Thoughts from a Tired Gardener

I am an avid gardener. Which, during summer along the Gulf Coast, is to say that I am a tired and defeated weeder.

I have been thoroughly and roundly defeated by the shy plant and crabgrass.

They mock me in the slanted light of morning, knowing that they will thrive in the heat of day while I stare, helpless, from my air conditioned barracks.

When I do venture out in the not-cool-but-no-longer-searingly-hot evenings to wrestle what I can out of the soil, I can hear the survivors whisper,

"Do not consider yourself a victor for those of us you have taken. Each of the fallen will be replaced with three new invaders."

They're right; their seeds outnumber me a million to one and they know I won't use the only WMDs at my disposal because broad-spectrum herbicides are bad for all manner of life (including dogs and daughters and the frogs that sing to me from my porch).

And so I struggle to hold my ground while the weeds know that the war will go on for eons and my little patch of resistance will someday be theirs again.

I would delve deeper into the drama, but I have to go out and pull weeds.

I leave you with this piece of wisdom from another Floridian, whose writing makes me believe that he has felt my weedy woes:

"Crabgrass can grow on bowling balls in airless rooms, and there is no known way to kill it that does not involve nuclear weapons."
-Dave Barry

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Back to Buzzing

I'm back!

Logging in and finding that my last post was an entire month ago was disheartening but not surprising - I taught environmental camp for the first three weeks of July and it always exhausts me.

It's a dream job - not just because it's so fun and awesome that I can't believe they pay me to do it, but because I sleep so hard when I get home each day that I have to remind myself that the camp part wasn't actually a dream.

But now I'm back home and Abbey starts pre-school on Monday and it's time to get talking (typing) again.

My thoughts today turn to bugs.

(Just saying that has me picturing each thought in my brain as a different insect: many as ants working to build something big, others as cockroaches skittering away to hide from the light, logic as the great and merciless spider waiting to devour all of the fancy fliers.)

Back outside my brain, I have a mosquito bite and my daughter has a fire ant bite. We have reached that time of summer when the insects - who rule the world from under our noses and under our feet - are making their presence known.

I read recently in Animal Ignorance - a book I highly recommend - that if it were not for spiders, human kind would literally be up to its ears in insects. Drowning in bugs. Eeesh. Thank you, arachnids!

But, then again, if it weren't for bugs, we wouldn't have much to speak of at all - no flowering plants, so no fruit or veggies and no decomposition of dead plant matter, or meat matter for that fact. I'll take the buzz of mosquitos and the smell of flowers over the serene silence and the smell of hot rotting carcass and any day.

So, for my first post back here on the Web (sorry, I couldn't help myself), I'd like to extend great gob of gratitude to our six and eight legged friends. And to help me do it, a little something from E.O. Wilson:

"If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos."


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When You've Got It, Flaunt It

~ An article written for the June issue of Moonshine online magazine.~

A few mornings ago I took my daughter on our third blueberry-picking trip of the season. Less than ten minutes from our house is Lundy’s Blueberry Patch, a little plot of heaven on earth where Doc Lundy (a retired veterinarian) offers beautiful blueberries to the picking public from late May through mid-July.

“The blueberries are waning now,” Doc Lundy warned us, “but I think I saw some good ones out on row 57 and 58.”

I smiled at Doc – knowing how blueberry spoiled he is – and said we’d take what we could get.

Ha.

Ha, ha, ha!

Rows 57 and 58 may have been “waning”, but the bushes were still heavy with ripe, blue fruit. Hundreds of gleaming indigo orbs smiled at us as their juice-filled weight pulled branches down toward my pre-schooler’s eager little hands.

Abbey and I picked till our fingers were blue and our tongues deep purple. (Doc encourages his customers to “sample” while they pick, and we wouldn’t want to be rude . . . so we “sample” with abandon.)

Each bush had dozens of ripe berries on it because folks never remember to grab the berries from the shady center of the bush, where they grow extra fat and sweet. I don’t blame them for this, though, because a) there are so many berries on the outside of the bush to keep you busy picking and b) that means other folks leave the center berries for me.

