Flower for the Day Dahlia IV 10-29-23

Today we say farewell to the dahlias as the temperature plumets into the 20's - by far our best dahlia season ever.

And we will miss the huge bumble bees that have been gorging themselves.

But there is always new action on the plantation. Here is a young buck with a really healthy rack

that ambled by in the meadow yesterday. We have been watching them grow ( the buck and the rack).

       Autumn

I saw old Autumn

in the misty morn

Stand shadowless

like silence,

Listening to silence

Thomas Hood

Flower for the Day White Snakeroot 10-27-23

Snakeroot (Ageratina altissimo) has been more than plentiful this fall. It has filled the

partially shady woods.

Although it has a pretty flower it is toxic to mammals. It is most famous

for being the cause of death of Abe Lincoln's mother. She drank milk from

a cow who had eaten the snake root and it did her in. It is more than invasive

but I just leave it alone in the woods.

Flower for the Day Dahlia III

So we have had a banner year for the dahlias which are about to disappear with next weeks frost.

Here is what we do with them.

and we even have them in the comfort room.

           Dahlia

     florid blossom

  adorned in dew drops
    dahlia sunrise

     J White

Flower for the Day Dahlia II 10-23-23

Here are some of the different colors of dahlias that are flourishing in our front garden.

'Nuff said.

Flower for the Day Dahlia I 10-20-23

This has been dahlia year in the garden. Dahlias are in the aster family and the flowers have magnificent color.

Some of my dahlias wintered over and began blooming in late May. As per usual they  do well in the fall and are in  the prime of their bloom right now.  If you do not stake them they flower on the ground. If you do stake them they flower on long erect stems making them available as cut flowers.

The buds and flowers open slowly 

and continue to open over many days which make them fun to follow.

The mature flowers become very large.

Dreamy Petals

   dreamy petals
   in full blossom
   proud dahlia

   

   M.L. Kiser

Flower for the Day Bluestem Goldenrod 10-16-23

Bluestem goldenrod  (Solidago caesia) is the only goldenrod that I love. Its also called wreath goldenrod and woodland goldenrod. It is native to North America. Its identifying features include a dark , wiry stem which turns blue in late maturity and flower heads on the leaf axils instead of in a large array at the top of the plant like other goldenrods.

These tall perennials have sweet nectar. They attract a large number of insects including moths and butterflies which attract insectivorous birds. Later after the flowers are gone the bluestem goldenrod produces hundreds of seeds for the juncos , sparrows  and finches in the fall and winter.

     Goldenrod

  Here they meet

Under whispers of moonlight

  To gather golden stardust

To greet the coming adventure 

  As the magic begins

 Taylor Stone

Flower for the Day Scarlet Sage 10-11-23

Surprisingly this Scarlet Sage (Salvia splendens) came up several weeks ago. It must have been in some wild flower seeds that I put down. I have not see it before.

The flowers  arise erect spikes that sprout from the centre of the plant in groups of 2 to 6 together in each leaf node. they are scarlet and tubular with two lobes towards the apex. Up close it is quite striking.

   A Western Awakening

All my life I wanted to be brave like you. How you never apologize for being what you are. Like scarlet sage and prairie-fire, all it takes is a spark of color to make the dull brittlebush shiver. Did you know what you did to me? How the Earth pulled my jaw to the floor when you spoke. And though I told the truth, I swore you would find me a fraud. I thought you had lied because I could not yet accept my truth.

That night, my heart was strong enough to burst through my chest. It had been revived long enough to strangle the part of my brain that wanted the body to flee. You and her and I. The beautifully-ugly and the disgustingly perfect. What angelic creatures we were: to be dancing and writhing at once.

I had thought I was everything, but that harrowing scythe cut me down too. But I will not disperse with the wind and dust and conform to insignificance. I let myself be refined into that which feeds and nourishes, as the cottage baker composes sleeping wheat to glorious bread. You showed me what I am. I beg you to show me more.

chalk.poems

#love #lovepoems #poetry #writing #westernpoetry #poems #western #poetsandwriters

*Columbus Day: An Extraordinary Day 10-9-23

As young children we did not celebrate Columbus Day which is now a Federal Holiday.I celebrated yesterday with an extraordinary day which was filled with both on and off the board activities. Two days ago I had gone to the St Lukes Emergency Room with high blood pressure with a systolic of 220.Tests did not show persistent blood pressure problems but my doctor wanted to see me today. On awakening I called his office at 8:10 and his secretary said he had an opening at 8:40. I was dressed but I had to take my pills and do myriad other things and then drove the 'back' way to the office. The parking lot was filled so there was a long walk but I got to the office at 8:39.

