Dog Shit and Tweakers

    During the first several months of the COVID-19 pandemic, I took many, many walks.  I would often cross the river on the pedestrian path on the side of the freeway.  The bridge was built a few years ago, and the walkway is nice and wide.  

    There has always been a population of homeless people living out there.  Like many people in the US, situations like these pit my sense of compassion against my need for safety.  They often stole the apples off my fruit trees.  That didn't bother me all that much, since I figured they were hungry and needed them.  One year, they stole my hammock.  I saw later in one of their camps and decided to just let them keep it.    

    There is certainly a fair amount of mental illness (I've encountered numerous people in the throes of psychosis) and drug use.  There is even a delightful (sarcasm!) amount of profane, obscene, and racist graffiti on the bridge.  The one below was accompanied by a lewd drawing.  At least it was in chalk, so it doesn't deface our new bridge.  The style of the letter S is an intentional Nazi reference that I've seen in other, more overtly racist, graffiti.  

 

        While everything was shut down during 2020, I had to quit going down to the bridge.  It felt unsafe to me.  People would sometimes yell at me for wearing a mask, or come up and get right in my face.  Before my vaccination, I didn't want anyone close to me.  

    Another lovely feature of those shut-down days was the amount of dog feces in the street and on the side walks.  That isn't something I'm accustomed to in North America.  It is pretty common in Latin America, where dogs run all over the place, shitting on sidewalks. I still don't know why people quit scooping up after their dogs.  It isn't pleasant to smell human and dog waste while you are out for a walk.

    In the past few years, the number of people who are homeless has exploded.  Over the past couple of weeks, I have been walking past a new camp.  My walking route takes me past their open latrine, where you can see paper towels, toilet paper, and lots of flies.  The people don't harass me or anything, so I don't feel uncomfortable with them being there.  What worries me, though, is the latrine.  Open defecation is a huge public health issue.  In countries where it is common, parasites and disease abound.  We don't have those diseases here because of our sanitation infrastructure.  But we now have a growing population living without modern sanitation.  How long will it be before those diseases become part of life here in this country?  

    I won't launch into politics here.  The actual reason for this post is to show what I found next to that camp.  There is an Oregon oak seedling that has no chlorophyll.  When the food from the acorn runs out, it will die, since it can't produce any sugars on its own.  I have seen cherry seedlings like this before.  I even tried to graft them to other seedlings without success. 

    I'm not inclined to torture this tree's short life by grafting it, Frankenstein-style, to another plant.  I have to fantasize about what an albino oak would look like though...  A tree like this would be so ghostly.  

    I will appreciate it while it lasts.  

Mosquito Hell

This year has been a nightmare for mosquitoes in my area.  It was a really wet spring, which allowed some species of mosquito to hatch out in unprecedented numbers.  In order to go out in my garden- even in the full sun- I have to keep myself slathered in DEET.  They bite me anyway.

I've taken to walking down by the river, as I do most summers.  I can usually keep the mosquitoes at bay if I don't stop.  Today, however, I had to pee, so I had to step off the main trail into the shade.  They were all over me instantly.  God, I hate those little fuckers.

I came back out into the sunshine, where there are lots of what I take to be Clarkias.  I know they are in the family Onagraceae, at least. I suspect they were planted there with a mix of wildflower seeds, since I don't see them growing in other areas. 

For the past couple of weeks, I have been thinking of collecting seeds from these plants this fall.  they are really pretty impressive.

Today, as I was cursing and fleeing the mosquitoes, I came across this plant:

The markings on the petals are really striking.  I will definitely be collecting seed from this plant, if not cuttings.  I'm not sure if this is an annual or perennial species, so I will try both.  The variation was not quite as unique as I had first thought, however.  I found a handful of other plants with similar markings- though not quite as dramatic as these.  I doubt this is a rare mutation that is one-of-a-kind discovery, but it will be a fun plant to grow in the garden.  

Now if only those fucking mosquitoes would die...

 

Close to Home

Today I was peeing in my garden (I mean...  why else would anyone have a garden- except as a a giant urinal??)

I happened to look up and saw a large double flower on my Asian pear tree.  The rest of the tree flowered almost two months ago, so this was quite a surprise.  I have no idea if it is a fluke- or a mutation that will persist if I graft it up and observe it.

If it turns out to be a good one, I can just imagine the tree covered in flowers like this.  Check out this photo from April when the whole tree flowered:

It might be incredible.  Just imagine all those flowers being double!   But as always, only time will tell!

I hate everyone.

 I wonder if anyone still reads this.  I rage-quit Facebook about a year ago.  Best decision I ever made.  While the new meme-vectors will continue to tear our world apart and replace it with some still-unseen order, I can at least keep my brain from being force-fed garbage.

I'm always tempted to write about my love life in these posts.  Sexuality is what drives so much life on this planet.  I look for mistakes that would otherwise end up in the trash-heap of evolutionary rejects.  I am one such reject, myself.  Sometimes it sucks to think about how my ancestors reproduced without fail for the past few billion years.  And I get to be a dead-end.  Yay.

