Gross Things

“Bread Rock”

ESPatch Apr 1, 2010 18 comments

Gross Post Alert!…Gross Post Alert!

The stench inside this cavern I cannot put into words, for fear of involuntary retching over my laptop keyboard once again just remembering it (mops side of mouth with Kleenex). It really was the most diabolical combination of fermented sweet and sour, and I am not talking about a kimchee – esque aroma, (which I love) oh no! Let me try and explain it, just to get you in the appropriate gag arena: Imagine a sickly sweet pumpkin pudding aroma, combined simply with fizzing rotten chicken (description courtesy of my oldest hobbit, minus the fizzing), it also had the texture of moist bread! (Burp… starts to look around worried).

This nasty cavern, (caverns being a popular post-topic recently in the Patch), was created as I started to examine this thing of immaculate beauty…

My largest

Colocasia

or giant elephant ear. Granted it is looking more like the painful stump of an elephant’s foot right now, but not for long, not for long at all!

I have left this tuber in the ground for the past four years, no problem, but this year’s prolonged cold winter temperatures had apparently taken their squishy toll. I prodded it, my hobbits prodded it, it started to ooze flesh, this could not be good. Then we all prodded it some more. Remember the infamous scene in poltergeist when the paranormal investigator started to touch his face, then proceeded to dig in his fingers and pull off his face?

Well that’s how we got started with this Taro…A prod led to a poke that led to a gouge that…

led to a push…

That led to the Taro finally “giving way” in a scene reminiscent of the horrible resuscitation scene from “The Thing”.

I think we all remember what disgusting “thing” happens next! I digress. When the head of the taro rolled back everyone recoiled and “ewwed” simultaneously, turning our faces away from the smell that hit us like a tsunami of flatulence. A stink horn is a terrible thing (right G?) http://thegerminatrix.com/?p=637 but this rank atrocity came pretty close as far as tickling ones stomach release valve.

“It’s just a rotten Taro ESP, nothing to be scared about”.

If you say so scary Kane! Brrrr

A couple of hours after the decapitation, I reluctantly revisited the carnage and found these tiny iridescent

Dolichopus

flies having a great time, their wings flicking back and forth in sick excitement.

These tiny, tiny flies are really interesting visually, looking like molten metal, their segmented bodies are really quite amazing. This one is about to make a left turn apparently.

Enough nastiness…

What!

Okay I promise that is it on the gross front…

Today was the day to move a rather large rock, a rock that has stayed where it fell from a truck that delivered a large delivery of decomposed granite some time ago.

The rock was wiggled and pried, rotated and shuffled down the slope until it came to rest and leveled in a more appropriate location…Thanks Bob at Draco! http://dracogardens.blogspot.com/ (and “PP” for the pry-bar and strategic leveling).

…right in front of my beautiful gas meter. While I was messing around in this part of the Patch I decided to relocate a plant or twelve, the agave and agave parryi var. truncata all coming from this container:

None of these plants were doing particularly well, buried in the shade of the vines that are slowly coming back into the land of the living.

This area took a real beating when the hole where the Tahoe hit http://www.eastsidepatch.com/2009/09/dude-wheres-my-car/ was being repaired, it received a lot of foot traffic and compaction as the house was repaired and repainted. Here it is the area planted up, the bed also has Mexican bush sage pushing through that will soften the scene and provide good contrast with the agave’s as they mature. The two silver Agave , known as Parry’s agave or mescal agave, are slow-growing agave’s native to Mexico (Sonora), hopefully these will reach their full potential in their new, more sun-loving home.

An old ceder carcass is added for a “Waltons” moment.

Now to wait for the scene to fill-in. There is also a line of tiny transplanted feather grasses in front of the moss boulders, well it wouldn’t be the Patch without them after all!

While all this transplanting and rock shuffling was going on, my Hobbits were being way..way too quite…

They had found my last trowel, (my favorite trowel has been missing for the last couple of weeks), I surmise that somehow it has found it’s way to “Davy Jones’ Locker“ at the bottom of my stock tank fish-pond. Mmm…Now I wonder who would do such a thing?

Apparently the hole was to house a pill bug and this snail, a few leaves were thrown in then the hole back filled.

The raggedy pram makes it into yet another shot. After the hole was filled in, my oldest hobbit went to the back garden to check on her new container garden that she has taken over as manager…

…and things seem to be growing very well. This is all hers!

Moving on…

Snail, cactus and verbena…

Here is the same purple verbena in full flight…

attracting once again the zombie / Thestral eyes of this swallowtail butterfly.

“I see the swallowtail too Harry”

Looking like a glittering harlequin’s hat, the blooms on this ghost plant are really quite involved… when you get up close.

This paper wasp is looking pretty sharp, color coordinated on the blooms of this gopher plant…

and my Mexican lime lives, it lives I tell you! This is the first bit of green it has developed at the base of the trunk. I knew she would pull through!

