Janus, the Two-faced God

 As the month of January closes out, I'm reminded of the Roman god, Janus.  Supposedly two-faced, one looked forward and the other backward.  It does seem fitting that this god would guard the end of the old year and the beginning of the new.  

I look forward and backward with the spreadsheets of cat medications.  For each cat I have a sheet to record each dose.  With Paddy, it deals with Prednisone, Cerenia, Cyproheptidine, and Mirtazopine.  The first is for his asthma, the second and third for his pancreatitis, and the last for his thyroid.  We also track his weight on a daily basis even though it's the weekly trends that are more diagnostic of things.  Although Paddy is well trained to sit still during weighing, he's a handful to pill.

Henry, meanwhile, gets eyedrops to manage the pressure in his remaining eye.  Even though it is missing the lens, it still gives him enough vision to get around.  He gets Dorzolamide in the morning and Ketorolac in the evening.  Both must sting a bit, because he always shakes his head vigorously after I administer them.  The tear ducts in cats run directly into the nasal cavities and from there into the back of the mouth.  They taste the eyedrops fairly soon after they're applied.  Henry usually runs for his food bowl to get rid of the bad taste right afterwards.  

In any event, tracking each day's medications is one of the few ways of my telling one day from another.  Time has no meaning during the pandemic.  I'm always amazed at how fast the months go by.  

On an annual basis, I've been tracking the NM Department of Health's COVID-19 numbers since last spring with a spreadsheet as well.  The statewide count, the deaths, the infections for Bernalillo County, and the infections in our zipcode.  

Just recently I highlighted the 300-day mark since the Governor ordered the initial lockdown.  I track any outside contact and, I suppose, if things got serious, we could do a sort of mini-contact tracing with this information.

Friday, you can see on the sheet, I was out and about, restocking the wine supply at Kelly's and dropping a sample off at the vet's office.  Double masks and quick shopping make for lower risk.  I'll watch the days in February tick by one after the other.  For now, my only health issue is juniper allergies, but that discussion will have to wait for another day.

In closing, Happy Birthday to my nephew Peter!

A Saturday without Bonsai

Typically, the Albuquerque Bonsai Club holds its monthly meetings on the first Saturday of the month.  Sometimes New Years, the Fourth of July, or Labor Day interfere, but by in large there's a meeting whether at the church in person or, in the Covid Era, via Zoom.

Then there's the Third Saturday Workshops with John Egert, the succulent sensei.  In the past he'd drive up and we'd gather in someone's backyard for a few hours of donuts and tree manipulation.  In the winter it'd be inside someone's heated workshop (thank you, Richard) and in the summer we'd be out in the shade of someone's yard (thank you, Connie).  Now we get a Zoom broadcast from Socorro.  Rather convenient, but not as convivial.  

With those two activities, it means we have a bonsai Saturday every other week.  But this January has five Saturdays.  The result is that today is the second Saturday in a row without a bonsai event.  

The weather forecast is for rain showers Friday night followed by a chilly, sunny, breezy day.  Seems like a perfect day to hide in the sun room and clean pots, shop for mica pots online, and check the supplies.  In about a month or so, buds will be breaking and it will be prime season to prune, wire, and repot.  

Here for your amusement is the current status of my Siberian pea-tree, Caragana arborescens.  With its small pot, it's susceptible to cold damage, so I bring it into the garage where temperatures run at about 45°-50° even on the coldest nights.  Apparently moderate temperature and the light from a skylight is enough to convince the tree that it's time to leaf out.  Several weeks ago it broke bud, so I'm keeping the soil moist and watching it closely.  It was getting top heavy with growth from last season and I took the opportunity to give it a "hair cut" two weeks ago.  Let's see if it rewards me with new growth lower down on the trunk.  

In other news, the Facebook post on Silene will automatically be revealed on the NM Native Plants page.  They are usually well received.  By tomorrow I should have stats on how many people felt compelled to click on 'Like'.

The HRDG Labels Have Arrived

E-mail yesterday notified me that the new metal labels for Hybrid Tea roses in the HDRG have arrived.  The current plan is to head out to the Garden Monday after lunch and start putting them in the ground.  Yay!

The information in my original spreadsheet included name, breeder, nursery, year introduced, and the trivial family name, Rosaceae.  They should look very nice out among the central beds of the HDRG. 

Stay tuned for photos of the new signage in situ along with an essay on varietal names of commercial roses. 

68 years + 1 day

Debbie dropped off an apple pie, which was completely inadequate to hold the 68 candles required for the occasion.  Later we Zoomed for cocktails and the requisite gift opening.  I scored bread pans, baguette pans, a baguette basket, a Fresnel lens magnifier for cell phones (quite useful!), a botanical t-shirt (always appreciated, see below), and a coffee table book of botanical illustrations.  

Birthday dinner of moules and frites with my now-famous baguettes was a success.  

Now, 24 hours later, the pie has disappeared.  Funny how that happens.  

Another Trip Around the Sun

Time has no meaning during the pandemic.  One day trails into another seamlessly.  The same morning coffee, check e-mail and electoral-vote.com, pill Paddy, eyedrops for Henry Cat, the litter box, make the bed, vacuum.  Then lunch and a nap.  

