Category Archives: Flora

Still, Life is Beautiful*

Bee’s Knees and Bears Ears

So far this morning I have: skimmed the front section of the New York Times, worked on yesterday’s crossword puzzle, swept the floor (picking up stray oat shards that fell off the bran muffins), emptied the dishwasher, washed and dried clothes, plumped up the bath rugs in the dryer, tried to clean the cushions for the porch chairs, and corresponded with friends and relatives. All of this was not in an effort to be neat and efficient, but to pile up more tasks in order to avoid finishing this blog post. I began this post over three weeks ago, but I have not wanted to finish it. Part of this reluctance may be because, especially in this over-heated political climate, I want to avoid writing about political topics. As my friend Sharon said once, I do like to please people. I think, though, the bigger stumbling block is that I don’t know how to synthesize my ideas and feelings to express them succinctly in these few paragraphs. Synthesized or not, succinct or not, I am done waffling. Hold back the edges of your gowns, Ladies*, I’m going back in.

By the time I was 20 years old, I had pretty much given up the idea that politics could or would save the world. Earlier on, I had thought that non-violent political and social engagement could do that. That’s why I majored in political science. That’s why I had canvassed for Martin Luther King Jr. and had rallied against the war in Vietnam, had tried to organize to save Biafran babies, and had written about preventing the Alaskan pipeline. Well, the war in Vietnam did end eventually, but, in significant ways, the other causes haven’t worked out well.

I was 20 when the news of the Kent State massacre wafted into Zion Canyon where I was living. I felt pain and outrage for a bit and then the canyon and the sky took me back.

Zion Canyon

I spent three summers on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. Back then we were mostly isolated from the news. Instead of the news, we listened to the wind in the ponderosas and the calls of the ravens.

ravens over the Grand Canyon

When I was 22, I taught public school for one year in Page, Arizona, just outside the Navajo Nation. This was challenging for me because of loneliness, school bureaucracy, and fairly rampant ethnocentrism. This experience was also an honor for me because of the land outside my classroom, some caring colleagues, and the students themselves.

Those early years in wild country passed quickly and I settled in close to the ground with my husband, my children, and whatever little bit of land I had to garden. This is where I have mostly remained. However, sometimes I force myself to bring my head up.

our garden

Bee’s knees: Already this spring, I have seen a few wasps, several bumblebees, several types of native bees, one cabbage butterfly, a couple of yellow swallowtails (or one twice) and another unidentified butterfly flying across the street. A few blocks away, I saw what looked to be a couple of honeybees among the flowers. I am hopeful that we legions of organic gardeners and farmers, and other assorted tree huggers will stem the tides of poison, disequilibrium, and destruction of our earth and its inhabitants. I plant my garden and I look (and find) signs of hope. Recently, I moved a clay pot that had over-wintered on my front porch and I startled a red-backed salamander. About a week ago, Tom discovered a garter (most likely) snake in one of my rock piles. Two evenings ago, I attended a presentation about non-honeybee pollinators at Ivy Creek Natural Area here in Charlottesville. It appears that many varieties of native bees and other arthropods are continuing to pollinate the flora for us, but we need to plant more native plants, and, of course, refrain from using poison.

bee and flower, Idaho Botanical Garden

Bear Ears: Ever since it came in the mail last Saturday (now almost a month ago), I’ve been wearing my “Protect Bears Ears” tee shirt to the gym and around the neighborhood.The few people that have commented on it seem to think this is an initiative to make sure that bears have adequate hearing protection.

No, it’s not about that. I have brought my head up from my comfortable dirt, rocks, and plants and I am becoming political again. Bears Ears is the name for an area of Southeastern Utah, east and south of Canyonlands National Park. Many Native Americans and environmental groups are calling on President Obama to name this area a national monument through the Antiquities Act. Some people advocate leaving the control (and designation of use now and in the future) of this approximately 1.9 million acres of land to the state of Utah. Since I am adverse to, well, adversity, it’s a relief that people around here don’t seem to know what my shirt is referring to. Confession: A couple of weeks ago realizing that many other gym goers’ tee shirts sport names of races, vacation spots, or bars, I chickened out and started wearing my wordless tee shirts again. This week, I toughened up and tried to put my body where my heart was.

