Remember this?

That little broken-off bit of tomato vine never did get planted. Its vase nearly dried out while I was in the hospital, since it wasn’t exactly the focal point of the family just then.  It only had a little spot inside the window and what water was left to it.

And yet. It kept on doing what it was created to do. One orange cherry tomato, full size and fully ripe.

A misremembered start of a fairy tale that was passed around the DarpaNet back when Richard was in grad school:

Ladle Rat Rotten Hut vent two sea irk groin-murder inner fore rest… (no, that’s not spam, say it fast.)

It took it awhile to find the new restaurant, and when it did, it was cute–Michelle and I both wondered at first if it were a large mouse. My! What big ears you have!  With its small size, those ears, and slim build, it had us for a moment.

Till we saw the tail.  Great. A Californian rat, thin and trim, ready to see and be seen, out in the open, nibbling at the offerings from the birds above.

I was none too pleased. If only we had a cat.  A little aversion therapy.

When I was in San Jose talking to the garage-top falconatics a few weeks ago, one told me she’d ditched her birdfeeder after finding she was supporting not only the local rat population but its next generation right there in her yard.

Last week, I got a flier from the Wild Bird Center saying they had just stocked up on seed catchers, and I’m definitely going to go buy me one, but meantime,  I remembered what my daughter Sam had said about rats avoiding the smell of mint plants.

And I do have me some mint plants.

So I cut a sprig from the front yard, hoping it too would sprout roots in water and take off into a new plant, but if not, let it stand sentry till I can get more going, from seed or bought, I don’t care, and I put it in a plastic container on the patio.  I turned a comfortable chair to face outwards to watch and knitted.

It wasn’t long, just a few minutes later, that the rat I’d scared off came out again.

And stopped. Its nose sniffled furiously.

It left.

It came back a few minutes later, stopped and sniffed again, took a few steps to the side to see if that would help, turned back to face the mint–it was still there.  Rats.  It ran away again.

Then over the next little bit I watched it try to take a wide berth around it to the right to get back to its intended dinner so infuriatingly close.   No go–till the squirrels, who didn’t pay it nor their little cousin no never-mind, had a fight and knocked the mint clear thataway.  Yay! And the rat made a break for it.

For about a second till I reached the door, anyway.

On the next round, it took a wide berth around to the left this time, putting it out in the open air away from even so much as the protective covering of the awning overhead, the kind of exposure a rat hates.  But the only way it could figure out how to get to those easy pickings.  Smart little thing. In broad daylight, too!

So I upped the ante.  I wasn’t going to use glass containers; I’m too much of a klutz and I’d seen how much momentum quarreling squirrels could produce. No shattering allowed. I took a plastic container from Costco that had held Alphonso mangoes, ie it looked like a giant clear egg carton, and cut it into two-section segments.  I filled them with water and cut another sprig for each segment. I set all my containers on the patio fanned out in a wide circle encompassing the reach of the fallen birdseed, four times the intensity of the mint that had stopped the thing in its tracks before.

It has not come back. The birds don’t care about that little bit of leafy green down there, the squirrels ignore it, but that rat gave up unfed.

I have some mint seeds.  I have pots.  I have plants to top off as needed in the meantime.

One mint-woodcutter, to the rescue.

(July 24–one caveat. Since I wrote this, I found a site selling mint plants warning that they must be kept in pots: saying that the first year, you’ll wonder what all the fuss is about. The second year you’ll start to find out. They can send underground runners as far as 20 feet past weedblocker, whatever weedblocker is, and will take over everything. I knew they were fairly invasive but that’s more than I knew, so I thought I’d better put that in here for anybody coming googling by.)

A week or so ago, I was watering my two tomato plants.  I keep adding more tomato cages around them as they grow.  One is an heirloom variety.  The other I have no idea what type it is:  I looked at the baby plant in the nursery awhile back and decided, okay, then, whatever you are, surprise me.

Given a hose that doesn’t reach the spot and a contractor who shut off the nearer outside water valve in such a way I can’t get it open again, this involves my filling old milk jugs with water and dousing them on a near-daily basis.  That’s okay; it keeps me actively involved in the process of nurturing them.  Leaves starting to droop on a hot day? I’m on it.

But I am a klutz. Which is how I managed, to my great grief at the time, to lose my balance and break off a branch that had two layers of flowers and the tiniest beginnings of a tomato on it.

Lost.  Crum.

But I had some memory way back in the brain of some gardening advice I read once who knows where or when that tomato branches can sprout their own roots, and took that broken piece with its ugly jagged gash and stuck it hopefully in a small flower vase.  Couldn’t hurt.

