Tales from the Microbial Laboratory

spring thinking

 
  
The dogwoods are leafing out - and the flowers, now green with just a hint of white - are unfolding.  Every year I promise myself that I will notice that moment when they go from green to white.  Every year I miss that moment when they go from green to white.

A few days ago, just back from Virginia, it was nice to get back out into the garden, and to spend some time on the daunting task of spring cleaning (spring cleaning the garden, not the Airstream - that's a story for another time...).  removed all of the small dead (mostly lower) branches on the five dogwoods in my garden.  Three of them were tiny things when I planted them - just 'sticks' - and now they are each between 10 and 15 feet tall.

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 A few bok choy are still in the raised bed vegetable garden - two are probably still harvestable - the other two are starting to go to flower.  I always, intentionally, leave a few brocolli or lettuces, and now bok choy - to flower.  I like them, blooming amidst the newly planted potatoes and spinach and onions.

I was thinking yesterday about how so much of life is about one's attitutde.  You hear this said over and over again - and while I think that some horrific events in life are truly not worthy of a good attitude, that whole 'turning lemons into lemonade' thing is probably a good idea most of the time.

So I've decided, rather delusionally, that this period of unemployment could be viewed as a sabbatical.  One without pay.  My primary focus during this period is writing - both manuscripts and grants - and then scattered in there somewhere are a few invited seminars.  That sounds like a sabbatical to me.

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"Man's greatest asset is the unsettled mind." - Isaac Asimov

If Isaac is indeed on to something here, then I'm in good shape.

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Bergenia cordifolia 'Autumn Glory'

 I planted Bergenia in my garden for the first time last year, three small plants, and all three are starting to bloom this year.  The flowers are nice (and are blooming early, while the main perennials in the garden are just emerging) - and the foliage is definitely interesting.

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I can't wait for the giant allium's to open - I planted a few of them last fall for the first time.

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Ferns are unfolding everywhere - smooth shiny ones and ones that look more like the tail of a green dog.  I had meant to divide some of them last fall, but obviously missed getting around to that.  No worries - gardens forgive.

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I haven't spent much time reading blogs of late, between the visit to Virginia and the lab's quest to write about a million manuscript (aka a dozen) this year - but last night I did roam around a bit, and as always - found much to enjoy. 

First, there was this wonderful post at A Tidewater Gardener titled 'The Samurai's Camellia' - and what fascinated me the most was the bonsai'ed camellia.  Wow.  I think I might need to try that - stunning, don't you think?  Second, this post titled 'I may have an ugly garden.  Depends on what day you look.' over at Bloomingwriter was just superb.  However, if I could have, I would have called Jodi up in the middle of the night and asked 'what post are you referring to?' since she did not link to it (for good reason) - so to avoid some of you from my fate last night (of roaming the gardening blogosphere until I found it):  here it is.  My thoughts?  Garden anyway you want - just be sure that you enjoy it.  If you don't, I doubt that you can call it a garden at the end of the day.

I also came across a new, Charleston-area garden blog with a simply delightful name:  Children of the Corm.  What a great name!  She seems to be having a bit of the blogging blues, so you might want to stop by and say hello (I tried to - but I don't do the google, typepad acct linking them - just the name/URL thing so, CoftheC, if you stop by, I did try to say hello!).  Also, a Virginia garden blogger will soon be a South Carolina gardener - now that's a nice thought.  Oh - and go and look at The Transplantable Rose's video of cedar waxwings playing in her fountain (it's down towards the end of the post).

Everytime I go to visit Zanthan Gardens, I find something fascinating - and beautiful.  I need to visit more often.

This is a good idea, don't you think?  The Citrus Guy is another lowcountry blogger.

There is never enough time, but boy, when I can steal a bit, I always enjoy what I find.  Sometimes, here, I just write and post and forget that there is a world out there.

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~Hakonechloa macra 'Albovariegata'~

Last August I purchased from Lowe's three small pots of japanese forest grass.  I was thrilled to find them at such a good price - but I'm more thrilled to see them emerge this spring.  I planted them last year at the worst possible time (August, in the south?  What was I thinking...) - and I must laugh at myself because for some reason I thought they were an 'evergreen' grass.  Huh?  So when they died back, I thought I had lost them.  But now, here they are, and I am thrilled.

Now, I don't want to whine too much about how unemployment has strained my otherwise foolishly high plant budget.  There's just no purpose in that.  However I must say that my plant purchasing binges last year - all of which I blame on stress of course - are certainly going to be enjoyable this season.  Also, it's not only the plant purchases that I will enjoy, but a number of friend's passed along plants to me (concerned about my plight) and I also began propagating plants again, something I've always enjoyed but, quite simply, got out of the habit of doing.

