CakewalkThe mint’s taken over
and we just watched it,
eating sandwiches, piled
with fresh tomatoes picked
from the garden.
Love is letting a plant take
over a meticulously tended
bed for a child’s whim.
The tomatoes are gone,
and the mint reminds me
that things used to be
full of everything good.
Written 15 February 2020
Brian Fuchs, “Cakewalk” from Scissor-tailed Flycatcher (Scissortail Press, 2020)
My week was pretty much defined by allergies, which is a little frustrating. The pollen levels were very high, so I was trying to get through with puffy eyes and a scratchy throat all week. I used to take a ton of allergy medicine to get through a day, and I guess it is a positive thing that I actually take none now. This was probably the worst allergy week of the year, and honestly it wasn’t as bad as I’ve experienced in the past. I’ve had allergies for a long time, but they seemed particularly pronounced when I moved to Oklahoma from Alaska. I was spending my spring and summer months feeling just terrible, and taking a daily regimen of allergy pills, as I said. The pills would make me very sleepy, as most medications do. My allergies really changed for the better when I became vegan, which was curious to me at the time. Apparently, the science looks like it backs that up. Several studies suggest that those who eat a vegan diet are less likely to report having environmental allergies (as well as chemical, food, drug, and bee-sting). I’ve heard anecdotally from other vegans that their allergy symptoms were also improved when they switch to a vegan diet. It’s so interesting to explore the links between food and health. Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that a vegan diet cured me of allergies — clearly not. This has been a bit of a rough week; however, since they aren’t so bad I don’t have to deal with the side effects of allergy meds.
I’m pretty happy with my yard this week. Unfortunately, due to the unusually wet August we had, I have black spot on many of the trees, and on one of my roses. The problem is too widespread to completely correct, and I hope that everything is able to put on some stronger growth next year, as there are so many trees losing leaves. The rose just needs to dry out, which will help. Right now, about 20% of it is infected, but it’s a very tall climber and it isn’t possible for me to remove all of the infected canes. I’m just going to treat it and hope for the best. I’ll treat it next spring as well, and hopefully the problem will correct. My Fourth of July rose had black spot earlier this year, and will some TLC it is now disease-free. I think the Golden Shower rose is healthy enough that it will be okay, but it’ll be a bit ugly for the rest of this year.
The upcoming week looks like it’s going to be a wet one again!! I’m amazed at the number of rainy days we’ve had. I love those days, but it is so unusual and not great for my plants apparently. It also really can help with my pollen allergies, but of course then the mold allergies increase with the moisture, so you never really totally win that fight.
I’ve been editing and rewriting, trying to put together collections of poetry for the books I have planned. I’m really happy with the direction I’m going with them at the moment, and some of my rewrites make me very happy. I think I am much more honest with myself now than I was in my twenties. Maybe that is just an obvious statement. I have such a lot of poetry from that decade of my life that is really great and requires no work to be exactly what I wanted it to be, and then there are others that almost certainly didn’t work at the time. If I could have seen that then, or if I had been willing to say that to myself at the time, those poems could have been greatly improved and would not need my rewrites so many years later. It’s been interesting to see my style over periods of time. I tend to write in two or three different styles, and I can go months or years focused on just one of them. At the moment, the poems seem to be naturally dividing themselves into four themes, which will be the books. The fourth category is one that isn’t fully realized, so that one will need more time to fully develop, but the other three I do really understand well.
I need a schedule! I am so bad about following a set schedule, but when I don’t have one I tend to forget certain tasks, or get into situations where I am spending far too much time on one thing and not enough on another thing. So, for the millionth time, I am working on making myself a schedule. I have too many different things to accomplish to just play it by ear at this point, and I need to make sure nobody feels like things are being neglected. Some things are, but more importantly there are times when it probably feels like I am not focused on tasks around the property that need to be done, when in reality I am aware of them and not making any show of it. Sometimes people need to see your work to believe you are doing it. I hope that goes well. I really want to get these books done and I think this helps with that goal, while ensuring that everything is still running smoothly.
The “update” category blog posts seem to be posting a day later than they should. I’m trying to resolve this, but I’m not entirely sure what the problem is. It’s almost certainly something I am doing wrong. Bleh.
This has been a wonderful week. Once again, Justin and Conner were impressive workers and we made some excellent progress with the yard. We did get a little rain this week, but nothing like we had been getting. This next week looks warm and dry, which is both good and bad. I also won’t be at all surprised if there is unexpected rain. Why not!?
I’ve started to assemble things with the goal of creating a book of my poetry. It’s really crazy that I have never done that, but it’s going to happen this year. I’m trying to decide if I want to do short books focused on a theme, or if I should just chuck everything in together and have a slightly longer book. I can see the value in both.
