Tales from the Microbial Laboratory

Mid-Day in Mid-March (in Zone 7a)

~The Tidal Basin - looking out towards the Washington Monument~

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I haven't posted images for May Blooms Gardens "Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day" in what seems like forever (with forever, in reality, being March of 2011 - so exactly one year ago).  But today I found myself on a quick lunchtime outing at The Tidal Basin in Washington, DC - right on the cusp of exploding cherry blossoms, and it made me smile - no, these aren't my garden's blooms - but they are still pretty wonderful.  Even with images taken with a Blackberry smartphone.  I know, it's cheating (and the truth is, there are two different types of daffodils and two different types of camellias blooming in the yard of my rental home, and I've meant to photograph them and put them in these pages, but we know how good intentions often are:  just that, good intentions).  But - these cherry blossoms belong to all of us, right?  You and me.

It was a treat to see them - just the start of the show - lots of pinks from the buds, some still tight - then the whites of the fully open flowers.  The warm temperatures broke a record, and like alot of places and observations, everything is happening a few weeks or more early this year.  The cherry blossoms in Washington, DC are no different. 

So happy Garden Bloggers Bloom Day from a garden that I've borrowed for the ocassion - I'll need to share my own blooms here, in Virginia, soon - and the ones I find in my neglected garden in South Carolina (when I visit in April).  But I am happy to have these to share today.

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~Thomas Jefferson Memorial~

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~Thomas Jefferson Memorial, looking into the sunshine on a recording-breaking warm day~

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~cherry blossoms, cascading over the sidewalk along the Tidal Basin~

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~more views of the Earlysville White Oak~

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I went to visit my Father on Saturday - just a quick visit to say hello and take him to lunch at his favorite italian spot.  He was doing okay, but since his brief illness in December, he hasn't quite regained his mobility, and from what I've observed (and others have shared with me) the same cognitive level - there is just this generalized sense of decline.  He enjoyed lunch - he ordered a huge calzone that he thought was yummy, and he took leftovers home with him.  He asked me if I was staying the night, and I told him that I had to return to my place outside of DC.

For me it was a strange visit, but for an unexpected reason:  I realized as I was driving to Earlysville that it was the first time that I went to visit a parent for something as simple as lunch - I returned back to my place in the DC area soon after I dropped him off at his home with  his care provider.  I've have always lived out of state, since I graduated from college - and visiting generally meant loading up or boarding the dogs, and staying overnight for a few days.  This has especially been the case since my Mother's illness and passing, and my Father's emerging dementia.

It was a luxury, this short visit.

 I also stopped, parked my car, and took more images of the Earlysville White Oak.  It's a comforting habit, these visits to a wonderful old tree.

Links to a video and more images of this wonderful tree can be found here.

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~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.

 

~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.

~driving south~

~view from a taxi while heading towards Arlington (from DC) via the Roosevelt Bridge~

Tomorrow I drive south, with the dogs in tow, for my first one week visit home since I began this temporary position in the northern Virginia area.  I left my garden on 6 August, and although its had visits by a friend, the grass will be in desperate need of mowing (which also means the snakes will have to be chased away), vines will need to be reprimanded, and I'll discover what in my garden is sturdy enough to survive two and half months of neglect (with one of those months being August in the south).  It looks like it's going to be a mostly warm and sunny week - and when I return to Virginia, we will be at the peak for fall color - and the weather will be turning much colder.

I spent today a block or so off of DuPont Circle for a retreat with colleagues - we met in a beautiful building, and at lunch enjoyed a yummy lebanese meal.  It's nice being out - away from the 12-story building where my office is.  Washington DC is definitely a beautiful city.

But salt air is definitely calling me.  Salt air and live oaks and my own chaotic garden.  I've missed it.

~Dad's 78th~

~abandoned chicken farm, Greene County, Virginia~

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I drove down to my Father's this morning - a short, two-hour drive through beautiful countryside - and I must say that it was a relief to visit him without spending 8 hours, most of which was on I-95.  I left the basement of my rental home with about an inch or more of water - down from the 8 inches that accumulated as a result of the remanants of Lee.  They're saying we had 10-12 inches of rain, and I'd believe it - it felt like it would never stop.  For the past few days there was a narrow band of rain running almost straight through the DC area and Philadelphia - heading north.  So, now I can add flooding to 'earthquake, tropical storm' as my list of hazards since I relocated to the DC area.  Oh yeah, 'terror threat' too.  Can't forget that one.

