April 13th in the garden - peaches, strawberries and peas

My calico cat hunting in the garden - I think it was a lizard or a bug?

 field peas 'Whippoorwill southern cowpea' germinating

I planted peas 7 days ago, and they have begun to come up.  I also planted corn and other beans, radishes and lettuce at that time and nothing else has come up.  Corn and some beans can be up to 14 days.

My black cherry tree 

 The peach trees with tiny fruit

strawberries beginning to set

Pink April Moon drawing

It was supposed to be a pink supermoon last night, the pink moon of April.  I went out to take a good look, and knew that everything I was seeing was not going to be captured on a camera.  But, as I watched the orange fireflies rise and blink, and the clouds race across the moon, turning white to grey to indigo blue in places, I said : 'My eyes are my camera right now.'

I looked at what was the most important to capture.  The feathery way the dark black trees appeared in the light.  The blue permeating through the sky beneath and between the branches.. the bits of pink and blue in the sky around the moon and the clear halo of light with edges of yellow permeating out in circles.

Then I tried to capture it with my pencils and pen.

I know not everyone sees all the colors in the first place, or the way the light shimmers and effects.  Some of it is probably my synesthesia.  But, as much as I have tried to capture visually does bring back the scene to me 'physically'... so even if the drawing is just for myself, I like it.

what is that weird bark? a tree with winged bark in Tennessee

What is that weird bark?

My daughter had a hard time finding it by any description we could come up with.  We tried fractured bark, and corrugated bark, fragmented bark and corrupted bark (all good words, but not quite showing up)  And then we found the terms winged bark and corky bark.

So - what is this tree?

We were pretty sure it is a winged elm.

Ulmus alata

We found this website that had great pictures:

Nature's Wild Things Winged Elm 

The research:

We did look up that it does grow in West Tennessee, where we are located.  I found some great pictures on another site that show trees of this species in the exact state of 'small pinnate emerging leaves'.

At one point we thought it might be a sweet gum tree, as they have bark like this.  There are also a lot of sweet gums in this area, as evidenced by the small spiky ball seed pods they leave on the ground.  But the difference that assured us this was something else is that they have 'hand shaped' leaves, with five points.  We could tell by carefully examining these emerging leaves that they were pinnate, arrow-shaped or feather-shaped leaves.  Each little leaf had a very clear line down the middle and was relatively smooth-edged.

 

Build a Mountain Tree Farm in Minecraft

Today we are investigating different ways to build a tree farm in Minecraft.  You would build a tree farm on an island, in the sky, or anywhere you would like a steady supply of wood.  And in the case of this farm - you get the bonus of getting lots of apples (if you're lucky).

This farm provides drops from the oak trees of wood, sticks, saplings and apples.



Oak trees are best for producing apples, but Spruce and Birch trees do drop them as well.




Remember to cut all of the wood away from the trunk and branches of each tree - and then the leaves will begin to disintegrate.  The saplings, apples and sticks will drop from the leaves to be gathered up on the ground.

This is the way my daughter likes to make her tree farms.  She puts a 6 by 6 square of dirt down, and plants a sapling in the middle of each 9 square.  I tried another one behind it of 8 by 8, to provide a bit more space for bigger trees to grow.  She says the 6 by 6 is the best for making sky tree farms.

I like two different ways of making tree farms.  Either, completely free form on a plain, planting them as I run - or to put them down in holes in the stone or gravel, like this.  I actually found that the 'holes' method produced grown trees much faster right beside the dirt squares shown above. 

I couldn't explain it - but the trees were popping up almost as fast as I could cut them down and replant them, compared to an entire day's worth with the other method.

H2oDragon says that it is probably playing off the fact that a large tree can spawn more readily than a small tree if the spaces immediately around it are blocked.

All comfy and cozy in our mountain home

I just wish we could make apple pie in Vanilla Minecraft!

Took a mile walk this morning, still in the COVID-19 quarantine.  Our schedules are all off -- I am up at 3 am making soup, Mark is just getting to bed, and Esme won't wake up until 10:30 in the morning.  This is not like us.. but we have about two weeks more until school starts back up.. unless they cancel it for the rest of the year.