I try to pick each bush thoroughly before moving on to the next, but most often a particularly rotund little sapphire will catch my eye on a neighboring plant and off I’ll go like a butterfly – fluttering blissfully and hungrily to the next pretty flower.

My daughter and I compete for who can find the biggest berry, all the while I’m smiling to myself between popping berries into my mouth, savoring the sweetness of the sun and fresh air, the trill of birdsong, and joy good company. (Abbey, though not quite three, has been known to pick over a pound of berries all on her own.)

Then, on the way out, my pink-cheeked and glistening little girl will turn the parental tables on me – it’s her turn to cajole “Let’s go! Hurry, hurry!” because I’m going slow, trying in vain to pick all of the berries I missed on our way to the end of the row.

The prices at Lundy’s are incredibly low and I always feel we should have picked more, even though blueberries and countless other gorgeous fruits and vegetables are available at rock-bottom prices at our weekly farmer’s market.

But that’s not what gets me. The part of the whole experience that really gets me is this: abundance.

Blueberry bushes are the definition of abundance.

Nature’s abundance is, perhaps, her greatest gift to us in summer. An abundance of flowers, of fruit, of vegetables, of animals, and, most profoundly, of light and color.

Summer is the time when Mother Nature is showing us that she’s got it and she ain’t afraid to flaunt it.

I say we use those extra summer hours of light to capture and reflect this glorious abundance, fullness, and ripeness. Though I remain the tree-hugging, reduce-reuse-recycle conservationist, I say that now is the time to use more paint and bolder colors. Take more photographs, create more sculpture.

Let your summer art be full and abundant, rich, bright, multi-hued and sparkling with the joy of nature’s annual promise fulfilled.

In fact, here’s a suggested color palette: Eggplant Purple, Rhubarb Magenta, Watermelon Pink, Strawberry Red, Georgia Peach, Bell Pepper Orange, Cantaloupe, Lemon Yellow, Banana Pepper Chartreuse, Cucumber Green and, of course, Blueberry Blue.


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Nature Quote - May 18, 2009 - Spring Weather

I watched the weather this morning over a cup of fair-trade, organic dark roast coffee. The coffee was delicious, but the weather pattern over the U.S. was even more enticing.

While the poor southwest is baking at 100 degrees for its umpteenth straight day, a glorious cool front has moved in over the midwest and east.

Just when I had resigned myself to five months of Florida summer and days that break 80 degrees before 8:00 a.m., Mother Nature throws us a meteorological curve ball! (Yes, women can pitch. If you doubt it, check out your nearest softball game. Those women could pitch a fly off a fencepost fifty yards - both killing the fly and shattering the post.)

It's 62 degrees, grey, and breezy here in the Florida panhandle! I would write more about this lovely reminder that summer doesn't really start till June 21, but I've got to get away from this keyboard and out into the gorgeous weather.

And so I'll leave you now with a quote from a famous American writer, observer, and lover of life's curve balls, quirks, and all things smart and funny:

“In the Spring, I have counted 136 different kinds of weather inside of 24 hours.” - Mark Twain

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Sultry

After yesterday's pouring rain, today dawned golden and bright, with the morning sun making crystals of the raindrops still held on the plants' leaves and petals. It was absolutely breathtaking.

And then I stepped outside.

And quickly discovered air so thick with moisture that I, in fact, might have had trouble breathing because (silly me) I'm not accustomed to breathing underwater.

When they reported the weather as "humid" this morning, I believe our Gulf Coast weathermen were either making the most outrageous understatement in meteorological history, or playing rather tasteless joke on all of us. Had they wanted to get out the true story and warn the public properly, they would have put up a little image of a steam room with skull and crossbones over it and the warning caption "Do not go outside if you've a) forgotten deodorant or b) bothered to put on makeup or c) mind sweating through every stitch of clothing you're wearing."

And all of this was plainly obvious from just my first breath.

My second inhalation told me that it wasn't just moisture in the air, but moisture carrying the heady scent of every blooming flower in a five mile radius. Most close to home, the jasmine in full bloom scented the air with the essence of the sultry South.

There was no doubt about it - refreshed by yesterday's long, cool shower, nature had put on her perfume, unfurled her petals, and declared herself ready to mingle.

