2015 - Another fine year shot to heck! Year end musings

What's a tree worth? This interesting thought came to me while watching the chainsaw pros quickly clean up the ice storm tree debris.  As TPP watched a nearly 20 foot limber pine zip through the chipper, you know you only paid $130 for the tree plus the cost of delivery and planting (too big), but even if someone were to give you $200 for a replacement, you can't get back the 8-10 years of growth. That begins to tell you how much a really big tree is worth, they're really priceless and they should not be taken down without damned good cause.
So instead of a tree limb mess there now exists a 15 foot wide 20 foot long empty space although TPP's Sinocalycanthus appears to have escaped tree fall damage.  Good thin it'd be pretty tough to replace.  So the Phactors get to rethink this border garden and maybe try something different; it was a bit too shady for the limber pine. 
This ends TPPs first full year of retirement and the most surprising thing has been how busy his life has been. So no daytime TV, no shortage of chores, no shortage of gardening jobs, no boredom at all. On the positive side, he cooks more Italian food and shops more for groceries. Further he resolves to clean up all of the kitchen messes he creates. 
This blog is also almost 8 years old. Although very few people noticed at first, readership has been pretty steady for the last few years. Hope you all appreciate the total and complete absence of annoying popup ads or pathetic bloggers begging for donations. Heck, TPP hasn't even tried to flog his real life counterparts book; hard to do when writing under a pseudonym. The assumption is that readers appreciate these efforts.  Hard to know what my readers think because - in general silence. TPP admits that the primary purpose of this blog is to get things off my mind, to blow off steam, and lower the blood pressure in a semi-constructive manner.
Politics is so very bad this year that TPP can hardly write anything at all because it all comes out sounding so very pessimistic that it doesn't help the old state of mind at all. Seriously thinking that candidates should be asked if they garden, and if not, then we should forget them completely. Hoe some weeds, mow some grass, grow some tomatoes and then we'll talk.  Maybe 2016 should be the year of Gardening for better government, then we sharpen our hoes and weed out all of the baddies.
Send your local politicians some seeds and see what they do with them. Maybe we can grow some better government, a real grassroots effort.  Tell the blogger what you thinks. Time to cleanup the kitchen.

Garden toll and cleanup is exercise

Monday was such nasty weather.  The ice storm cleanup took the Phactors about 2.5 hrs of hauling twigs and limbs to the street for pick up.  How many calories do you burn dragging big limbs 300 feet to the street?  This is definitely not just exercise, but work because it accomplishes something. A big piece of a white fir heavily laden with ice required some chain saw therapy to make moveable pieces and that was just the top 30 feet or so that fell into our garden; the rest remains in the neighbors' driveway, but limbs hung on power and cable wires prevented us from doing any more cleanup.  The large limb from a tulip tree crown shown in the earlier blog still awaits professional attention. It squashed our hedgerow garden along the neighbors' driveway like bug and then sprawled another 25 feet or so across lawn.  The toll is adding up, but what are you going to do? Two beautiful 9-foot-tall western arborvitae trees were snapped off, half the limbs were stripped from a 15 foot tall limber pine, an oakleaf hydrangea, three dwarf pink hydrangeas, and a little lime hydrangea were flattened into the ground. However a small 2-year old seedling of Sinocalycanthus was miraculously missed, but doubt it will survive the cleanup because it's not easy to notice.  This is not an easy plant to replace, so TPP hopes for the best. Elsewhere the fir attempted to squash some newly planted shrubs, an Itea and several winter berry hollies. Damaged they are, but they will probably fully recover; their anti-bunny cages not so much. Mature spirea bushes provided some cushioning, and they bend but don't break. On the whole it could have been much worse; fortunately there was little damage elsewhere. If the tulip tree had fallen just 4 feet further north it would have missed our garden but then the neighbors' garage would have been squashed like a bug instead of the arborvitae. Would that have been worth it?  Hmmm?