I ;am still deemed an 'essential' worker in both of my jobs - postal worker and medical technology service - but the actual hours are few and far between.  I do not see many people.  So, there's that.  I went out to two medical tech jobs the other day and wore gloves for both.  I'm doing what I can for those patients - even though I can't stay entirely at home.

I love the stages of the hickory trees, and the redbuds, and the dogwoods.  The sarvis (serviceberry) trees have finished now with their flowers, falling away to green leaves only.  The dogwoods that are blooming now are a green color and large flowered.  The more delicate white flowered ones will be popping in the woods soon I'm sure.  It seems like it was just a few months ago I was photographing them -- but I know it has been nearly a year.

Time has been so odd this year, even before the coronavirus, with changing jobs and getting through the anxiety of that - then Dad died in October - and I had a lot more anxiety and PTSD type epiphanies.  But  that is a human response, and I am feeling like I've swum to the other side of the shore.

I made soup, following my nose.
I'm a champion at thinking up weird combinations in my sleep... woke up and decided to make onion soup at about 3 am.  Then, as I grabbed for ingredients, things fell together to this.  The actual soup looks awful - kind of like the shiitake mushroom tapenade someone once tried to make with me - and it was so awful the cats and dogs wouldn't touch it..  But, this was amazingly good.

Lentil Seaweed Soup with Onion

About 2 to three cups of water
About 2 tbsp olive oil
celery salt, black pepper, garlic powder, ginger powder
1 medium onion, diced small
about 1/2 cup of brown lentils (washed)
1 sheet of Kombui seaweed
2 cubes of chicken boullion
1 packet of miso tofu (red style) soup
Some leftover packets of tofu cubes and green onion flakes from another bag of miso where they come separate from the paste

It started with waking up thinking about onion soup.  I have eaten a couple of cans of French Onion soup the past week and found them very satisfying.  But - looking at the recipes for how to make it from scratch did nothing for me.  It wasn't right for me.  So, this morning I was thinking I would just start with olive oil and onions and see where it took me.

I put in the spices, and then I knew I wanted the brown lentils.  Then the thought filtered in about the bouillon.  After all of that was together and bubbling nicely, the miso soup that came in the mail the other day entered into the edge of my mind and I added that in.  It was when I put the tofu soup packet in that I smelled the little bits of seaweed that are in it, and it made me think - I bought sheets of kombu last year for soba soup making.. which I've only made a couple of times since.  They were still in the cupboard, waiting.  They add a lot of salt, along with the bouillon, so NO need to add any extra.

After I had let that entire combination boil then simmer for an hour or so, I took the stick blender and gave it a few careful pulses.  You could pour the whole thing in a blender and do the same thing.  I am always careful about hot soup - volcanic bursts onto skin if you do it wrong etc.  But a few pulses was all it took to wake up Esme, too - she had slept through our entire conversation about 'soup at 3 am' but the stick blender woke her up.  She came out and looked at it, made some comments about games she had been playing, and went back to bed.

To serve the soup I put in an extra fresh grind of black pepper and a full teaspoon of hot madras curry powder right into my bowl.  It was one of the best things I've eaten in a while - but yes - it LOOKED gross.  Nova dog highly approved when I woke up at 8 am and had more for breakfast.

This camera has better eyes than I do - it almost gets down to the grain of the wood and the 'feather and fur' of each little leaf.

There was an ant crawling in the redbuds, and bees buzzing everywhere.  I couldn't get any of the insects in focus, but I wanted to remember that they were there.  The sun was coming up over the trees behind me and it made the redbud glow.

My right ankle gave out on me, as well, this morning.  It sent me crumping to the ground just like that time I was pregnant with Esme.  I remember that one often because I was so scared for her.  I fall down in this way quite a bit - just the other week in the garden, as well, but that was the time I had to worry for more than myself.  I was also thankful this morning I wasn't carrying the camera yet.  But, because I was now bleeding from my hand and knee - I was even more determined to capture some images of the things that were unique about this morning, the things that turned a walk to the mailbox into an expedition.

