House and Garden Tour

As I type this on Friday, I'm prepping sauces for tomorrow's visit by Nickie, Nellie, Bob, Deb, and Nate.  Bob and Nickie haven't seen the house, so this is an opportunity for Caro to showcase the new eastern raised bed, the seating area behind the Chinese pistache, and the garden in general.  (I should mention that it looks terrific.)  

Coreopsis, Achillea, and Ptilotus

Potted dahlias in front

Mandeville blossoms 

Stachys byzantium

Penstemon 'Husker's Red'

New dahlias 

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But today (Monday) is Memorial Day and I would be remiss if I did not mention the sacrifice of many who got us through some terrible tough times.  

Dad's 384th Heavy Bombardment scrapbook contains some original information on the casualties they suffered during daylight bombing in 1943.  

BioPark Board

Late Thursday afternoon I joined most of the BioPark Board at the Zoo for an informal get-together.  The BioPark's Director was there along with her administrative assistant, Jourdan.  Four of last year's board members were there and we got to meet 6 or so new members.  The board has been expanded to include 3 members-at-large (I'm one of them) plus a member from each city council district.  

We had 2 Zoo docents bring along some "entertainment"--a Bald Eagle and an armadillo.  The eagle got a lot of attention, but I was fascinated by the little armadillo.  

Aki Matsura

Egert-san received e-mails from the Japanese Cultural Club that an in-person Aki Matsura or Japanese fall festival is now moving ahead.  Ever the optimist, John signed the club up for 4 tables worth of bonsai and various demonstrations throughout the weekend of the event.  September will be busy.

 

Los Poblanos

Tuesday afternoon Caro and I will meet up with Debbie at Los Poblanos.  Their farmstore and outdoor cafe beckons.  Photos to follow.  

We first perused the Farm Store and bought some nice doodads.  As it turns out, the bar is not open at 2:00 as advertised.  The only shaded seating is held for diners after 5:00.  And the sunny chairs and tables for casual drinkers are brutally hot.  Fortunately, there was one set of Adirondack chairs in the shade.  The moment they were vacated and we jumped on them.  

Tasty drinks:  Caro--Margarita, Deb--French 99, Karl--Rosé of the Day.  Since they only start serving appetizers at 5:00 (not 4:00 as posted on their website), we bailed out for home.  More wine, some salty crunkies, a handful of grilled shrimp from the barbie, a variety of tiny quiches, and some warm slices of buttered baguette.  Twas yummy!

Nature's Notebook

Most of the early bloomers are finished and fully leafed out.  One golden currant has fruit.  The cholla is getting ready to give us a blast of flowers.  

The walk back through the Japanese Garden showed the Sakura Dogwood in fine form.  Of course, the summer sun and ABQ wind will soon burn its leaves after the blossoms fade.  

O.D.H.

Your occasional daily Hibiscus is...

 And a reminder that at 5:14 a.m. MDT there will be a total lunar eclipse. 

Cost of Invasive Species

The NY Times had a piece in Saturday morning's edition on the cost of alien invasive species, highlighting a report on African agriculture.  The results are sobering even given the acknowledged limitations on the available data.  

Deep in the report was a short section on the impact on ecosystem services:  clean water, soil quality, wildlife, etc.  Despite the widespread use of the term "ecosystem services," I tend to agree with Robinson (Braiding Sweetgrass) that using the word 'services' does us a disservice.  It reduces our interaction with the natural world to a unidirectional transaction.  What should be reciprocal, care-giving, or at least cyclical, is instead a thing that we simply use.  

I was looking for a rare or endangered species this month that I could personally track down. Thanks to the NM Rare Plants website, one can search their online collection by county. As I was poking around in Bernalillo, Valencia, and Sandoval, I came across the Gypsum Townsend's aster, Townsendia gypsophila Lowrey & P. Knight, which flowers April to October. Time to pack up the bike for a trip to the White Ridge Mountain Bike Area near San Ysidro.

The authorities are Timothy K. Lowrey (Curator of the UNM Herbarium) and Paul J. Knight (botanist for the State of NM for whom Astragalus knightii is named). Speaking of which, A. knightii might be blooming out on Mesa Prieta right now. Hmm? Another mountain bike–botany expedition?

Back to our aster, this little beauty is found only in Sandoval County in a narrow band along the western margin of the Nacimiento Mountains stopping short of Cuba. Somehow it gets by on weathered gypsum outcrops. The largest populations occur on highly gypsiferous soils rather than pure gypsum. This is a very narrowly distributed endemic that is moderately abundant to scattered on gypsum or highly gypseous soils. It shares the gypsum habitats with two other gypsophilic species, Phacelia sivinskii and Mentzelia todiltoensis. It has never been observed on a non-gypseous substrate, hence the choice of the specific epithet.

Because the White Mesa gypsum beds are being actively strip-mined for the manufacture of wallboard, there is some concern about populations in that area. Populations along the White Mesa Bike Trail are threatened by recreational biking. Be careful to stay on the trails when you're out that way.

