Frost

“Twelve ESP Days of Christmas”

ESPatch Dec 14, 2009 16 comments

On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me,

Twelve mother of millions,

Eleven pipers piping,

Ten blooms are blooming,

Nine ladies dancing, (what?…I had nothing!)

Eight stink horns stinking, (okay still struggling)!

Seven swans a-swimming,

The Botox Lady’s spraying,

FIVVEEE “precious” rings…

Four inflatable turds!

Three Naboo Men,

Two anoles in love,

And a Tahoe’s occupants did flee!

I have been feeling musically inclined of late, can you tell?

Moving on…Oh yes, we are getting well into the Christmas spirit here in the Patch. Our tree is up, our moth-eaten stockings are hung, and more importantly, there are a couple of excited hobbits that inspect both objects on a nightly basis, with magical childhood anticipation.

I know what this one wants… a new “amphibious” Thomas the Tank Engine, this one stopped running as soon as it’s wind-up engine hit this water feature, like he cared.

Looking like Hogwarts candles illuminating the main hall, these amaranth seed pods give the impression that they are under some form of enchantment, hovering in space.

The candles are hovering all around the patch.

This hall was the inspiration for Hogwarts in the Harry Potter movie. Only Oxford students of this Christ Church college are allowed to dine here. Staying on the Harry Potter theme…

“Almost got it”!

This seedpod looked remarkably like the Golden Snitch, albeit a little rustier. This rogue snitch must have left the quidditch field and got hung up on my back fence some time ago.

Southern Green Stink Bug.

Nezara viridula

I assume that this evil green chomper is eating nuts from my pecan trees, they love nuts, kernel spot of pecan is caused by the feeding of this stink bug. These guys will also munch on practically any food crop they can sink their nasty teeth into. This one flew off before I had time to hit it with an over-sized mallet. They remind me of the aliens in The Fifth Element.

Although it is not a welcome sight, the form of this bug is really quite something, with it’s wings nesting in a recess on the top of it’s low-profile body. It’s sculpted under-carriage. Perhaps what is needed to eradicate this pest is a rather over-sized, and extremely nasty looking brown tongue, to lick the bugs from foliage?

“Eeewww! Watch out for that sotol, giant tongue”!

You have got to be kidding me! (knees knock together, left leg flies uncontrollably upward, jaw involuntarily wiggles left to right, hands clench, you know the drill, right Germi?).

“ahhhhllghmoooocall that a tonguemooooo.”

Can you guess what this nasty looking cow looking tongue once was? Go on, I dare you…quite bizarre, it even had the texture of a tongue when I squeezed the edge of it…errrrr….Gross, well you knew I was going to! Touching this cold tongue sent me into an involuntary silly walk around my decomposed granite pathways, back to the relative safety of my Galleon ship home.

This giant timber bamboo is really visible now that the pecan tree that it is growing through has lost all of it’s leaves. The bamboo has now grown above the canopy of this tree.

This pecan is destined for the chop very soon, the sooner the better. It is really scrappy anyway, dropping this and a bit of that all throughout the year. If it isn’t dropping pecan husks it is dropping the droppings from the multitudes of web-worms that usually inhabit the tree. Have I said it is always dropping something?

I am continuously sweeping this concrete patio. I have another pecan to the right of this one that will also fall under the wood-cutters axe soon enough, when the three giant timber plants below it mature. I am under no illusion that this bamboo grove will also shed lots of stuff, but bamboo sheaths are much easier dealt with than the messier “products” that the Pecan trees drop.

Another tree that I am continuously hacking at is my Vitex. This tree was in pretty bad shape when we first move into our house. I have made it my goal to keep shaping and trimming this shrub-tree to raise it’s canopy to new higher heights. Here it is on the right after today’s most recent haircut.

Talking of hacking back…This red passion vine now resembles a mass of seaweed after our recent freezes. I wondered what manner of monsters were laying in waiting for me in it’s murky depths. I reluctantly went to the shed to get my gloves and pruners. This vine did not freeze at all last year and naturally it got quite enormous. As I approached it with my pruners a large tentacle lashed out of the undergrowth and encircled my arm.

Staying on the subject of sea creatures, check out Korean designer, chul an kwak’s dynamic tables…

Try sitting on one of these if you can, before they scuttle away and bury themselves in the mud-flats.

Sotols, agaves, ghosts, gophers and bottles all just swooned through the cold night temperatures with ease. I love this bed!

As did this new addition, Red Carpet Sedum.

Sedum spurium ‘Elizabeth’

“I hereby give this sedum my frosty blessing”.

Inspirational image of the week…

“I am not a lover of lawns. Rather would I see daises in their thousands,ground ivy, hawkweed,and even the hated plantain with tall stems, and dandelions with splendid flowers and fairy down, than the too-well-tended lawn”.

William Henry Hudson, author and naturalist.

(Thanks for this JuJu)

(1841-1922)

Stay Tuned for:

“Has He Been?”

All material © 2009 for eastsidepatch. Unauthorized
intergalactic reproduction strictly prohibited, and
punishable by late (and extremely unpleasant)
14th century planet Earth techniques.

“Down the Rabbit Hole”

ESPatch Dec 8, 2009 11 comments

Quite literally!

Rabbit holes have a very different meaning to me than the average person, why? Well first of all, as a kid, I spent a lot of time around them, inside them, or digging through them. I would invariably find myself at dusk, high up on an exposed Scottish fell with an arm extended “James Herriot” fashion inside one. I was trying to feel for anything that had fur, or that moved, because this meant I would be able to return to the light and warmth of my home and some dinner.