It's not nice to tempt Mother Nature when she's in a bad mood already

Just an hour ago, TPP tempted fate and the fickle finger of Mother Nature delivered.  The pixels on TPP's last blog were hardly dry when a largish limb split from the neighbor's big Liriodendron (tulip tree) and narrowly missed squashing their garage like a bug. As it is the damage is minimal but no one is going anywhere any time too soon. This is a job well beyond TPP's abilities with a chair saw although in younger and more foolish days he has handled an even bigger job, but then it was his own garage on the line, and it was only a weekender cabin. Of course a couple of nice Thuja plicata's are under that limb and the limber pine may have taken a beating. Not to mention his tiny Sinocalycanthus is where it can get trampled during the clean up.  Of course, this kind of weather will have every qualified arborist in the area working overtime for a week or two.

Ice! Not nice!

Nothing quite like an ice storm when you live in a neighborhood of big trees. With an accumulation of about 1/4" on twigs and limbs, every gust of wind, and it is windy, and it rains twigs and limbs, and it is raining, heavily.  On the whole a lovely day! A biggish limb had fallen from the rhododendron-hating oak, but a weeping mulberry caught it before it could smash a new azalea, but each gust of wind was smashing the limb into a sun porch window.  So no choice, TPP had to suit up and pull the limb loose.  A really big limb was blocking the street and the driveways of two neighbors, but the intrepid botanist was able to pull enough out of the way to open the street and one of the two driveways.  Sorry, across the street neighbor, but the limb in your driveway is way to big for this one old guy to pull.  To continue the good-deeding, accumulations of limbs were blocking the sidewalk and drives of two more neighbors, so since you can't get wetter, TPP pulled all of those limbs out of the way too. Should be charging by the pound, but that diminishes the goodness of the deed.
The Phactors back gardens are a  stream where the flooded upper half is running down into the flooded lower half, and, wow!, another limb just came crashing down, but out where it doesn't need to be moved just now. Birds are packing into the covered birdfeeder, but a red-bellied woodpecker keeps zipping in and rousting everyone else. Guess they like to eat alone
Ooo! Another limb just came down in the back garden, and the air temp 31 F at 7 AM is still stubbornly stuck on 32, so this isn't going to abate very soon.  So far so good in terms of no serious damage to ornamentals or structures. A more detailed inspection will happen when it stops raining ice cubes.  Have a nice day!

New toy - iphone adapter

TPP got himself a new toy! It's a photo adapter for his iphone, once you get the adapter adjusted for your particular iphone, the adapter easily attaches to any occular, a telescope, half of a pair of binoculars, or your favorite research microscope.  TPP has several excellent microscopes but they were all made for film photography, and so this adapter is a cheap, under $50, means of readapting so you can digitally record data again.  Of course, you don't drag you favorite microscope home for the holidays, they are big and heavy, so your telescope will have to do.  Although the initial adjustment is a bit tricky and TPP's model of iphone is right at the limits of what will fit in the adapter size-wise, it works pretty well.  This is an image of one of our feathered free-loaders taken by this new setup.  So far this seems like a pretty good  toy, one that you might enjoy having.  See for yourself, the results are pretty good even when taken through the kitchen window out to a bird feeder some 30-40 feet away.

First flower of winter

December 25th, Christmas Day, 2015.  After a morning of exchanging gifts and eating breakfast, the Phactors took a 6000+ stride walk, according to Mrs. Phactor's new fitness accessory, basically TPP's round trip to campus, a lovely walk during which a friend photographed a black squirrel.  TPP knows about melanistic squirrels but had never seen one around here. Checked out the surrounding neighborhood to see where things were going well and where things need some work. But upon our return home and while picking up all the downed limbs from a recent windy night, you have perhaps heard of our oak tree that hates rhododendrons (an anti-rabbit fence made a save), well that limb had many companions around the property. But there it was defiantly yellow in the middle of our ecologically diverse lawn, the first flower of winter, and here it was only the 4th official day of winter, i.e., since the solstice.  Technically it's an inflorescence, so dozens of flowers, but  you know what TPP means. 
What an unexpected splash of color totally emphasizing the unusual nature of our weather of late. US weather services report so many temperature records and other stuff that December 2015 will go down as one of the most anomalous months in weather history.  So no wonder plants are confused, and in the long haul, confused plants are not a good thing. Now our lawn flora is nothing to worry about, but when fruit trees flower too early, you lose your crop to the cold snap that follows.  Highly unpredictable weather will have an impact on our food supply.  So yes, you may look upon the 1st flower of winter as a harbinger of things to come that will not be good. Welcome to the weather of climate change. 