The red brown brush beside the road always piques my attention.  I wonder if there are many other people who find it as beautiful as I do.  This, and the red gold grasses bring me back to a time in the field at Arbo Road - standing in the middle of the sky, one tree to my back and a full circle clearing farther than I could run in one breath to all sides.  I was alone with the sky and the tree there.  I spent a lot of time there, far beyond the garden, but not too far Mom couldn't hear me when she yelled.  I sat at the base of that tree and thought about my ancestors, about my future, about the woods around me.  I was a deep little nine year old.. but there was something about that place - something it imbued me with - that comes back to me when I am out in the grasses.  It is one of the reasons I like to drive up by Martin, TN, too - the wide open sky, like an eyeball looking down on me from above, and the grasses, and the trees like eyelashes at the edges, waiting to blink.

Red brown feathers, delicate structures.  They seem to shine almost pink and looking through them is like looking many strings and webworks repeating over and over to infinity.  When it rains, they collect shining drops of water in their branches and intersections.  When it frosts, they collect tiny crystals of ice.

I think I spend more time looking at the tiny bits of plants around me than most people - it is something I find joy in, the changes, the differences, the transformations.

Mark found this out in the driveway yesterday, he says a woodpecker has been hard at work on it.  It was almost hollow inside - insect work that the woodpecker then went after the insects?

I'm sewing up the ends of dischloths, knitting on yet another lap blanket, bright green this time. Our black tortoiseshell Minion is truly enjoying where the pink one ended up I made over the last few months.

Besides that , more soup, maybe a bit more work in the garden.  It is supposed to rain today so I don't think it is right to put the seedlings out to day.. but it is so warm it is almost there.

We also finally downloaded the game GardenPaws, and it is very sweet.  Esme and I have been exploring that new world and discovering all of the creative things to do in it.

I took joy this morning in the mathematics of the trees, again. The powder blue criss-crossed with burnt umber at angles and intersections. The mist out of and into which a hawk soared above the branches, pointed out by the younger eyes beside me. As I am contemplating twists and turns and melancholy steps waiting for the future paths to reveal themselves, it all resonates with a similar tone, rich and varied underneath, and forming to a harmony that says ‘for now, look.’

Algorithms.  Parabolas.  Integral Trees.  Patterns of Dispersion.

It's in the mathematics of the trees, the stones under my feet, the approach and the descent.  It is in the heads of small growing plants rising up through the flat planes of soil.  It is in the steps that we take down the road and the patterns of the many feet running by in the forest, and behind the fences.  It is a rhythm and a harmony of music that is mostly silent, but like music, gathers over time into the patterns and meaningful phrases.  It is in the wrinkles of a face, or the tracing of hands through their motions day after day, and in the tracking of eyes on the horizon waiting for a sign through the passing of astronomy and birds and rain.

I get into this state, seeing this whole that is so much larger than myself but so invisible to most... and I don't know what to do with it.  I can draw, write, record.. but I am only a drop in the river, waiting to see where I will end up and if anyone else is listening to the same music.  It is such a solitary music, even when shared, that still .. a reminder that we are Being, and that over Time there is no such thing as Chaos.. as even the rain on the window tends to fall back together after it has fallen, somewhere, somehow.

garden between the rain storms

 I planted some gladiolus bulbs and nasturtiums and morning glories here.

 This is the hosta garden.  I planted some tiger lily bulbs near the white post.

 Another shot of the tree in the garden .. still trying to find out exactly what it is.
Update : Through some help on Gardenweb it is a Prunus serotina, or a Wild Black Cherry tree.  

My white and green hosta is beginning to come up.  I am glad to see it.  I think this is a full two weeks behind the other one?  I'll have to remember that so I'm not so worried later.. I wonder if it is the age or size of the hosta or the variety that affects how early it comes up?

Painting Trees and birthday

Post at Niume

Art Perseverance : Painting Trees

I have two 11x14 paintings now.. a few more to be made after I buy some more paint this week.

I'm hoping to go make the cookies now.  We decided to stay at home all day and try to keep warm and occupied.  I've wrapped the gifts I have so far for Mark's birthday.  There is still something coming in the mail and something Esme wants to get for him.