After I realized that the basement was flooding, I called around - and already every place I called was out of sump pumps.  So after I arrived at Dad's today, and after his healthcare person left - he and I took off and had lunch at a new little italian place, and then stopped by a Lowe's nearby and I purchased a small sump pump.  When I go back tomorrow I'll try and get the rest of the water out, that is - what hasn't drained out.  There is a drain in the basement floor - but if I had to guess, the pipes are long deteriorated, and nothing will drain out until the soil starts to dry out a bit.  Fortunately I didn't have much downstairs - I had my salvaged longleaf pine up pretty high (the bottom board did get wet), and some of the boxes I was saving got wet - plus, I couldn't get to the washer/dryer - hopefully they'll be fine (they came with the house, and thankfully weren't mine).

My experience in Lowe's with my Dad was interesting.  It was probably one of the first times when I was out with him, that I was pretty sure that people we encountered were aware that I was taking someone out shopping who had dementia.  Everyone was quite kind - but often looked at me and smiled a knowing smile - a smile that translated into 'I understand'.  We were heading towards the checkout lanes, only 10 or so feet away, and he would stop whomever walked by and ask them where the checkout lanes were.  He would sometimes be looking straight at them.  I will say that dementia or no - he is as friendly as ever, perhaps even more friendly.  He talked to just about everyone in the store.

Now we're home - and I just got layers for a yellow cake out of the oven.  This week is Dad's birthday, so I'm making him a birthday cake that we will take to his brother's tomorrow for lunch.  It'll be an early celebration - but I'm glad that I could be here to do this.  I was thinking today about last year at this time - when I stayed with Dad for almost two weeks - and I made him a different cake (a more elaborate one) for his birthday.  While I'm in the kitchen, he is watching westerns on TV, often ones he's seen a dozen or more times already, but each time they are new to him.

When we were driving back from the Lowe's today, we went a back road and I couldn't resist stopping and taking a photo with my Blackberry camera of this abandoned chicken farm.  I put the flashers on and jumped out really quickly.  When I got back in the car, my Dad said that he bet I couldn't remember the last time I went somewhere without taking a photo of something.  He was right.

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~resurfacing...slowly~

~pines along the Imperial Palace Moat, Tokyo, Japan (14 August 2011)~

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Where was I?

Since I thanked the Airstream, packed up the U-Haul (with the gracious help of friends and hired hands), moved my 'stuff' and other important cargo (aka the Pointer Sisters, Handsome Stan, and the ever-lovely Haiku) to the Northern Virginia area, unpacked (relatively speaking, or maybe 10% unpacked...) - I spent three days in Tokyo (two days of which were meetings organized by my soon-to-be employer).

Yep, a 13.5 hour direct flight from Dulles to Tokyo.  For three days.  No wonder it's midnight and I'm wide awake.

And I'm not quite sure where to start - the past two weeks have been a blur, which is an understatement really.  But I am... back (whatever that means) and I just want you all to know that although life is a bit unsettled, and that I'm living in a rental home where no one has cared for the yard in years and years, that:  (1)  there are chives in a little area in the back with bricks around the bed, (2) there is mint in the front yard, (3) there are grapes covering a lovely evergreen that I have been eating (and I do plan to save the tree once the grapes are gone), and (4) that although I promised myself that I would not obsessively garden here (I mean really, how silly would that be?), I did have a tiny break with reality today on my way home from the grocery store (well, it was a little out of my way...) and I purchased six pots of perennials/annuals and some oregano.

I can't help it.  It's a disease.

They were two for one.  How could I resist that?

(More about everything soon.  It's a positive sign that I even wrote this!  Maybe I'm slowly returning to the land of the living.)

 

 

~thank you, Airstream~

It's been quite a few years.

The Airstream served me well (and will continue to do so, as I travel back to the Lowcountry over the next year).  The garden is tucked away, relatively speaking - a bit of rain last night made me feel better about leaving it.