And then there are seeds.  So many seeds. 

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these pointers

~the lovely and vivacious Annabelle Lee~

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I've always had a thing for pointers.

Who knows what Annabelle Lee's history was - my vet thinks she might have been a breeder at a hunt club.  As for The Dan, the craziest of Dans, last night I came across the flickr page for Dog's Hope - the English and German shorthair Pointer Rescue where I adopted Dani - and specifically Dani's page.  There were images of her that I hadn't seen before, ones from when she was first rescued by Dog's Hope and was wearing a coat and she looked so sad.  She had recently had puppies, even though she looked like a puppy herself - and she had scars on her face.

What sweet, crazy things, these pointers.

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~The Pointer Sisters, Annabelle Lee and The Dan~

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the onset

'in time of daffodils'

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It's nice to be back in South Carolina, surrounded by my own garden's daffodils - new ones are opening up after being away for a week.  Many of the earlier ones are those from my Mother's garden (some of them are shown here), these later blooming ones, interestingly, are ones that are not in her garden - ones that I've added over the years.

  The day was beautiful here - warm with a strong wind, sun - and I spent the day alternating between weeding and editing - a nice way to spend the day after a challenging week.

I don't think that one can have too many daffodils.

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in time of daffodils (who know by ee cummings 

in time of daffodils (who know
the goal of living is to grow)
forgetting why,remembering how
in time of lilacs who proclaim
the aim of waking is to dream,
remember so (forgetting seem)
in time of roses (who amaze
our now and here with praise)
forgetting if, remember yes
in time of all sweet things beyond
whatever mind may comprehend,
remember seek (forgetting find)
and in a mystery to be
(when time from time shall set us free)
forgetting me, remember me

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More daffodils, a church and a white oak (heading out of Earlysville, Virginia)

 
~white oak (Quercus alba) on the Charlottesville-Albemarle Airport property~

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Did you happen to see this wonderful piece over at Wired titled 'The Oldest Trees on the Planet"?  Wouldn't it be fun to be able to stop everything and just go and take a look, from a distance even, at each of these trees?  I know I'd love to do that.

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I'm back in the Airstream.

Whew.

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~Mom's back garden daffodils~

During my last evening in Virginia, before neighbors arrived for dinner, I took a few more images of my Mother's daffodils - I can't seem to get enough of them.  After dinner, a neighbor and I played my father and the neighbor's spouse in a game of canasta (the 'men' vs the 'women') - the only card game that my family remained addicted to over the years.  The three of us weren't sure how my father would do, but he always loved to play, so we thought we'd give it a try.

My father's team won.  He played perfectly.  Actually, if you know anything about the game, he even had a concealed canasta one game - which of course means that he strategized.  And of course he was thrilled that his team won.

What can I say?

The mind is a freaky thing.  I don't claim to understand it.

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According to my observations, I think that my Mom's garden has at least 15 or more daffodil varieties:  these four, these eight, plus I know of three others that I don't have images of (thalia, another larger all white one, and another one that is totally unfamiliar to me - it's almost speckled).

~Mom's front garden daffodils in the early evening~

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~Pleasant Grove Baptist Church, 1875~

Today as I was driving out of Earlysville, heading back to South Carolina, I stopped briefly at the church (above) and the old white oak (where I've stopped before, at the end of December 2007 and again in December 2009).  When the Charlottesville-Albemarle Airport expanded a number of years back, it obtained land that included an old church and the second largest white oak in Virginia.  The church has always looked so nice, nestled in a grove of trees on the top of a small hill (to the right of the image, out of view, is the white oak).  I always worried about this church - wondered how much life it had left, with the airport breathing down it's neck, and on this trip my father told me that they were now planning on moving it.  Sometimes 'growth' (and not the plant kind) isn't the kind of change I like to see, but then, I also know that places like this airport don't care too much about what I think (for about a million reasons, many of them quite legitimate).

~Pleasant Grove Baptist Church, 1875~

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~white oak~

Partway down the hill from the church is the white oak.  If you look to the left of the white oak in the image above, you'll see a lighting structure that looks like part of a runway - I worry a little about this tree once the church is moved (and the trees around the church are taken down).  I'm not sure what will protect it then.  But then maybe I'll have to decide that this white oak is 'not on my worry list', a phrase that my Mom's sister reminded me of today when she called - a phrase that my mom would often use with her.

