Scrubby Is Back!

Day 216: Scrubby is back! For the last few years, a California Scrub-jay has been showing up at my feeders as their range expands northwards. I was familiar with the species from seeing them on southwest Washington prairies, and when the first one showed up here about ten years ago, I wrote it off as an "occasional." Perhaps I was a bit too precipitous in that assessment, because they seem to now be one of my regulars, although they come and go throughout the season. This particular subspecies (Aphelocoma californica immanis) tends to be a bit more drab than A. californica californica, with more brown on the back. It is also somewhat larger than the birds found in California. The strong "eyebrow," less prominent in females, tells me that this bird is a male. Now why couldn't he have arrived in time for Big Day?

Centaurea Montana

Day 215: Quite a sizeable number of plants we now think of as weeds are in fact escapees from gardens. They become "weedy" when they spread beyond manicured spaces, and may find themselves listed as "invasive" when there are no natural predators to control them. My mother's flower bed hosted a large clump of Centaurea montana (aka Bachelor's Buttons) which as a child, I adored. They never crept out of bounds, didn't spring up spontaneously in neighbours' yards, nor did they reseed in our own landscaping. When I moved here, I discovered them growing on the road verge not far from home so, thinking in terms of free ornamentals, I loaded the shovel in the car and lifted a clump to add to the Barren Wasteland between the house and garage. I am pleased to say that they have never extended themselves beyond their allotted space, and therefore are not a "weed" as far as I am concerned.

Veronica Persica

Day 214: I find it very hard to use the word "weed" when discussing Veronica persica because its cheery blue faces are such bright spots amid the dandelion mop-tops and coarse grass which passes for "lawn" at my house, but unfortunately, this little plant is non-native and therefore deserving of the epithet. To its credit, it is not considered an invasive except in certain agricultural venues, none of which exist in this area. It may also be called "Speedwell," owing to the medicinal properties attributed to it. It can be included in salves for irritated skin, and a tea made of its leaves is said to alleviate stomach ulcers, although it is also diuretic. I prefer to let it grow, where it soothes my eyes with its simple beauty.

Smiley

Day 213: Who could resist getting up close and personal with that cute li'l smile? While I was down on my hands and knees conversing with Smiley, he kept tasting the air with his tongue, presumably trying to determine whether or not I was a predator. I assured him that I meant no harm, and after I'd captured his portrait, he allowed me to pass by without slithering off into the brush. Thamnophis sirtalis, our common Garter Snake, is harmless. They come with a variety of stripe colours (yellow, red, blue or even green) and can be as much as 3-4 feet long. Smiley had some bends and I couldn't quite see the tip of his tail, but I'd guess he was on the high end of that range, and if not the largest example I've ever seen, but definitely respectable in size. His diet consists of a variety of things, including slugs, snails, mice and worms, so garter snakes in your garden are a good thing. When the weather is warm, they may hide out beneath flower pots, under bits of wood or in other shady shelter, but since they are cold-blooded, they often seek out spots of sun in which to warm themselves for the day's activities.

Lychnis Flos-cuculi, Ragged Robin

Day 212: Global Big Day may have been a bust (I only recorded 15 species), but at least I had a Ragged Robin. Thanks to one of my sisters-of-the-heart, I now have several growing in a large flower pot just outside the kitchen door. She sent me the seeds, but I rather suspect that the Juncoes found them to their liking since only a few rosettes developed. They did not form flowers last year, but this year, they are lush with buds. Lychnis flos-cuculi may also be called Silene flos-cuculi. Although it is an introduced species and has naturalized in the eastern US, it is not considered invasive, and is a popular addition to "wild" gardens. Pink or not, I'm happy to give Ragged Robin a home in my yard. As for the poor turnout for my Big Day, I'm blaming sunspots.

Aurorae

Day 211: The camera registered colours my eyes could barely perceive, but even what was visually apparent was the most spectacular aurora borealis I've experienced in my entire lifetime. The entire sky was filled with curtains and streamers, east to west, north to south, green and red and white. They changed gradually, almost imperceptibly, fading from view in one minute, returning over the next five, sometimes blocking stars and sometimes studded with them. I'd been getting up every hour to check, but it was not until 1:15 AM that the show started. I could not pull myself away despite the nip in the early morning air, and spent almost an hour and a half observing the phenomenon. It was only when the last streamers had paled that I went inside and crawled under the electric blanket to take the chill out of my legs and hands. Worth losing sleep over? Absolutely! And if there's a second act tonight, I'll be out there.

Addendum: You get a bonus today. Sunspot AR3664 (the culprit) can be seen in the lower left quadrant.

