As the Plants See It

As our plants experience it, the inclement season is almost over. Virtually every year they “go out” on May 5; “coming in” is more variable. In the last four years, they’ve come in on November 11 at the latest (in 2011) and October 18 at the earliest (2012). Going by the calendar alone, warm means May 1-October 30, cold means November 1-April 30. But to be on the safe side, we’ve tended to short the summer season, working at both ends, by about a week.

To be sure, the process itself is a little more raggedy-Ann-like. Every year some plants manage to make it out in April—and then, when weather forecasts turn us anxious, they have to be brought in again. Today is such a day. Happens every year. At the other end, we bring in plants too soon in Fall; but then, when a minor heat wave comes in late October or early November, plants already in must be taken out again—so that they may enjoy a few more days of the waning sun. In a general way, however, we’d rather be Now than Then. Then will come far too quickly now that time is speeding up—what with satellites and drones confusing everything.

Snow on Snow

Snow had fallen, snow on snow,

Snow on snow,

In the bleak midwinter,

Long ago.

  [Christina Georgina Rossetti, A Christmas Carol]

Is one’s sense of extreme weather a function of age? Does frequent and massive snowfall produce dreads in men with creaky joints as shoveling is yet again ahead? So it seemed this morning. Snow on snow today, but in the here and now, and in such dense veils that I could barely make out the garage this morning at eight. It’s all way too much, I thought this morning. The “too much” included the contents of the Wall Street Journal; I only found it after groping about in the snow; it had been buried on our front step and well enough so that even its shape had been obscured. My rational self, which always only echoes the patterns of the past, put a sarcastic stop to such gloomy reflections. “Look it up,” it said. “I bet it’s not even a record-setting season.” So I did.

Well, it turns out, that snow on snow this year is certainly record-breaking. I looked up snow fall in December and January for 2011-12, 2012-13, and 2013-14. Two years ago we had 15 inches of snow in these two months, a year ago 19.4 inches, and this year 56.5 inches (link). These numbers apply to the Detroit Metro area generally; we know from Monique that results were even more extreme on the other side of the Metro.

For once the rational self was wrong—and Brigitte as usually right. Therefore writing about snow seems justified by the actual results out there, carefully measured by the Weather System.

Marking Nov 13

This year, the only one numbered

Thirteen, I raked last leaves one cold

And windy day, and shoveled snow

The next with no delay excepting

But a single night between—a

Night already lit by Christmas

Lights put out by those who practice

Early rites.

This morning on the thin snow left

I saw a few late leaves I shall

Remember as marking this unique

November—and silently left

Prints of a cat’s paws. Thirteen now

Wanes. That number for us has a

Certain weight. But when it’s over

All—it’s fate.

Seasonal Notes

November marched in with big splashing steps through puddles. Today a let-up and, with the sun lifting all hearts, the autumn colors around here were quite unbelievable this morning—probably peaking, we thought.

Belatedly I updated my chart on World Series winners, first shown on this blog October 7, 2011. Brigitte asked for some dates on that chart, and that version I show next.

Yes, the period in which World Series have been held now extends for 111 palindromic years into the past. The teams marked in green are those that we have rooted for; the years when those teams last won a series are shown—and those dates illustrate how rarely most fans are able to celebrate a World Series victory. The drama of this season for us was simply being in the playoffs. The sadness came when we learned that the Tigers’ manager, Jim Leyland, a man we much admire, is retiring. The famous Uncertainty Principle, therefore, will overshadow the 2014 season…

Hereabouts we are, this time of year, close observers of temperatures. The time to bring the plants indoors are fast approaching. Last year it was November 11. It’s very cool but still just above freezing by night. Everything is ready, however. We’ve polled our jade plan population and noted that we have too many to fit the winter, indoor space. I put ten out on the driveway with a sign yesterday:  Yours For the Taking. By late this afternoon all had been taken—and the last visitor seemed to like my sign, and the brick that held it in place, as much as the jade plants. Everything had vanished.

Last tomato note. Our plants are still attempting to make red tomatoes out of green ones—but in a fit of perversity they are producing fruits one half of each of which is red!

The most novel seasonal event this year was a fruit fly invasion of our kitchen—due no doubt to leaving the sunroom door open on very frequent trips in and out as winter’s preparations were ongoing. We’ve discovered that the way to deal with fruit flies is to use a vacuum cleaner to catch them and, by night, to trap them using apple-cider vinegar as bait.

Raking is still largely ahead. The bright colors, thick in the trees, are, on the ground, still relatively thin and brightly yellow.