However, for now - this white oak is supposed to be protected by the airport.  It does have a lovely view.  Today was the first time I walked up the hill to see exactly what that view was, and I must say it's a nice one.  Like that old General Store in Nortonsville, I could have just sat under that tree for awhile.  But I had to get back to Charleston in order to rescue the Pointer Sisters from the Paw Plaza Hotel.  Tonight they seem happy to be home...in fact, I'd say we all are.

 
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hellebores

Tonight I was outside with Stanley - the evening was much cooler than the past few, but the coolness was refreshing as we walked around.  Stanley could smell where the deer had been earlier in the afternoon - and his nose led him right to the patch of pines down the leaf-covered road that leads down the hill to where my Mom's Mother's home used to be many moons ago.  He finally returned, deerless, but I could tell that he was thrilled to give it a try nonetheless.  Stanley is ever the optimist, as most dogs are.

Tomorrow is my last day here - tomorrow evening my Father's healthcare provider returns.  I've been doing alot of thinking in her absence about the situation - mostly pondering the challenges that come from doing this kind of thing from a distance.  There are a few important issues that we need to resolve, come to an agreement on - discuss - and we'll hopefully be able to do that tomorrow evening.

I still have collards to plant in Dad's garden - I had gotten a bundle of plants for my own garden, but didn't get them in the ground in time.  Fortunately Dad's two-day a week healthcare person likes to garden and likes collards - so hopefully they will be enjoyed.

Dementia is tough.  Today while my Dad was getting physical therapy, he introduced me to his trainer as his daughter who lives south of Petersburg who is working on her Master's degree.  I just smiled, it didn't matter, but it does make me sad.  Tonight I've been thinking about how I'm not cut out for this - I don't have the patience to care for someone with such challenges.  I feel badly saying that about my own Father, but I'm just being honest.  Maybe if it was in my own home (don't laugh - I mean a home, not the Airstream!) it would be easier, I don't know.  Anyway, walking outside, admiring the lovely veins of the hellebores, was another tiny escape that helped me push through the evening.  When I walked back inside, my Father was emptying the dishwasher of dirty dishes, and putting them away. 

a brief respite

This morning I worked with a neighbor on my Father's taxes (fully realizing the irony in the fact that I haven't begun my own) - going through medical and pharmaceutical receipts and bank statements - trying to help make sense of his last year, a year full of cognitive ups and downs.  Afterwards, we joined my Mother's two younger sisters and her brother, as well as their spouses, for lunch.  I enjoy being around them, each, on ocassion, displaying pieces of my Mother in an expression or topic of conversation.  Everyone at the lunch table still misses her, and still acutely feels her absence at our gatherings.

After lunch, I settled my Father into his chair (for a nap), and I took off with my camera and Handsome Stanley - a respite from receipts and my Father's constant mishaps with the television remote (would it be cruel if I took it away from him?).  I headed for the foothills of the Blue Ridge, territory both familiar and comforting to me.  The farm above is one that I have always secretly loved - something about the small creek running between the homestead and the larger barn that has always seemed dreamy.  The place belongs to a second or third cousin, and from what I've heard is rented out - of course there wouldn't be a job around for miles (and miles) for me but I can imagine roaming that place and sitting on the porch in the evenings.  Of course the Pointer Sisters would just head for the hills, and probably wouldn't be seen or heard from by me again.  Greene County residents would never forgive me for releasing those two into the wild.  

I decided earlier today that it was time to go to my Mother's grave alone for the first time.  I've always felt that there were two types of people:  those who visit cemeteries and those who do not.  I most definitely fall into the former category, and find solace in having a place to go.  This place is so beautiful - a cemetery on a hillside across from the Evergreen Church of the Brethren.  When I arrived, a rain shower had just passed through - and at one end of the cemetery an elderly man sat on the rock wall, near a tombstone, carrying on a quiet conversation with the deceased.  We just nodded at each other as I walked by.

I took (what else?) daffodils from my Mother's garden - handfuls of them - and placed them on her grave, as well as those of her Mother, my Father's Mother, and my Mother's older sister.  I'm not a fan of the artifical flowers that adorn so many tombstones these days, and I know that my Mother would - yep, shiver in her grave - if she thought her family left artificial flowers on her gravesite.  On the other hand, she would be thrilled to know that her own daffodils, freshly picked, were on ocassion placed near her.  I'm not sure if I mentioned it before, but for almost 20 years my Mother took care of her Church's flowers, and she refused to put artificial flowers on the altar.  After her death, we started a fund, "Madeline's Flower Fund", that raised a surprising amount of money for fresh church flowers each Sunday.  You might say that I'm continuing the anti-artificial flowers tradition in our family.