The Type Location

 

Action Points

In my Ingressing on Thursday, I managed (with some careful planning and careful playing) to hit a score of precisely 50,000,000 AP.

After considerable reflection, I went ahead and "redacted" myself on Friday.  That's the Ingress game option to reset AP to zero (and optionally change faction).  I remained Enlightened and the system redacted me around 4:40 p.m.  Within an hour, I had used simple remote recharging of portals (65 AP each action) to scramble back up to Level 3.  Once I get out into the field and resume fielding, things should improve quickly.  

https://ingress.fandom.com/wiki/Access_Level

The Old Cats

Oreo

Tigger

Yoda

Paco

The old cats... the first cats... 

Thinking about Paddy has me reflecting on Bella and the others.  

 

Climate Strike 2021

What can you even say to a young person today about climate change?  https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/may/17/what-do-you-even-say-to-young-people-about-climate-change

I worry about my nephew and his family/friends.  I worry about Oliver.  

 

Thor's Day

I'm trying (and succeeding) to keep ahead of this week's posts.  So far in 2021, I haven't missed a day.  That's some kind of personal best.  

It's been a difficult week to stay on target with Paddy gone.  We brought his ashes home Monday morning. 

Last night I brought in the big kitty cage in preparation for Henry's visit to VCA this afternoon.  Underneath it, stored in the garage was the smaller, beige plastic one that Paddy would use if we needed to crate up both cats at once.  I guess it's superfluous now.  

With that hanging heavy in my heart, I went into to Caro's office and sat with Paddy's ashes for a while.  The little white urn with golden flecks of color sits on the table in front of the window, a place where Paddy enjoyed looking out at the world.  I miss him so. 

Plant Labels Get a Patron

The Curator of Plants sent me a message last week asking for estimates of how many labels the BioPark could use and how much time it took me to process them.  As it turns out, a wealthy donor wants to support the BioPark by funding thousands of the new metal labels.  I may be very, very busy.  Good thing the mask mandate for outdoor activities is soon to be gone, just in time for summer heat.  

 

3rd Saturday on a Toozday

Here's a screen grab from last Saturday's bonsai workshop.  John is working on a large forest.  

 

Padraic Angus McCat

It has been a difficult and strange week without Paddy.  So many aspects of our lives have changed in this past week.

• Scratching his chin, his ears while he sits on my chest after lunch or while watching TV or in bed at night. 
• Being greeted at the door when you come back from errands. 
• Playing hide-and-seek with him as you make the bed. 
• Seeing him snoozing in front of the fireplace in the morning. 
• Eating lunch with him as he insists on trying to sample whatever you're having.
• Watching him watch birds on the fountain and listening to his chatter.  
• Giving him catnip on his favorite blanket.
• Losing your seat on the couch to him when you get a refill from the kitchen. 
• Watching TV in the evening with him.
• Trying to type while he promenades across the desk and rubs his head against my lampshade. 
• Opening the front window so he can peak out at the street. 
• All those pills for all those years.  
• All that kitty litter and cat hair in the vacuum cleaner.  
• Watching Caro entice him to eat, one tiny morsel at a time on the couch. 
• Getting him to jump from the sink to the shelf by the bathtub. 
• Getting him to jump from one car's roof to the other in the garage. 
• Playing with his mouse on a cord (or was it a cord on a mouse?)
• Back at the other house, how he could leap after the laser dot and get higher than the top of the door lintel.  
• Listening to his purr change when you scratched just the right spot on his cheek. And then he would yawn this great huge yawn.

Such an effervescent part of our life. 

3rd Saturday Workshop

Egert-san will be hosting his usual 3rd Saturday of the month workshop from Socorro this weekend.  This posting is a wee bit of a summary and a glimpse into how my bonsai are doing.  My plan is to do some multi-tasking:  listen in on John's workshop while reinvigorating our two bonsai landscapes.  

Caro and I managed to raid the greenhouse at Osuna Nursery on Friday afternoon so that there's new material for the saikei:  creeping thyme, a dwarf Cotoneaster, a couple ferns, a polka dot plant, and few others.  Combining that with the healthy plants from the old landscapes should allow me to breath new life into these pleasant, if temporary displays. 

Here's the before images taken on Friday.

   

Trail Marker

I have continued to Ingress throughout the pandemic.  It's mostly been a matter of occupying grey portals and linking local fields.  Now a few blue players have become active in the area and that makes things more interesting. 

One of my favorite portals, in fact, the one where I earned my Onyx Guardian badge, is the Trail Marker.  It's a non-descript view point on a Bosque path northwest of the Candelaria Nature Center.  From the house, it makes a good goal for a bicycle workout, being about 5 miles round trip.  If I'm in a hurry, I can drive to the Nature Center and bike in from there.  

Trail Marker has changed hands a couple of times in the last few weeks.  Agent Burqueno has been very good about getting down there if it turns blue.  The Resistance seems to be led by Gordon56 when it comes to hitting the portals along the river path.  

