A Fragrant Craft

Day 237: The last time I did any pine-needle basketry, the internet had not yet come to this area. There was no Amazon, no Etsy, and I was working with a small handful of needles I'd gathered during a trip to Eastern Washington. I'd only picked up enough to make a coaster-sized disk before I was forced into retirement by lack of supplies. Recently, I found a source for Loblolly needles, about three times the length of anything growing in Washington. I thought, "Well, why not?" and ordered a one-pound bundle. I'm a bit out of practice, but I haven't forgotten the principles. What did slip my mind was how delightfully fragrant this craft can be. After soaking in hot water for half an hour, the needles become quite pliable. I prefer to make a wrapped center as a base for the stitching, which here is cotton rug warp. It's not the material I would have preferred, but I had it on hand. In the future, I'll use waxed polyester cord or synthetic raffia for durability. When making pine-needle baskets, it's advisable to employ some kind of gauge to keep the coils uniform. In this case, I'm using a 1.5" long section cut from a ball-point pen. The diameter is very close to that of a soda straw and a good size for this project. By now it should be obvious to my readers that getting started in pine-needle basketry requires very little outlay, and if you have a pine tree nearby, you can probably start without spending a dime. You only need pine needles, a sharp, large sewing needle, some cord or twine and a gauge, and you can have the scent of Christmas in your home at any time of year.

Dorsal, Ventral

Day 236: I always feel a little like I should be singing "Here We Go Gathering Nuts In May" when I'm out chasing butterflies with the camera, but this one was very interested in the columbine. There were several others as well with varying amounts of bird damage to their wings. They tend to look rather tattered later in the season, so I was anxious to capture the ideal example while I could. The dorsal (topside) and ventral (underside) views are of the same specimen. This is Western Tiger Swallowtail, Papilio rutulus. It is very similar to P. eurymedon, and light individuals of Western are frequently mistaken for Pale where the ranges overlap as they do here. Had I only seen the ventral view, I might have questioned the identification, but the dorsal view showed distinctly yellow wings, fresh and bright, and probably only recently emerged.

Hatiora Rosea

Day 235: We could debate the taxonomy all day. The currently accepted nomenclature for this cactus is Rhipsalidopsis rosea, with Schlumbergera rosea and Hatiora rosea listed as synonyms. It was Hatiora when I first learned it shortly after the internet became "a thing" and I was able to research the plant after cultivating it for a decade or so, and thus it became "Hattie" for short. Some of my plants have nicknames like that: Fitch (Hoya fitchii), Knob (Ceropegia woodii), Bella (Hoya bella). Hattie earned her moniker when she bloomed after spending years as a tangled mass of prickly stems. She'd been known as my "Swedish Christmas cactus" before that, solely because I'd been given a slip by a Swedish friend. Then, as I mentioned, the internet came along and I was able to determine her real name: Hatiora rosea. However, her name was not carved in taxonomic stone, or else taxonomic stone is in the same mineralogical category as talc. In any event, the next time I looked up "Hatiora rosea," she'd undergone a name change. Neither "Schlummy" or "Rhippy" suits her, so Hattie she remains.

Scrubby Is Back!

Day 234: Oh, Scrubby is back! He showed up for dinner late, and with the feeders momentarily empty, resigned himself to picking seed fragments off the ground. He's very shy, and when he noticed me standing at the window with the camera, he flew off. I took advantage of the moment to put out more seed. California Scrub-jays are relatively new to our local area, although I used to see them while I was bicycling through the prairies south and east of Olympia, a good thousand feet below my present elevation. I've only seen them here in the last four or five years. They are as large or slightly larger than our Steller's Jays, and somewhat bulkier overall. A very handsome bird, to my way of thinking, and in any event, all Corvids are welcome here.

A Twenty-Year Wait

Day 233: Twenty years. Twenty years, or maybe even more. That's how long I have been waiting for this to happen. My Clivia is finally blooming! I had just watered it a few days ago and didn't notice buds, but neither was I looking for them. I mean, the Clivia has been nothing but strappy, amaryllis-like leaves for as long as I've had it. Why would I bother to look for buds? A friend had one which bloomed regularly in her north window with very little care, so I figured it would be easy to bring one into flower. Ah, how wrong that assumption was! When mine got too big for its pot, I divided it and tried planting one of the pieces outdoors, a system the experts assured me would result in flowering once I brought it inside for the winter. The experiment failed miserably and that offshoot ("pup") died, but I had kept the second piece in a smaller pot and it was still doing well. Or rather, it was producing healthy leaves but nothing else, and so it continued for at least ten years beyond the division. I resigned myself to thinking of it as a foliage plant. My enforced patience has at long last been rewarded. My Clivia is blooming!

Gooseberry Season

Day 232: Here they come! And unless we get a prolonged hot spell which causes them to drop from the bushes, I should have another bumper crop of gooseberries to turn into jam. I like to pick them when they first begin to show some "give" when squeezed. That's the "Goldilocks point" for gooseberries: the perfect balance between tart and sweet...not that a gooseberry can ever be called "sweet," but as soon as they develop the characteristic brown blush which indicates their full ripeness, the birds begin harvesting them. I don't mind sharing as long as I've put enough back for a batch of jam. And how those little stinkers get around the thorns is beyond me. I don't go as far as putting on welder's gloves to pick them like some growers do, but harvesting gooseberries should come with hazard pay. Is it worth it? You bet! Gooseberry jam is one of my favourite spreads for breakfast toast.

What Pride Means To Me

Day 231: I celebrate Pride not because I'm gay (I'm not...not that it's any of your business what goes on in my bedroom), but because I have friends who are gay. They are not gay "by choice." They are gay because their biology draws them to same-sex companions. The idea of this being somehow "sinful" was instituted by organized religion and its lust for power over individuals. Religions thrive on control, demanding certain diets, certain behaviours, modes of dress, etc. Any action deviating from that which is approved is seen as an offense against God. But religion is a construct, and varies from culture to culture. It is largely in those societies where the Christian influence is felt that homosexuality is viewed as "unnatural." In the US today, the number of Christians who are strongly homophobic is growing and becoming more vitriolic with every passing day. The hate is almost palpable. It strikes me that this is rather opposite to the purported teachings of Christ and indeed looks more to me like the Devil's work in light of the fact that these peoples' very Christianity is being used to promulgate hatred. Isn't that how Satan is said to work? But then, who am I, godless heathen, to suggest that maybe we should all respect each other for who we are rather than trying to remake others into something they are not.