Iris Tenax, Oregon Flag

Day 210: Also known commonly as Oregon Flag or Toughleaf Iris, lovely little Iris tenax is native to Washington and is found primarily in the oak woodlands of the state's southwestern prairies. That's why I pulled up short yesterday when I found it alongside one of Pack Forest's less travelled roads. There were two fully open specimens and one bud, plus several clumps of stiff, short-bladed leaves spaced along a distance of roughly ten feet. None were in evidence anywhere else during my hike. I don't think there's a single oak tree anywhere in Pack, so the appearance of this plant raises the question of how it got there, especially since it is rhizomatous. Could a rhizome have been caught in the tread of some piece of machinery and dropped off at this site? That seems a bit of a stretch, although some means of transport must have brought seeds of my other find for the day: Spotted Jewelweed, a serious invasive. It was also alongside the road, and only covered about 25 square feet. For a brief second, I wondered if my own boots had been the medium until I remembered that I'm always in water sandals in Jewelweed country because I'm surveying by kayak. Malignant or benign, plants can be carried from one location to another when root fragments or seeds are introduced deliberately or accidentally.

Double The Fun

Day 209: I had a little problem a while back when I tried to close the cedar chest. It was so full of wool and handspun that I had to sit on the lid and then weight it with a couple of boxes to keep it down. A phrase I use often when I'm down to the last of something came to mind, and I said aloud, "Why am I archiving this?" and thus the seeds of several new projects were sown. First of all, I pulled out a couple of bags of bamboo fiber and set to spinning it into fingering weight yarn. Next, I grabbed three differently coloured bags of wool top and my blending board for spinning a heathered worsted weight. You'd have thought the diminution might have put a dent in the stockpile, but it merely gave it room to expand. I was going to have to take desperate measures in order to reduce the bulk. But what? The brainstorm hit a few nights ago: weave a wool throw using 8/2 cotton warp and the "double-width" technique on my table loom. I checked my inventory (I record fiber, yards and weight, and calculate yards per ounce on a spreadsheet) and found that I had more than enough "cinnamon twist" for a lap robe. This one is likely destined to be a donation to my favourite environmental group's annual auction, but there's another huge bag of grey Gotland wool waiting in the wings.

American Goldfinch, Spinus Tristis

Day 208: The Goldfinches (Spinus tristis) are almost in full "bloom" now, having exchanged their drab winter colouration for summer's yellow plumage. They're still a bit pale, but even the females have taken on the greenish cast which makes them easy to pick out in a crowd of LGBs ("little grey birds"). In flight, there's no mistaking a Goldfinch. They fly like they're hanging bunting or a Christmas swag, in swooping dips followed by a peak which pins the top of the pattern: swoop, pin, swoop, pin, swoop, at last coming to rest on a branch or wire. As a human who has hiked trails like that, I can assure you that it has nothing to do with energy conservation, this going downhill just to climb back up again. So why has this flight pattern been selected for in their genes? Some bird species exhibit the same trait, but others are straight-line fliers, never losing altitude until it's time to land. There must be some advantage yet to be proposed by science for the swag-like flight of these golden ornaments of the sky.

Mourning Dove, Zenaida Macroura

Day 207: You could almost mistake their coo for the hoot of an owl, these Mourning Doves. Although as a general rule, I don't have much use for anything even remotely resembling a pigeon, Zenaida macroura is not obnoxious. They don't overwhelm the feeders. In fact, they clean up the ground after the smaller birds are through sorting for the choicest seeds. They perch politely on the fence rails and overhead wires, engaging in soft conversation and waiting their turn. Not so the blasted Band-tailed Pigeons which arrive shortly on the heels of the Evening Grosbeaks, their minute pigeon brains keying in on the grosbeaks' mapping system. I spend a lot of time rushing at the windows to chase the Band-taileds away, but the Mourning Doves are welcome. That said, an occasional undesirable look-alike shows up: the Eurasian Collared-dove. The Collared-dove is lighter in colour, and has a small patch of black on the back of the neck. The black "collar" is not always evident unless the bird has its neck extended.