But here in my little back-water of evolutionary accidents, I have created a place for us weird rejects to live together in relative peace.  I guess.

Yesterday I was walking with my friend Bobbi, ranting as I usually do about my failed love life, the perversity of Evangelical Christianity (where they take a religion that is supposed to be based on love and make it all about hate), and work stress.

This broom was literally right in front of me as we turned a corner.

It was in someone's Norway Spruce tree, hanging over the sidewalk.  Since it was easily within reach, I took a little twig.  I will be grafting it up today.  It is a tiny broom that might make a good rock garden plant.  I'm not super excited about the species (I tend to be more excited about our native trees) but I will give it a try.

 

I'm not going to change my negative attitude just now.  There is too much crap in the world for me to think positively right now.  But I will stop and appreciate a cool little treasure that pops up in front of my face during the shitty times.  

Shit

A couple of months ago, a friend and I sit out to explore an area in the Oregon Cascades  it was a really long drive. For some reason, the night before, I was only able to sleep for an hour. On the trip there, I slept all the way.

When we arrived, I got out and started my legs. The elevation was pretty high, so the temperature was low. There was ice on every mud puddle, on the lakes, and in the creeks.  We hiked along the creek through mature alpine fir- Abies lasciocarpa  it was a lovely area. After a short hike, my friend sat down on a boulder to smoke her marijuana. I do not partake, so I wanted something to do while she sat there and got stoned.

I wandered off and happened to stumble across a mostly dead broom in an alpine fir  

There were a couple of twigs that were barely alive, so I took some scions for grafting.  Early November isn't ideal for grafting, but I can't see being able to get in there January or February.  

I am not going to get my hopes up, but I will be glad if one succeeds.

I used to get really frustrated when there was an interesting mutation that I couldn't collect easily.  There have been a few that I haven't had success with- either because they are inaccessible, the land owner ignored my request for access, or other reasons.  Such is life.  Sometimes it seems life is too complex and out of our control to freak out about everything that doesn't go our way.

My perspective has changed in the past few years.  It isn't that I don't get pissed off at shit.  It's just that I fight against the shit coming down less.  I guess.

Oh.  and there are pictograms there.  It was a trade route for indigenous folks, and several rock paintings are there.  They are faded, but intact.  

Stupid People

My friend Melissa and I took a long drive through the woods in Washington State the other day.  It was Labor Day weekend, and a bazillion people were out in the forest.  I found myself cursing at every vehicle that passed us on the gravel roads, kicking up lots of dust for us to breathe.

After a while, we turned off on a smaller road to go explore a bog that I know about it.  It is full of carnivorous plants and cranberries, and it is delightful at any time of year.

At one point, I happened to look out the window and saw this larch tree:

That broom looks rather promising.  We will have to go back with my shotgun to see if we can get some scions for grafting.  There aren't many cultivars of that species, so I'm kind of excited about it.

We continued south, and came across an abandoned bonfire.  Not just a little camp fire.  A fucking BONFIRE.  

What in the hell is wrong with people?  This was one day before the windstorm that is currently burning the entire west coast of North America.  OMFG.

We didn't have a bucket, so we scooped water out of the creek, using a reusable grocery bag.  It took a lot of water to extinguish the fire.  it kept boiling away as we stirred it into the coals.  We finally got it extinguished.  

Here's a pic after we dumped a lot of water on it:

The next day, the wind kicked up, and the whole West Coast caught on fire.  if we hadn't put that fire out, I'm sure the wind would have fanned that substantial coal bed, and the woods next to it would have burned. 

Melissa and I have been patting ourselves on the back all week for being such great citizens.  You are welcome, Washington!  😀

Exploding Brains

There are certain native plants that seem invasive.  Populus trichocarpa, or the black cottonwood, is one.  Its seeds fly on fluffy down in June every year, and the resulting seedlings come up by the thousands in any damp location.  They grow quickly, and produce lots of root suckers.  They can be a bit of a pest as a result.

In the past couple of months, I've gone through a bunch of personal weirdness- mostly romantic angst.  I know that's my usual subject of whining, so I won't subject you to it now.  Needless to say, it has resulted in restlessness and sleepless nights.

In order to get my shit back together, I quit drinking alcohol and I've been taking walks- sometimes up to three per day.  Sometimes my phone logs 30,000 steps in a day.  It has had a good effect on my health and mood.

One of my walking routes involves a trail through a wetland area, populated by lots of Populus (see what I did there?)  After walking the trail dozens of times, I finally looked more closely at the yellowing leaves of one cottonwood branch.

I had noticed the yellow leaves before, but they only registered as sick leaves, yellowing in the August heat.  Upon closer inspection, however, I noticed that they are variegated.  And rather nicely variegated at that

Imagine a large tree with foliage like this:

As I've discovered before, though, sometimes such variegations are unstable and quickly revert to green.  This one looks promising, so we will  see.

In the  meantime, if you never hear from me again, you will know that my brain finally exploded from romantic entanglements.  I suppose there are worse ways to die...