The excitement is palpable when there is a change to the routine:  maybe a botany webinar, the bonsai club virtual workshops, InstaCart grocery delivery, a trip to Kelly's to restock the wine supply, an afternoon labeling plants in the Botanic Garden.  Wednesdays Baldo comes over to tidy up the yard.  Friday evenings are game nights via Discord or Roll20.  Zoom political meetings occasionally pop up as do Zoom cooking events.  

But today is different... it's my Circumsolar Orbit Celebration.  Already the well-wishes are coming in on Facebook.  

The morning should be relaxing, but starting at around 11:00 I have to prep Henry Cat for a trip to the vet.  Gabapentin is the drug of choice to get him calmed down for the exam by Dr. Bouchet.  It's just an annual, but it's an annual for an old cat.  Anything could turn up.  

Right now Henry Cat is sitting on my lap, no doubt thinking I'll get him some more food.  Which is a sure thing.  He's got me figured out pretty well.  

My earliest photographs of him are November 2005 and he was more than a kitten then, so I presume he was born in mid-2005.  That makes him about 15½ years old.  Somehow he seems older than that.  Probably because of his diminished vision and his slow and careful movements, he appears venerable. 

Well, now Henry has had his second midnight snack and wandered off to a cushy chair in the sunroom.  I peaked out the back window and see that tonight's storm has arrived:  the patio is wet but the cold surfaces are lightly covered with snow.  I'd guess 1/8" is on the junipers, the bamboo, and the garden walls.  I might have to shovel the drive (it faces north and doesn't get any winter sun) before we head up to Aztec around 2:00.  

Porcupines, Part 2

Yesterday's reminiscing about porcupines encouraged me to go back through my video archives and locate this one:   

The little fellow was walking happily down the railroad tracks as they led from the Heritage Farm past the front of the Japanese Garden.  Fortunately, this was on a Monday and the trains don't run then.  

Apparently their eyesight is very poor.  This guy didn't notice me until he was practically on top of me.  Even then, he wasn't particularly perturbed.  

As a bonus photo, here's a shot of Ric LaBan photographing the porcupine as he enjoys some crabapples.

Recollections of the Porcupine

Although I'm rarely down at the Botanic Garden right now, I reflect back on previous Januaries.  Late one afternoon (1/21/16, actually), I came across this fellow on the ground in full daylight.  

He was sifting through the leaves looking for fallen and possibly fermented crabapples.  The trees are on the S-path that joins the High Desert Rose Garden with the Sasebo Japanese Garden.  In two or three months, they'll be bursting with color as they bloom.  One of the first trees to show color, they herald the coming of the cherry blossoms.  

Cabbage

Around Albuquerque this time of year, there isn't much outdoor color in the gardens.  Blue or red berries remain on a few plants:  barberry, Nandina, Mahonia, and a few others.  But one exception are the cabbages.  Cool season ornamentals, they grow in a compact habit of purples and greens, often variegated.  With the warmth of spring, they will "bolt," sending up a rapidly growing flower stalk that signals their going to seed and expiring.  But for all of winter, they hunker down and bring a bit of color to borders and patio pots, even when dusted with snow.  

Inspired by ornamental cabbage yesterday, I thinly sliced half of a standard grocery store cabbage, shredded some carrots, and cooked up an improvised stir fry for dinner.  Augmented with reconstituted shitaki mushrooms and marinated tofu, it was a success.  Tamari, oyster sauce, rice wine vinegar, and a dollop of maple syrup, the sauce was vegetarian umami at its best.  Served over a bowlful of hot soba noodles, it was a fitting and fulfilling dish for a winter's eve.  Best yet, there are leftovers!

Back to things botanical...

Cabbage is in the Brassicaceae, the mustard family.  They all tend to be cool weather plants.  They are easy to spot with 4 sepals and 4 petals, 6 stamen with 2 longer than the other 4, plus a distinctive type of 2-celled fruit.  

In Albuquerque, the green sprouts of our native rocket, Sisymbrium altissima, begin to appear in late winter.  Their leaves for rosettes and they decorate disturbed soil all over town.  They especially seem to like the borders of irrigation ditches and acequias.  Within a month of so, they will send up their flowering stalks bearing small yellow flowers and soon after, their spikes will be laden with elongated fruits.  As they ripen and dehisc later in the first warm days of spring, the seeds will scatter and begin the cycle again. 

Travel Schlepp's Birthday

Here's the story of how Little Schlepp aka Travel Schlepp aka TS came to be part of our family.

---------------

Travel Schlepp 

I was born and mostly raised in the Bear’s Cookie Den in the tiny seaside village of Seal Rock, Oregon.  Big Schlepp and I enjoyed the company of hundreds of other bears.  Together we watched the people come and go through the little bakery and coffee shop.  We’d see all kinds of tourists and wonder where they came from and where they were going.  Sometimes they’d buy a bear, usually for an obnoxious child who pestered them until he or she got what they wanted. Big Schlepp and I were lucky that we didn’t fall into their clutches. 

