Stupidity and ignorance in Lincolnland

Stupidity and ignorance is now more or less politics as usual here in Lincolnland. Bobcats are dangerous vermin and so numerous that a hunting season is needed to control their burgeoning population dontcha know. TPP has never even seen one in our state, but hunting bobcats is now legal in our state.  This is pure ignorance and stupidity in action and required that our legislators and governor simply act in opposition to everything that is known about the biology and population of bobcats. Hey who needs science when one of our legislators has seen just mobs of bobcats every time he's been out in the field.  Now it is true that bobcat numbers have rebounded in the southern parts of our state since trapping and hunting them was banned, but no one knows how much hunting their populations can stand if any without going into decline, but let's not let any wildlife biology get in the way of hunting. Sorry, kitties the boom-boom boys have been turned loose and it's just because you've got a nice pelt. Boy does that show us lefty, know-it-all, animal huggers a thing or two! They don't need no stinkin' science to help decide things. This is but a small example of how bad governance has gotten.  This image was obtained from the Wikimedia Creative Commons and it was made available for non-commercial, educational use by ForestWander. What kind of bozo would shoot this animal just for fun and a trophy hide?  

Friday fabulous flower - water lily sort of

Not a water lily but a lily in a light rain. Couldn't resist this. Neighbor has this planted right by the sidewalk and it was head high. Of course TPP has ruined several shirts with lily pollen stains. This blog has all the anthers except for that. This is late from last week because of something.

Double whammy weekend

Every year TPP gets the double whammy; this year it fell on a weekend. Yes, the anniversary-birthday bam-bam double whammy, so it greatly behooves TPP to remember this appropriately each year. It may be the secret to our long marriage (44 years) even though neither of us is old enough for this to be possible. At any rate, to celebrate with a bit of a get away, a short trip to Madison WI was in order, a chance to soak up some cheese, sausage, and beer, the 3 legs of good nutrition. Here's a nice little breakfast (although actually eaten for a lunch): Wisconsin Benedict, the local twist on eggs Benedict, here served with herbed fried potatoes. In New York people know that the dish originated in the late 1800s at the Waldorf Hotel in NYC. If you are unfamiliar with this dish, and gad, can it be possible such unsophisticated people exist, then the classic recipe can be had at the link. It's all about the sauce. At any rate here in Madison at the Old Fashioned (both a place and a cocktail) the WI Benedict substitutes a bratwurst patty for the ham and makes a creamy tart mustard sauce in stead of Hollandaise. This meal along with a signature cocktail made TPP feel so good, he allowed Mrs. Phactor to purchase a remarkable piece of recycled glass sculpture for display in our gardens. Awesome, eh?  All in all quite a celebration.

The old man is snoring

It rained last night after breaking the low temperature record for the date, 8 July, by 12 degrees F! This morning was like early morning in the Costa Rican rainforest, warmish, relative humidity maxed out, and that wet-leaves/vegetation-slightly-decaying smell. You need at least a 1/2 inch of rain a week to keep your gardens going and our gardens got 3/4s of an inch of rain on Sunday. So the 5 and 3/4s inches of rain last night was a bit excessive! Watch out downstream! For the 5th or 6th time this year TPP had to drain an inch or so of water from the garden's lily pond. So the average amount of rain for the month of July has already fallen. So there you have it. Weather that you can average, but no average weather.

Who will identify plants?

Today's news included an article sent to TPP about the closing of the University of Missouri herbarium, a collection some 3 to 4 times larger than the collection here.  The specimens will end up at the Missouri Botanical Garden, but another university's students will now have no opportunity to learn about the practical benefits of learning taxonomy and plant identification. A graduate student in ecology met with us this morning to get feed back on her plan of study and research proposal for a master's degree in conservation biology.  Unfortunately she cannot fulfill the taxon requirement with the course work she needs (plant taxonomy and ID) because the faculty member with that expertise has retired. Oh, she will learn a lot via field work, but it just won't be as comprehensive and as useful in the long run. The numbers don't add up for botany; too few students want to study botany, so the powers that be, and colleagues eager to take advantage of the situation to add to their areas in a zero sum game, will all argue that a new botanical hire won't be a smart move. The lack of interest puzzles TPP because plants are endlessly fascinating, but the somewhat mistaken perception that jobs, careers, and money are all in other areas is a driving force for students these days. They want security; TPP pursued what interested him in spite of all the advice to the contrary that it wouldn't work out. But it did! And all those great jobs TPP was offered in industry, all that great pay, most of those jobs and careers did not last even one full career lifetime. Will the biological sciences in the USA wake up and figure out the need for having botany programs? Sigh. In two more weeks the Botany 2015 meetings take place in Canada this year, and this is sure to be a topic of conversation.  

