A piece on one of my favorite plants for the Denning Denizen.
Agastache.
26-Jul-12Terror.
25-Jul-12A few nights ago I slept little, as a thunderstorm rolled through the area and was sending down bolts all over the mountaintop. Two bolts whacked trees just on the other side of the field, crackling through the air most impressively. I was convinced of course that my cabin would be next. As I’ve said before, the cabin has been hit in the past, and I always worry that the next bolt will do some real damage. The perils of living on the mountaintop.
“Who has never eaten his bread in sorrow,
Who has never spent his hours
Watching and waiting for the morrow,
He knows ye not, ye heavenly powers.” – Goethe
Return of the Monarchs.
23-Jul-12
Another monarch butterfly caterpillar on my Asclepias this year. It seems to have pretty thoroughly defoliated the plants, however, and I’m inspired to plant more of these butterfly weeds. The ones I have I raised from seed, and that year I had so many come up from seed I didn’t know what to do with them. Since then, however, I’ve tried to grow Asclepias from seed with no luck whatsoever. I’ll have to keep trying. I apologize for the blurry image, I need a new camera.
Fritz Haber.
23-Jul-12This is undoubtedly one of the great stories I have come upon recently: Haber, the inventor of fertilizer and hence one of the great benefactors of mankind, also the inventor of chemical weapons. A thorough tragedy and utterly Faustlike and amazing. I heard the Radiolab story; other resources are here.
The Garden Grows.
23-Jul-12Native Plant Gardening in the Catskills.
21-Jul-12A piece I wrote for The Denning Denizen.
The Apostolic Succession of Generations.
08-Jul-12
I saw this turkey on my drive in to the cabin yesterday, leading an adorable cohort of little giblets. (I don’t know the proper term for a baby turkey, so “giblet” will have to do.) I love the way the parents speak to the little giblets, the little clucks and coos that make the little ones either scatter and hide or run behind the parent.
Beebalm Season.
08-Jul-12I Think I Just Found A New Dish…
08-Jul-12Daylilies! These things are taking over the Catskills, so maybe I can fight back by eating them.


Newman, and Burton.
08-Jul-12I found this in Burton’s commentary to his Kasidah. The exclamation point I am sure is Burton’s. From Newman’s Apologia Pro Vita Sua:
Burton says, “I cannot refrain from quoting all this fine passage, if it be only for the sake of its lame and shallow deduction.” (Newman uses this passage to prove the existence of Original Sin.)
One of those days. It’s extraordinarily beautiful here, but I cannot avoid the feeling today that all my hopes must miscarry. I see here also the flip side of the beauty: it’s great hiking weather, sunny and dry. But it’s been so dry for so long – the past forty days – that the seedlings are dead, the herbs are wilting, and even the trees have stopped growing. My raspberries have all aborted their fruits – the little fleshless cells hanging crisped up and down the stems.