Often it was cold and foggy with hardly any people at all.  But in September it could be gloriously sunny and warm.  Yet it was on an unusually foggy morning in September that Big Schlepp almost was taken away. 

On that day two humans came in to the Cookie Den. The lady really like us a lot.  I could tell. Actually, she liked Big Schlepp.  The man said she should buy him, but she said something like, “I can’t buy everything I like.” And she placed Big Schlepp back beside me on the shelf. 

I could feel his disappointment but was secretly relieved he wasn’t leaving me.  I had never given this much thought before and felt disturbed by it for days.  I realized the day would most likely come when one of us would be left behind.  Being so alike and having the same aspiration and goal to be loved and cared for in a nice home had given us a deep bond in our long hours of silence. 

As I had so dreaded, that day came, a damp, dreary, and cold day the next December.  It didn’t happen as I had expected.  I thought I would see who took Big Schlepp and paid for him and hoped it would be an adult.  Instead, the store keeper took Big Schlepp from my side and I watched as she placed him in a big box, tucked a bag of chocolate chip cookies in beside him, and sealed it. 

Oh God, how I wondered and worried back then what his fate had been.  We were both alone and I didn’t know where Big Schlepp had gone. 

It seemed an eternity passed that I sat on my shelf alone and only occasionally would someone show a slight interest in me. 

Then one day about a month later, the storekeeper came to my shelf holding a small box and then she put me inside and closed the box.  I was frightened.  Where was I being sent and to whom?  After being jostled about for days, someone opened the lid to my box.  Suddenly, I was looking up into the face of a man.  My first reaction was relief–to be out of that box..  Then I recognized him as the man who had been with the lady that day in the store, when she almost bought Big  Schlepp.  I was so confused.  That day in September he had hardly noticed me at all nor had the lady for that matter. 

After the man gently picked me up with an expression of surprise and appreciation, I could look around at my surroundings.  [Editor's note:  This was January 22, 1999, so we celebrate this as TS's birthday.]

It was then that I saw the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.  Big Schlepp was sitting across the room looking contented as could be. 

You see, the man, whose name was Karl, had remembered Big Schlepp from September and bought him for Christmas for his lady.  Then the lady, whose name was Caro, bought me for Karl’s birthday.  I had really underestimated her.  She had remembered me all that time. 

I looked around for her but she wasn’t around.  She was taking care of her mother who was sick in someplace called South Carolina.  Caro wanted me to be there for his birthday even if she couldn’t.  I felt very important and took my new responsibility very seriously. 

Karl set me up next to Big Schlepp and we talked long into the night.  We had a lot of catching up to do. 

I didn't know it then, but adventure was waiting for me right around the corner. 

Palindromic Week

Beginning with 1-20-21, we hit a week with palindromic dates, numbers that read the same forwards and backwards.  Today, 1-21-21, is my brother's birthday (Happy Birthday, Paul!).  Because the units in each day of [20, 21, 22, ..., 29] are in the middle of the sequence, these ten days in January of 2021 will form a palindrome of the fashion 1-2x-21.  

The same thing will occur in February of 2022 with 2-2x-22.  Next year will include the noteworthy 2-22-22, which should be fun to say out loud.  Then stand by for March 2023 and 3-2x-23.  You can see the pattern forming here.  

But that's enough of numerology for today.  How are things in the Garden or the garden or the sunroom?  The long shafts of winter sun illuminate the entire sunroom, even to the extent that some of the shade-loving Bigonias are getting sunburned leaves.  The Bougainvillea is happily blooming, responding well to the winter sunshine, careful fertilization last fall, and mild nighttime temperatures.  The latter is due to our keeping the mini-split thermostat set at 64° overnight, which lets the room temperature fluctuate from 62° to 72°.  

Palindromic Day

 1-20-21

The most welcome palindromic date I've seen in a long, long time.  At noon EST, President-elect Biden will become President Uncle Joe.  There are news stories about the executive actions he'll take on Day 1, including rejoining the Paris Climate Accords and cancelling the Keystone Pipeline.  

In other news, coming up on Friday the 22nd, the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) will enter into force.  It was opened for signature Sept. 20, 2017.  The treaty passed on a vote in the UN on July 7, 2017 with 122 in favor, 1 against (Netherlands), and 1 official abstention (Singapore).  Sixty-nine nations did not vote, among them all of the nuclear weapon states and all NATO members except the Netherlands.

The TPNW or the Nuclear Weapon Ban Treaty, is the first legally binding international agreement to comprehensively prohibit nuclear weapons with the ultimate goal being their total elimination.  For those nations that are party to it, the treaty prohibits the development, testing, production, stockpiling, stationing, transfer, use and threat of use of nuclear weapons, as well as assistance and encouragement to the prohibited activities. For nuclear armed states joining the treaty, it provides for a time-bound framework for negotiations leading to the verified and irreversible elimination of its nuclear weapons programm.  (Wikipedia)

A Storm Blows Through It

 It's almost 4:00 a.m. and I'm up checking the weather charts.  Henry Cat eventually woke up and came into the office looking for food.  To my surprise, he tucked in to the first flavor I offered:  whitefish in gravy.  Now he's happily ensconced on my lap getting the occasional scritch on the head while I type.

