Pink Thing On The Bald

Day 238: About half a mile in, the Rimrocks trail begins a short, slow climb which opens out into a bald covering roughly 1200 square feet. The soil is thin, bedrock showing through in several places, and yet it supports a small plant I've seen nowhere else. One of yesterday's goals was to see if "the pink thing on the bald" was in bloom. Pink thing? I was scraping my memory for the name. As I came up the incline and a pink haze of four-inch tall flower stalks came into view, I said aloud, "Plectritis? Hmmm...now why did that word spring to mind? Plectritis? I'm not sure that's right, but why am I thinking it?" I took the requisite pictures for a Penny Perspective, and then kept going, muttering "Plectritis?" to myself every now and then until I had reached my chosen turn-around a mile further on. The climb to the top of the bald is steeper coming back the other way, although still very short, and as I mounted it, the words "Plectritis congesta" fell from my lips. Even so, I still wasn't convinced that the Latin applied to this particular plant, but when I got home, it was a simple matter to verify that my aging memory was indeed intact by checking my blog. It's been three years since I had to pull those words out of my mental database. Known commonly as Sea-blush, what's this species doing so far inland?

Therapeutic Plant Hunt

Day 237: By our very nature, human beings tend to dwell in their grief, and I am no exception. The full impact of losing Tippy hit me yesterday in late afternoon, and I said as much to a few select friends who almost all responded in the same way: You need to get out in the woods. I knew they were right, so today I went out on a therapeutic plant hunt, hoping that a little-known and seldom used trail would yield at least one of the species I've seen there and nowhere else. My first goal was Sanicula crassicaulis var. crassicaulis, and I am finally able to show it to you as a Penny Perspective, clusters of tiny yellow flowers gathered together in a space smaller than Lincoln's head. I first observed the foliage several years ago, and when I couldn't identify it, shipped the photos off to two botanist friends who helped me out. One of them said, "You must go back when it's in bloom." I had no idea what to expect (on-line images make it look much larger!) and was delightfully surprised to see its delicate inflorescences. It promptly went on my mental list of "favourite plants." Before I left this morning, I checked my records. Yes, I'd seen it in bloom in early June. Today's specimens were largely already in the seed-forming stage, although I was able to find a few with flowers. And, focused as I was on botany, some of the pain of the last few days lifted. Thank you, my friends, for kicking my butt out into the woods.

Occasion For Hope

Day 236: Even a small thing can bring hope if you allow it. My fig tree has previously failed to bring its fruit to maturity, but this year's figs are already larger than ever before, and there are more of them, quite a few more. Several are the size of the end of my thumb, surprising because our weather has been fairly cold (especially at night) and wetter than usual, and figs are warmth-lovers as a general rule. Desert King (my variety) is one of the better producers for the Pacific Northwest climate, and the friend who gave me my start has a tree twenty feet tall which fills most of her front yard and bears a heavy crop every year, so many that she begs friends to take them off her hands. I will be content if I get even a few to enjoy fresh off the tree, and it looks like this year, that might actually happen.

My Good Little Boy

Day 235: My love, my good little Boy, Tickle-Monster, Spaghetti Monster, it was a long, long way to Tipperary, but when I brought you to share my life, you gave me so much love. When you got into mischief, it was funny: shredding an entire roll of toilet paper, pulling spaghetti out of the cupboard and playing with the spilled jackstraws. You demanded your tickles, urging me to chase you into your tunnel where you'd roll over and bunny-kick my hand while I tickled your tummy. And the "Gotcha game"...never a claw, never a bite as we roughhoused. And you wanted your hugs, arms around my neck, wanted to be tipped over in my lap and held against my chest, purring, purring, purring. You let me do those "wicked things" to kitties without objection, like baths and toothbrushing, trusting me completely because you loved me so much. My little Boy, my Tippy, my love!

From the East, the direction of the Mountain and of the rising sun
Comes strength.
From the South, the direction of the Earth
Comes stability.
From the West, the direction of the sea and of the setting sun
Comes harmony.
From the North, the direction of the wind and of the aurora borealis
Comes the Current of Life.

Tippy's Post

Day 234: Update: There were complications. My little love Tippy is no longer with us.

 We are not out of the woods yet because he has to be anaesthetized for the procedure (a dodgy proposition, given that he has a Grade 4 heart murmur), but at least we know what the problem is. Tippy is in the hospital with a UTI and concurrent urinary blockage, and will remain there at least overnight, possibly until Friday. I'll spare everyone the details, but he had a very rough weekend, and I could not find an emergency vet to take him to unless I went to one almost two hours away with a long list of Google reviews complaining that although they gave good treatment, their prices were three to four times what any non-emergency vet would charge. I made an appointment with Tippy's regular doctor for this morning, and was there when they opened the doors. While they did x-rays and an ultrasound to determine if there were stones or a mass (neither was present), I sat in the car and waited. When his doctor called me in several hours later, she said, "The good news is that we found the type of crystals we expected." He'll stay in the hospital until they get him drained out and rehydrated, and then he'll be on antibiotics for a while, with several follow-up visits. And that's all I know at this point, but at least it's encouraging.

Planned Chaos

Day 233: Posts for the next few days may be limited or non-existent. We are currently navigating a particularly rough patch, and I would prefer not to go into detail at this time.

This is planned chaos. The mix of wools was listed as "botanicals," so how could I resist? I love greens. I took each single colour, split it into 64 sections, and recombined them in colour order but not necessarily with the same amount of each shade. I spun 16 sequences on each of two bobbins (a quarter of the wool), stepping the colour order up by one for the second bobbin so that when I plied the two bobbins together, the colours changed in combination every few inches. From the original bag of wool, the end result was two skeins of Green Chaos, destined to make some truly fun socks.

Oriental Poppy

Day 232: I could have captioned this post "Throwing in the Towel," although I did eventually manage to weed all of the Oriental Poppies out of my primary flower bed. That said, I wasn't ready to eliminate them entirely. They just needed to go somewhere else to make space for plants whose appeal lingered after their flowers had faded. Y'see, Oriental Poppies have foliage rather reminiscent of thistles, at least to those not botanically inclined. They are not thorny, no, but they are rather bristly to the touch. My father enjoyed his vegetable garden enormously, and decided to extend himself into my mother's flower beds. He diligently pulled out all the "thistles" he could find, being the helpful sort, but my mother was not pleased with his efforts. So good was he at his work that he accomplished in one season what it took me years to achieve here: total eradication of Oriental Poppies in the perennial beds. Today, mine live in the Barren Wasteland, another success story from the place where few things can be successfully grown. However, I dead-head the "salt and pepper shakers" before they dry, lest I find "thistles" in places they are not welcome.