After the nurse got my vitals we walked to an open room. My chart weighs about 2 pounds and is very thick. Dr John walked in and said, "You had quite a weekend." The nurse got my blood pressure at 123/80 but when John took it it was 145/90. When he took it in my other arm it was over 200/95. He waited for a

few minutes and the BP was 140/85. "Its dynamic," he said. He discussed the basic issues of high blood pressure: it is easily treated but most all the drugs have some bad side effects. The nifedipine I have been taking for years works by pushing fluid out of my vessels after which it collects in my lower legs. Over the years this has caused not only calf swelling but lately loss of sensation which seems to be affecting proprioception and balance. I have had three falls in the past 6 months. So last week we changed my medicine to apresoline. It controlled the BP OK but each day I got more fatigued until the symptoms were just like those when I had Covid last year. I switched back to the nifedipine, did a Covid test at home which was negative, but the high blood pressure and fatigue led to the ER visit. I cannot take  BP meds that can affect the kidney as I have had borderline abnormal renal function for years. Dr John has had similar high blood pressure problems for years and finally said wisely to me, "under these circumstances sometimes it is no longer possible to be asymptomatic." After consideration 'we' decided to stay on the nifedipine and increase the dose slightly with a bedtime dose.

I was feeling pretty good and resigned to the leg swelling as I drove home. On the way home there is a little travelled road which parallels  highway 40. As I came down the long hill towards the right turn to parallel Highway 270
I saw a red pickup truck in the left lane with its left turn signal on.  I was going slightly under the speed limit and so gave  little attention to the signaling pickup until I was about 15 yards away and the red truck started to turn directly into my path. I slammed on my brakes and veered to the right as he (apparently) saw me and veered to his right barely missing me and disappeared down the side road. I was slightly off the road to the right but he gassed it and left. In my mind's eyeI can still see how close he was to sideswiping me. I thought in the moment we were going to have a head-on collision.  It happened instantaneously and I did not have the energy or inclination to go after him. And then I was on my way home again. Thoughts formed about my lack of invinciblity and how quickly one can be gone. It did not help my blood pressure.

When I got home Jan told me that the new furnace which had been put in this May (and had not ever been used yet) was not heating.  I called our furnace company which was not open because it was Columbus Day. Their answering service was able to set up an appointment for the next day. The operator could not have been nicer.

I made a lot of necessary phone calls. I called my pension representative in Denver to change the withholding tax rate for my November Required Minimum Distribution. He will call me back tomorrow. I called Barnes West County Hospital Radiology to cancel a renal ultrasound as it is not needed for another 6 months. I called Vanguard  to continue to try to access our new account. We are still having authenticity issues so I e-mailed them copies of our MO drivers licenses. I scheduled a furnace clean and check next week with Survant Heating and Cooling in Wright City for our lake house. Our technician Chris can do it without my having to go out.

As it was almost time to schedule my Uber ride for my scheduled eye shot (for macular degeneration) in South County.
To my consternation the app would not come up on my iPhone. Ughhh! Jan cannot drive me and I cannot drive myself because when they inject the Eyelea into my good eye I cannot see for several hours. Jan got our son Chris (in Lafayette Colorado) on the line. Following Chris' instructions Jan removed the Uber  app from the phone and put in a new one from the app store. It worked. I scheduled a driver despite it being a little early. James, the Uber driver, was terrific. He said those app problems happen all the time and also described some near accidents he had been in.

Despite being a little early the Retina Institute Staff got me into a room almost immediately. Now some good news:
my good eye tested 20/20 corrected. Hoorah!! Even the worse eye tested better than usual. The injection procedure went well and I had a brief conversation with Dr E. about his hiking adventures on the Appachian Trail in North Carolina.
I was able to schedule an Uber driver for the trip home.

The new Uber driver, Lee Ann, was terrific. Originally from Montana,  she lives with her husband at Scott Air Force Base. She was excited that I was an Air Force guy. Her husband heads the Honor Guard and directs  the service related funerals over a large are. She told how proud and passionate  he was in doing his job for the families of the deceased service people. They have two years to go before he has his 'twenty years' and retirement. The not so good news: the  light that allows us to turn left out of the parking lot onto Tesson Ferry stopped working. The red light never turned green. So  we turned right and came home another way as a U turn was difficult.  Despite not being able to see very well because of the eye shot I was able to show her another way to our house. It was fun  driving home with someone who had enthusiasm even though it took much longer than usual.