Outside the wind is howling.  Online weather maps show gusts over 45 mph at the UNMH heliport.  The temperature here in the Near North Valley is only 38°, not nearly cold enough for snow.  Bands of precipitation are north, south, east, and west of the city, but the infamous "snow hole" is in effect.  

Martin Luther King Day

Time has no meaning during the pandemic.  Today is a national holiday, but then everyday is a holiday for me.  Retired, hunkered down, socially distanced, mask-wearing -- this the new normal until the vaccine arrives for everyone.  

The Botanic Garden is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays at the moment, so even a federal holiday doesn't have any impact there.  

Meanwhile, a storm is on track to skirt across the southern part of the state later tonight.  The forecast is for clouds and wind, but not much in the way of colder temperatures.  The east canyon winds create our "snow hole," an area where little snow makes it to the ground due to winds aloft.  Depending on when the winds die down, we could see some snow by Tuesday morning.  

Stay tuna'ed.

Herbaria

The New York Botanic Garden has been offering a series of webinars.  They've brought together presentations on topics ranging from climate change to plant extinctions.  Here's the link to the listing of all their past webinars -- https://www.nybg.org/plant-research-and-conservation/news-events/science-conservation-humanities-seminars/ 

The most recent was Barbara Thiers' examination of the value of herbaria:  Herbaria: Collectively Saving Plant and Fungal Biodiversity.  Besides discussing the history of herbaria, Dr. Thiers had a number of botanical anecdotes dealing with under-appreciated plant collectors.  

My favorite, Jeanne Baret, came up.  She was the first woman to circumnavigate the globe and as a docent at the Albuquerque Botanic Garden, I always relate the story to tour groups.  

3rd Saturday Bonsai Workshop

 

Today's workshop involved power tools, mostly Dremel-like things with burr bits to remove dead wood to reshape jin and shari.  Lots of good discussion of which tools work best for different applications.  The Zoom meeting was recorded and when we get it up on YouTube, I'll add a link here.

---------------

Meanwhile, in other news, an article in Frontiers of Conservation Science  (https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcosc.2020.615419/full) paints a dire picture.  The Earth is now facing enormous biodiversity loss, a sixth mass extinction event, ecological overshoot due to overpopulation and over consumption, climate disruption, and failed international goals.  Watch this space. 

Bonsai Workshop

Coming up on Saturday will be this month's bonsai workshop.  Since early summer, the Albuquerque Bonsai Club has been holding virtual workshops via Zoom.  John Egert leads the shenanigans from the safety of his domicile in Socorro.  Here's his latest announcement of the upcoming event.

---------------

Onward, you Botanical Blowhards!!!! This Saturday AM @ 10.00 we shall, once again, make an attempt to figure out what the hell it is that we're trying to do. If all goes as planned, we will have moved into the garage and will grind wood to our heart's content without fear of sucking sawdust into the mighty Big Bruticus the Mega Computer, which runs the life functions of my beloved son. WHICH REMINDS ME, which evil roach among you derided my technical abilities with the statement "You couldn't even watch TV if it weren't for George"???? You geeks have always been treacherous, but this is a new low..... and as soon as Geo sets up my new Firestick and spends a couple of days showing me how to use the controller, I'm going to watch The Mickey Mouse Club 24 hours a day, and to hell with bonsai!!

Which in turn reminds me, there will be a profoundly sad moment on Sat. as Bob the Impaler mourns the humiliating loss of his beloved Pittsburgh Steelers to the dog-ass Cleveland Browns in the Midwest White Trash Bowl.

But, you say, what has this gibberish to do with the Art of Bonsai??? What indeed??? Our trees are fast asleep, and so also should we be. But we need them to carry our thoughts and hopes now as events try to overwhelm us. We will again lose ourselves in them for a couple of hours on Saturday as the world burns around us, recharging our spirits for another grim run at reality.....

Dr. Sara!!! Help me!! I am slipping away into GooGoo Land!! Thank God we have the Fighting Psychologist as our leader!!! We'll ALL need shock treatments before this gig is over.....

Saturday at 10:00!!

john

----------------

And here's the actual event, now moved from the Egert's living room to their garage where power tools (and resulting sawdust) don't endanger George's computer.

Chilopsis linearis

Baldo, our yard guy, came today and this time of year there is little to do.  However, there's pruning this week. 

In a storm last summer one branch of our desert willow splintered and broke.  At the time I cut away the badly damaged half that was barely attached.  The remaining half branch I left because it was still blooming and maintained the symmetry of the tree.  

I fully expected a winter storm to load the branch with snow and then break the branch completely, but somehow the fragment of trunk has held on until now.  So yesterday afternoon I finished the job by sawing off the damaged portion.  

There's a small sucker coming out of the ground near the cut and I was careful not to damage it.  With any luck it will rapidly gain girth and height, becoming the replacement for the lost branch.  At any rate, Baldo will have some work to cut the deadwood into manageable pieces and cart them off. 

