Local Bloggers

I found two new-to-me local blogs from Daniel's post Ithaca Photography and Blogging over at Migrations.

Local artist Benjamin Clock writes Natural History Artworks about his painting and travels. Check out his description of the work on an illustration for an upcoming issue of The Living Bird.



The Contemplative Nuthatch looks out for birds here and elsewhere. I love her photo of Cecropias in Sapsucker Woods.

Two other local blogs I've been reading for a while, but I'm finally getting around to adding to the side bar:

Craig in Ellis Hollow ranges widely through politics and music consistently returning to his garden. His recent Full Disclosure post includes pictures of the "ugly" parts of the garden. We all tend to take pictures when things are looking their best. How many of us are willing to expose the neglected corners to public scrutiny.

Brenda's changed the name of her Ithaca Daily Photo blog to the more realistic Ithaca When-I-Feel-Like-It Photo. Tho' it's no longer daily, there are frequent cool photos from random spots around town. It reminds me that my photos are mostly around the yard. I really need to get out more...

The Dreaded To-Do List

Hello. My name is Mary Ann. It's been two weeks since my last blog post. I can't remember if that's supposed to sound like AA or confession. I've actually never been to either. But I do feel bad about not blogging recently. Every Tuesday morning, like clockwork, Sitemeter sends me a report of visitors to this site. Needless to say the number of visitors declines in direct proportion to the number of recent posts. But to the dozen or so loyal visitors who keep showing up here every day, my apologies.

Too often it's a choice between working and writing about working. Yes, in a perfect world, I'd choose the writing over the working every time. But I'm so far behind I've been determined to slog through the "to do" list. Lots of things have been added to the list and crossed off in the past two weeks, many of which are worthy of their own blog posts. Like this full day of filing I did in order to find the information I needed to write a report. See that bit of sun outside the window in the upper left? I resisted that all day. And besides finishing 80% of the filing, I amassed all this recycling.


All right, suffice it to say that I've worked my way back to an item that got on the list two weeks ago, just after the last post: "plant iris etc." Iris etc refers to the wheelbarrow full of Siberian Iris, tub full of Liatris and bucket full of bearded Iris that we took out of the garden in front of the rose.

On days that I have a dentist appointment or some similarly annoying obligation, I reward myself with garden work. I managed to plant the "etc," the bearded Iris and Liatris. Of course, to do that, I had to create a space somewhere. There it is. See that little patch of dirt in the sun to the left of the sidewalk? There's the bearded Iris. A little to the left, if you care, is the taller Liatris in bloom. But the wheelbarrow of Siberian Iris awaits. And the sun's shining. Screw the remaining office work on the list. I'm outta here.

Life Is Just a Bowl of ...

The cherries were nearly ripe on July 5 when I took this picture. (I did not add that drop of water for photographic effect. It's genuine dew.) The cherries ripened to a very satisfactory dark red last week and I ate them - unceremoniously. There were seventeen to begin with. Birds pecked a few, despite the net over them. We sampled about a dozen in various stages of ripeness. So, like the four strawberries I harvested in June, the cherries were about $2.50 each. On the plus side, from now on they'll be more or less free (not counting, of course, the fence and the net that protect them.)

This is my favorite rose. Well, in my garden, actually it's the only rose. I don't usually try to grow things that aren't easy. But I have been trying with roses. This "Joseph's Coat" has been doing its best against all odds. It's been here for years. It now has three canes, the tallest of which is still only about thirty inches tall.

Every year I try to remember to fertilize it regularly. I try to remember to cover it in the winter. I try to check it occasionally for Japanese beetles or mildew. And every year it rewards me with more and more blossoms.

In one heroic effort to show the rose how much I care, I persuaded Belinda to move the Siberian Iris you can see behind (and to the south) of the rose in the picture. Well, it wasn't that hard to persuade her. I don't think she's ever had to move a Siberian Iris before. It may be a few years before I try to get her to do it again. She thought I should move the rose (which I admit is only about one tenth the size of the Iris.)

Anyway, now the Iris and most of the Liatris around it is gone. The rose is visible through the trellis at the entrance to the garden. I'm mulching the rose with a full bushel of my best compost. Maybe someday it will cover the fence like the catalog pictures I've seen.

"It Was the Best of Times..."

My satellite TV network includes the often useful channel UCTV, University of California TV. An excellent program last night, Global Warming: Climate Change Science and Public Policy recommended links to Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and RealClimate.org.