Off to Virginia today.

More soon.  (I'll have to post a pic of the backyard of my rental place - it'll make most of you laugh).

(This image I took of the Airsteam was chosen to be one of the Airstream Co's digital holiday card images last year, 2010.  I thought that was pretty fun.)

~kinda busy~

 

It was over Father's Day weekend that I took a photo of this white oak located on Charlottesville-Albemarle Airport property, once again on my way out of town and back to South Carolina.  Good intentions... and late is better than never, right?

I'm kinda busy right now.

Packing.  Weed-whacking.  A visit to the eye doc to stock up on contact lenses today (and to find out my vision is 30% improved).  Trips to Goodwill.  Plus a million other things.

But tonight I went and visited my favorite camellia gardener.  When I drove down the road to the farm, I came across him in a plot of potted camellias, taking cuttings.  Next to the plot was his golf cart.  I had brought us eclairs that I purchased from Earthfare, and after the cuttings were safely tucked away in Skip's sand-filled rooting bed, we toasted with our eclairs and talked about life in the big city and how we think the whole planet is going to pot and about lightning strikes.  I ended up staying for about three hours - longer than I intended, but I found myself not wanting to leave.  Have you ever had one of those places where from the first moment you saw the place, you felt at home there?  Well that's how I feel at Skip's place.  Folks that view the world in a way that I embrace live there - and their views seep through the soil, dancing around in the camellia groves, and can be smelled in the breeze floating over Church Creek.

I'll visit Skip again in October, when I return - a nice (albeit exhausting) part of this new position is that I'll be able to return to the Lowcountry every 5-6 weeks to keep my lab here going (and, of course, to work in my own garden).  When I do return, I'll take my potted satsuma, lemon and kumquats (and perhaps another plant or two) to Skip's greenhouse so that they have a safe place to overwinter.  It'll feel good, knowing that he is watching over them.

One week from tonight the U-haul.  My mental to-do list is a long one, but at least my visit to see Skip is something I can check off the list now.

~Church Creek, Johns Island~

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Some past images of the White Oak:

15 April 2011

5 July 2010

8 June 2010

25 March 2010

27 December 2009

27 December 2007

Moore Farms (Lake City, SC)

~Guest entrance to Moore Farms~

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Just over a week ago, a friend and I drove up to Lake City, SC to tour Moore Farms during their spring Garden Open House.  This was my first visit to Moore, and the open house was a benefit for the A.C. Moore Herbarium at the University of South Carolina.  I knew Jenks Farmer, who is a Horticulturist with Moore, and has been with Moore Farms since the garden was initiated 11 years ago.  I've mentioned Jenks before and my trips to Lushlife Nurseries (where they specialize in crinums) in Beech Island, SC in the past (2010 and 2009).   I figured that if Jenks was involved with the place, that it'd have to be interesting -- and it was.

I tried to present the photos of the place in the order that I saw them - or at least come close to that.  I was told that the formal gardens covered about 35 acres - which includes a few houses, outbuildings, a large greenhouse, etc.  If had to summarize my feeling about the place, I'd say that the word comfortable comes to mind.  It definitely had the feel of a garden that is used and enjoyed, that folks walk around in, sit with guests - perhaps with a drink in hand - and talk.  It has the feel of a garden that is accustomed to good conversation.

Another aspect of the garden that I liked was related to it's design:  the center, or core of the garden was somewhat formal - well-defined beds filled with roses with carefully pruned shrubs defining them.  But from the front of the main house, if you looked out - the structure of the garden loosened until it blended into the landscape.  There were no abrupt transitions, and so the garden looked natural instead of awkard and out-of-place.

Also, this is a hot place in the summertime - and I got the sense that Jenks and others kept in mind the water needs of many of the plants they included in the landscape.  In that sense, the garden was quite practical and compatible with what South Carolina summers have to offer.

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Moore Farms Website

Moore Farm Plant Database

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~pitcher plants in a small bog garden~

One of the first things you come to, after you park, was a small bog garden that was filled with blooming pitcher plants.  Gorgeous!  For the remainder of the garden, you will have to read below the fold - remember that I said it was a 34 acre garden... so take your time - and enjoy.

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