his lawn on Sunday mornings. He wasn’t concerned with the violation of the Sabbath, but with the noise from the electric motor. Today, weed eaters, or string trimmers as competitors would say, are even louder.

I’ve always scoffed at them as a way to do more than cosmetic improvements. People always wait until weeds are tall and in seed, before they attack them. While they may create a level green appearance, they also plant those seeds, and thus insure people will be back the next season doing the same thing.

Last year I bought one that was battery powered. Not only was it lighter-weight than an electric one I had had years ago, but the design was better. The cord didn’t bind as often, and I was able to repair it myself. Before, I had to beg for help to get mine tool back in operation.

My purpose was cutting down the alfalfa that I planted around the crab apples to keep down the winterfat. This was one of those "set a thief to catch a thief" scenarios. The alfalfa did keep down the competition, but it needed cutting to keep it from overpowering the trees.

Since I don’t cut it by hand anymore, the stems are taller. They turn woody when they dry, and have created great clumps that are resistant to the nylon string. A lawn mower would work better, because its steel blades would cut through those stems. But, of course, that’s not possible.

I doubt the cut alfalfa is doing much to improve the nitrogen levels of the soil, because I don’t trowel the cuttings into the soil. If I had time and energy to do that, I wouldn’t need a power tool.

This year I thought, since the trimmer works so well, maybe I can use it to control some of the volunteers in my driveway. Pulling cheat grass by hand is the only way to remove it, but it’s so prolific nothing is going to eradicate it. It grows back quickly after I cut it, but in places I’ve been able to keep it low.

The problem with using the tool in my driveway is the gravel. One doesn’t want to get it so low the string kicks up stones. However, I only want to keep the tahoka daisies and purple asters so low their woody stems don’t rub the bottom of my car. This may be better than a herbacide that leaves dead stems to be cut down.

As for that childhood neighbor with the lawnmower, I wonder now if the noise wasn’t part of the allure. It was the 1950s, and he was divorced and remarried. Perhaps announcing he wasn’t in church was another way of defying the conventions of the small town.


Notes on photographs: All taken 10 May 2020.
1. Snow ball (Viburnus opulus).
2. Goldstar Potentilla fruticosa.
3. Spirea vanhouttei.

Sunday, May 03, 2020

Brown versus White Rice


Weather: I knew we crossed a seasonal barrier this week when the sun’s rays began coming into my northeast facing windows in the morning. I’m not sure what’s happening in the Pacific ocean, but no moisture is crossing Baja and moving our way. The result has been high temperatures and winds, with any moisture in the air coming from the ground and plants.

Last snow: 4/13. Week’s low: 34 degrees F. Week’s high: 87 degrees F in the shade.

What’s blooming in the area: Bearded iris, blue flax

Ten days after morning temperatures plunged to 15 degrees, the apples and lilacs were beginning to bloom. Then, the afternoon temperatures rose into the middle 80s, and buds died. It’s a period when plants still are greening, but none of the plants that normally bloom at this time of year can stand the mid-summer heat.

What’s blooming beyond the walls and fences: Alfilerillo, western stickseeds, tansy mustard, fern leaf globe mallow, green leaf five-eyes, flea bane, goat’s beard, common and native dandelions, June, rice, cheat and three-awn grasses

What’s blooming in my yard: Spirea, tulips, grape hyacinths, lily of the valley, chives, vinca, wintered-over pansy, coral bells

What’s emerging: Sandbar willow, black locust, catalpa, Virginia creeper, grapes, ostrich fern, onions, baptisia, lamb’s quarter, perennial four o’clock, Maximilian sunflowers

Bedding plants: Snapdragons, pansies

Tasks: One person has successfully started a vegetable garden. Onions and other plants, possibly lettuce, were up in furrows on Friday.

I started to plant seeds last Saturday and noticed an ant in the bed. I turned my head, and saw lots of hills in my drive. It was obvious I was doing things in the wrong order. The next day I poisoned the hills. Monday I resumed planting seeds. Yesterday, I noticed new hills had appeared.

Animal sightings: Calico cat, two rabbits, chickadees, house wrens, hummingbird, gecko, bumble and small bees, hornets, crickets, ladybug, sidewalk ants, earth worms

Baby grasshoppers were active in the patch of tansy. Tanacetum vulgare crispum is supposed to repel certain kinds of insects like ants, mosquitoes and Japanese beetles. [1] Obviously its useful properties don’t extend to grasshoppers.


Weekly update: I was taken by surprise by the panic buying that began when people first heard about coronavirus. I suspect, in a kind of self-fulfilling behavior, some people stocked up on dried foods like pasta and rice. Then, reporters commented, and more people rushed out to buy what was left.

By the time I realized there could be a rice shortage, there was. Amazon was sold out of the organic brown rice I normally buy, and essentially had delisted it. All I could get was organic white rice from the same grower.

The variety I buy comes from California, but most rice in this country is grown in Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. [2] These are states that have been slow to respond to the threat of the coronavirus pandemic. Fortunately, most of the work now is done by machines.