After I left the cemetery, I took the long way home, which meant that I went over the wooden bridge below my Father's 'Home Place' (where his middle brother now lives).  I stopped on the bridged - amazed at how much water was in the stream and how fast the water was moving, although not surprised at how muddy it was, due to the heavy rain showers that we had been having off and on all day. I didn't remember how straight the stream was as it flowed down stream - and I was tracing in my head the path it took after it made a sharp turn to the right.

Looking upstream, I realized that I had no idea where this stream began.  All I knew is that my Father said that when he was young, they would dam up this part of the stream in the summer so that the water would collect in a pool so that they could swim.  I like that concept, but then I've always been a fan of water.

I took a little detour instead of heading straight back to Earlysville - and drove through the lovely town of Nortonsville.  I'm not sure that you could call it a town - perhaps a community is what it represents these days.  However, after a quick search, I did come across some interesting information at nortonfamily. net:

Nortonsville is a hamlet located on the border of present day Albemarle and Green counties Virginia. There are several records and events that tie our Norton family to this little hamlet and it's possible this is the area that our Norton family came to settle after Christopher and Mary married in 1753. 

The buildings of Nortonsville are very old. An expert who examined them said some of the buildings were made of recycled earlier materials including ship timbers. The main house consists of three sections built at different times. In fact one (the oldest) was supposed to have been moved there from another spot nearby. The land contains the old general store, a cottage, a farmhouse, “a smithy, grist mill, dairy, barn, cemetery and two schools - one for white children and the other for black children,” Some of the wood beams in the farmhouse appear to be recycled from a circa-1600s building and, before that, a ship. 

(There's a wonderful circa 1862 map on the nortonfamily.net site that shows Nortonsville - the map was by Jed Hotchkiss, a cartographer for Stonewall Jackson.  Also, a bit past the Nortonsville town center' was a sign for Moss Vineyards - I'm not familiar with those folks, but they have a fun flickr page and I need to find out more about them).

I think this is the oldest building in Nortonsville - and is the one that is part of three buildings.  It's a strange structure - on it's own it might make sense, but to the left of it is a rather typical older farmhouse - there are numerous smaller structures around it.  I remember stopping to look at this place once with my Mom, long before it had a fresh coat of paint on it.

I need to go back and look at my other photos from today, and see how they mesh with the text about Nortonsville I cited above.

This building is right across the street from the prior one - and must have been the original Nortonsville General Store.  Something I've always loved about these little once-upon-a-time towns is that you can almost figure out what they were like by the rock walls that usually go right up to the road.  Nortonsville had (has) some nice rock walls.

If I hadn't needed to rush back to my Dad, I might have enjoyed sitting in one of those rocking chairs for awhile - I must say I'm tired.  My fear would be that if I sat there long enough, I might not have wanted to get up - for at least a few days or maybe even a week.  I can see it now, me getting hauled off to jail for refusing to get up from a rocking chair on the porch of the old Nortonsville General Store.  Oppositely, perhaps no one would have cared, and I could have just moved in.  It's a lovely little place, I think I'd do just fine there.

~views of a day spent in Greene County, Virginia~

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It was a warm, mostly sunny day here in Virginia.

Church (a rare event for me) in Charlottesville, lunch with my Father's younger brother and his family in Green County, a quick visit to my Father's middle brother - then home to Earlysville and a call from a neighbor saying they had a blueberry pie, just out of the oven, and would we like to come over for a piece?  Of course we said yes, one cannot refuse a warm blueberry pie - especially one made from blueberries picked last summer from my Mother's sisters farm.

Everywhere we went, there was at least one person asking me about Dad - and, of course, giving me their input.  I don't mind this - all are well-intended - and as a scientist-type, I consider it much like collecting data.  Now, at the end of the data, it is time to analyze thir words.

Cognitive issues are puzzling and frustrating.

Tomorrow I will call my Father's physician, and request a neurological exam for Parkinson's (and other motor disorders).  There's the cognitive stuff going on - but there is definitely something else - a short, shuffling gate, he isn't swinging his arms - and when I saw him sign his name this morning to a check for the church, I thought to myself how tiny his signature has become.  Then tonight I read online some of the more 'non-motor' symptoms of Parkinsons, and there it was:  tiny handwriting.  That, many other symptoms - and depression and dementia - all possibly related  to a motor disorder.  I know this is just a stab in the dark, but worth evaluating.