Much of my life has been guided by the sine qua non of environmental protection. So the principles underlying climate change come as no surprise to me: finite resources, conspicuous consumption, anthropocentrism, etc. I've put this all in perspective somewhere between Tim Flannery's marvelous description of geology and life in North America following the devastating Chicxulub asteroid impact 65 million years ago in The Eternal Frontier and the "bright but deadly" transformation of the sun into a red giant 5 billion years from now as described in Astronomy magazine. (The article's not online. You can borrow my hard copy if you like.) I find some irrational comfort in the fact that we're closer to the beginning of life on earth than to the end.

But the questions now become, how much discomfort or misery are we willing to adapt to, or to inflict on others? Why are we still talking about changing light bulbs and not about how many displaced persons are we able to accommodate?

On that happy note, I'm going to go celebrate Independence Day.

P.S. Any day that starts with the cat bringing me a still live mouse really has nowhere to go but up.

Wayahead Tomatoes

Well, some convincing evidence is in. These are Wayahead tomatoes - grown from a sample sent with my Jung seed order. They were planted in the garden in late May, some with the red plastic trays that are supposed to convey some mysterious advantage. The plants growing in the red trays are several inches (perhaps 40%) taller and blooming while the ones without the red trays are - well - shorter and not yet blooming.



Here's another variety, Cherokee Red. Am I nuts or does that look like a double flower? All the flowers on the two Cherokee Red plants look like this. Doesn't seem like a great thing for a plant grown for its fruit.





Here's Murphy the Magnificent posing as a garden ornament. I think he looks great there.

Purslane

Leenda, Leenda! Weed-ho' and scientist that you are, surely you've met purslane with its fat red stems and succulent leaves. I'll bet you know the latin names of more than half the weeds you pull.

The best that can be said for purslane is that it's flat. (Would that that were a compliment in other walks of life.) As Dave points out, it is edible. But honestly, that's not as important as the fact that purslane's diminutive stature makes it a minimal threat to neighboring cultivated plants - at least in its youngest stage.

If you're keeping up with weeding every day or two (ha!) the tiniest seedlings can be done in with a light scraping of the surface of the soil with the back of your trowel. Larger plants, which no doubt abound after the second day must be traced to their center and the root carefully grasped and pulled.

Final warning. Don't leave the uprooted plants on the surface of the soil. Don't be fooled into thinking you can leave the dying plants to mulch your bare soil as you might with other weeds. Take them away. Far away. The succulent plant is able to flower and mature seeds long after you think you've left it gasping its last breath.

Life Goes On

I'd hate for my once-a-week readers to show up and find nothing new since last week. Suffice it to say I'm alive and well and hopelessly behind on all the tasks I value in my life.



My best friend from grad school, whom I had not seen for about twenty-five years, visited last week. Here she is with Bill who was her major professor all those years ago.

We had a ball walking in the woods, strolling the commons, wandering around Cornell campus reminiscing, relaxing at home with Wallace and Grommet. After recovering from a life-threatening illness last fall, Carol decided to take this summer off and do some things differently. Frankly, it gave me a different view of life to realize I was on someone's "things to do before I die" list.

I wouldn't trade those few days with Carol for anything. But I must say I neglected a few things. Like spraying deer repellent in the garden. The deer seemed to warn me every day by sampling one more delicacy. And weeding. This is the week purslane takes over the garden. And at least one project at work may have to be jettisoned 'cause the deadline of the next project is encroaching. Oh, well. Moving on.

Jello

Leendalu got me started this morning with her Psychedelic Sixties menu and Tuna-Black Olive-Lime Jello reference. Then I wandered over to Rebecca's Pocket where Rebecca wrote about The Food Timeline. It's enough to know that marshmallows appeared around 2000BC - 500 years prior to chocolate. But skip all the fascinating stuff through the centuries down to 1897 and the link to Jello. Gelatin was patented in 1845 and in 1897 fruit flavored Jello made its debut in LeRoy, New York with strawberry, raspberry, orange and lemon. An amazing variety of flavors have appeared and disappeared since then. Chocolate and Cola-flavor were particularly short lived.

And then there was the salad-dressing flavor I referred to in my comment to Leendalu. In 1953 Celery, Italian, Mixed Vegetable and Seasoned Tomato appeared. The Italian was a regular in my family, usually with cucumbers and grated carrots mixed in. In all honesty, my mother's cooking gave depth to the joke about how the British discovered the new world in search of a decent meal. I should add that, in contrast to the Jello salad, she did teach me to make a good fresh fruit salad with properly peeled and sectioned grapefruit, half grapes and apples and bananas added at the last minute and coated in the citrus juice to delay browning.

Fun New Tool

Lately I've been lurking around Ellis Hollow - the blog, not the place. I got there from my favorite gardening site Cold Climate Gardening and kept going back 'cause the garden featured is so nearby and 'cause even the non-garden topics are really cool.

