Monday, 16 October 2006
Yesterday morning we awoke to naturally grayed-out vegetation, not quite a hard frost, but cold enough to coax the plants into a solid turn toward winter torpor. Nevertheless, the cold wasn’t intense enough or of sufficient duration to put the kibosh on the raspberries.
Meanwhile, indoors, the slow process of healing and recovery continues, aided by a fresh pot of white bean soup!
Sunday, 15 October 2006
Lovely weather today, just gorgeous, so we negotiated an outing into the yard for over an hour. The Botanist walked three-quarters of the way around the house, checking out this and that along the way. If I didn’t have so many chores IN the house, I’d sure be busy putting things to right outside!
Saturday, 14 October 2006
Although I thought having wifi at the Botanist’s bedside would mean that I could keep up this blahg, I was wrong (naïve, not really thinking, you name it!). So, the Botanist came home midday on Friday, and, wheee!, I’ve finally found time to scratch out a few words, and take a new photo. This farm seems like thousands in Michigan I’ve seen over the years, complete with muddy patches in the pasture, huge pieces of machinery peeking out of barns, and looming silos. (Regrettably, the latter often bring to my mind the lyric “Shiloh, when I was young….�?) Note how the fall color has begun to paint the trees….
The Botanist’s recovery has been amazing, although he won’t be allowed to drive for 3-4 weeks, a credit mostly to his overall health prior to the surgery (and that it was elective, and not an emergency procedure), and, I’m sure, his surgical team, headed by the perfectionist (always a good thing in a surgeon) Dr. Scott Johnson, who did his undergrad work at Emory, so he feels a bit like a neighbor who moved away.
New vocabulary: 4×4 (a size of gauze pad, not a vehicle or timber); SF (salt-free, applied to food); sinus rhythm (you want this for your heart, but Dad’s slipped out and back in twice); Pacerone (a medication that, if I have it right, helps keeps your heart in sinus rhythm)…well, that’s enough….
Friday, 6 October 2006
I come out of the hospital to find lovely afternoons (sometimes), but this is the view southeast from the garden across the cornfield to the tree on the hill.
Sunday, 1 October 2006
(See yesterday’s entry.) Now, this is a quintessential Ohio visual. And on such a gorgeous fall day!
Wednesday, 27 September 2006
Autumn’s scepter has endowed a tiny minority of the foliage with new colors, bringing this sweet gum’s (Liquidambar styraciflua) star-shaped leaf to new heights of artistry.
Or something.
Tuesday, 26 September 2006
I remember always hearing about the tomato juice bath for removing skunk stench, although no one said it worked very well. Now, here’s the modern version of skunk smell removal treatment:
Mix and bathe affected person or pet for about five minutes. Rinse with plain water. Repeat if necessary. Don’t keep this mixture around; instead mix fresh when needed. Caution:
It may result in bleaching…“I have heard of one black Labrador retriever that was chocolate colored after this treatment.�?
Maybe it also works to get the grey out?
Rejected idea: skunk cabbage as photo of the day—instead, poke berries.
Tuesday, 19 September 2006
Life is a puzzle. Or, a series of puzzles. Certainly, marriage is! Perhaps it is that any complex system is a puzzle, therefore our ecosystem is a puzzle. Anyway, puzzles abound!
Take a look at changes in the sediment load of the Mississippi River from this NYT article. Of course, you notice first that the overall sediment load has dropped by more than half—yet, the dredges are still busy day and night keeping shipping channels open. Then you notice that the relative sizes of the upstream contributor-rivers has changed dramatically—the upper Miss itself has shifted from being a little stub to a multibranched load-carrier. Maybe next: still the largest single contributor-river is the Missouri. And: what’s the deal with that Atchafalaya drainage fork?
The question I’m left with: exactly which Mississippi River (and which Amazon Basin, which Yellowstone Park, etc.) are we talking about “returning�? to (also, see upper graphic)?
Monday, 18 September 2006
Several times, while hiking last weekend in Nantahala National Forest, we saw these distinctive 2.5 cm tall domed fungi, always this same brilliant orange.
Sunday, 17 September 2006
Today’s highlights were waterfalls! This is Big Laurel Falls, and we climbed through over a half-mile of knotty-rooted laurels to get to the gravity-water feature…. In fact, the laurels are so dense there, you see the falls in peek-a-boo pieces….