My heart is with the native people of the Colorado Plateau—Diné, Hopi, Ute, Zuni and others. In many instances back in Page, my students, their families, and their cultures were not respected. It looks like there are still some people now who disrespect and disregard the cultures and histories of the groups who have lived in the Colorado Plateau hundreds (and thousands) of years before the pioneers settled there in the latter half of the 1800s.

bullet holes in pictographs, Southern Utah

My heart is with the rock, sand, and sky of Southern Utah. I believe that this land should be preserved for all the inhabitants of this earth. I hope that President Obama will designate the Bears Ears a national monument.

Southeastern Utah

There. I have said my piece and I am hunkering down close to the ground again.

protect Bears Ears

For more information about Bears Ears, please see: The Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition, The Grand Canyon Trust, and many articles in the Salt Lake Tribune and other periodicals available online.

* Thank you, William Carlos Williams and Allen Ginsberg (see the introduction to Howl and Other Poems).

Today

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This morning I washed the sheets and put them back on the bed.

I washed, rinsed, and air-dried my hair brushes. What can I say? Is this some proto-spring cleaning of personal gear? Maybe so: Last night, I also darned my husband’s sock. I really don’t know how to darn, but I used my mother’s darning egg, so it gave me another opportunity to think of her.

I made granola. For this batch, I put in oatmeal, oat bran, flax seeds, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, sliced almonds, unsweetened coconut, raisins, dried apricots*, cinnamon, freshly grated nutmeg, three tablespoons of coconut oil, and three (plus) tablespoons of maple syrup. When everything that should be baked was baked and when all the ingredients were mixed together, I added some vanilla.

granola

I cleaned out the shelf where some of the baking ingredients reside. Sometimes, I like to straighten shelves. I believe that doing so makes me think I have some control over the universe. In this case, I was also trying to round up stray flax seeds.

I watered the plants. This takes about one half hour of wandering around the house. (I mention the amount of time because I don’t think I will make it to the gym today but I want to get 10,000 steps on my pedometer). I don’t have an indoor watering can, which is okay, because I don’t like them much. I feel like I have more control when I use my big green plastic cup and the bit of old pink towel I use to mop up mistakes. Note: I am good with plants indoor and out. That started a long time ago when my mother and I planted a tiny garden of corn and radishes against the house in Detroit. In college, I rooted some pussy willows and my dad planted them down by the lake, where they prospered. Later, during Tom and my salad days, several of my indoor plants were given to me by my sister-in-law, Betsy. My friend Pat just gave me back a little bay tree that I had given her plus the scion of a clivia that I had given her years back. I like watering the plants.

house plants

After lunch, Tom and I drove to Ivy Nursery to pick up some spring flowers to take up north tomorrow to some people we love. Daffodils, because sometimes we all wander lonely as a cloud.

daffodils

One thing I didn’t do today: I didn’t write Refugees, Part 2 (See, Refugees, Part1) as I should have done. I will soon, though. Spring is coming and my frozen heart will melt.

*I chopped the apricots with my trusty nine-inch Henckels French knife. I call it trusty because it has been my constant kitchen companion since my first summer at the North Rim in 1971. Our chef, Floyd Winder, required all the cooks and “pantry girls” (my designation in those unenlightened days) to buy their own knives. With my own knife at hand, I felt professional. The knife still works fine. However, when I searched this morning for the peace symbol I had etched in the handle, I couldn’t find it. I hope that is not a portent of the future. Update 4:15 P.M.: Tom and I both think we see the marks of the peace sign, but they are too faint for me to photograph.

French knife

The Year in Review: 2015

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Hello, here are twelve photos from 2015 and my wishes for a Happy New Year.

January: Goodbye to the dogwood

February: Pho 75

March: crocus

April: creeping phlox

May: The Awakening

June: black-eyed Susan vine

July: the garden and the camper

August: Grand Teton National Park

September: Glacier National Park

October: Insect on locust

November: Frick Park, Pittsburgh

December: Flowers from my student

Report: Flora, Fauna, Music

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Although, unlike the kids in my neighborhood, I am not going back to school tomorrow, I felt the need to write a report on how I spent my summer. Here it is.