Day 300

It's been 300 days since Gov. Lujan Grisham made her first public health order, shutting down restaurants and closing schools.  I remember well that last lunch at Annie's Soup Kitchen.  Since then it's only been curbside takeout from local restaurants, InstaCart grocery delivery, mail-order wine, lots of Amazon shopping.  

It's true that I make occasional trips to Kelly's for booze if the parking lot is empty at 2:30 p.m. on a Monday.  I used to shop senior hours at John Brook's and the Co-op, but that's stopped since the November rise in cases.  I've not done any public interaction at the BioPark since recording the Harvest Festival video in late September.  I do occasionally go down and label plants in the HDRG by myself.  

Just yesterday I learned that the BioPark Society has purchased the license for IrisBG, a modern botanic garden database software to replace the moribund system we have.  Once the IrisBG staff convert the data, one of my jobs will be to ground truth the result and update the plant survey.  Eventually the public will be able to use the free IrisBG app to interpret the Botanic Garden's collections with their own phones.  

Silene plankii

I finished writing up my New Mexcico Native Plants Facebook post for January and I thought I'd see if it can do double duty as a blogpost, too.  Here's my essay on Silene plankii, this month's rare or endangered plant.  

It only required cutting and pasting followed by removing extra lines at the paragraph breaks.  The images didn't come over, so they had to be inserted manually.  There are a few glitches with fonts that don't seem to be easy to fix.  Otherwise, a quick and simple process.  

Expect to see more of these on days when there is little garden news--I have over a year's worth already posted that I can repost here.  Typically, I post a rare plant essay on the last Saturday of each month. 

---------------

This month's rare plant of the month has not gone extinct. I've finally worked through all four of the New Mexican plant species that are regarded as recently extinct. On that uplifting note, let us explore Silene plankii C.L. Hitchcock & Maguire or Plank's catchfly. The genus Silene is a member of the Pink family, the Caryophyllaceae, which in turn gives rise to the name of the order, the Caryophyllales. There are perhaps as many as 600 species of catchfly.

The specific epithet, plankii, refers to Elisha Newton Plank, a late 19^th Century botanist and collector in the Southwest. Plank was self-taught and based out of Wyandott, Kansas. Between 1880 and 1900 he made trips as far west as Texas and I assume it is on one of these trips, he collected the Silene that would later bear his name near El Paso. Check out his biographical sketch at http://www.calflora.net/botanicalnames/pagePI-PY.html.

The first authority is Charles Leo Hitchcock, a noted 20^th Century botanist who taught at the University of Washington. He is the principle author of the Flora of the Pacific Northwest, a 1973 text that is still the standard for the region. [Side note: Hitchcock co-authored this flora with Arthur Cronquist, who is my academic “grandfather” so to speak.]

Bassett Maguire, the other authority of this species, started the Intermountain Herbarium at Utah State before going on to an illustrious career at the New York Botanical Garden. His life story is briefly summarized at https://amp.google-wiki.info/45701246/1/bassett-maguire.html.

The description given at New Mexico Rare Plants is:

Low perennial, from multicipital caudex; stems ascending, 10-15 cm high, finely retrorsely grayish puberulent, becoming glandular in the inflorescence; basal and lowest stem leaves usually withered at anthesis; stem leaves 5-8 pairs, linear, acuminate, 1-1.5(2) cm long, 1-2 mm broad, largest near middle of stem, finely glandular-puberulent, especially near the inflorescence; inflorescence few-flowered, often a single terminal flower, or one or two flowers developing from lower nodes; calyces 21-23(28) mm long, tubular, slightly constricted below, glandular-pubescent, 10-nerved, the lobes 2-4 mm long, membranous-margined and ciliolate; corolla scarlet, the claws glabrous, about 22 mm long, gradually and uniformly widening to 3-4 mm at top, scarcely auriculate, but abruptly narrowed to blades, blades about 8 mm long, bilobed 1/6-2/3 length, the lobes entire or rather deeply crenate, appendages located at least 1 mm above base of blade, 1-1.5 mm long, oblong, rather deeply crenate-lacerate; filaments well exserted; styles 3, exserted 2-4 mm; ovary one-celled. Flowering July and September.

This plant is one of two catchflies in New Mexico with red flowers, the other being the rather common and widespread Silene laciniata, which has stems greater than 20 cm (8 in) tall, shorter calyx 1.5-2 cm long, and laciniate [bordered with a fringe; especially: cut into deep irregular usually pointed lobes] rather than bilobed petals.

Our Silene is found in scattered small populations from the Sandia Mountains south to Dona Ana County and into the Franklin Mountains near El Paso. Sightings are reported in Sandoval, Sierra, Socorro, and Torrance counties. The plant appears to be restricted to mountains near the Rio Grande and it favors igneous cliffs and rocky outcrops; 1,500-2,800 m (5,000-9,200 ft).

By way of an example, here's the map from iNaturalist showing a sighting in the Sandias a little above 8,000 ft just a short scramble from the saddle where the Piedra Lisa Trail tops out above the Juan Tabo drainage. At the junction with the Rincon Spur Trail, one would have to bushwhack northwest along the ridge to get to this population.

