terrescapes

Miscanthus sinensis ‘Rigoletto'

2011-11-05T09:14:00.000-07:00

Giuseppe Verdi’s opera Rigoletto offers a plum role for tenors: Rigoletto is a jester in the court of the Duke of Mantua, and he has dished out deluxe insults in a long career. When karma calls, he loses his beloved daughter to an act of revenge. My Rigoletto is just maiden grass, but it’s likewise showy and bright. Its fall foliage is opera bling in every Italian stripe, asserting dramatic ivory-toned highlights and even bearing tassel-like scepters on stalks. At about 4 feet, Miscanthus sinensis ‘Rigoletto’ is tidier than its taller cousins, with less inclination to flop in late season. The tassels mature into silvery white plumes that last well into the winter, providing great inspiration for jesters everywhere.

2011-03-26T10:31:00.000-07:00

You are not the Pope or a crystal or dreamcatcher,
Or hard locked gates like those scorched ones say;
You might be the best words I’ve ever heard,
An aria, core of a flame, the little joy of someone
Whose eyes catch my gentle joke.

You might be a breeze I’ve never felt before;
A new color, a stranger’s aura,
Bells growling through a Berlin platz,
Deep as blue whales,
Blasting the pigeons and ringing our bones.

You are the only visit by a bird of shy green,
A light left on for days.
—and nights and days, because you gave me the idea
To guide her in the dark.

And you are the shock of love,
The surprise in the street,
The lover appearing when I’d nearly forgotten his face.

Autumn casts her spell.

2010-10-31T09:56:00.000-07:00

Berberis thunbergii 'Rose Glow,' Crataegus crus-galli 'inermis' and Miscanthus sinensis 'Rigoletto.' The confetti of color on the barberry includes a shot of green wire vine that has climbed into it. The tricolor leaves on Crataegus, thornless cockspur hawthorn tree, are an African flag. And the leaves of maiden grass 'Rigoletto' look like ribbons, bling in every Italian stripe, asserting dramatic highlights and bearing tasseled scepters. Just as I've imagined Verdi's proud court jester.

step back, buddy!

2010-10-24T19:35:00.000-07:00

Tedd holds his own against the monstrous Attack Dahlia

at Lore's Foundry in Wenatchee, October 2010.

pull up! pull up!

2010-10-24T18:37:00.000-07:00

house sparrow, Passer domesticus

So this little one hit our back window--hard--and Brian put him up on a laurel branch to recover. It looks like he's posing nicely, but I'm sure he's just waiting for everything to stop spinning.

I use translucent, leaf-shaped window-clings to help them avoid this, but once in a blue moon they hit. This is the first time we had to carry one to safety. He flew off about 10 minutes later.

pets of august

2010-08-24T08:53:00.000-07:00

In autumn they're everywhere--I can't walk through the garden without snagging their webs. I’ve heard her called European garden spider, or simply orb-weaver, but I found she is named Araneus diadematus, which perhaps refers to her diamond-like markings. Or, likely from the Greek diadema > diadein, ‘to bind around’, which needs no explanation.

I don’t let her catch bees: I had to move her away from the lavender and the mass of bees visiting there. I try not to interfere. But I am a small god in my garden, and there are many more of her than there are honeybees.

This little DaVinci invention is a plume moth in the family Pterophoridae. The wonderful bugpeeps of whatsthatbug.com say many people call this a t-bug.
Can you believe: 154 species?

what hummy sees.

2010-08-18T08:20:00.000-07:00

As some hummers prepare to migrate south, I trust these little trumpets will provide nourishment for the long trip.

L to R: salvia greggii 'autumn', agastache rupestris, zauschneria, crocosmia 'lucifer.'

for Jack

2010-04-17T09:54:00.001-07:00

I want to remember
That I lived long enough
To hear hummy buzz the window,
See him shimmy up sugar,
Ruffle the water with busy taking.

Explain a hummingbird.
A roll of pennies, kryptonite green.
Wings that vanish into morning coat.
A tiny power,
Hot elegance threading the leaves.
A way to imagine angels.

It depends on who they really are.
In the next world,
I will look for those I loved
And take a while to find them,
Because my mother is now a bird,
Golden crowned,
My soft old dog a Baltic prince,
My sister a glossy beetle.

They've evolved
To the finer magic I missed on earth,
Beings who whirred at the edge of my vision
Who are now the shiny center of God's gaze.

skeletons on fire

2010-04-17T08:20:00.000-07:00

Riding the Elevator to the Sky

As the fireman said:
Don't book a room over the fifth floor
in any hotel in New York.
They have ladders that will reach further
but no one will climb them.
As the New York Times said:
The elevator always seeks out
the floor of the fire
and automatically opens
and won't shut.
These are the warnings
that you must forget if you're climbing out of yourself.
If you're going to smash into the sky.