I hated doing this, it was like the endurance box Paul Atreides was tested with, by the Bene Gesserit Witch in the movie Dune. You just had no idea what was waiting for your hand round the next corner, it was the dark unknown… a rabbit, badger, chucky, a hungry troll with gnashing teeth?… Oh no, you could not let your imagination get away from you, especially as the light faded.

Now why would I subject myself to this you ask? Well it was usually to extract one or both of my pet polecats “Bonnie and Clyde” from a rabbit hole where they had caught a rabbit, ate it, then selfishly decided to take a long underground sleep (they always do). You never want your ferret to catch a rabbit below ground ever.

When this annoyance happens there is only one course of action to be taken, that is to dig through the hill-side and extract the ferret. First you have to locate the ferret underground, to do this we used beepers attached to the ferrets collars. Once located, then you dig, and you dig, you take the Bene Gesserit test a few more times, and then you dig some more, until you finally grab a hold of some fur. I am pretty sure I developed a lot of my current shoveling techniques during this period of my life.

Ferreting when executed correctly goes something like this: Locate rabbit warren, cover holes with fish or purse nets, put ferret in hole, wait for rabbits to bolt, jump on rabbit in net, (the next few bits you probably don’t want to hear about), sell rabbits to a local butcher, obtain pocket money…done!

A bygone pie?

Now before you all boycott the patch in support of these furry long-eared rodents, there is something important you need to know.

There is a disease in the UK, the most hideous of diseases that turns rabbits from the lovable creatures we know into mutations that resemble creatures in “The Thing”. The disease is in the US but it effects the European rabbitmore severely. I wish I could say I was exaggerating or joking when I say this, but I am not, okay perhaps just the tiniest bit. These mutated creatures are truly disturbing to witness first hand, and I witnessed a lot where I grew up, in fact I even jumped on a few ferreting…a memory I would very much like to rid myself off…

The disease is called Myxomatosis, as kids, we called it simply myxi, and the jury is out on whether it is a man-made or a naturally occurring virus . Certainly man knowingly spread this heinous virus into new countries and areas.

The virus was deliberately introduced into Australia in 1950 in an attempt to control rabbit infestation and population there. It was devastatingly effective, reducing the estimated rabbit population from 600 million to 100 million in two years. It was also deliberately introduced in the UK to try and reduce the rabbit population after World War II. By 1955, about 95% of rabbits in the UK were dead, a staggering statistic. The disease is still common in the UK today,and it is not uncommon for shooters (and drivers) to specifically target infected rabbits, viewing the act as being merciful. I will not go into details about the specifics of the disease for fear of giving you nightmares, but where I grew up, keeping the rabbit population in check helped to keep the disease in check.

Bonnie and Clyde both eventually entered a rabbit hole and were never seen again, returning back to the wild where I had initially found them. Myself? I don’t care if I ever see one more rabbit hole, or one more myxi rabbit, as long as I live.

I know you are now ready to move onto some more traditional seasonal cheer…

…but I am afraid you will have to wait a little longer…

I scooped this dragonfly out of my pond after one of our recent frosts, I thought it was dead as I took these shots. My eldest decided that she wanted to take it to school for show and tell. We placed it in a zip-lock bag where it proceeded to “reanimate”. I could tell it had reanimated by the screams emanating from inside the house, it turned out a leg had apparently moved, I was skeptical. I decided to keep it locked inside the bag, yes I was performing dragonfly euthanasia, it was not going to live after all, even if it’s leg had indeed moved. Did you spot the hitchhiker on it’s wing? What IS that?

Moving on…

This dwarf papyrus

Cyperus papyrus!

was packed with tiny water droplets the other morning. I have this one paired in a small container with horsetail reed which works well as they are both about the same height.

Some more water jewelry mimicking what is left of the seed pods on my “Jewels of Opar” plant.

Really attractive now!

I think I can safely say that this will be my final post on this plant for this year! I cut these jewels back to the ground and made sure that I gave these tiny round seeds a good shake in various places around the patch. I could hear all the tiny seeds hitting the ground…like music to my elephant ears.

Perhaps some music might cheer them up a little…a drooping elephant ear, a soggy reminder of a good freeze.

It is amazing what a difference one hard frost can make in a garden. Here is a vibrant before and frozen after image of the same view taken last week.

What a stark difference!

Sedum nussbaumerianum

or Coppertone sedum, has turned a tell-tale frost-bitten pink color. It looks like there is still life at the base of the plant. I really want this plant to make it through the winter.

My Salvia leucantha also took an icy beating and is now cut back to the ground.

Even the hobbits have been scuttling underground to escape the cold via their container trap-door. They tell me that this passageway leads to a forest in Canada?

Inspirational images of the week…

Images by Free Spirit Spheres

These forest orbs are available for overnight rental or purchase on Vancouver Island. Tom Chudleigh, the conceptual designer behind these hobbit houses in the sky, developed the idea for his own need to meditate in the wild. Tom was also searching for a concept that would allow people to move into the forest without having to take it down first by chopping trees to make room for houses.

So if you are ready for a lifestyle change, get out of the rat-race in one of these enchanted pods…they are also quite interesting on the inside…

What a great place to read Lord of the Rings.

Is that a microwave?