Senator John McCain died. Whatever one thinks of his politics, I think we can agree that he deserves our respect as a veteran and POW. I also really do believe he always fought for what he thought was right. I didn’t always agree with what he thought was right, but what I’ve seen in the past decade has been the rise of Republican obstructionism, senators and congressmen who are no longer striving to move us forward as a country. Instead, they try to gum up the machine, fight to keep people down, and cheat to retain power. They are unAmerican. I’m reminded of McCain’s town hall during which a woman asked about Obama, disparaging him. McCain, being a fundamentally good person, defended his colleague. It was about advancing their ideas, not about tearing one another down. That election would include some less honorable moments, and arguably was the unintentionally handing of the Republican party that John McCain was a member of to the Tea Party obstructionists like his running mate. He had a long career and was a well-loved patriot; my thoughts and prayers are with his family at this time.
This has been the third week in a row when I lacked focus on the blog, but I’ve got plenty to write about. I just need to get with it!
Happy Birthday To Me! Today is my 39th birthday, and while it has been a mostly peaceful day, I have found myself avoiding a lot of memories and feelings that are just under the surface. I just wasn’t in a place to deal.
I spent the first half of the day listening to episodes of the podcast Frangela: The Final Word. TOO FUNNY! I love these two, and have for a long time on The Stephanie Miller Show. I don’t know why it took me so long to get into their podcast. I’m glad I did though. After a bit of that, I took a nice nap on the front porch, where I discovered one of the kittens had returned. I don’t have faith in the survival of the others, but his return offered at least a glimmer of hope. My nap was followed by going up to spend time with my dad, brother, nephew, and roommate. Justin made vegan chicken burgers and fries and the rest of us gave Conner a hard time. I know he was getting frustrated, but it was kinda fun anyway.
The gathering was fairly brief, a little chaotic, but okay. I do find myself needing to manage my expectations of others in these situations. I have a tendency to want people to put their own issues away for a few hours, and at least give the appearance that they care to spend time with me. But they don’t. I should know better. I don’t mean to sound accusatory at all; they are just living their lives as normal. It’s me who is expecting too much.
I’ve had a wonderfully productive week. I got the shelving assembled and put in that goes along the east wall of my bedroom. I’m putting things together slowly with it in; I don’t want it to just feel like a pile of stuff, so I’m going through things and purging a little as I go… very little. I did identify some books on ikebana that I intend to find a new home for… if I don’t change my mind. Those books are so thin that it will hardly make a difference in the end! I finally put some books on the shelves in the living room as well; I’ve had three shelves empty for the past year or so, which is silly really since I had books in boxes waiting to be put out.
Justin helped me put in a row of junipers that will hopefully mature into a nice hedge to break up the front yard, and we also put in another chaste tree up at the house. Things seem to be coming together slowly in the yards. I need to spend some time cleaning up the flowerbeds at the house; they are covered in weeds, need mulch, and the plants could be pruned.
Plants showed up! I’m not sure why they were sent so early, but part of the order that was supposed to arrive in November showed up in the mail. It isn’t a good time for planting. I might look at how to hold them until fall; they are bare root plants. If I can’t easily wait, I’ll need to get those in the ground or at least in planters in the next couple of days. I’m not sure how well things will do if they are planted in August, but it does look like we will have a rather mild week and that will help.
The orange rose, which had put on very pink blooms before, has changed and the newer blooms are much more orange. Maybe it needs to mature before the roses will be their true color, and maybe they will be pale. Either way, I’m really liking the look of these and I’m glad I put them near the porch. In time they will be tall enough to tie to the side of the porch and they can be enjoyed like the ‘Fourth of July’ or ‘Golden Showers’ roses are.
So this next week’s plans are all about figuring out those plants that arrived early. I do need to mow and get started on the flowerbeds as well, but I will also spend some time uploading more blog posts. It’s nice to be ahead of the game. I usually stay three or four weeks ahead, but I’m only a few days ahead at the moment and need to manage things better to make sure the blog is always active. On that note, I’m looking for feedback on what is working and what isn’t. Leave me comments on this post or on any post you want so I know what people are thinking.
Crepemyrtle (Lagerstroemia)
When I moved to Alaska in 2005 I was struck by those things that were different from my life in Oklahoma. After getting through that first winter, it became apparent that it wasn’t just the conifer trees that provided a striking contrast to the landscapes of the places I consider home. The perennials that popped up in the gardens of the area were exotic to me. They were plants I had known about, but had no experience with. Columbine, dahlia, lobelia, rhubarb, bleeding hearts, raspberries, wild roses, poppies. It was a fascinating experience to be surrounded by these new plants, as well as by the old familiar dandelions and lilacs.