I'm dreaming of spring bulbs for Christmas

It's 61 degrees outside after a morning of thunderstorms that dumped a couple of inches of rain on us. Not only isn't this going to be a white Christmas, but spring bulbs: scilla, snow drops, daffodils, and spring beauty shoots are appearing all over the place.  Helleborus niger flower buds are showing and Helleborus foetidus is flowering. TPP is surprised witchhazel isn't in flower.  For two people who grew up in the snowbelt this is pretty unusual, but it's unusually warm across the whole eastern half of North America.
The Phactors got an alumni newletter the other day from Oswego State on the east end of Lake Ontario, and it listed the 10 biggest snow accumulation school years and Mrs. Phactor was there for two of the top 10 '69-'70 and '70-'71.  Around 230" of snow each year.  In '66-'67 TPP witnessed their largest single event snowfall, 102" in 32 hours!!!  Hard to imagine isn't it?  But both of us grew up in places that got 100-150" of snow a year, so it wasn't that big of a deal.
But the Phactors have gotten older and softer, so not sure how to handle that much snow any more. Glugwine and a fire place sounds about right.  Mostly the spring plants will be OK especially if some snow finally provides some protection.
Oh, now the weather says expect winds up to 50 mph! At least the snow won't be drifting.

Santa's helpers - elves not cats

Today not much was going on.  TPP was to obtain provisions for a dinner party, a Christmas breakfast, and a dinner for two. So why not take a little time to wrap presents? A whole bunch of little things needed to be organized and then wrapped so it took a little time, but TPP had so much help. One of the two kitty-girls decided to help.  Crinkly paper, ribbons, especially when wrapped around something soft and of just the right size, like a pair of mittens, are just so much fun; they can be pounced on, bitten, clawed, tossed, and just in general played with like the cat toy they are not. I'm sure everyone involved will understand if their gift package is a bit rumply and a litte perforated. Needless to say the whole thing took considerably longer than estimated. Wrapping paper is hard to cut to the right size when a cat is upon it, or under it, or grabbing at it or worse the scissors. And in the end you understand why Santa uses elves for helpers not cats. But she is cute and funny.

Cookie animation

Here's a link to a funny and pretty clever animation suitable for children of all ages.  This came via Treehugger, a holiday greeting of sorts from a website that is always worth visiting.  The patience and ingenuity and technology to do things like this have always been intriguing, but  not knowing or understanding how things are done is part of the magic.

Worcestershire sauce

One crazy thing can lead to another and often does. The last blog, Big Mango, led to thinking and mentioning a big tamarind pod in Thailand, so when visiting the basement fridge to get some cold drinks a jar of tarmarind concentrate caught TPP's attention, and that reminded him that it was time to make a new batch of worcestershire sauce, which is in part tamarind based, and since cooking is one way he passes time and Mrs. Phactor has commanded "no sugary temptations", this condiment would be a good diversion. This is a great recipe and makes a wonderful sauce (no offense to Lazano's Salsa from Costa Rica). As always best to check the cupboards to see if you have all the fixings before you begin, and our well-stocked spice hoard delivered all the necessary bits. Technically this is a bit sugary (melted caramelized sugar), but isn't the sort of temptation that was prohibited, besides it has to steep for a couple three weeks to develop some depth and authority. So too late to use as a homemade gift.