The Rites of Fall

No composer, to my knowledge, has ever taken up the challenge to write a ballet on the Rites of Fall. We might call the activities that fall under this heading preparation for a kind of human hibernation, which is what the coming season really is. Quite chilly temperatures this morning triggered the response in me. Soon now, I thought, the plants must be brought in. Now our plants over-winter mostly in our basement. The place turns into a kind of surreal ballet set for jade plants and such; our furnace, which provides the music, was already tuning up for performances to come. We have a dozen jade plants, perhaps even a score of them. A large table under two neon lights is their principal residence, but overflow has caused, in recent years, the need to house some of them on my workbench too—a place or venue that tends to become quite chaotic, with the residues of past projects carelessly shoved aside. So it is there that I began—making order for the coming lock-down—and herewith the result:

Amazing what one discovers in such ventures—not least totally dried out jade plant leaves from last year’s hibernation cycle. So many nuts, bolts, and hanger things—so many little bags of plastic holding extra screws and thingies from some project reflexively stored.  A faucet washer paradise my bench—because to buy one that fits the faucet, one must buy a dozen others that don’t fit anything in the house. But do not throw anything away. Who knows when it will come in handy. The answer to that question is a definition of eternity.

Little things never to be thrown away? Well, one of these is a plastic button proclaiming that I ♥ Gale. Another even older one that fell into my hand when I unpended a tiny container cap, used as storage, was a McGovern MMM button. “I belong,” the button says, “McGovern, MMM.” It goes on to spell out those three Ms. McGovern Million-Member Club. And then the buttons asks: “How About You?”

Another valuable discovery for me today has been to learn the legacy of those tall, slender spice bottles that hold marjoram and ginger and such. The best and brightest achieve immortality by holding, forever, long screws or threaded bolts I’lll probably never need. But you never know.

Marking Fall Again

It has become a wholesome habit to post this time of year a picture that reflects the still-bright colors of the Fall. For a while we had some pumpkins growing from our compost heap (link). Three years ago today we featured our barrel overflowing with Coleus (link); in year 11 we celebrated two vast tomato plants (link), last year the brightness came from a sweet potato vine (link). Well, the Coleus Barrel is full once again, but not quite so dramatically. And our tomato plants—we have twice as many as ever before—have concentrated on productivity rather than dramatic growth. Hence we return, for color, to the Geraniums that front the entrance to our back yard. These geraniums are many years old. Late each autumn Brigitte cuts them back, leaving stalks about four- to five-inches in place, and each season they return with vigor.

Yes, some Coleus is present here as well; if we had planted those in the barrel—behind me as I took this picture—that barrel would be more full. And this year our tomatoes have been moved to a sunnier spot, in the back and the right.

In a way, judging by the glorious weather we have today, with the skies a cerulean blue, this is one of the finest times of the year. Indian summer, as officially defined, anyway, is still ahead. That requires a significant heat wave preceded by a killing frost. Cerulean, incidentally, is Brigitte’s current word of the season. Wikipedia denies that it is sky blue but opines that the word derives from the Latin caelulum, a diminutive of caelum which is Latin for sky or heaven. A heavenly season, anyway.

Lating September

The day is still; the sun will shine

Full glorious after its rise.

Where sun-rays reach I see the sky

Blue enough but slightly hesitant.

“Should I gray over gradually

By making common cause with that

Thin mist? Or should I wash my face

And comb my hair and reach for the

Deep blue?”

                   That season is but days

Away when squirrels, who ignore

The calendar, at this still early

Hour are avidly collecting

Nest-making debris and nuts,

And below tight-clustered tomato

Plants, seek spots easy to dig

In pots to store their treasuries.

But where I wonder are the birds?

Fall Image

With ht to e.e. cummings.

The Migration Begins

In fact it began some days ago but is still not entirely over. I show a part—sigh, only a part—of our vast collection of jade plants (formally Crassula ovata). They are all descendants of a single one! They’re getting a little extra light this year from the silvery reflections of the newly installed air-conditioning ducts. The biggest of these, the ancestress of all the rest, is still outdoors and will come in when the sun room has been sorted. The plants you see will enrich my personal environment, the computer station from which this picture was taken and whence all of these posts originate. Nice to have company again—for about six months.

Is it just us? The cold weather seems earlier than usual. Last year “the plants came in” on November 11…

Plants will soon be everywhere indoors, all windows having ample sunlight crowded with worshipers—all the way up to the half-landing to the attic, the place where our geraniums do their wintering and, seemingly much refreshed by the almost freezing temperatures up there, burst into vivid bloom.