The Blue Ridge mountains are familiar to me, comforting - home.  Even amidst all of the craziness that is currently my life, the mountains feel good.

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Virginia daffodils

I arrived in Virginia today with just enough light to enjoy a tour of my Mom's daffodils - they're just beginning to open, some varieties definitely more than others and boy are they beautiful.  Every now and then there is a hellebore, complimenting the daffodils beautifully.  When you turn up the drive you see hints of color - and then the color just keeps going and going.  They really are quite spectacular. 

Sometimes when I arrive back in Earlysville and come into the house, my Dad is confused and I find myself facing a reality that I can deny (to a degree) when I'm in Charleston.  Today was good however - he spent much of the day outside with one of his live-in care providers, working in the flower beds, and when I arrived he seemed happy and clear-headed.  After the care person left, he and I fixed dinner together - and there was an element of normalcy to the evening that was both a relief and much-needed.  As I type this, he is watching the end of a movie - sitting in his chair, with Stanley asleep on a blanket on the couch.

It will be a week spent in Virginia, surrounded by daffodils.
 
 
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rather random revelations about fascinating Farfugiums

It's been a busy week.  I head to Virginia tomorrow, to stay with my Father - a trip timed so that his healthcare provider can go and visit a friend.  I realized this week that I haven't been to Virginia since the Christmas holiday - which is the longest stretch that I've been away since my Mother was diagnosed with lung cancer in March of 2007.  That makes me tired, just thinking about all of those trips up I-95.

Of course I have a silly list a mile long of things I want to get done before I leave - and on the top of that list was the submission of two manuscripts.  These are manuscripts that we will be submitted as companion papers to the same journal - and are focused on the genome and proteome of an emerging, global coral pathogen.  The manuscripts represent alot of data and much effort - and the Microbial Lab is anxious to get them published.  We didn't make the submission today - but we are close.  The 'proteome' manuscript is ready to go, and I've got another draft of the 'genome' manuscript in hand, for a last read through while I'm in Virginia.  I must say that I'm tired of editing though - not just because of these manuscripts - but it just seems that in these days of unemployment, editing has become my main past-time. 

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Yesterday, after finishing a final read-through of one of the manuscripts, I went out into the garden.  It was a cool day, overcast - but the garden had the air of a stack of fireworks waiting to be lit:  a few warm days and everything will explode.  I have a feeling that this will be a condensed spring for us - not wonderfully long and drawn out as they often are.

Anyway, as I walked around, I found myself noticing the Farfugiums - fascinating things - and it seems that I have this periodic Farfugium post where I mention something random and perhaps not terribly useful about the Genus:  first, here in June of 2007 when the first Farfugiums joined the garden, and then again in September of 2008 - and then, on a more scientific note, I presented the Farfugium Hypothesis in December of 2008. 

So here I am, finding that it is time for some more random and fascinating Farfugium observations.

Pretty exciting, eh?

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Here is my Farfugium japonicum 'Gigantea' after an unusually cold lowcountry winter.  Of the Farguiums in my garden, the cold was hardest on this one.  Many of the stalk/leaf combos fell over to the ground after a few consecutive nights of cold (and we had many of them) - and quite frankly, it looked terrible in the garden. 

 

However, 'Gigantea' is bouncing back now - and is sending out alot of new fuzzy leaves which mature to the large glossy green mature leaves.  I don't think that I noticed before that the youngest leaves are covered in peach fuzz.  But they are.  And they are delightful.

~a glorious and glossy 'Gigantea' leaf~

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 I've been on the fence with respect to Farfugium japonicum 'Aureomaculatum'.  But now that my sole 'clump' has gotten some age (and size) on it - it's definitely growing on me.  Before it just looked like a virus-riddled clump of green to me.  However, it handled the winter beautifully, and is growing like crazy right now.  It is possible that I am now a fan.  It's also quite photogenic.

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Ahh!  The lovely new leaves of Farfugium japonicum 'Crispatum'...it handled the winter better than 'Gigantea', but was a little worse for wear than 'Aureomaculatum'.  I love these new, fresh leaves covered in off-white velvet - and those curly edges - spectacular!  

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Here are the new leaves of Farfugium japonica 'Kaimon Dake' - this spring exhibiting the lovely variagation that their description bragged about - unlike the leaves I observed last year and a few this year (below) that exhibit little to no variagation.  These new leaves are beautiful, I'm happy to report.   

 

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More soon, from Virginia.  My Father said that my Mom's daffodils are in bloom - that'll be nice.