There's good news and bad news for our catchfly. The good news is that it's populations are widely disjunct and it would be unlikely for all of them to succumb to disturbances. The bad news is that the plant was probably once more widely distributed during cooler periods of climate. Of course, the climate isn't getting any cooler, so expect populations of this Silene to get pushed farther up in elevation. In the Sandias, that gives them about 2,000 ft before they hit the limestone band at the summit of the mountains.

With modern DNA analysis techniques available to us, it should be possible to look back through time as different populations accumulate different mutations. That would give us a better understanding on when these groups separated. In turn that information could be correlated with paleo-climatological and geological data to gain insight into the evolution of our flora in general. 

A Monday without Phenology

 Nature's Notebook

After yesterday's cold front and snow showers, Monday morning looks to be a chilly one.  After all, Sunday's high temperature was only 38°.  I'm sure the Nature's Notebook folks, whoever is on duty, will be out in the CWG taking measurements.  If I'm lucky, the weather will be warmer by the time I've been vaccinated.  

The question du jour is when will that be?  The State of New Mexico has a well-designed registration system and we're registered.  Then it's only a matter of time until we're called.  There's some confusion because of the classification system  ̵̶̵  are we I-B or I-C?  Soon enough, we'll know. 

Braiding Sweetgrass

I've been reading the delicious Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Kimmerer.  It's a lovely paean to botanical knowledge, both Western scientific and indigenous.  Tonight's chapter was about her lost Potawatomi native tongue and the point of view that language brings to the table of perceptions.  

Speaking of plants, rocks, waters, and mountains as animate objects comes easy to me; my teddy bear collection is alive; my cats are sentient beings.  I great them with "I see you," which elevates them to my equal.  Curiously, I've learned that it is a Swahili greeting as well.  

While we botanists lionize the Latin binomials instigated by Linnaeus, there is much to be learned if we do not forget the indigenous names for plants.  I am reminded of the story told by W. Matthews in an 1886 article entitled "Navajo Names for Plants." 

On another occasion I met the same Indian carrying, in the fold of his blanket, some specimens of Pectis angustifolia, a plant which on the dry mesas of New Mexico does not attain a height of more than two or three inches, but it has a delightful odor, like that of lemon verbena, and its infusion is used by the Navajos as a carminative. Their attention has therefore been drawn to it. The name given for the plant was so peculiar, signifying "a breeze blowing through a rock," tseganilchee, that I made no delay in getting an explanation from him. He led me to the top of a desert mesa where the plant grew fresh. Here he picked up a piece of sandstone about a foot square and three inches thick, and held it up to my nose, saying, "Do you smell anything on that stone?" The dry hard stone was of course inodorous. He then rubbed a little of the fragrant Pectis on one of the broad surfaces of the stone and immediately applied the opposite surface to my nostrils. The agreeable odor was at once distinctly perceptible through the rock. Some minutes later it could be detected in all parts of the fragment; but at first it was perceived at a point directly opposite to the point of application. Later he performed the experiment on a large stone nearly two feet thick; the results were the same as with the smaller stone, but more time was required for the odor to penetrate the sandstone. The odor, he said, went through the rock as if it were blown by a breeze, hence the name. 

Matthews has other wonderful stories to tell, but they will have to wait for another day.  

The Week Begins Anew

The rust-removal experiment was a success.  1/2 cup salt in 1/2 gallon of white vinegar, soak implements for ~12 hours.  Rinse in weak baking powder solution.  Dry thoroughly.

Not much botanical news today.  A very light dusting of snow on the coldest surfaces that stay in deep shade this time of year.  

A timesheet e-mailed in with a note about an old canopy walkway proposal for the Cottonwood Gallery.  Yeast-raised Belgian waffles for brunch; a spinach salad with hot bacon dressing for dinner.  

Fin de Semana

Whew!  Made it through a crazy political week.  No doubt there is more to come, but that will be documented over at the NW Abq Political Action Group's FB page.  

Today is cloudy and cold with winds expected later.  Following that, there may be rain and snow showers.  Goodness knows, we need the moisture.  If there's anything picturesque, expect photos tomorrow. 

Botanically speaking, I pressed the big yellow Hibiscus that had bloomed for a day in the sunroom.  Overnight it would've wilted; the flowers only last a day.  

Speaking of plant presses, Thursday morning I listened to a NY Botanical Garden webinar on the history and value of herbaria.  Fascinating stuff, at least for a plant geek like me.  I'll post the link to the video archive when the material is made available.  

By way of a summary, here are a couple notes.

• Jeanne Barre story
• Kate Brandegee / Alice Eastwood story
• Noteworthy quote:  "You can't conserve things if you don't know what they are."
• Things to do with herbaria
• Monitor heavy metal pollution
• Use comparative DNA analysis to better understand adaptations over time
• Deduce phenological change over time and space
• Improve machine learning and image recognition
• Enhance public awareness

Meanwhile, in the garage some bonsai tools (and a few kitchen implements) are soaking in a salt and vinegar solution to remove rust.  Update to follow with before and after photos.  