After an eye shot I usually take a brief nap. After my nap I went up to the computer room for a Zoom class. I am in a class that is verbally reading the book, 'Speaking Being', led by one of the authors. Our teacher describes our reading
as horizontal reading for content with vertical reading for increased understanding and context. Todays class was about the difficulty we have saying, "I love you", to people. The idea was that when said in context the I love you can occur at a different level  than the level of  sexual, physical , or psychological love. The voicing of the 'I love you' could be a higher more all encompassing 'love' more at a level of authentic contact or prescencing with another.

After the class I went downstairs and Jan had shown another type of love- that of fixing a wonderful dinner. I told her about the class. I told her I loved her. She had had a tough day and was exhausted and didn't respond. I am not sure if she 'got' my love. But it didn't matter as my love for her  was not predicated on her response. It just was.

After dinner I read a little in an adventure fiction book but was both tired and sleepy. I went to bed at 8:00 and woke up at midnight. I don't do well when I retire too early. I slept on and off, mostly off, the rest of the  night.

So that was my extraordinary Columbus Day with its Ups and Downs - a trip to the doctor, a near fatal crash, common phone calls, an iPhone breakdown, 2 Uber rides, an eye shot, an ontological  Zoom class, a great dinner with the love of my life, followed by total exhaustion and a bit of deep sleep. And that is just scratching the surface.

Flower for the Day Sedum 10-8-23

This sedum plant was gift from a church lady over 40 years ago. Sedum is in the family Crassulaceae and  are commonly known as stonecrops. The leaves are water storing (succulents). The plant has always looked scruffy. This year more so as it is the first time that the deer has been eating it.

But the glory of sedum is then amazing flowers. The blooms have five petals and twice as many stamens 

as petals.

    

The House I Grew Up In

The House I Grew Up In

had a hole

in the hall closet door

father's fist-size with jagged edges

punched at mother's eye level

unseeing relations hung winter coats inside

innocents asked: "what happened here"?

it was part of the decor like the living room schefflera plant

and the wooden crucifix above Patricia's bed

I covered it with a cardboard Santa for the holidays,

still at night I heard its screams years later,

in my garden I unearthed that hole

and filled it with the roots of a sedum

Kathy Camacho

Copyright © kathy camacho | Year Posted 2017

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Flower for the Day Trumpet Vine 10-5-23

The amazing thing about our trumpet vine (Campsis radicans) is that it has been blooming since May.

Here is a bud on the vine.

The flowers come in terminal cymes. A cyme is a flower cluster with a central stem bearing 

a single flower that develops first, the other flowers in the cluster coming as terminal buds of lateral stems.

The flowers are trumpet shaped. They are orange in color with a yellowish throat and 5 shallow lobes bending backward.  The flowers have no floral scent. 

   Trumpet Vine

 Eleven orange trumpets
silently pour their
radiant peace
in all directions
not violently to bring
down walls
but gently as their
green leaved vines
victoriously over climb

Saiom Shriver

Flower for the Day "The smell rejoices the heart of man" 10-4-23

There is a large stand of spearmint (Menthe spicata) by the front door. The leaves are broad with a serrated edge.

The stems are square-shaped, a defining characteristic of the mint family. The name spear derives from the pointed leaf tips.

I love the smell which is greatest this time of year. I seldom see the flowers which are perky little blossoms.

Mention of spearmint dates back to at least the 1st century AD, with references from naturalist Pliny and mentions in the Bible.  Findings of early versions of toothpaste using mint in the 14th century suggest widespread domestication by this point. It was introduced into England by the Romans by the 5th century, and the "Father of British Botany", of the surname Turner, mentions mint as being good for the stomach. John Gerard's Herbal (1597) states that: "It is good against watering eyes and all manner of break outs on the head and sores. "It is applied with salt to the biting of mad dogs," and that "They lay it on the stinging of wasps and bees with good success." He also mentions that "the smell rejoices the heart of man", for which reason they used to strew it in chambers and places of recreation, pleasure, and repose, where feasts and banquets are made."

Flower for the Day Morning Glory 10-2-23

Despite seasonal changes our morning glories (Ipomoea purpurea) are still blooming nicely.

These days we do not purchase seeds or plants and take what comes up yearly.

We like purple better but have more pink.

The triangular seeds have some history of use as a psychedelic. They may contain LSA. Effects are reported to be somewhat similar to LSD. BUT - DO NOT EAT THE SEEDS.

"Commercial morning glory seeds are commonly treated with toxic methylmercury, which serves as a preservative and a cumulative neurotoxic poison that is considered useful by some to discourage their recreational use. The US has no legal requirement to disclose to buyers that seeds have been treated with a toxic heavy metal compound." Wikipedia

My take- if you need an 'extra' experience,  you are in the wrong garden.