Because the soil is basically sugar sand, getting to the portal requires walking your bike unless it's just rained.  Despite a couple spring showers, I've not hit the trail when it's been hard packed.  I've also not seen the wildflowers really taking off.  

My plan was to bike out to Trail Marker on Friday afternoon to get on the leaderboard for the new septicycle, the Ingress 7-day rotating calendar for team scores.  As it turns out, the windy afternoon dissuaded me.  But that was not before I threw a couple links from Kelly's on N. 4th.  That was enough for fields that put me unexpectedly at #1. 

#NMESOTM

I've already pulled together my monthly article for the NM Native Plants FB page.  Here's a preview:  

I was looking for a rare or endangered species this month that I could personally track down. Thanks to the NM Rare Plants website, one can search their online collection by county. As I was poking around in Bernalillo, Valencia, and Sandoval, I came across the Gypsum Townsend's aster, Townsendia gypsophila Lowrey & P. Knight, which flowers April to October. Time to pack up the bike for a trip to the White Ridge Mountain Bike Area near San Ysidro. 

The type location is just NW of the White Ridge Mountain Bike area. 

The authorities are Timothy K. Lowrey (Curator of the UNM Herbarium) and Paul J. Knight (botanist for the State of NM for whom Astragalus knightii is named). Speaking of which, A. knightii might be blooming out on Mesa Prieta right now. Hmm? Another mountain bike–botany expedition?

Back to our aster, this little beauty is found only in Sandoval County in a narrow band along the western margin of the Nacimiento Mountains stopping short of Cuba. Somehow it gets by on weathered gypsum outcrops. The largest populations occur on highly gypsiferous soils rather than pure gypsum. This is a very narrowly distributed endemic that is moderately abundant to scattered on gypsum or highly gypseous soils. It shares the gypsum habitats with two other gypsophilic species, Phacelia sivinskii and Mentzelia todiltoensis. It has never been observed on a non-gypseous substrate, hence the choice of the specific epithet.

Because the White Mesa gypsum beds are being actively strip-mined for the manufacture of wallboard, there is some concern about populations in that area. Populations along the White Mesa Bike Trail are threatened by recreational biking. Be careful to stay on the trails when you're out that way.

Irrigation

With the new raised bed largely completed and stable, it's time to remove the temporary soaker hose and add drip line.  

While Baldo and Caro work on potted material and general yard cleanup, I'll be adding emitters to the various stand-alone pots as well.  This includes the new 'Thunderhead' Japanese black pine. 

I've already cut back most of the strong candles so as to keep the tree about this size.  We'll gently repot it in a slightly larger but decorative pot and add a dripper.  I've been told they tolerate dryness, but prefer a cool root zone.  To that end, I'm keeping it in the shade of the side fence so that the top gets a few hours of sunlight each day, but the pot stays largely in the shade.  Moving it out of the black nursery pot should help as well.  

For now, I'm not root pruning any until fall.  That will give it an entire season to adapt to the change from, if the label is to be trusted, a nursery in Maryland.  

 

Black Lace Elderberry

The 'Black Lace' elderberry (Sambucus) is blooming prolifically right now.  The bright flower heads contrast beautifully with the dark foliage.  The bamboo screen on the wall is holding up well and the Chinese pistache is fully leafed out.  Spring has sprung.  

Bonsai Wisteria

Just in time for the Mother's Day Bonsai Show at the BioPark that was once again cancelled, my Wisteria bloomed.  

 Maybe next year when we have a renewed in-person bonsai show at the HDRG Atrium, it will cooperate as well.  

It has lost a couple interior branches but appears to be sprouting new shoots in about the same location, so it's form isn't too badly compromised.  I'll need a nice mica pot to transition from this round one to a proper bonsai tray.  

The Occasional Daily Hibiscus

The yellow Hibiscus in the sunroom put on quite a performance Thursday... 

Paddy

Our little orange kitty continues to have trouble.  We've stopped the Amlodipine and upped his subcutaneous fluids to every other day.  He enjoys this strange prescription elixir called Hydra Care although he hardly eats anything else.  Caro and I are very worried.  

Like Henry Cat, he sleeps almost the entire day instead of being his usual engaged self.  

_______________

Late on the evening of the 10th, a kindly mobile veterinarian came to the house and put Paddy to sleep.  So very sad to lose him, but it was clearly time... his weight continued to drop every day despite our interventions.  

We sent him off bundled in an orange blanket with his favorite toy and some flowers.  

 

NM CD-1 Special Election

Mail-in absentee ballots started to arrive Thursday.  The special election to replace Deb Haaland in the first Congressional district (mostly Bernalillo County) is schedule for early June.  With our ballots in hand, we can take care of our civic duty early and easily.

Needless to say, my vote goes for Stansbury, an environmentally conscious Democratic candidate.  With any luck, Moore (Rep.) and Dunn (Ind.) will split the conservative vote and give Melanie a landslide victory.