Don's Blog Happy Day 11-21-25

Well today is my day. Ninety years ago today (1935) I arrived at Presbyterian Hospital in Chicago, Illinois. 

I spent my childhood in La Grange, Illinois.

 

My most fortuitous event was in 1961 (64 years ago) when I married Jan Elizabeth Feldwisch. 

We raised three boys (Lee,Gordon,& Chris) who have families of their own.

I have accomplished much both near

and far.

I have been on many trails

and still seek the 'peace the passeth all understanding'.

Who Knew?

YOU my Friend,
have truthfully lived a Grand and Glorious Life,
and Blessed by three Sons,
and a Gorgeous Wife.
You chose Medicine, Jan chose Art,
Your conversations are often apart,
But the Obvious Measurement,
Stands on its Own, You are always Together,
Never Alone.

Bill Halliburton

Don's Blog Arborvitae 11-17-25

The leaves of the hardwood trees are almost all on the ground providing mulch for the azaleas and other bushes. 

Our white pine has been dropping needless for a month. Between us and the Kraus House, the Frank Lloyd Wright House, to the south west of us in Ebsworth  Park is a row of trees planted by St Louis County. They are arborvitae (Thuja occidentalis)also known as northern white cedar. Arbor vitae is Latin for 'tree of life'. They are native northern conifers in the cypress family Cupressaceae.

They grow rapidly and are the best natural barrier available both for sound and privacy. The tree can grow to 50 feet or more with a 3 feet diameter. The bark is red-brown and its fan-like branches have scaly leaves. This time of year the leaves turn color and begin to fall.

Thuja occidentalis has important uses in traditional Ojibwe culture. Honoured with the name Nookomis Giizhik (Grandmother Cedar), the tree is the subject of sacred legends and is considered a gift to humanity for its myriad of uses, among them crafts, construction, and medicine. It is one of the four plants of the Ojibwe medicine wheel. The foliage is rich in vitamin C and is believed to be the anneda, which cured the scurvy of Jacques Cartier and his party in the winter of 1535–1536.

Is it heedless?

Is it heartless, or unjudging, or forgetful, or immune?

Do we apprehend its nature, can we comprehend it power,

We, as mortal as the sparrow, and as fading as the flower,

And as changing as the moon?

John Masefield

Flower for the Day Last Dahlia 11-12-25

The 22 degree freeze has leveled the gardens in one night. Here is the last dahlia. As you have noticed the depth of color is fully equal to that of the peony or the rose. Its power comes from its structural complexity. The flowers are unsurpassed. This one stars out almost like a peony bud.

Then it explodes into glory.

And in its Steuben container it dominates for over a week. 

time scratches at the walls during small talk,

it inches forward in every parking lot.

I exist amongst it,

invisible to the world like im made of glass.

Adam Sessions

Note: With the garden resting for the winter the posts will become more irregular. The fruits of this years gardens despite the ferocious intrusion of the deer have been extraordinary. Eh?

Flower for the Day Dahlia V 11-10-25

Well we are in the big freeze and everything is drooping. Her is one of several remaining dahlias which were 

saved for inside before the silent demise of the many remaing buds.

Dahlia

a sea of swanning sirens
proudly poised, petals upon petals 
that furl and curl 
a lover of the sun, a foe of frost
a vibrant color palette
from esther to labyrinth to tangerine
like a beauty queen
stealing gazes, spilling sighs
she reigns supreme
in the garden of Eve

Kahlani

Flower for the Day Dahlia IV 11-7-25

This dahlia has beaten the impending freeze and there are more to come. Not much else is still newly blooming.

This bud has been slow to bloom,

but it turns wondrous. The edges are amazing.

And then it continues to entrance us for days.

Dreamy Petals

dreamy petals

in full blossom

proud dahlia

Writinstuffs

Flower for the Day Dahlia III 11-5-25

The big freeze is coming this weekend but the dahlias are still blooming - many buds but painfully slow. They better hurry. When they do bloom they are spectacular.

The Perfect Garden

These blossoms do not grow to be a botanic
Artist's view.
But grow free in the perfect garden nourished by
golden sun and watered by dawn's misty dew.

To exist in the perfect fantasy somewhere..
where fantasy and reality boldly gleams...
somewhere in this perfect garden...
a dahlia tenderly dreams.