Speaking of bonsai, I gave the Autumn Flame Euonymous and the Siberian pea tree a "hair cut," bringing their canopies more in line with their trunk caliper.  Already the pea tree has been leafing out.  Apparently, the garage isn't cold enough to shut down early spring growth. 

Freya's Day

Made it through the week.  Last night's souvlaki was a success largely due to the nice weather.  I ran an errand out to Aztec Animal Clinic to refill Paddy's Rx's.  Not quite curbside, but they have a walk-up window.  With masks, gloves, and sanitizers, it's very low risk.  

Beautiful sunny day, only 55°F but very comfortable in the sun.  Of course, it's still chilly in the wind.  

Yesterday's Hibiscus blossom was set to fade overnight, so I put my new plant press to work and should get a very nice specimen out of it.  

Meanwhile, political craziness continues... 25th Amendment?  Impeachment?  More insurrections on Inauguration Day?  Can an insane Trump manage to wag-the-dog just like the movie?  

Thor's Day

Souvlaki tonight!  

A warm day with little wind and sunny skies should let me grill the first Greek shish kababs of the year (or the last of the season, if you prefer).  Marinated beef, zucchini, roasted bell peppers, and mushrooms cook up nicely on the grill and give us several meals.  Retsina, spanikopita, and pita complete the menu.  Photos to follow. 

Backyard Gardening

Not much happening in the middle of winter.  Our yard guy, Baldo, cut back the dried stems of oregano, mint, fennel, and parsley.  We trimmed the rosemary, too.  

Birds are emptying the feeders regularly.  One is filled with niger and is a goldfinch feeder--they have to hang upside down to reach the feeding slits.  That's a trick only goldfinches can do.  The other feeder is filled with the usual mix, sunflowers, millet, cracked corn, and assorted bits.  The sparrows and house finches spill as much as they eat.  The juncos and towhees get what's on the ground.  Occasional pigeons don't seem to be much of a problem and we do see doves, mostly white-winged ones, scratching around on the ground.  

I read that the BioPark is encouraging folks to sign up for the Great Backyard Bird Count coming up soon in mid-February.  More to come as that approaches.  

Next Door

The construction of the neighbor's house to the east continues apace.  Today they emplaced the garage doors.  I doubt if I'll be able to get inside for photographs anymore.  At least the noise is limited because the exterior walls are up and the dry wall installed.  I imagine it's mostly interior construction now.  Stucco coating in March will be a mess for us, since it's on the edge of our property.  Hoping for completion around April.  Then it'll be time to design and plant a raised bed up against the east wall and finish the bonsai area.  

Here's the view from the front as photo-bombed by Stella, the neighbor's Siamese cat who hangs out in our yard.  

Woden's Day

 Yesterday's education Zoom

An interesting discussion with about 18 docents and Ed. Dept. staff.  With DC craziness today, will wait and update tomorrow.

Yesterday's visit to the Garden

It was supposed to be cool and very windy.  Instead it was sunny and warm.  I swung by the Education Building and picked up my annual swag:  a lovely BioPark pullover, a BioPark mask, and a flash drive.  I connected with Cecilia about the labels in the HDRG and photographed the xeric berms to ground-truth my maps generated from drone photos.  A pleasant hour indeed.  

BioPark Board Meeting

I very nearly missed the first BioPark Board meeting of the year.  Thankfully, the director sent out a reminder with the Zoom link.  We got an excellent briefing from JT on the plans for developing the Heritage Farm and input from several in the community, including Sandy and Judith from our Nature's Notebook group.  

Elections in Georgia

Looks like it's going down to the wire, but in the end (after recounts and legal maneuvering) Georgia will have two Democratic Senators.

In Congress--electoral votes.

It should be pro forma, but all the excitement will be out on the streets.  Little did I know when I typed that sentence last night that the excitement would be in the Capitol.  EV's have still not be counted.

Toozday

 This morning there will be a Zoom meeting between a small group of docents and the BioPark education staff.  Adapting the mission of "Discover Nature, Inspire Action" to the pandemic situation continues to be a challenge.  The discussion will center on school outreach.  While I expect much of this to concern in-person teaching during the Covid outbreak, I hope to see if there's much interest in a digital library of lectures and demonstrations that stays online even after the disease is under control.  More on this later.

Still later this afternoon, I have to drop by the Education Building to pick some things up from Deborah there.  Then, weather permitting, I head out to the HDRG to ground truth my digital maps that I've adapted from overhead drone imagery.  We'll see how that goes.

Phenology

Monday mornings, rain or shine, hot or cold, are data collection days.  For several years now, a group of us have been collecting data for Nature's Notebook starting at 9:30 every Monday.  We gather at the Education Building, grab the binders for data entry, and head out to the Cottonwood Gallery.  

The CWG is the farthest north public unit in the Garden.  There we make observations on the phenology of over a dozen individual plants.  Our species include:  cottonwood, New Mexico olive, Siberian elm, four-wing saltbush, cane cholla, two milkweeds, and golden currant.   

