Tales from the Microbial Laboratory

~a curled up pointer~

Annabelle Lee, aka one of the infamous Pointer Sisters.  A ball of pure sweetness.

~the Earlysville White Oak (in a video...)~

Since late December of 2007, I've stopped and photographed an old white oak just outside of Earlysville, Virginia whenever I could.  It was often when I was leaving town after visiting my Mother who was battling lung cancer - and now it is during visits to see my Father, who has since been diagnosed with vascular dementia.  It has become nothing less than a ritual - one of those comforting things that you do amidst less than comforting times.  But tonight as I write this, I realize that I've also been steadily documenting this tree that has lived more years than either you or I might imagine to live.  I've come across the term witness trees before, and while I have no idea whether civil war-era bullets will ever be found in this white oak, I can imagine that it was a worthy place to stop - for a lengthy conversation, a meal, or a night's rest for Civil War troops who found themselves traveling through this part of Virginia.  If only trees could talk...

 So between Christmas and New Years, I received an email by someone (1mandomaker) who had crafted a video for the song "Sticks That Made Thunder" by the Nashville-based group The Steeldrivers.  The song is written by Mike Henderson and Chris Stapleton - and is about American Civil War events as told from a tree's perspective.  The image chosen for the video - for the tree - is one that I first posted on 27 December 2007.  The video now has just under 83,000 hits - and it makes me smile that this beautiful white oak, considered the second oldest in Virginia, sitting alongside a Charlottesville-Albemarle airport runway (the airport is now caring for it), has been viewed so many times.  It's one of the trees included in the book Remarkable Trees of Virginia.  It's a deserving tree.

 

~back to my "other" home~

~Pennsyvania Avenue, Washington, DC~

~~~~~

Before Christmas, I took the Metro downtown with friends to see The National Tree - I still am sometimes caught offguard that I can get to the White House in a 15 minute Metro ride (and I think "do I really live up here?  Well, I suppose I do!).  Anyway, it was a beautiful December evening - and it had been raining (sometimes heavily) earlier in the day, but when we got downtown, the sky was filled with fast-moving white clouds, which helped to provide some reflective light in the night sky.  It was a beautiful evening.

Today I drive back to the DC area - after time spent with my Dad in Virginia and time spent here in South Carolina.  The past two nights have been chilly ones in the Airstream, but I was glad to be here to protect my citrus as the temperatures dipped into the low-20s last night (it is still only 23 degrees outside of the Airstream).  I'll keep the small trees covered, and have a friend 'free' them when the warmer weather approaches at the end of the week.  Also, it was rather perfect that I was here for the first heavy frost/hard freeze for the winter.  I arrived with roses and fall-blooming salvias in bloom, perennial morning glorry still clinging to the front fence and elephant ears still hanging in there - this morning the garden looks much different.  It just felt right that I was present for this necessary transition.

~a blue camellia and the New Deal~

~my favorite camellia-grower~

~~~~~

I spent New Year's Eve afternoon once again wandering a camellia garden with my friend Skip.  He was doing well (let's face it - beyond well - he never ceases to amaze me), and as always, I saw camellias in bloom that I hadn't seen before.

While his son was preparing a lunch for us, we headed toward Skip's main camellia garden.  We had a warm New Year's weekend in South Carolina - upper 60s to low 70s - can't complain about that!  The camellias looked good, although because of the unusually warm fall (coastal South Carolina hasn't had a hard frost yet, much less a hard freeze, as of New Year's weekend) I think that some different-than-normal camellias were in bloom.  But then, each time I visit I see a camellia that I haven't seen, and I learn something new.

~~~~~

Roosevelt Blues... aka 'Frankie Bray'.  Skip told me that this cultivar was named by a person who thought the camellia was unattractive, and so he named it after President Roosevelt because he was unhappy about the New Deal.  So in essence, he named a camellia he didn't like after a President he didn't like.  I believe that Skip said it was Robert Rubel who named it - a name known by most camellia folks.  Interestingly, according to Architecture Research, many of Rubel's camellias ended up somewhere in South Carolina (and I'm guessing Middleton Place or Magnolia Gardens - I'll have to look into this):

Between 1931 and 1932, Rubel sold thirteen carloads of collected specimens to one South Carolina customer, a transaction that he believed to be the largest sale of camellias since their introduction to Europe in the early eighteenth century. The meticulous plantsman sold his camellias with embossed copper labels attached to each plant, so that the tag could serve as a permanent means of correct identification.

[The image that I took of it (above) doesn't look quite as blue as it does 'in person', but you can still see hints of blue - it was quite beautiful, and not unattractive at all - but then I would have probably voted for Roosevelt.]

~a persimmon~

 

Camellia japonica 'Tick Tock' (and I'm home!)

Camellia japonica 'Tick Tock'