LG Mace

Flower for the Day White Snakeroot 11-3-25

Our last offering, Fall Boneset (Eupetorium perfoliatum) looks similar to todays flower, white snakeroot (Ageratina altissima). They are both white flowered Native herbal perennials. Their differences lie in their leaf and stem structures and toxicity. The most significant difference is that boneset is used medicinally for fevers while white snakeroot is poisonous and can cause 'milk sickness'. If ingested by cows  the poison can be passed to humans via milk. Bonesets leaves are joined across the stem (perfoliate) and has hairy stems.The leaves of snakeroot  are separate with distinct leaf stalks. Its stems are hairless.

Here is a side by side image with boneset on the left and snakeroot with clean white flowers on the right.

White snakeroot  grows upright tp 5 feet producing multistep clumps. The leaves have serrated edges and grow to 6 inches long. At the end of the upper branches, flat-topped panicles or compound corymbs of white flower heads.  The flowers are a clean white color and after blooming, small seeds with fluffy white tails are released to blow in the wind. 

In the early 1800s, a devastating disease of unknown origin was sweeping across much of North America. It was almost always lethal, particularly in isolated mountain communities. The disease is characterized by trembling, vomiting, and severe intestinal pain, and if untreated, the symptoms can progress to weakness, difficulty standing or walking, complete loss of muscle coordination, stupor, and even coma; death usually occurs within a few days of the onset of these symptoms. Adult cows were not affected, but the disease killed their calves, and goats, horses, and sheep all fell victim to the plant's poison. The disease was prevalent in the south and the midwest.

In 1818 Abraham Lincoln's family was living in a small settlement in southern Indiana  known as Little Pigeon Creek. Like southern Illinois, this area of Indiana was untouched by the glaciers of the last Ice Age and as such is hilly and forested-the perfect habitat for many sorts of woodland animals, but not particularly good as pastureland for livestock.As much of the land had yet to be cleared, the cattle would forage in the woods, feeding on sedges and other assorted foliage including white snakeroot.

In 1818 Abraham Lincoln's mother, Nancy Hanks Lincoln,  died after a week's sickness.Nancy got sick in late September and died on October 5. She was buried next to other victims of the disease. Her aunt, uncle, and several people in Little Pigeon Creek, Indiana died then as well. Abe and his father were unaffected. She was 34 years of age. Young Abraham then age 9 helped his father build a coffin by carving wooden pegs by hand. Some historians see Nancy's death as triggering the depression that seemed to haunt the president. 

It was not until 1828 that a frontier physician, Dr Anna Bixby (later Hobbs),  learned from a Shawnee woman that the disease was the result of drinking milk from cows that had eaten a native plant: white snakeroot. Unfortunately, few learned of Dr Bixby's revelation and white snakeroot was not officially recognized as the cause for many years.

A Bell, Still Unrung

She daily effuses
the close-mouthed
tantrum of her fevers.

Hog-tied and lunatic.                         
Born toothsome, 
unholy. Born uppity.        
    
Blue-jawed and out-order.   
Watched her sculptor                   
split her bitter seam        
              
with his scalding knife;
mauled through the errant                
flesh of her nature

and hemorrhaged mercury, 
molted snakeroot, a smoke           
of weeping silver. 
 
She, accused.
Sprung from the head 
of a thousand-fisted

wretch or a blood-dark                                   
cosmos undoubling
her bound body.  
                   
Vexed shrew. Blight of moon.         
She, armory. Pitched-milk pours
from her gold oracular.

Bred in her nest a lone                          
grenade, prized, unpried
its force-ripe wound.

She, disease. Often bruised
to brush the joy of anything.
Zombic. Un-groomed.      

Her night slinks open 
its sliding pin. One by one
these loose hopes

harpoon themselves
in, small-ghosts alighting
at her unwhoring.    

She, infirmary.
God's swallowed
lantern, tar-hair and thick.

Her black torchstruck.
A kindling stick.
No sinkle-bible fix

to cure this burning.
Shrill hell. Jezebel.

Isn't it lonely.

Safiya Sinclair

[Safiya Sinclair's "A Bell, Still Unrung" is a strange poem that uses the imagery of "molted snakeroot" to explore themes of illness, nature, and female identity. The reference ties into the plant's historical association with "milk sickness".]

 

Halloween 10-31-25

Mabel, who's real name is Veda, dresses as an owl for Halloween this year. 

We had only one trick or treat family this year but hat means more candy for me.