Phenology is the study of biological timing, such as leafing out, blooming, ripening fruit, or leaf drop.  Nature's Notebook is a national phenology database of thousands and thousands of observations all collected digitally.  I enter data on my smart phone; other members of the team use tablets.  Either way, we also make a written record in pre-printed data sheets as well.  

Until the pandemic, the only interruption in data collection for our group was about a month in the summer of 2019 when a fire in the nearby bosque jumped the fence and burnt a nearby section of the garden.  The fire narrowly missed the CWG proper and it took out a few plants plus a part of the west fence in the Japanese Garden.  

Now with COVID-19 still running amok, a few are brave enough to gather (with masks and socially distant) to resume data collection.  I'm not one of them; still waiting to get vaccinated.  That said, I'm thankful that others have picked up the flag and are carrying on.  Those of us at elevated risk will have to join in later in the season.  I'm hopeful.  

Here's a link to some winter photo spheres taken at the CWG in 2014 -- https://goo.gl/photos/KoAkyqFtkJQuv7Qr7 

CWG Entrance in Summer

Deep into Winter

 Although we've had an early significant snowfall in late October and a couple cold snaps, the weather in the Botanic Garden and Albuquerque as a whole continues to be more or less seasonable.  Lows are in the mid to low 20's; highs in the 50's.  While at my desk typing this (a day ahead of publication), I can glance behind me at the wireless weather station and it reports 39.7°F at 4:00 in the afternoon.  It's been an overcast day with just enough of a breeze to cut through a polypro jacket.  Sunday looks to be about the same, perhaps even cloudier. 

The Garden is open to the public today and this evening for the trail of holiday lights.  This is the year that I'll not go to see it.  Virus numbers are still bumping along at a moderate-low level.  Even out-of-doors with masks, it's just to risky for my old bones.  

We've been getting by with Insta-cart grocery deliveries and 95% home cooking.  Curbside takeout is the best we manage to support our local restaurants.  Ditto for Rx pickup at Duran's Pharmacy.  

Every now and then I make a run to Kelly's to stock up on wine and whiskey.  A glance at the parking lot when I drive up will tell me what the risk is.  Around 2:00 in the afternoon, I'm usually the only customer in the store.  Back when the numbers were crazy high, we were getting mail-order wine.  

Meanwhile, back to the Garden, I've been working on a digital map of the xeric berms in the HDRG.  These are the rocky xeriscaped areas to the north and south of the so-called Atrium.  I have drone photographs taken a couple years ago courtesy of Alan Osterholtz.  I've digitally overlain them on the hand-drawn base map that Cecilia provided me before she took maternity leave last summer.  Here's a screen capture of the work so far. 

The plan for the week ahead is to get out to the HDRG and identify all the green blobs in the map above.  That'll be Tuesday afternoon, weather permitting.  

Day 289

Two hundred and eighty nine days since Governor Lujan-Grisham issued her lockdown order on March 19, 2020.  Since then the public health orders have tightened and relaxed as the COVID-19 numbers wax and wane.  

I've registered with the State online.  If everything works out as planned, they'll notify me when I'm eligible to schedule my vaccination.  The BioPark has sent out a questionnaire for planning purposes.  Perhaps my position as the BioPark "Plant Label Guy" will move me up in the vaccination waiting list.  

As of New Year's Day, there were 1278 new cases in the state, 25 deaths, and 313 new cases in Bernalillo County.  In my zipcode, there were 13 new cases; maybe we've passed the summit of post-Thanksgiving illness.  Unfortunately, that also means that beginning next week, we'll start to see the uptick from Christmas-Hanukah-Kwanzaa-Festivus.  And about a week after that, the New Year's surge will show up in the numbers.  

For now, I'm avoiding the Botanic Garden on days when they are open to the general public.  I can go in on Mondays or Tuesdays and work on my plant labeling.  Last month I finished tagging and mapping the hybrid tea roses and back beds in the High Desert Rose Garden (HDRG).  Cecilia, the staff gardener there, has been out on maternity leave, but she's back part time now.   

The new metal labels for the hybrid teas should be on order.  When they arrive in late January, I should have some pleasant afternoons placing them.  

New Year's Day

 New Year's Day is one of the few days on the calendar when the BioPark is closed to the public.  Thanksgiving and Christmas are the only others.  Of course, the keepers at the Zoo have to take care of their charges, so not much changes there.  Similarly, there's activity at the Botanic Garden:  animals at the Heritage Farm need to be fed.  Security is still there, watching the CCTV monitors and making the rounds.  Maybe the naked mole rats and some of the arthropods need daily attention.  If so, there will be Bugarium staff on site.  As always, there's a Curator on Duty, probably JT since he's the farm manager.  Tingley Beach is probably running on auto-pilot as it does for much of the year.  

With the arrival of the New Year, I look forward to the day when the COVID-19 pandemic has been beaten into submission.  Then I'll be able to resume data collection with the Nature's Notebook team out in the Cottonwood Gallery, work more diligently on plant labels and the herbarium, and get out for general docent duties.  

For those not familiar with the Garden, here's a scan of the official map.  I'll have detailed maps to accompany later explorations, but this sets the lay of the land.