No less obvious than the haughty humans in a nightclub, all of the local wildlife is strutting its stuff and on the prowl for possible procreation opportunities.

How apropos, then, that today the local procreation poster children arrived: the "lovebugs".

Lovebugs (Plecia nearctica) are also called honeymoon flies or kissy bugs. They fly around attached to one another but, unlike that last nickname might suggest, they are not attached at the mouth.

For the next four weeks, the air will be full of paired lovebugs finding satisfaction in flight. Love on the fly. Or, rather, love on the wing of the fly.

And those of us that live here will heartlessly crush unknown millions of these diminutive duos as we zip from here to there in our cars (and sometimes on our bicycles - a lovebug couple in the face will pretty much ruin a ride, in case you were wondering).

Caught up in the heady perfume of the season, the copulating couples will meet life's windshield together. Sad, it's true, but not a bad way to go out.

At least they get to escape the humidity.



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Heatwave

Thought the temperature is a pleasant 55 degrees in my Florida back yard, most of the nation is suffering what might be described as uncomfortably chilly weather.

So, for those of you who have cold fingers and toes, here's a little piece I found in a journal from June 2005, part of a writing assignment for my master's degree.

If this whole mind over matter thing is true, and I think it is, this should warm you up at least a degree or two:

I am sitting on the hot pavement of bridge number six north on the Blackwater State Heritage Trail. It's sultry. Sticky-hot. The humidity is like being in a steam room after several days of heavy rain. There is no breeze.

The brown, tannin-stained water of the wetland slough rolls beneath us, making little noise - just little rippling sounds where it swrils and eddies around the stems of plants - small maples and bog buttons and seemingly single fern leaves pointing at the sky.

These are mixed in with a thousand plants who are yet strangers to me. (It's like being at a cocktail party full of beautiful, interesting people - will there be enough time for me to know them all?)

A biker rides by and gives us a tiny breath of breeze.

Suddenly in the bright sunlight, the air can hold no more and fat drops begin peppering the water, the plants' leaves, the pavement, and my left thigh. A tiny, delicious relief.

It stays, a wet and shiny polka dot on my still untanned skin - simply because there is nowhere for it to go - the air will not take it back.

The momentary sprinkle does nothing to quiet the sweet trills around me - the caw caw caw of a large songbird in the distance, the occasional grrrulllp of a bullfrog, the twee twee of a jay , the buzz of dancing, mating dragonflies and (not far enough away) the rumble of logging trucks on Munson Highway.

I blow on my arm for a moment, hoping to cool the glistening sweat that has coated the inside of my elbow.

Beyond and above the powerlines that stretch through he wetland and over the bridge I see the bright whit of an anvil cloud and watch tis top billow and roll, building toward the edge of the troposphere.

I cannot tolerate my shoes and stick my bare feet out over the water - in hope of a cool updraft that doesn't come.

Still, bare feet always feel better. Freer.

I see trash trapped in a sandbar at the rivers' edge. It was white once - perhaps a bottle or bucket. Now it is brownish, old, and dirty. Funny that it is dirty when nothing else here is. Nature doesn't get dirty.

Splattering rain again. Smallish drops land on my outstretched legs - knees, calves, ankles - God bless it.

And on the page, too - ink is not waterproof.

This rain does not smell - or, rather, this place is so saturated with the scents of wet and decay and the sweet exhalation of green things that the smell of rain is incidental.

I ride this trail on my bicycle several times a week, but haven't before now gotten to sit still on it. Sitting still is marvelous.

I glimpse a brown bird that has taunted me on my rides. Not the shape of a robin, not the color of a mocking bird - it is itself, and another guest a the party that I'm eager to know.

What is that peeew peeew peeew peeew in the distance? Such a call from my childhood! It is the song of spring and "All's right with the world."

Maybe it's better that I don't know who sings it.

The slough flows from somewhere deep in the woods - an opening in the green of the trees that, to me, looks like all forest openings I've ever sen: like the entrance to an enchanted world.

How I long to hike up my skirt, jump in, and wade upstream in the cool, tea-brown water and into that dark, green garden.

But today, the only water for me is the bead of sweat rolling down my spine. It's time for me to go. Papers to write and research to cull. For a moment I wonder how that really might be taking away from my education.

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