Flora

We had enough rain (more than enough for the grapes and the Italian basil) and the weather was mostly moderate. After all these years of living in Virginia, “moderate” is my word for not so damn hot and humid for so long that I can’t stand it. Notable elements of the garden include:

the best crop of green beans since the early 1980s—bush and pole,
the best crop of green chilies in at least seven years—New Mexico style, not Anaheim,
crazy, prolific summer squash, Southern Exposure Seed Exchange’s “tromboncino”—the plants took over most of the garden until I finally hacked the vines back and offered the fruits to passersby,
tomatoes only pretty good—they suffered from being overrun by the rampaging tromboncinos,
Tom’s rose, “Awakening”—I had nothing to do with it, but I got to see and smell it (his moonflowers are just beginning to bloom in the night and they bring the sphinx moths, more on fauna, below)
green chiles

Fauna

Sometimes I have trouble separating the fauna from the flora. I like to think that is because I am an integrative person. Maybe that’s why I always grow my herbs, flowers, fruits, and vegetables together. Whatever the reason, my jumbled gardens have worked for me and for the fauna.

we had first the bumblebees, and then, slow to show up, the honey bees did come,
cabbage butterflies, skippers, red admirals, and, now, one monarch (I’ve had a jubilant crop of native milkweed—more than in years) I’m hoping more monarchs will arise from the jumble, and
cardinals nested by the porch, then disappeared, later the catbirds came, some wrens and gold finches, always the sparrows, and the crows still keep watch

monarch butterfly on zinnia

Special Sighting: Last week Tom and I camped at Loft Mountain in Shenandoah National Park. We took a short hike along the Appalachian Trail. On the trail, a long, lovely, lean timber rattlesnake crossed our path. He didn’t hurry and he didn’t rattle.

timber rattlesnake, Shenandoah National Park

Music

Because I am an integrative person (so I think), I have trouble separating the fauna and the flora from the music. This summer we had a very successful music harvest.

In June, we heard and saw Paul McCartney. I was amazed, no maybe about it. I kept thinking this old guy is going to need a break, but all he ever did was pause briefly to switch between guitars and the keyboard and the voice. Richer than Croesus or even Richie Rich, older even than I am, still, McCartney sang every song (some were old, some were new, some were even from video games) as if he meant them. He sang a cappella about a blackbird sitting on the edge of night. He told us that “we can work it out” and we believed him.
In early August, we walked to the downtown mall to hear and watch Garrison Keillor. This performance was part of his valedictory tour, “America the Beautiful.” I liked many parts of the show and, of course being an English major type myself, I am a fan. I have loved the way Garrison—may I call you Garrison? As a fellow mid-westerner I feel so close—walks slowly up and down the aisles singing songs with us. When we sang, “I’ve been working on the Railroad,” I was transported back to the car rides of my childhood and to singing with my friends in school or in lilac trees. Garrison sang, “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Yes, here 70 miles north of Richmond and he sang, I do believe, all the verses. I want to mention that I knew at least parts of all of the verses. I think that comes from my latter-day abolitionist, overly righteous younger self and to my reading of Uncle Tom’s Cabin and To Kill a Mockingbird (many times) during my formative years. I will remember singing with you, Garrison. Thank you.
Last Saturday, Tom and I went up to Wintergreen Resort for the Blue Ridge Mountain Music Fest. When we are in Charlottesville, we attend every August. Each year we fall under the spell of the flowers and the butterflies, the blue hills, and the music that seems integral to the place. All the groups we heard sang and played with that wonderful precision that we’ve come to associate with old-time music and bluegrass. This year, though, it was the group, Balsam Range, that blue us away. I took a dozen photos hoping to catch the passion, the skill, the humor, and the love (sentimental, plaintive, but heartfelt) in their songs. The photos didn’t work out, so now I need to figure out what to say. In their own genre and in their own ways, the artists of Balsam Range seemed as world-class as McCartney. Like Garrison, the group sang a song about the Civil War. This time, though, the sensibility was from the Confederate side. It was a song about a young man about to die a few miles outside of Birmingham. He pleads with the listener to tell his mother that he had been a brave soldier and that he would miss that life he would never have with his sweetheart back home. As I learned time and time again from my refugee and immigrant students, it’s the people close to the ground (on either side of the conflict) that die in war–the farmers, the storekeepers, the women, and the children.

We are part of the flora and the fauna, the music, and the blue and rocky hills. We are integrative types, you and I, and, perhaps we are lucky to be here. We were only waiting for this moment to arise.

Mary’s Rock Shenandoah National Park

Prologue: Book Report II

Excuses

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If my math is correct, it has been 48 days since I put a new post up on this blog. I kept telling myself that I could at least put up some photographs to let people know I am still here. That didn’t really work because, lately, I haven’t liked my photos anymore than I’ve liked my words or my thoughts. That sentence sounds gloomier than the reality behind it, so I am moving on to other words and thoughts.