Many times I've gone past the fifth floor,
cranking upward,
but only once have I gone all the way up.
Sixtieth floor: small plants and swans bending into their grave.
Floor two hundred: mountains with the patience of a cat, silence wearing its sneakers.
Floor five hundred: messages and letters centuries old, birds to drink, a kitchen of clouds.
Floor six thousand: the stars, skeletons on fire, their arms singing.
And a key, a very large key, that opens something —
some useful door — somewhere — up there.

Anne Sexton

Girlfriend

2010-01-23T16:53:00.000-08:00

Your hands rest on the table sure.
Oh, they know how I regard you.
We laugh like play-ravished children.
Then I let my sadness walk to you
And you slip it with perfumed tickets
Into your silk pocket.

Deer ones near and far

2009-12-21T08:05:00.000-08:00

Somewhere across the world tonight

You may hear chimes that fill the air;
As Christmas offers its golden light
Across the distance that we share.

You may be singing, same as I,
Familiar songs we know so well,
And see the same stars in your sky
And wish upon the one that fell.

I'll think of you and trim my tree,
A shining star on the highest bough,
I'll hang a wreath that all may see,
And wish that I could see you now.
And all the time that we're apart, I'll keep a candle in my heart.

after Mary Linton

Visitor

2009-11-27T11:15:00.000-08:00

Soft gold hope
And monster of heat,
You slide across the wall then you retreat,
Cats of light slipping behind the doors.
Now muscles of clouds move east from that gold;
Gray, white, the Rorschach of childhood,
Whatever I find them to be.

Strange that your warmth
Is eternal explosion,
Not the Face of the West smiling
From across the ocean.

Long Afternoon at the Edge of Little Sister Pond

2009-10-25T18:45:00.000-07:00

As for life,

I'm humbled,
I'm without words
sufficient to say
how it has been hard as flint,
and soft as a spring pond,
both of these and over and over,

and long pale afternoons besides,
and so many mysteries
beautiful as eggs in a nest,
still unhatched

though warm and watched over
by something I have never seen -
a tree angel, perhaps,
or a ghost of holiness.

Every day I walk out into the world
to be dazzled, then to be reflective.
It suffices, it is all comfort -
along with human love,

dog love, water love, little-serpent love,
sunburst love, or love for that smallest of birds
flying among the scarlet flowers.
There is hardly time to think about

stopping, and lying down at last
to the long afterlife, to the tenderness
yet to come, when
time will brim over the singular pond, and become forever,

and we will pretend to melt away into the leaves.
As for death,
I can't wait to be the hummingbird,
can you?

-- Mary Oliver

Speaking for gardeners

2009-10-25T18:36:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday an overflow crowd turned out at Redmond City Hall. With many of King County’s services subject to budget shortfall, so many people showed up in support of maintaining health and human services that some resorted to live RCTV coverage of the county council proceedings in the building's lobby.
One of the services in jeopardy is the WSU Extension's Master Gardener training, and a large group from the program explained how their volunteers teach others to grow food and reclaim water -- forward–thinking ways to save money and promote health in these times of financial strain.
I sent an email comment to the council asking them to preserve the program from cuts, and there’s still time to do so: the Council will take public testimony regarding the budget over the Internet. Visit www.kingcounty.gov/Council/Budget.
Another public hearing on the 2010 King County budget is scheduled from 7 to 9 pm Thursday, Oct. 29 at the King County Courthouse, 516 Third Ave. in Seattle. Info from this report gleaned from Sammamish Reporter.com at www.pnwlocalnews.com/east_king.

Hope this works

2009-10-21T09:24:00.000-07:00

Colony collapse disorder has devastated bee colonies across the globe, but some bees will now have a built-in urge to fight back against varroa mites, a parasite that contributes to the mysterious phenomenon. Researchers at Agricultural Research Service (ARS) have developed bees with a genetic trait that prompts them to aggressively seek out varroa mites and remove them from the brood nest. Varroa mites infest bee colonies, feeding on hemolymph, a combination of blood and fluid inside bees. Left untreated, the mites can kill entire colonies. The genetic trait developed by ARS, called varroa-sensitive hygiene (VSH), causes the bees to instigate a group battle against the mites, chewing through the wax cap and removing the infected brood and their mites.

--Mother Nature Network

meet the kids

2009-10-20T21:06:00.000-07:00

Teddy's a joiner; loves a game, guests, the doorbell. He expects the best from people and gets it.
Sammy's a rescue guy, a Tibetan terrier, and a lover not a fighter.
Mr. T loves grass and dandelions and doesn't give a fig about Teddy or Sammy.