Green September

Two earlier years have set a pattern I would today honor by repetition—the end of an unofficial competition for the title of Most Notable Plant in our garden this season. Last year we featured twin tomato plants, the year before a pumpkin that chose to grow out of our compost heap. The decision this year was rather difficult. Our seven tomato plants did wonderfully well; they produced a huge harvest but, having been arranged in a decentralized manner, they did not produce last year’s tomato “cloud” that won the prize. The competition this year was—at least in my own mind—between a rather fantastic geranium of high old age Brigitte has seasoned over several seasons now…and a sweet potato vine. Having such vines points to another tradition, the Mother’s Day plant-buying trip we have each year, sponsored by Monique and John. Brigitte tells me that we’ve had these vines for two or even three years now—but not until this year did their placement next to the geraniums, and eventually spilling over into the pot of a tomato plant, produce the vivid color-contrast that met me each time I came home. A second such plant lives suspended from a fabric “pot” hung from one open wing of a huge wooden gate that encloses out inner courtyard, but is never closed. The brand is Wollypot, but Brigitte calls ours Wally in honor of the supporting surface. The picture shows the sweet potato, the geranium behind it, and in place of runner-up honor two of our seven tomato plants.

Red September

This post to match an earlier one titled Red March. The geranium set the theme for our rowdy internal plantation this year. The March picture was taken about a week into Spring, the September one about a week until Fall.

Mid-August Walk

The Weave of Nature and of Man

A suitable overlay for the season from the treasure trove of some 400 photos taken by daughter Michelle.

Spring Thought

A halo of yellow, the faintest green

Enfolds our trees in dream-thin sheen.

Spring flies so fast, its colors faint,

The trees are a communion of saints.

Primavera

First spring, for us, is always forsythia and pussy willow—although I see here the faint early blooming of some trees. The background still obligingly retains the season that has just been left behind. Forsythia belongs to the olive family, which surprised me, but a branch that produces a dry capsule holding several little seeds. The pussy willow is, well, a willow—although that word evokes long, hanging branches and, for me, an immigrant, a famous verse:

By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered thee, O Zion.
We hung our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. [Psalm 137:1-2]

St. Valentine's Confusion

All I can say is that it was a good idea to begin with, but unlike text on a screen, once you’ve committed your broomstick to this medium, there is no Ctrl-Z to undo the mistake. So on the broomstick wrote, blaming the mistake on St. Valentine, of course.

Contrarians

Some of our plants just don’t know when to give up. They just keep bestowing color. And our plastic butterfly appears in this photo to be heading out into the clouds.

The Plants Come In

Blogs by nature are like calendars. Last May the fifth I marked the plants’ return—from our basement and our sunroom to the light of nature. Today the plants came in again. It looked like frost might come overnight. Returning home last night in the rain, we noted that the raindrops landing on our windshield were crystal shaped; soon we saw them out there as visible blobs of snow.

Our real clock is the sun. But while humanity at its pedantic lowest devises atomic clocks with which it can more or less prove (though not to resistant me) that time actually slows down with increasing speed, as Prophet Albert claimed, Mother Nature’s nearest clock keeps a kind of royally negligent but still unfailing time. By my equally sloppy measurement the plants were out there exactly six months and five days.

In the spring, probably echoing the plants’ own emanating thoughts, I feel a gladness that they now escape the over-dry drear of the indoors. But in the fall, their thoughts are not all that different—a kind of gladness is present in them, a kind of breathing out as the temperature suddenly rises and in the darkness by the furnace a kind of familiar white horizon, the basement’s painted wall, dimly appears.

Garden in July

Hostas in bloom...

And tomatoes going crazy in confinement.

Not Last Year’s June

It startled me to realize that it’s already the 27th of the month. This isn’t simply a consequence of another well-known phenomenon—but one that Einstein, despite his love of relativity, entirely overlooked in his equations—namely that as you age the flow of time speeds up. No. My surprise now came because the real June is still, oddly, ahead. What we had this month was a late, weary, and bedraggled May. Just to make sure, I stepped back into 2010, at least as noted on this blog. Sure enough, in midmonth last year I noted flowers beginning to fade—the same ones just now beginning to emerge! Everything’s late. By now the rainy season should be over—but isn’t. The fish fly season started weeks late—and the numbers are drastically down. Nature is adaptive and takes all this in stride, but if the fish flies are an indication, populations pay or garner the price for all those up, down swings.