Possible excuses for my lack of blog production:

Here in Charlottesville, Virginia—not as snowy this year even as Washington, D.C. (let alone the Northeast)—the snow and cold gave everyone an excuse for taking February off. Me, too, mostly.
Once the weather warmed up in March Tom and I were renovating our yard and garden. Plus, Tom and I got caught up for awhile in March Madness.
Other facile excuses: We work out at the gym two hours most days. By the time we walk to and from the gym, shower, etc. and maybe get some coffee and work on the NY Times crossword, a certain amount of the day is gone along with any thoughts I might have had. People have been working on our house and this leaves me feeling unsettled.
Good excuses: We’ve had family and friends visit. We’ve walked to the University of Virginia campus for concerts. Tom and I are now volunteer gardening in two small areas near our house and we are beginning to help out at an emergency food bank.
Cranky excuses: I am embarrassed about how few followers my blog has. I say to myself, if I only had a cute cat and I videoed the cat doing clever cat tricks, my blog would be a hit.* I’ve also thought of putting up more recipes (soon, I promise, not 48 days from now) or writing about politics. Save the Colorado River, knock down the Glen Canyon Dam, declare Greater Canyonlands a National Monument, and stop wasting everyone’s time on ill-advised high stakes educational testing. Hmmm. That was fun, but I am already weary of my own diatribes.
April excuse: Sometimes, despite the crocuses and daffodils and the cherries and the redbuds, I find no rest in this beautiful world. I feel like I want to go eat worms (if you don’t know the childhood ditty, check online). However, faced with the reality of all the fat and juicy worms in my garden, I’ve decided to cheer up, grow up (about time), and leave the worms for the birds.

Some photos anyhow:

very early birds

crocus

daffodils (Marieke)

creeping phlox

*I did once have a cat, if one could be said to “have” a cat. I received this little cat (from my later-to-be sister-in-law, Betsy) back when I lived in my cheesy basement apartment in Salt Lake City. Talk about cute cats: Mani Sheriar Irani looked like a Siamese except for her little black and white striped tiger legs. She had turquoise eyes. I loved Mani. If she is still in one of her nine lives, I love her still. The thing is, it turns out that I was terribly allergic to her. As a kitten, Mani would sleep on my neck. I couldn’t breathe. Even so, I kept her until I was pregnant with my first child. I figured I was breathing for two, so I was able to give Mani to one of my students.

Coming soon: Swedish Ice Box Cookies

Montezuma Pie

What I See Close to the Ground

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ladybug on purple hyacinth bean vine, Charlottesville

Myrtle Beach, SC #3

New Orleans

Mi Tierra, San Antonio

Saigon Bowl, Denver

flax, Denver Botanic Gardens

ice plant, Denver Botanic Gardens

ravens on the South Rim

horned toad #2, North Rim

Red Canyon, Dixie National Forest

roses in the Kolob

Wheeler Peak, Great Basin N.P.

Lukens Lake, Yosemite

fritillary, Yosemite N.P.

Sequoia feet

Coming soon: sentences and paragraphs.

To Autumn

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leaves and moss in birdbath

I know it is the first day of autumn. I know it is the first day of autumn because

they told me this morning on NPR,
my husband, Tom, made beef barley vegetable soup,
I made applesauce with some decent apples,
The Washington, DC football team (my home team for over twenty-five years) was just beaten by the Detroit Lions (my back home home team) today,
the dogwood leaves are turning red,
the squirrels—crazy to bury the black walnuts—messed up the lettuce plants and radish, swiss chard, and beet seeds I planted yesterday, and
the blue jays scold me from the branches.

dogwood

Also: A week ago, when I was recovering from a fearsome case of poison ivy/oak/sumac/something and feeling sad, a murder of crows kept me company from my neighbor’s juniper tree. I notice they hang out together more when fall is coming.

About the dogwood: Our old dogwood is turning red early because it is dying. More precisely, it has dieback. We can’t bear to get rid of it quite yet—and the birds and bugs love it, too —so the tree will continue a while longer with Tom and me. Both of us as well as the dogwood have lived to much more advanced ages than John Keats did. Before he went, he managed to write a poem about autumn. I tip my cup of soup to him and his poem:

To Autumn

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,–
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

John Keats (composed in 1819)

Close to the Ground: Living Inductively

Lynda Terrill