~~~~~

I'm home, in my South Carolina garden, to both check on my place and spend a bit of time in the lab.  Fortunately, the position that I have right now supports a certain number of research days per year (a generous number, too) - and I must say that it's wonderful being home.  It has been such a mild fall this year, and I arrived to find roses blooming along with the camellias - late-blooming salvias are still in bloom as are many other things.  What a treat!

While it's been a bit cool, the weekend is supposed to be in the upper 60s - low 70s, which sounds great.  I did go to Lowe's today and purchased a good spade - when I visited in October I managed to plant two rows of garlic in the vegetable bed, but I want to turn over the garden (and get some of the weeds out) and put a layer of leaves over it for winter.  Or maybe, if I have time, I'll plant some annual rye or some other cover crop.  I hope to make it back in early spring to plant dutch white clover in the backyard - that is where I have two pomegranates, an asian pear, a persimmon, and a (very small) olive tree.  A lawn of clover surrounding these trees sounds perfect. 

Oh, and I am staying in the Airstream.  I had electrical issues when I was here in October, but I found an RV repair person (aka a lifesaver) who fixed this while I was away.  He'll hopefully be back over the next week to help me with some plumbing issues.  When I arrived, I had no internet access/cable - and so the 'cable guy' came out today and made repairs (it was a problem with the connection on the utility pole by the road) - so it's nice to be back online.  It's bizarrely nice to be back in my tiny home - I didn't bring much with me (just what I need) and so it almost seems spacious.  The dogs and cat traveled down with me (of course!).  They are happy to be home too.

~the Earlysville White Oak, again~

On Christmas Eve I made a quick stop at the Earlysville White Oak once again (find links to other images here) - my Dad's two brothers stayed with him for a bit so that I could run to the grocery store (when I arrived on Friday, you might say that the cupboards were bare).  I thought to myself:  as long as I manage to get an image of this tree, then all is normal and my world isn't teetering on the unmanageable.

Tomorrow I load up the dogs and the cat and I head to my place in South Carolina.  I can't wait.  Hopefully I'll post images of garlic (that I planted when I last visited in October) and perhaps plant some clover and I will, most definitely, visit my favorite camellia grower and wander his garden.  I'll also take more photographs of his remarkable camellia collection and listen closely while he tells me stories about some of them - I've decided to write a book about his love of camellias, and about his garden.  I need to learn as much as I can from him too.

Yes, tomorrow I head south.  Tomorrow I sleep in the Airstream under a canopy of live oaks.