It looked so small and so woebegone.  All that potential it could have had if I’d been more careful.  In the intertwined leaves outside, I wasn’t even sure which plant it had come off of and didn’t want to spend the time I can’t risk in the sun to track it back to the main stem to find out.

I put it by the window and checked it daily, and it didn’t die, but it seemed to just sit there.

Till two days ago, when there was the tentative small white start of a single root in the water if you looked close enough.

Today there are twenty-four, including a cluster at the ragged bottom, spreading out, searching for nutrients. That 1 cm tomato is now a third of an inch across, a new second one is 2 cm across so far, and the plant suddenly seems to be growing like dandelions.

Tomorrow I go looking for a large pot to plant it in so that I can have it growing next to the house.  I’m thinking that will help keep its growing season going longer; it’s getting a late start for reaching full size, and should it get cold enough to kill off the parent plant in the yard, this one might just keep on going strong from the warmth radiating from our home.

Life has its own inner strength.  One little sprig of tomato growing steadily now into full root and bloom, saying quietly, you don’t know the outcome till it begins to show.  Never give up.

…And I need me a good bird book.

A little more water on those tomatoes.

That plum tree is going to be so hosed, no doubt about it.

And I still need a goofy picture of Marian. Shouldn’t be hard.

(Note added an hour later to draft: write it and it shall happen…)

And so pardon me a moment while I try to track down a mystery.

A few days ago there was an amaryllis knocked off the picnic table on the patio, smashed on the ground.  Who did that? When did–I didn’t do that, did I? I’m certainly not that deaf, I’d have heard it.  Huh.  I picked the plant up and repotted it.

A few minutes ago I went out to water the tomatoes at a nice dusky time of day, and there were two more on the ground, one with a smashed pot and one simply in Amaryllis Down mode.  Curious.  Michelle? No, not me, Mom.

And then I saw it.  The birdseed trashcan.  The lid over thataway.   But…but…  Raccoons don’t eat that stuff, do they?  Do possums?  In my experiences growing up in a house in the woods, the ‘coons were good at prying open the cans, the possums at falling in after them and getting stuck.  Dad would brave the teeth on those things, take a broom, tip the metal can over, go THWAP on the bottom, then go back inside the house and wait for them to stop playing possum and leave.

But this was a very small trashcan and easy to climb back out of at their size.

Some animal had apparently been climbing up on the table to divebomb the thing trying to get the lid off.  And it had succeeded.  How did I not notice that earlier?  I packaging-taped it back on in two places, moved the can further away and moved the more fragile amaryllis pots away from the edge of the table, and hoped that would do it.

I need a motion sensor attached to a floodlight and our Flip.  (They wouldn’t eat my first tomato of the year, would they?)  I want to see this thing in action in the middle of the night, for the amusement factor if nothing else.  A coon playing falcon–look! Up in the sky!  It’s a bird! It’s a ‘coon! It’s–super-seeded! by the tape.

Meantime, if you’re interested, here is a marvelous collection of falcon pictures taken by one of the fledge watchers, and here’s a few more.  Veer bellyflopped yesterday off the nestbox ledge onto the louver just below and right onto his sister. They were all practicing their flying and landing skills today: one they will eventually master is being able to fly backwards below another one in order for prey to be passed between them.

Those juveniles need a baby peregrine theme song: “Fifty Ways to Leave Your Louver.”

First thing I saw this morning from here was a bluejay hopping around on the ground around E.’s hydrangea: planted and a solid part of the landscape now.  You could just see its wheels turning: too light and way too low to perch on. What’s the point of this? Who’s messing with my yard?

And then, after flying past the porch a few times to get its bearings, it divebombed. Richard had put the birdfeeder together and had hung it last night.  (It may have helped that I offered to do it and he visualized me with my balance and his drill in hand while trying to use it on something way above my head.  He could reach the awning easily and without falling over. The deed got done.)

Nuts. Missed.  Annnnd… missed again!  The jay thought about it a moment and tried a gentler approach: fly a little slower and try to land on the green perch this time.

The feeder twirled, the jay’s wings flapped wildly, it just couldn’t get its feet where it wanted, and it gave up.

It has not been near it since.

The folks at the Wild Bird Center said the feeder’s for songbirds and is squirrelproof but I didn’t expect it to be jayproof!

Michelle and I went looking today to see if we could find out what this tree is. Like the fig, it’s just something that happened to pop up in the yard courtesy of something that climbed or flew. The natural order of things. I’d always thought of it as a pretty weed.