Mid-summer garden tidbits

It's July, and tonight's low temperature will be 52 F, cat's on the bed, close kitchen windows, and have a blanket available kind of weather. On Monday the high humidity and high 80s temperature required the AC to take the edge off for an Italian soup dinner for a women's group dinner meeting. What crazy weather!
As predicted, early blight has shown us and will require some fungicide spraying to help the tomatoes survive. One 5 foot tall vine has mysteriously totally wilted. Blossom end rot (boron deficiency) has shown up too. It's not ususally a problem around here.
A not very vigorous golden chain tree suddenly died. No idea what to replace it with. It's on the edge of a Japanese garden, so something compatible with that theme would be nice, and the space is rather smallish.  Perhaps a new fancy tree peony!
Mulch is finally allowing us to make some progress on weeding. A lot of poison ivy is hiding around the gardens this year. Some pokeweeds have reached 4-5 feet in height already. Too bad poke isn't really good for anything.
Several trees, all 1st or 2nd year plantings, are trying to decide if they are going to survive or not: a dwarf dawn redwood, a Japanese snowbell, and a black tulip magnolia. Right now, TPP won't put much money on any of them especially, and most sadly, the magnolia. Already gave up and replaced an azalea that even with TPP's best efforts remained root bound after planting. On the other hand the new Loebner's magnolia has put on 12-18 inches of new growth!
Last week's treatment of plants showing chlorosis with a spray of liquid iron are looking much better. In another week, a 2nd dose should really fix them up.
Planting some annuals to fill in blankish spaces is not our usual practice, but with a wedding in the gardens in a month (Yes, the F1 is getting married!), the gardens need to look nice. Looks like a modest little wedding, probably no more than 230 people!
Late planted cucumbers and zucchini squashes are growing quickly and row covers are keeping the cucumber beetles (and the bacterial wilt they vector) and the squash borers (day-flying moth larvae) at bay. 

Bicycle camping trailer for 2

Oh, doesn't this look like fun! It's the Wide Path camper. It cleverly unfolds (the back half, left, folds over the front) and is light enough that 2 people can carry it, and of course a bicycle can tow it! Just how cool is that? TPP has a friend who'll probably order one immediately! This definitely makes up for the dearth of bicycle news articles of late.  HT to Treehugger.   

Terrible aftermath shows ugliness of USA

The recent SCOTUS decision affirming gay people's rights under the law produced an extremely ugly aftermath of reaction. Without the specifics the reactions were to tell people to be afraid, be scared, continue to be a bigot, blame the judges, blame the president, blame everyone else. Perhaps many of these reactions come from sincerely held religious beliefs, OK, it's your right, but when such people are egged on by violent rhetoric, some of them are going to act on those rants in ways that hurt someone, and that's not OK. This does illustrate what's wrong with the fundamentalist type of religion and why religion of any sort should not have a role in law-making. Those who think the opposite, and several are running for the GnOPe nomination for president should never be in a position of power, of any sort. Some of these self-proclaimed pick-mes even suggest our whole system of governance should be changed because their religious freedom to tell and control what other people do, people supposedly with the same freedoms, was ended in this one particular area. It continues unabated in others as is the "right" of the one true religion. At any rate, episodes such as this really hang the dirty laundry right out on the line for everyone to see, and it isn't very pretty and it isn't much to brag about.

Pleading the 4th

Fighting home entropy. Now enjoying holiday with negroni and BBQ ribs. Very patriotic way to spend the holiday!  OK, smart phone is not very good for blogging.

Friday fabulous flower - alotta hosta

A street side garden is about 60 feet long and 10-15 feet wide filled almost solidly with a big old hostas.  They've been there for decades and the bed has been diversified under our tutelage, but there are still a lot of hosta, all the same, some big old plain, tough variety.  They've suffered a bit after the removal of some dying spruces and white ashes exposed them to a lot more sunlight although this image doesn't show that.  But what with all the rain this June (10.75 inches total, 2.5 times average), and cool weather, the bed is doing just fine so far, and just now it displays a sea of blue flowers that is quite spectacular even when just getting going.  Nothing wrong with some massed, if not massive, plantings.