Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Miscellaneous pictures


We have a volunteer plant that grew in what my guys call The Bog. All the bugs love these flowers. Last summer we noticed some little yellow beetles were having a collossal orgy on them! Some of them were stacked 4 or 5 deep in a mating frenzy. This summer, I'm seeing wasps and ants as well as the horny yellow beetles. While the wasps are busy working those flowers, they don't even notice a camera looming inches from them. If I could package and sell to humans whatever it is in that plant, it would probably solve all the big world problems. No more wars. No aggression. Just slurp the nectar and spread the pollen!


Here are my guys installing a two-part garden pond that Mr. SABLE scavenged from the curbside. They all seem to enjoy endlessly moving around big piles of earth.


The Little Emperor is hoping to be accepted at the Jedi Academy. Of course, he's a little too old and has already formed strong attachments, so has the potential to be another Anakin/Darth Vader kind of Jedi. Clouded this one's future is.


The apple. This one has a backstory that goes to my childhood.

When I was a kid my parents had an aging sick apple tree in the backyard. Every year, the apples fell to the ground and rotted before ripening. My dad would occasionally get the idea that the apples needed to be picked up. It was one of my most hated chores. Ever go to pick up an apple and have your fingers squish right in to the rotten core? Multiply that by several hundred. I spent many late summer afternoons hiding way up in trees, hoping to avoid being seen, so that my dad wouldn't suddenly decide that an idle child needed a chore. Since he was a college professor, he had summers off, mostly, and was around enough to get ideas. When I was a young teen, they had the tree taken down and I was delighted to see it go.

When we bought our house here in Madison in 1997, it had an apple tree in the yard. It, too, was sick and old and dropped all its pathetic fruit before they ripened. I just let them decompose on the ground and ran the mower over them. One day I got my neighbor Chainsaw Pete to come over with his chainsaw and take it down. Problem solved!

So, that year for Mothers' Day (a holiday I hold with great antipathy) Mr. SABLE and Owen go off shopping and come home with...
an apple tree. When they asked where they should put it, I said, "Back at the store?" but they planted it anyway, in the middle of the lawn area (creating an island that I have to mow around) about 10 feet from the stump of the previous tree.

That was probably about 5 years ago? This year, the tree made its first apple. Which Mr. SABLE says is for me. I have to admit, it looks very nice hanging there, growing and ripening. It almost seems a shame to eat it.

BTW, I just added a sidebar link to a new photo album of my butterfly pictures. It's small right now, but I hope it will grow. Scroll down a bit and look under the heading Photos.

7 comments:

rincaro said...

We are all about the Jedi right now!

Lynn said...

Is that white flower boneset?

Jerry & Maxy said...

Oh good, Blogger is letting me comment. I tried a post or two ago, and no dice. It is so cool that I look at those pics of your men working away, and I've met them! I can put 3 dimensions and action to the picture. It's very cool! So is your apple story. It looks so perfect hanging there for you...

Anonymous said...

yup. A kin of Joe Pye weed, can be used to make an infusion, said to have aphrodisiac qualities... "Boneset was a favourite medicine of the North American Indians, who called it by a name that is equivalent to 'Ague-weed,' and it has always been a popular remedy in the United States, probably no plant in American domestic practice having more extensive and frequent use; it is also in use to some extent in regular practice, being official in the United States Pharmacopceia, though it is not included in the British Pharmacopoeia." " ---Medicinal Action and Uses---Stimulant, febrifuge and laxative. It acts slowly and persistently, and its greatest power is manifested upon the stomach, liver, bowels and uterus.

It is regarded as a mild tonic in moderate doses, and is also diaphoretic, more especially when taken as a warm infusion, in which form it is used in attacks of muscular rheumatism and general cold. In large doses it is emetic and purgative. "
(http://www.botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/b/bonese65.html)
- Mr. SABLE

MiniLaura said...

eek! bugs!

Icky apple picking. Did that. We had FOUR apple trees. I hope the new apple tree doesn't produce icky apples

Sarah said...

Thanks for that Mr. Sable! I love plant lore and use.

That is a lovely apple. Funny, that there is just one. One perfect apple. My trees are loaded now, but they do drop a lot.

My solution, chuck the dropped apples into the pasture where the horses are....they love them!

Elizabeth said...

Sarah, if we only had horses it would have solved so much trouble.