We narrowed it to an Ailanthus or, to my surprise, a black walnut.  I can guess which ones the squirrels would be more interested in.  She broke off a sprig and brought it in to the computer.  The nut husk is supposed to be green on a walnut; this beginning one among new leaves is a brown wooden bead of a thing with the slightest greenishness at its base. I was surprised; we’d never noticed any degree of nuts growing on it.

Just a random tree in a random place, but I’ve always liked it. I’m an Easterner, I want all the green I can get.  It got me thinking about cultivated trees: how you cut off a twig in the right place from one you want more of, tree-t it right, and it’ll sprout roots and grow upwards and downwards into a whole beautiful new one. When it gets big enough, you can repeat the process again till you eventually create a whole forest or more of trees, all of them part of and connected to that one original specimen.  Which may die of blight or eventual old age, yet still an integral, connected part of itself continues on without end to give to those who partake of the nuts or fruit or whatever good quality that tree has to give.

Plant enough of them and we’ll outnumber the squirrels yet.

(Hey, wait, I guess I *can* take a picture at 9:35 pm! Flying totally blind, but hey, that’s what flashes are for. Does this count as kinnearing?)

Thank you Dr. R. for telling me if I went ahead and had that colectomy that up till then I’d been so afraid of, that after recovery, I would feel wonderful…

When we were at that hardware store Saturday, I also picked up a few chocolate mint plants.  When we got home, I planted them along a narrow strip at the front where they would be hemmed in by concrete: the walkway ahead of them, the foundation of the house behind, in a small bed less than a foot wide set between. Rinsed mint leaves dipped in sugar is a favorite of mine, and who can resist one that has chocolate as part of its very name? We would get along well.

Michelle asked me later, when she got home, “But Mom, don’t you know mint roots can grow through concrete?”  I knew they were invasive, but as in, right there right into the house?

Huh. Well, my mom says her Aunt Betty’s old house was held up by the ivy that grew clear into the closets on the second floor (wood is wood, right?), and I know that house has been standing since at least the late 1800’s.  Mint smells better than ivy.  Still.  Um.  I might have to eat a lot? We might replace zucchini in the proverbial scenario where the neighbors close the curtains and refuse to answer the door when they see us coming bringing some to share?

I planted two tomatoes out front: I thought that’s where Richard wanted them. He thought it was where I wanted them and that he was being agreeable. Turns out neither of us really wanted them there.  Again, that was Saturday evening; tonight in the dusk (after somewhat more careful consultation) they and the cages that were around them got slipped into the back yard and disappeared from the front.  You know, just messing with the neighbors’ minds a little. It was amazing to me to see how much growth they’d put out in two days of having extra dirt and sun to kick back in, basking in the warmth.

I was careful to take extra soil with the original rootballs.

Someone, I’m not sure who, topped the fig tree last fall.  Why? …Instead of soaring straight up, now it’s growing thickly in two parts from the cut at the top.  It’s right at the fence line.  I’m sitting here thinking at the folks behind us, half for you, half for me.  We’ll see how it goes. Again with the consultation concept: I’ll ask them if they want it there and if not, out it will go and a new one will be planted elsewhere. Having now owned a fig tree, I want a fig tree.

I watered the apple and plum trees, (the Meyer lemon can fend for itself for the moment) noting that despite the blossoms earlier, there was no sign of growing plumlets on the baby Santa Rosa and a few leaves looked well chewed. Okay, I guess not this year. Next year; all the more to look forward to (while I go read up on the subject to make sure it will happen then).

I tried to plant the hydrangea to top the evening off, but I ran out of daylight, since I can only garden outside when the UV risk is essentially zero–but the late evenings are definitely mine now.  Lift a spade full of rocks?  I can do this. For so very, very long, I could not, not the digging, not the lifting, not the carrying the hose from front to back, not the spading-out where I wanted those tomatoes, but now, I can.  All this energy!

At least today I knew where the spade was; those mint plants and the tomatoes in their first spot got planted with a large serving spoon from the kitchen.  Tells you how long it’s been.

One of these days I’ll learn that the picture looks better if I take my hand out of my pocket or over the shawl and then in the pocket, but vanity aside, here’s the finished baby alpaca shawl I was working on. It’s the Tara’s Redwood Burl pattern, though more in the color (it’s greener than this in real life) of a tiny redwood sapling’s baby needles.

Burls are like pearls to an oyster: something interesting and beautiful created by the living thing’s reaction to an irritant.  I’ve been fascinated by redwood trunk patterns ever since we moved to California, and that pattern was my second attempt at trying to capture the essence of some of them.

Just some background on how that redwood-colored shawl in “Wrapped” got its name.

Oh, and that’s the baby plum tree my kids gave me for Mother’s Day last year, growing like a weed.

