“Taking Care of Business”

ESPatch Jan 20, 2013 5 comments

The Patch computer has taken a turn for the worse the past couple of weeks.

What started off as a slight motherboard sniffle quickly mutated into something much more sinister, ultimately resulting in my laptop not booting up even in safe mode. Yes it was time to see a specialist for a professional opinion.

I will have the final prognoses later this week, in the meantime I am relegated to writing this post on ancient laptop that obtains power from a modified bicycle and an elaborate series of wheels and pulleys that reside in the corner of my living room.

HG Wells This is really annoying for anyone trying to watch TV due to the annoying clanking and whirring and spinning of its old fashioned drives. “Aw come on dad, tell me you are not going to type, Ninjago is coming on!”

Another unfortunate prognosis was made this week that caused a flurry of activity involving our washing machine, combs and copious amounts of coconut oil.

You guessed it…

polls_mut_head_lice_0732_628122_poll_xlarge

head lice.

Pediculosis capitis

Brrr, brrr and more brrr.

This shot was taken through a magnifying glass.

My wife, being a hairdresser, on discovering these hard to spot critters, went swiftly into action. With the silence of a nit-picking professional ninja she gathered up sheets, fabrics, clothes, combs, brushes and hats…our washer and dryer have been running ever since. At some point during the activity we all smelled a pungent burning aroma but could not figure out where it was emanating from. A couple of hours later:

It turned out that it was my comb…in the microwave!

“Captain, any threat of contagion has been neutralized”.

With the neutralization of the Klingons, events have returned to our usual definition of normality.

For him it was back to stripping the seed heads from the cattails…

…giggling, and depositing them over his grandparents and resident house elf.

For our creatively tormented chef, some rather dubious looking “oysters” on-the-half-shell remarkably found their way onto the evening menu:

Err, thank you Chef?

And where there are cattails, a fire is never far behind:

This fire used two cattail heads as tinder with some impressive fall on your back results:

Some Indians burned these mature seed heads to extract the small seeds from the fluff to add to gruel and soups. If dried the seed heads (still attached to their stalks) can also be dipped into melted animal fat or oil and used as torches.

Other things happening in the Patch:

I can smell you but I cannot see you.

We have a number of resident cats in the Patch that torment him on a daily bases and as much as he sounds ferocious, all the cats know he cries like a baby, he really does cry like a baby. Normally he has a significant beagle howl but when a cat clips him with a sharpened claw all his vocal bravado immediately retreats into a ridiculous dog-scream, he is a shadow of his former self.

Edvard Munch_The Scream

When the unimaginable occurs and his embarrassing”scream” has been emitted for all to hear and laugh at, he retreats to a safe distance and lets out a normal howl, but it is not quite normal, it is an ego shattered howl and he knows that everyone else knows that it is.

I cut back my gopher plants a few weeks ago and they have rallied, producing a lot of new growth

I will cut back the old spears further when these new shoots get bigger. The old spears provide some protection from trampling (especially if sharpened into latex dripping points)

This year I also have two baby gophers that I did not plant:

Let there be gophers.

It looks like it is going to be a good year for whatever this is? baby Larkspur?

Finally:

A couple more before and after shots of a recent garden design I have completed, here is the front proposal:

Grass removal, naturally.

Meandering pathways replace linear walkway / driveway to facilitate a more interesting flow through the space both functionally and visually.

Stay Tuned for:

“Wings”

All material © 2013 for eastsidepatch. Unauthorized
intergalactic reproduction strictly prohibited, and
punishable by late (and extremely unpleasant)
14th century planet Earth techniques.

“The Tent in the Woods”

ESPatch Nov 20, 2012 6 comments

Artemesia and copper canyon daisy,

Tagetes lemmonii

Sara and John Lemmon-camping on Mt Lemmon

John Gill Lemmon, a self-educated botanist, respectfully called the “professor” and his wife Sara collected Copper Canyon Daisy in southeastern Arizona sometime in the early 1880s. The descendants of these plants were then introduced into the nursery trade.

Sara and John met in 1876 at a lecture he gave in Santa Barbara, California. A keen botanist herself they were married four years later and, as you do, embarked on a “botanical wedding trip” to Arizona in 1881, a part of the world at that time very few botanists had visited.

Photo: Wikipedia

If running around collecting and cataloging plants was not enough, they also climbed to the peak of the mountain they christened Mount Lemmon, after Sara, the first European-descended woman to make the ascent.

Sarah was also responsible for the designation of the California Poppy as the state flower (1903), (another plant that pairs well with artemesia).

Both the Lemmon and Plummer surnames are used in the scientific names of many Arizona plants discovered by this prolific husband-and-wife team.

Red Admiral

Vanessa atalanta

These butterflies seem particularly fond of the copper canyon daisies. This species over-winters in southern Texas. They have descended in large numbers this week in the Patch, on the final stretch of their migration.

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2012/05/the_great_butterfly_migration.html

The pungent foliage of the copper canyon daisy is either liked (citrus-like, anise – licorice tones etc) or disliked

by humans, but it sure does a good job of deterring foraging deer from eating it…

…Jenny.

Moving along:

Short-lived mist flower blooms are now turning brown,

creating their unique “fluffy-cloud” aesthetic as they float through this basket grass in my front garden.

Basket grass takes a while to mature but when established it requires nothing, and I mean nothing, no water, no cutting back in the winter – it just looks steel-blue-good all year round. The only maintenance required is to cut back the occasional cream-colored bloom stalk at the base when they brown.

Mexican bush sage keeps on going with its

purple fuzzy flower spikes. Mine are now so leggy I have almost got two separate plants courtesy of the new central growth.

I cannot bring myself to cut it back quite yet as the bees are still swarming the old growth / flowers.

I think I can safely say that this red passion vine is doing quite well on my front porch:

Finally:

Celosia ranks up there with the mist flowers for attracting a wide variety of insects.

It will soon be time to bribe and set small pink stained fingers to work gathering seeds. The price unfortunately goes up with each passing year.

Inspirational image of the week:

Stay Tuned for:

“Biddy from Sligo”

All material © 2012 for eastsidepatch. Unauthorized
intergalactic reproduction strictly prohibited, and
punishable by late (and extremely unpleasant)
14th century planet Earth techniques.

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