October Medlar, Nefle De October

Day 206: The French varietal name had me puzzled. For one thing, I couldn't say it even after listening to Google Translate's robot repeating it multiple times, but I was surprised to see that "Nefle" was actually in its dictionary. It means...yep, you guessed it..."medlar." This, therefore, is the "October Medlar," which gives a clue as to when the fruit is fully developed. Note that I say "developed" as opposed to "ready for use," because medlars must have begun to decompose before they are edible. They should be left on the tree until a few hard frosts have occurred, or until they begin to drop naturally. That said, the story behind these two photos is that the friend who has supplied me with medlars in the past will be moving away this summer. In order to "keep medlar love alive" (as another friend put it), I took cuttings from her tree, hoping to propagate it from slips and/or grafts, but obviously, that puts picking medlars pretty far down the road. As a backup, I began searching for an affordable tree, and I wasn't having much luck. Behind the scenes, yet another friend was searching as well, and to my great astonishment, came up with a nursery within reasonable driving distance which had two varieties: Nefle de October and Breda Giant, both as two-year old grafted plants in one-gallon pots, and at half the price of the foot-long bare-root cuttings I'd found on my own. I called the nursery early Saturday morning, and headed out to be on their doorstep when they opened. Nefle de October is a mid-sized fruit, as opposed to Breda Giant. The "giant" varieties tend to be less flavourful, so I picked out a 3.5' tall Nefle which will go in the ground later this week. I keep telling myself that at my age, it's probably pointless to hope for enough fruit for a batch of jelly before I'm too old to make it, but the planting geas comes strong upon me when spring is in the air, a call I must obey.

Hoya Carnosa

Day 205: But for the fact that mine has variegated foliage, this is your good old standard "Wax Plant," Hoya carnosa. The flower heads tend to be significantly larger than any of my other less common species, and the individual "stars" are almost 3/4" across. This species is also more fragrant, filling the air above my customary chair with its perfume, particularly in the morning and evening hours. Hoyas have a reputation for being indestructible. While that's not entirely true (I've lost a few over the years), they do tend to tolerate neglectful watering, although bloom production will be affected. Some species flower more readily than others, and at different times of the year.

Global Big Day

Day 204: You can celebrate Star Wars Day if that's your thing, or I might have been inclined to join you in observing World Naked Gardening Day if the weather hadn't turned both wet and cold, but what we're really excited about around here is that Global Big Day is only a week away! Yes, May 11th is circled on my calendar, and I have my checklist printed out. No, I won't be travelling to the far reaches. I'll just be standing at my window ticking off species at the feeders. I don't expect this year to break the record of 29 due to the fact that few of the migrants have arrived yet, but if I'm lucky, I might see twenty. When it comes right down to it, that's pretty respectable for a backyard bird-a-thon.

Let's Propagate!

Day 203: When a Parkie friend announced that she and her family were contemplating a move, I realized that I would no longer have access to medlars from her tree. I have not yet perfected the art of making medlar jelly, and don't know anyone else with a tree, so I asked her if I could take some slips. I did some research, came up with a couple of possible propagation methods, one of which involved grafting medlar scions onto either hawthorn or quince rootstock, both of which I have in the yard. It's been many, many years since I did a graft, so I reviewed the technique and went visiting with secateurs in hand. Two things were operating against me, though. The first was that they had pruned the tree of almost all the one-year wood. The second was that the new wood was all very small in diameter and would be difficult to graft. As a backup plan, I took cuttings, dipped them in rooting hormone and stuck them down in prepared medium. As anticipated, the grafting did not go well, but the slips appear to be in good shape. Time will tell if they hold their terminal leaves and form roots. In any event, it will be years before I can try making medlar jelly again.

Peony In Bud

Day 202: It's the time of year when everybody posts pictures of peony buds, so far be it from me to miss the opportunity to jump on the bandwagon. My peonies came with the house, one of very few ornamentals to be found in the overgrown flower beds. The roots were buried so deeply that they never would have bloomed. In fact, I only found them while digging out weeds. Once lifted to the proper planting depth (partially exposed to sunlight), they rewarded me with the blood-red blossoms which had been my father's favourites. Over the years, I shifted them from one location to another until they found a final home beneath the east living room window where I can admire them while watching the birds at the feeders. Even after the flowers have shed their petals, the foliage remains lush until autumn.

May Day 'Quet

Day 201: There are only a few occasions when I cut flowers from my garden to bring indoors, and May Day is one of them. When I was in elementary school, the custom of leaving May baskets on friends' and neighbours' porches was still in common practice. We usually made the baskets at school, sometimes simply making cones, other times weaving paper strips together. We'd fill them with whatever we could purloin, ostensibly from our parents' gardens, but often as not, they included things we'd snitched elsewhere, and nearly always, the baskets were augmented by dandelions or other flowering weeds. The idea was that you would hang the basket on your neighbour's front doorknob, ring or knock, and then run away to hide behind a bush or the corner of the house. The neighbour was always expected to exclaim, "Oh, someone has left us flowers!" or other appropriate phrase, as if they had forgotten the day entirely. It was such a simple gesture of thoughtfulness and friendly remembrance, but somehow the practice has faded into near-oblivion today. So, because I cannot knock on your door, my May basket for you comes as a photograph. Happy May Day!