I was in Alaska for a number of years and loved those summer months and the beautiful flowers of the area. What I didn’t expect was how much I would fall in love with the plants of Oklahoma when I returned for vacation.
I was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma on 5 August 1979 and I lived in the state until 2005 when I left for Alaska. My uncle is a landscape architect, my grandpa was a professor of agronomy and a consultant on soils. He spent hours daily working on his flowerbeds and vegetable garden on his one acre lot, an oasis of green in the middle of ordinary yards. Plants were a part of our DNA. All parts of my family had been farmers, growing broom corn and cotton. It had never been my world and I barely paid attention to the things growing around me. I was aware of the various plants in the landscape, but I didn’t know much about those plants.
What I was most struck with on coming back to Oklahoma on a vacation in 2007 was how amazing crepemyrtles are. They’ve long been a favorite, especially of my grandpa who had them planted heavily around his house and as a backdrop/transition between the trees and flowers in the flowerbeds. It felt like I was discovering these plants for the first time.
In 2013, I loved back to Oklahoma and these crepemyrtles felt like a focus of my thoughts when I was at my parents house or at a business. They are one of the most commonly used plants in Oklahoma, and it’s pretty easy to see why.
Crepemyrtles are native to southeast Asia, with some hybrids being crossed with a taller species from Japan. They have been a common ornamental plant in America since before the revolution, with both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson’s gardens having at least one specimen plant. They quickly became a staple in the South, but as they are not generally cold hardy past zone 6 or 7, they were not a part of the gardens of the North and as a result they do not feature in very many of the early seed or nursery catalogs. When they do start popping up, it is clear that several cultivars have been established from the original pink flowering tree. You see white, pink, purple, and red listed in those early catalogs. The purples were what we now refer to as lavender and the red were dark pink. It took a long time to achieve a true red crepemyrtle.Continue Reading
The week started out very hot. I actually lost a rose bush to the heat; it had been struggling to grow anyway, so I’m not terribly surprised. I was still not feeling great part of the week, so it felt a little like I was getting back to life in slow motion. I did manage to get the lawn mowed, which was more exciting than it should have been, and cut down one small tree. Other than that, my only real efforts in my garden were pruning and deadheading. Oh, and lamenting the loss of that rose. I was looking forward to that one, but the heat was even stressing some of the crapemyrtles, and they can handle heat pretty well. We had a storm come through last night and that pretty much took the worst of the heat with it. We can enjoy a couple of cooler days now. I have not seen most of the youngest kittens for a couple of days, which is a worry. Sometimes they do disappear for a few, but I’m worried that they didn’t make it. The property is so large and wooded, and the cats all spend time exploring, that I might never really know what happened unless they show back up on the porch.
Dad’s birthday was Friday and we all had dinner made by Conner, which was nice. We also had a variety of cakes, including one failure by me and Justin. I don’t know why it just wasn’t working, but my third attempt was good. It actually stayed at home because it was too hot to take. At least I know I can make a cake, even if it took me three tries!
Well folks, I had high hopes for FLAMINGO WEEK. Sadly, I was sick for much of it, and the beginning of the week involved an unexpected trip to Edmond and then a day of getting a new tire. So, I just got a little behind what I had meant to accomplish, including blog posts I had wanted to do… this is why I try to get them done in advance. That is fine though. It was more a day of flamingo art than anything, and my Tumblr enjoyed a strong infusion of flamingo images for the week.
Since I’ve been under the weather, I have intentionally done nothing all week. I have a habit of doing too much and prolonging my illnesses, and I didn’t want to do that this time. So, I slept and drank fluids. And sulked a little. But the worst of it came and went quickly, and I’m really excited to get moving on a few projects I’ve been working toward.
I have some collages I have been working on, which I hope I can make more progress on soon. I also have been working on a new series for this blog, and I certainly hope people like it. I should have that going in the next day or two.
Dad’s birthday is Friday, and I’m not sure what exactly to do for him. I had intended to order a gift, but failed to do that! I’ll figure it out. Maybe he’d like to go out to eat someplace. I just don’t know.
I have several things to work on this week. It was over 100º this week, so the 90º feel like a break. I need to finish up planning for my Sunshine Garden (which I will do a post on with details soon), and continue picking up debris in the driveway. I’m not up to the collapsed burn barrel, which is just a mess to try and clean up. Once I get past that mess, then I am into large items to deal with. Most of those things are now trash, but some of the things are worth saving and I need to figure out where to put those things.