Tiny seed pods are now replacing the fading blooms of the mountain laurels.

The ESP is jumping further out of winter everyday, the survival of my Mexican lime tree and my Barbados cherry has made my week, even both of my dwarf bottle-brushes are steaming back to life. Although spring usually lasts a matter of hours in Central Texas, I plan to make the most of it…an iced turban will be in my future soon enough after all!

That little sotol in the middle of my circular bed is finally starting to develop a presence!

And finally:

I told you I was not finished with these four “nervous” daisies quite yet.

Inspirational Images of the week:

Anybody visiting Zilker Gardens in Austin last weekend for the plant festival, probably noticed this crazy Texas red bud specimen…

MacCrimmon’s Lament [Song]…Mac Umber

Stay Tuned for:

“If you Mock Orange Me, I’ll Satsum ya!”

All material © 2010 for eastsidepatch. Unauthorized
intergalactic reproduction strictly prohibited, and
punishable by late (and extremely unpleasant)
14th century planet Earth techniques.

“I built a Vine Tunnel – and a Troll moved in”

ESPatch May 5, 2008 0 comments

Growing up on a large dilapidated private estate in Scotland (Sprinkell) was somewhat isolating but definitely a magical experience. The forests had ‘dark’ areas in them, we all new them as kids, we gave them names and skirted around them if it was starting to get dark on the walk home. Perhaps these areas had negative energy, or maybe it was purely an aesthetic fear, I am not sure.

The Estate was at one time immaculately tended as well as immense. You could tell this from the nature of the mass plantings and long since covered landscaping and old rope bridges that traversed the river. The now defunct waterfalls, bamboo groves, and vine smothered summer houses were adopted as our playscape in the heart of the forest. My parents rented a cottage on the land while we renovated our future home (a 16th century cottage). We lived in the forest for 5 years in a house aptly called “Outerlands”- (I could write an entire book on the strange happenings in that house!)

The melancholic nature and atmosphere of the estate has stayed with me, the ominous presence of the dark areas is something you really have to ‘acclimatize’ to psychologically or else blind panic kicks in, which of course as kids we took great delight in.

The Mansion on the estate was built in 1734 and enlarged in 1818 by the Maxwell family, proprietors of the Barony of Kirkconnel and Springkell since 1609. In the ruined churchyard of Kirkconnel on the banks of the Kirtle in Springkell estate is the grave of Fair Helen Irving of Kirkconnel Lea of Robert Burns’ poem. (G.R. 250754):

O, that I were where Helen lies!
Night and day on me she cries;
O, that I were where Helen lies
In fair Kirkconnel lees.

O Helen fair! beyond compare,
A ringlet of thy flowing hair,
I’ll wear it still for evermair
Until the day I die.

Curs’d be the hand that shot the shot,
And curs’d the gun that gave the crack,
Into my arms bird Helen lap,
And died for sake o’ me.

O think na ye but my heart was sair,
My love fell down and spake nae mair,
There did she swoon wi’ meikle care
On fair Kirkconnel lee.

I lighted down, my sword did draw,
I cutted him in pieces sma’;
I cutted him in pieces sma;
On fair Kirkconnel lee.

O Helen chaste, thou wert modest
If I were with thee I were blest,
Where thou lies low, and takes they rest
On fair Kirkconnel lee.

I wish my grave was growing green,
A winding sheet put o’er my een,
And I in Helen’s arms lying
In fair Kirkconnel lee!

I wish I were where Helen lies!
Night and day on me she cries;
O, that I were where Helen lies
On fair Kirkconnel lee.

I spent many hours around here, the picture doesn’t do it justice!

The Graveyard on the Estate.

Sprinkell Mansion.

I relay this story to you because I wanted to re-create this sense of the unknown and natural unease in my now much smaller Texas urban landscape, but how to achieve it?. . . hmmm . . . . well, you cannot beat a dark spooky tunnel, can you?

I built one and who moved in?

The entrance to the tunnel is well guarded!

Here is a view of the back entrance, away from the house – the structure is about 12 feet tall – the vines include Wisteria, Trumpet Vine and Confederate Jasmine.

View from the front (tunnel entrance on left)

Tearing the tunnel down was a difficult decision I made at the end of last year – it dawned on me what I had done. I had moved the shed because it blocked a more long distance view of the garden and replaced it with a living structure – Duh!

The tunnel was visually shrinking the yard – oh, and I forgot to add, it was nasty to walk down it, cobwebs, unearthly things falling down your neck etc, my cat at the time used it as her personal bidet! Nope – you don’t wanna walk down there!

The structure was also creating too much shade – it was time to go. I also dug out the two plumosa ferns climbing the Bamboo poles. I did feel quite pleased that I had attained the ‘spooky’ nature I was looking for and I liked it for a while.

I looked around for my Sledge Hammer…here we go again.