(Ed. to add for those who asked: the doctor at the ER said the bloodwork was clean, which I interpret to mean that as for This Little Piggy, Richard Had None.  He’s feeling a fair bit better today; thank you for looking out for us, everybody.)

This is the post I hit send on after Richard said, “Let’s go.”  My computer froze and it didn’t post.  We just got back (love that timestamp) from taking him to the ER. He’ll be okay.

————-

The infectious diseases specialist was wonderful! The first thing she did coming in was to exclaim over my knitting in my hands and my shawl and to sigh that it’s a lost art.

Okay, hon, you just made friends right there.  I was charmed.

When I told her I had come because I needed another opinion and some reassurance because I’d gotten such conflicting information, when I said the stoma nurses had said not to change the bag more often than every two days, she immediately said, “That’s right.”

It was exactly the appointment I’d needed, and she wants me back a week or two after the antibiotics are finished.

Let’s just hope she doesn’t google, find this, and realize I’m already looking at my stash and scheming.

The moving van came Thursday.  I went across the street to say goodbye to our neighbors moving home to Ireland.

It turned out they were staying till Saturday, with a mattress to be left on the floor for them to sleep on.

What about Jack? I asked.  I offered to go look for our old porta-crib that had gone through four kids and was none too new looking, especially after being tucked away for 20 years, but hey.  Michelle and I gave it a good dusting-off and took it over. We couldn’t make them stay, but we could make their leaving easier on them.

They returned it Saturday on their way out in better condition than when they’d gotten it. They are such nice folks. They will be missed.

That red amaryllis yesterday? That photo was taken right before I cut it. The young mom and her family across the street are about to move home to Ireland, and it seemed to me that a large, bright flower to help cheer them while they pack and get ready and that won’t take up any suitcase space seemed just the thing.

Meantime, these will offer a wave hi at them from our side of the street.

Happy Easter!

(Ed. to add, in the proper tradition of the season, we can’t forget the Peeps, with apologies for the ad at the beginning. #30, of the Metro subway in DC, is my personal favorite.)

It’s a race, and the outside amaryllis is winning by about half a day.

But the azalea laughed and opened this afternoon and beat them both.

The first picture is of a money plant, so called for how the seedpods look like a silver dollar; I sowed some inside that planter box 15 years ago, never again, and to this day there are a few upstarts. This year they’re growing on the outside of the box, just to be cute. I guess I got my money compounded with being interesting over the years.

Meantime.  Someone my husband works with stopped by last night, and I was all prepared: I’d found the perfect one.  Plastic pot–no ring of white growing on clay.  Needed watering–no damp spots on the floor of his car.  The stalk just starting–no top-heavy tipping over while he would be taking it home.

We showed him the huge dark red amaryllis in the kitchen so he could see what this plant in this pot I was offering him was all about. Then the Hercules amaryllis in the living room. I told him I thought his was red but I wasn’t sure; it should bloom in about two weeks.

“I’ll stop by your house more often!” he grinned.  And he took it home in great delight, eager to show his family.

I need to work in the ends on most of these scarves (or, as my mother calls them, yarn necklaces); it won’t take me long.  It’s been, finish knitting one, dive into the next, finish knitting the second, dive into the next, over and over–I was trying to get a lot done before I just couldn’t stand it, I had to finally go start that black cashmere shawl.

The black shawl has now commenced.

Which didn’t stop me from casting on Amanda‘s Huarache yarn today while waiting for the dentist. You can never have enough lace scarves on hand when you’re planning on going back and thanking your nurses; I’ve got a long way to go.

Meantime, a few years ago, I woke up one morning after a night of heavy storms to see a bright blue sky out the clerestory window.  Empty expanse.  It took me a moment to puzzle out what was missing: a tree had blown over, and the green branches I was used to waking up to were simply gone.  (The red berries are on the heavenly bamboo it had been growing next to.)

We had someone cut its carcass up and haul it away for us, but for whatever reason, they left the overturned stump that was still within the long raised flower bed.  Huh.

Having grown up in a house in the woods, I knew that old wood is good for all kinds of wildlife. My folks had had a towering dead tulip poplar that the then-endangered pileated woodpeckers loved.  Bugs would eat the dead wood, and high off the ground, those huge woodpeckers would go after the bugs, spectacularly so: you could see chunks of wood going flying and the whole neighborhood could hear one hammering at work.  Go check out the tree trunk as well as the birds in that link.

You’re not going to get that same effect from a stump on the ground, but you go with what you’ve got.

With our recent rains, these mushrooms on the stump have grown around and through the leaves of the heavenly bamboo, swirling their colors and dancing round and round for sheer joy at being alive.