~a different kind of Christmas~

~my card from Christmas 2002~

~~~~~

I'm at my Father's home this weekend, I arrived on Friday (late afternoon) to relieve his live-in healthcare person.  I was already exhausted when I arrived:  on Tuesday evening my Father went to the emergency room, and after numerous tests, was diagnosed with a severe urinary tract infection and kept over night.  They released him Wednesday afternoon - but that evening he became incoherent, fevered, and weak - and I had his healthcare person call 911.  Dad was kept two more nights, and released on Thursday afternoon.

Severe UTI's are really problematic in the elderly, and especially elderly patients with dementia (and as I've mentioned here before, my Father has been diagnosed with vascular dementia).  On Friday his healthcare person was talking positively about his condition - but he tends to sugarcoat things, and when I arrived I found that my Father wasn't showering on his own, nor was he dressing himself independently.  He also had a catheter, that needed to be emptied about every six hours.  You get the picture.  For the sake of his dignity (and my own), I managed things that I never thought I could, and we've muddled through.  He has been sleeping alot.  But today - around midday - I convinced him that we needed to go for a drive to visit his two brothers (his younger brothers) and that we would take them each a little package of homemade cookies.  After some convincing, he agreed to go.

It was a beautiful day in the Virginia countryside, the car said it was 51 degrees outside.  We stopped first at his middle brother's home, who was having all of his family over (and he has five children that are all grown with children of their own) for a non-traditional lunch of salad and spaghetti.  My Father ate a large plate of spaghetti while everyone took turns talking to him.  Next we went to the home of his younger brother, where young grandchildren were running around the house screaming, and instead of annoying my Father, he was more animated than he had been in days.  Just watching them gave him more energy.  We came home - and he took a long nap, woke to eat a good dinner (short ribs, mashed potatoes and asparagus), and watched a movie on TV.  He dressed himself for bed, and was able to get on his bed without my assistance.  As I type this, he is in his bed, reading a book that he wants to finish so he can start another that he got for Christmas.  He's been reading for almost 45 minutes.

I think he's turned a corner.

As for me, I'm exhausted.  Mentally, physically - and Tuesday morning I head down to South Carolina to visit my neglected garden and to spend time in my lab (my job in Arlington gives me 50 days of research 'release' days per year... which is quite generous).  The Pointer Sisters are with me, as is Handsome Stan and perfect Haiku.  We're all looking forward to about 10 days back in the Airstream, among the live oaks - curious if the garlic planted in October is doing okay (it should be) and excited about seeing the camellias.  I'm looking forward to spending some dedicated time on manuscripts, and time thinking about grant deadlines I'd like to meet over the next six to nine months.  I want to catch up with friends.

I had wonderful Christmases as a child.  My Mother loved the season - made gingerbread men of all sizes, homemade fruitcake and german chocolate cake and homemade cinnamon buns... there was country ham and homemade yeast rolls... and even on her last Christmas, she put out packages after everyone when to bed.  She had to keep the Santa thing going, right?  This weekend I've tried to keep in mind that my Christmas is similar to how many people's Christmases are going - we all take our turn, and while some are lucky enough to miss a Christmas season doing something like caring for an elderly parent or a sick child - many, like myself, many are not.  However the experience does teach you a valuable lesson, one you thought you knew (but perhaps only intellectually, and not in practice):  Christmas isn't about the perfection of the wrapping, or in truth the present at all.  It isn't about the fruitcakes and fudge.  Sometimes it's about setting an alarm for 2 am so you can wake up your Father and empty his catheter.  Which subsequently wakes the dogs up and sends you outside under a clear sky where you see an incredible star-filled sky.  Sometimes it's about getting your Father to sing Jingle Bells with you, accompanied by the radio, on a drive to visit family.  Sometimes it's just doing what needs to be done as best you can because it's the right thing to do.  There will be other Christmases more festive in my future, but probably none when I'm more needed.

~~~~~

Note:  While here, I found Christmas cards that I had made over the years - ones that my Mother had saved.  I scanned them in so that I had them too, but thought they were appropriate tonight to upload here.

Merry Christmas to each of you.

~~~~~

~my card from Christmas 2001~

 

~a crooked creek, Autumn, gardenias and Billie Holiday~

 

~Crooked Run Creek in Delaplane, Virginia~

~~~~~

What does a creek in late Autumn have to do with a poem about a flower that was immortalized in a jazz singer's hair?

Nothing, I suppose.

But then last week I posted a two year old photograph of gardenias from my garden - and that was pretty random too.  Plus, I haven't posted a poem in... like forever (or so it feels like - when really, it was only on 20 March 2011).

And I like crooked creeks, Autumn, gardenias and Billie Holiday.  Perhaps that is all that really matters here?  Perhaps liking these things is enough.

~~~~~

The Gardenia by Cornelius Eady

The trouble is, you can never take
That flower from Billie's hair.
She is always walking too fast
and try as we might,

there's no talking her into slowing.
Don't go down into that basement,
we'd like to scream. What will it take
to bargain her blues,

To retire that term when it comes
to her? But the grain and the cigarettes,
the narcs and the fancy-dressed boys,
the sediment in her throat.

That's the soil those petals spring from,
Like a fist, if a fist could sing.

 

~a quick side trip to the old white oak~

Since I'm with my Father for Thanksgiving - on the way back from running a few errands this morning (no, no, no - we were not participating in 'Black Friday' - I was just going to a favorite little nursery, The Garden Spot, to pick up a few amaryllis bulbs for my Dad's window by the kitchen table).  On the way back I stopped off and took another photograph (with my Blackberry) of the wonderful old white oak.

Last photographed here.  With more pasted images linked to here.