The prime rice producers in the international market are Thailand, Vietnam, and India. The primary customers are China, India, and other parts of southeastern Asia. [3] Thailand is recovering from a drought, [4] while Vietnam and Cambodia have banned exports. [5] This created more demand for American-grown rice in the international trade.

The current supply is low. Dwight Roberts of the Rice Producers Association, said there’s "virtually nothing left" for commodities brokers "to trade." However, he said crops are being planted now, and there’s some expectation that "there will be a large amount of acres planted in 2020." [6]

Rice is planted in March, and harvested in September. It’s then threshed, dried, and milled. [7] This year’s crop probably won’t be available until October.

I looked at my credit card records, and saw that I buy it about every five months. I last got some the end of January. I’ll have none left by the end of June. Then it’s four months until the new crop comes into the market.

I’ve always heard white rice is less nutritious than brown. With the prospect of months of white rice ahead, I decided to find out exactly what that meant.

The difference between the two is that the husk and embryo germ are removed from harvested rice. They contain all the vitamins and minerals. However, it’s the white part that contains the protein, which is why I eat rice.

My body probably won’t notice the change in nutrient levels, since I take a multiple vitamin and other supplements each day. The nature of the protein is a greater question.

Back in the 1970s, I read Frances Moore Lappé’s Diet for a Small Planet. She made clear 22 amino acids make up the proteins used by our body, and that we must ingest 8 of them simultaneously for the body to use them. [8]

Since no food contains all eight — eggs come the closest [9] — one needs to eat several foods at the same time. [10] Thankfully, she provided tables that listed complementary pairs. Rice was combined with lentils. [11]

I looked again at the book. It suggested that while brown and white rice might chemically contain the same amount of protein, 70% of the brown rice protein actually could be used by the body, while 57% of the white was available. [12]

What to do, when organic brown rice is not available. A little rice has returned to the shelves and Amazon’s catalog, so one could use non-organic rice. I’m already dealing with arsenic that lands of the plants from the groundwater used for irrigation. [13] I have no idea what other chemicals I might confront from non-organic growers in the South.

The alternative may be eating corn or wheat, which also can balance the amino acids in legumes. [14] That may be why I’ve taken to eating wheat crackers after I finish my lentils and rice at night.

I thought many of the people who bought up the rice in this country probably didn’t normally eat it, and would throw it out when they felt more secure about other sources of food. I even thought, rather snarkily, they probably didn’t even know how to cook it, and would give up after a few disastrous meals.

It turns out, I don’t know how to cook white rice. As I said, I was scheduled to exhaust my reserve of brown rice early this summer. A couple weeks ago, I started using one measure of brown and one of white, instead of two of brown when I cooked it in the same pot with the lentils. That would introduce some deficiency sooner, but postpone the more serious problems until later.

Apart from the fact the brown and white probably are different strains, white behaves differently. It absorbs more water without the husk. Then, more sticks to the bottom of the pan, and won’t come loose until it’s soaked. While that might mean more food for the bacteria in the septic system, I suspect most of it would get caught in the twists in the plumbing and have to be dislodged by some chemical.

On the other hand, some oil or starch or combination of the two in brown rice creates an invisible film on the bottom of the pan. It often takes more than scouring to remove. The white, once I get the surplus out, leaves a clean pan.

I’m slowly getting the proportions right. The time I tried adding a bit more water, the pot boiled over and I had to clean the stove top. Instead, I’ve learned a little less of the measure works. But, of course, that’s less rice.

The unintended consequence is I have to make sure I don’t lose weight. White rice actually has fewer calories than brown, [15] even though it takes up the same amount of space in the pot, and more on the plate.


Notes on photographs:
1. White Parrot tulip, 3 May 2020, after I cleaned the bed.

2. Same tulips, 11 May 2020, when the bed was filled with David phlox and purple coneflower stems from the previous year. I never had a clear view of the flowers.

3. Monique Lemoine lilac, 3 May 2020. The white flower buds that promised to open were blighted by the heat.

End notes:
1. Wikipedia. "Tansy."

2. Matt Shipp. "Rice Crop Timeline for the Southern States of Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi." United States Department of Agriculture, Integrated Pest Management Centers website. 1.

3. "Rice." Trading Economics website.

4. Dwight Roberts. "Rice Market Update: Coronavirus + Planting New Crop = ???" Ag Fax website. 12 March 2020.

5. "Cambodia To Ban Some Rice Exports Due to Coronavirus. Fact Box website. 30 March 2020."

6. Roberts.

7. Shipp. 63. I could find out much on the delays between reaping and shipping to customers, but didn’t get the impression it was long.

8. Frances Moore Lappé. Diet for a Small Planet. New York: Ballantine Books, 1975 edition.

9. Lappé. 78.
10. Lappé. 66–67.
11. Lappé. 110.
12. Lappé. 107.

13. Michael Matthews. "What 14 Studies Say About Brown Rice vs. White Rice." Legion Athletics website. Despite the flippant writing style, this actually contains some useful information.

14. Lappé. 110.
15. Matthews.