This morning browsing Craig's Art category I came to Britney Spears in the garden which normally wouldn't catch my attention but I wondered where the lovely photo came from. The photo credit is there. But best of all Craig uses Gender Genie to rate his post and compare it to a similar post by a female friend.

Gender Genie says it works best with text of 500 words or more. So, I scrolled through my blog for a long-ish post. Fun with Squirrels seemed fairly gender neutral. I cut and pasted it into Gender Genie and this is what I found.
The analysis is based on innocent prepositions, adverbs, articles, conjunctions and few pronouns and verbs - no telltale nouns or adjectives. Fun with Squirrels scored a fairly ambiguous 56% male most of which can be attributed to a whopping 54 occurrences of the word "the." The best I did on the feminine side was using "not" 7 times. The two posts tested by Ellis Hollow, one written by a woman, one by a man, were both scored as male by Gender Genie. So, with n=3 Gender Genie's accuracy is 33% - not so good. So, is the algorithm wrong? Or are my writing and Craig's friend's writing screwy. I plan to test this some more. You try it, too. Let me know what you find.

Language and Bias

Yet another dying gasp of the story about the questionable behavior of several Duke athletes at a party. Now it's about the judge who made inappropriate comments about the athletes. And still the woman is described as an "exotic dancer" hired to work at the party. I realize this is an attempt at a polite way to describe a stripper.

But what if it said the athletes allegedly raped a dancer hired to entertain at the party?

What if it simply said the athletes allegedly raped a woman at the party?

Why do the journalists think it's important that we know she was an exotic dancer? Does that steer us to think it's really not that shocking that she may have been raped? That it's maybe just a little bit okay?

Think about the classist bias in the contrast between "dancer" and "exotic dancer." Or between "a woman" and "a woman hired to ..."

[Disclaimer: yes, I know the charges were dropped. This post is about the language describing the woman, not the guilt or innocence of the boys (men?).]

Online Fun

There are lots of ways to - um - "spend" time online. I'm shifting to my downstairs computer lately and I'm rearranging my online routine. This morning, checking out my old bloglines links, I noticed Bloglines Most Popular Feeds. "Most Popular..." anything doesn't usually work for me. But just look at what I found.
Forty nine sites covering technology - geek stuff and gadgets.

Twenty seven links to Music, Movies, Cartoons, TV and Literature.

Thirty two news sites. Maybe I shouldn't think of Snopes as news, but I do.

Fourteen Business and Finance sites including Kiplinger, Motley Fool and Money.

Thirteen Art sites

Fifteen Science sites

Fourteen sites covering Food, Fashion, Travel and Cars. (Don't ask me why these form a category in my mind. I just hate to say "miscellaneous.")

One truly miscellaneous, or perhaps interdisciplinary site. Kottke led me to spend much of my online time this morning at places like

• WSJ: How the Presidents Stack Up. Graph shows that since Truman every president except Clinton has left office lower in ratings than they started. In fact, since Truman every president except Clinton has left office with approval ratings below 60% (some far, far below 60%.)
• Strange Maps where you can find a US map with states labeled for countries with similar GDPs. Fascinating not only for the comparison of GDPs but to observe one's gut reaction to connotations. Why would I rather be Colorado, which is comparable to Finland, than Arizona whose higher GDP is comparable to Thailand? At Strange Maps you can also find The Cultural Inglehart-Welzel Map of the World. I want to live in one of the countries at the upper right of the map: Sweden, Denmark, Netherlands, et al. Well, really I want the US to be at the upper right of the map. Actually, though it is in the top 15% of Self-Expression values, it's well below the midpoint for Secular-Rational values.

I wish I could take time to give you all the links I had fun with. But, really, I've got to get to work.

Maggy's Birthday 07

Yesterday was Maggy's birthday. There were balloons. (That's the Rhododendron I guarded from the deer all winter.)

And presents (in my new minimalist wrapping style)







And cake. [I've collectedlots of these "about to blow out the candle" pictures over the years.]

Pets and Gardens, Gardens and Pets

No time for blogging. Life's all about gardens and pets now. And, oh yeah, my job.

It's hard to appreciate this chicken ritual in a still photo. It's the avian version of dry cleaning. I hadn't given the chicks any dust for a few days. When I finally took time to do it, they plunged in, even overcoming any diversity inhibitions they may have had. The idea is to throw yourself on your side or even on your back and use your wings to flick as much dust as possible into your spread feathers.

On this occasion they kept it up for fifteen or twenty minutes. Finally satisfied that they've absorbed as much dust as possible and that the dust has had a chance to absorb as much oil as possible from their feathers, they get up and start shaking the dust out of their feathers. Eventually they settle down and spend the rest of the day poking the oil gland at the base of their tail and laboriously spreading fresh oil along each and every feather.

I'm a little behind in the garden - well, really I'm a lot behind. And, of course, everything's happening at once - or should be. I planted the tomato seedlings yesterday. In years past we've had frosts in June. But this year, I'm optimistic. There are 37 plants - 18 or 19 on each side of this 24' fence. That's pretty close spacing, but the soil in these raised beds has been improved over the past fifteen years. It's kind of like gardening in giant flower pots.

Almost all of these varieties are new to me this year. We stuck with Sun Gold and Snow White cherry tomatoes 'cause we loved them last year and added Black Cherry and Sugar Snack red cherry tomatoes for what promises to be an extremely colorful and flavorful salad.

I'm focusing more strongly on paste tomatoes this year since I had such fun making tomato sauce last year. After hours of poring over the catalogs I chose Opalka 'cause it's all about flavor, flavor, flavor. For mid-season beefsteak tomatoes, Tomato Growers offered a free sample of Marianna's Peace. I like the concept and the catalog says they're delicious and productive. Over the years I've lost interest in early tomatoes 'cause they don't have much flavor. But this year Jung Seeds offered a free sample of Wayahead - 63 days to maturity and "true tomato flavor." Those red saucers around the first three plants in the photo are supposed to do wonders for tomato growth. Three of the Wayaheads are planted in them. We'll see.

The onion transplants are doing great. Check here to see their names and how they looked at the beginning of the month.

Teamwork

Nothing like an outside threat to bring a team together. Murphy and Tang are on the lookout for the Yellow Cat. They've both achieved a certain level of detente with him. They'll creep up stealthily and keep him at bay by staring at him. But given an opening, Murphy is still inclined to dash up and give the Yellow Cat a swipe.


The St Laurent Rhode Island Reds are visiting the Sumner Silver Wynandottes for summer camp while Simon and Angelica are in Germany celebrating their marriage. I was worried for about a minute that the bigger red birds would pick on the little black ones. But no. They hardly go near each other at all. You think maybe some diversity training...? Nah.

I wasn't quick enough this morning to get a picture of the Downey Woodpecker on the Hummingbird feeder. It occurred to me he was looking for ants. After he left, I checked the feeder. There are some ants stuck to the sticky tape above the feeder, but none in the feeder. I'll never know whether or not that's because the woodpecker got them.

Friday Cat Blogging

This stray cat has been hanging around for more than a year. It's hard to call him a stray anymore. He sort of lives here, at least part time.

I often know he's here 'cause I see one of the house cats staring intently at some spot where I can't see the other cat, but they can. Apparently the yellow cat's becoming more confident. Today he was out in the open lawn. I cropped this photo, but beyond the frame to the upper left, Murphy's watching from behind a tree.

Last fall the yellow cat nearly drove out Murphy just a few days after we brought Murphy here from the SPCA. But through the winter I fed the yellow cat on cold nights when I knew he was here. When I realized he was sleeping in the woodshed, I left a blanket on the floor for him.

There have been some cat spats. But they're beginning to tolerate each other. The yellow cat's learning that now I'll only feed him when I see him. He comes to the kitchen door with increasing frequency. Usually one of the house cats yowls to announce his presence. One morning, months ago, Murphy ran straight into the glass door in a misguided attempt to run the yellow cat off.

Yellow Cat and Tang look an awful lot alike except for the long-hair/short-hair thing. That's Tang at the top and Yellow Cat peeking over the leaves. Yellow Cat has extra toes - as does Tang. In fact, he has the longest toes I've ever seen on a cat.


I got within five or six feet before Yellow Cat took shelter under the porch.

He looks pretty relaxed but I'm pretty sure he's fully aware of Murphy watching from above.

Weekend Project?

I really, really don't need another weekend project. But doesn't this herb spiral look like fun? Rebecca found it at Gardening Tips. I've often wished the herbs were closer to the kitchen. And I've been wanting to try my hand at stonework. And I'd like to add a focal point to the yard.

If I add up the time I spend walking to the vegetable garden for a pinch of this or that (tho' I really enjoy these walks) and the time I spend asking Maggy to go get something for me (and explaining to her where to look for it) it seems like a good investment of time to build this.

If you wander over to Rebecca's Pocket, check out the 2007 summer reading lists that are starting to show up. Or even previous years reading lists.

Fun with Squirrels

I may have found the simplest ever way to discourage squirrels. I usually don't mind letting the squirrels share the birdfood. But Monday night I was annoyed when eight squirrels dominated the feeders in the early evening while birds lined up in surrounding trees waiting for a chance at the food. So, when I went inside at 7:00 I took the tube feeders with me.

The next morning the eight squirrels were there feeding on the ground. I'm sure they would have been in the platform feeder but it was empty. The birds still had access to one tube feeder (which is surrounded by a squirrel proof cage) and the suet feeders which hang in a hawthorn whose thorns discourage the squirrels. By late morning the squirrels were all gone. So I rehung the feeders expecting to have to take them down again by evening. The birds promptly returned. But surprisingly the squirrels did not.

I really didn't expect the squirrels to stay away. So, at Agway later that day, I bought one of those spinning things. Tuesday evening the squirrels still weren't back but I assembled the spinning thing anyway and put it up Wednesday morning. Wednesday evening we sat on the deck eagerly awaiting the circus we expected when the squirrels inevitably returned. But, again surprisingly, no squirrels. Thursday one kind of ratty squirrel showed up to feed on the platform feeder but wasn't tempted at all by the tube feeder with the new spinning mechanism. Friday and Saturday, still just the one ratty squirrel.

But this morning, there they were. All eight squirrels - maybe more - lined up waiting for a turn on the merry-go-round. While the one ratty squirrel diligently ate from the platform feeder, the others, one at a time, each ran across the bar over the platform feeder to reach the merry-go-round. Each one in its turn gingerly stretched down trying to reach past the spinning mechanism to get a grip on the tube feeder. Each one would just make it as the feeder started to spin slowly. As the spinning speeds up, the squirrel wraps his or her legs around the feeder and tries vainly to hold on. One tried valiantly to climb back up to the bar but failed and plopped to the ground like all the others.

The instructions with the merry-go-round warned that batteries might wear down quickly at first because of the squirrels experimenting. I had missed the beginning of the show, but it went on for about fifteen minutes before abruptly all the squirrels except the one on the platform feeder ran off. I'll be curious to see if that particular group is satisfied that they can't actually get anything to eat at that feeder.

So, I'm not sure I recommending the spinning thing, except for entertainment value. But I'm pretty sure I can keep most squirrels away by taking down the feeders for a few hours once a week.

It's Summer

Toads are singing. I can walk in and out of the house without changing more than my shoes. The lawn is covered with beautiful Veronica, Violets and Dandelions. We'll hold off a bit on the mowing while we enjoy the flowers. I got my first glimpse of Hummingbirds yesterday and Wood Thrushes showed up two days ago. All kinds of garden plants are chiming in, including this Bleeding Heart.


Bill and I couldn't resist buying a couple of woodland perennials from The Plantsman (whose website I can't locate at the moment.) And these plants from Little York Plantation for the pots on the deck. I don't have much success with roses in the garden but I think these in pots will provide as much pleasure - at least for this season.

Derby Party

We had a great time with the Derby theme last weekend. Most people said it was more fun than they expected. Hmmm... not sure that's complimentary.

We watched the pre-race coverage on and off with our delicious mint juleps. The juleps were definitely the part I thought was better than I expected. I don't like mint very much. But with Bourbon - hey, who cares.

Some of us picked favorites tho' no one actually bet. I think Ed picked Street Sense strictly on the number of the post position - not anything about the horse. Most people were picking favorite numbers or names with apparently no regard at all for the odds. The race itself is the part that people said was more exciting than they expected. You've probably heard, Street Sense came from 19th (out of 20) to finish with a strong lead.

I used the Kentucky Burgoo recipe from the May issue of Cooking Light and it was delicious. The grits, with swiss cheese and garlic was (were?) so good I think I'll make it again. Jimmy's broccoli cornbread was great. I had to chuckle during dinner when someone was trying to remember the name of the winner and simultaneouly from around the table came "Street Smarts," "Street Wise," and "Street Walker." And finally there was the chocolate-pecan tartlets (with a drop of bourbon) - excellent, tho' I think I'll use my own pastry recipe next time.

Carl wins the prize for best costume (or would have if there was actually a prize.

With Leslie and Ally close behind.

Spring Flowers

About half my garden reflects some planning but the other half results from standing in the garden with a plant in one hand and a trowel in the other trying to figure out what to do. Sometimes I just get lucky with garden flower combinations.

This double bloodroot (top left) went in to the garden about twenty years ago the Ranunculus (lower left) perhaps ten years ago and it's spread over to this spot, the Anemones (on the right) - I'm not really sure where the came from or when. But here they are, in a photo that's not very flattering. They look really great in the garden.