Sunday thoughts: sweet water and bitter

The sermon at our church this morning was about the words we speak.  Interestingly enough, my real-life friend as well as fellow blogger, Lea, posted that she had studied this in Bible study just two days ago.
I like the verses in James which make the analogy of a fountain.  You would not expect to find both fresh tasting water and bitter or salty water coming out of the same fountain, so why should we expect to have both words of blessing and words of cursing coming out of our mouths?  Isn't it hypocritical to bless God with our mouth, then turn around and use that same mouth to spew forth embittered words to our fellow humans (who are made in God's image)?
Just as there is a time to hold our peace, there is also a time to speak up and speak out.  If it is within out power to speak up for someone who is powerless to defend himself, we should speak up.
Proverbs: 31:8,9
Open thy mouth for the dumb in the cause of all such as are appointed to destruction.
Open thy mouth, judge righteously, and plead the cause of the poor and needy.

What's the state of your fountain?  Do you ever think of the words you say as metaphorically giving someone a fresh drink of water?

Can you see a bird song?

I've been hearing lots of bird songs lately.  We have wrens and mockingbirds which are quite noisy.  The last two days I've been hearing a catbird in the backyard.  The catbird mimics the sounds of other birds like the mockingbird does.
A cute experiment is to get a three or four-year-old kid and have him mimic the mockingbird.  It can be quite entertaining. 
Once the UPS guy delivered a package and set it on the deck of my neighbor's house.  He set it down in front of a motion-detecting frog which began croaking.  (I'm guessing it ran the battery down considerably.)  By the end of the day, I noticed that the mocking bird was mimicking the sound of the frog.
In a recent email I received, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology introduced a new game which helps a birder identify bird songs in a visual way.  A spectogram of the bird song is matched to the bird.  I found this very interesting; it used a part of my brain that I don't use a lot.
The game is named Bird Song Hero.  (The name is similar to the popular Guitar Hero in which a gamer tries to match a recorded musical phrase with his own guitar playing.)
I think this link is worth a look (and a listen)!
http://biology.allaboutbirds.org/bird-song-hero/?__hstc=161696355.457faadc0c8f42d6b43f28d00d1be3d1.1402175288289.1402175288289.1402175288289.1&__hssc=161696355.1.1402175288289&__hsfp=4288920880

Compost, glorious compost

When all else fails in the garden, there is still compost, glorious compost.  One of the basic tenets of good gardening is taking care of the soil, and compost can play an important part in that.  Most any primer on composting that I've read gives the obligatory mention of greens and browns which supply nitrogen and carbon respectively.  I'm by no means restricted by a rigid formula.  Adding what I have when it's available seems "organic" to me.  One writer used the word desultory to describe her composting method, and I've adopted that word with pride.  Since I don't fret over green/brown ratios, I don't worry about the compost going through a heat.  Cold rot works for me.  In my fifth edition of How to Grow More Vegetables, John Jeavons speculated that a cold rot compost pile might actually end up supplying more humus in the long run.  (I don't know what his research since then has concluded.  If you know, leave a comment.)
I save my raw vegetable scraps and peels and sometimes add used paper towels in a container in the kitchen.  Periodically I dump the container into a lidded bucket on the deck.  I might line my compost bucket with newspaper at times.  Caleb has been tasked since he was a wee fellow with dumping the compost bucket and covering the contents with soil or at least compost from another section of the compost pile.  I've always paid him a quarter for that chore (and sometimes a bonus for a good attitude).  Weeds get added to the pile.  Bermuda grass gets added after the roots have lain in the sun for several days to completely dry them out.
Here is how the pile looked just over a week ago.

You may be able to see that I have spread cardboard underneath to smother any (especially Bermuda) grass that was under the pile.
 
I had moved this pile from another spot about a month ago.  I transplanted the six tomato plants that my brother had given me to the place where the compost pile was previously located.  As you can see, the tomatoes have utilized the nutrients left in the soil from the compost pile.  Besides compost, the only fertilizer they've had is one application of water soluble fertilizer.

 

 

 

Here is the compost pile after I added the weeds and bolted kale from the last garden bed we cleared.

 

I used my trusty manure fork to move the materials.  (I think this fork might deserve a post all its own, so instead of going down that rabbit trail now, I'll save it for another post.)

 

When I moved the pile to plant the tomatoes, I screened out a little of the compost.  As you can see, it was nicely decomposed and even had an earthworm in it.

 

In addition to the compost pile I have for the vegetables, I also have what I call the "ornamental compost pile."  That appellation refers to function and not form.  I use the compost from the "ornamental pile" to fertilize my flowers, trees, and shrubs.  We once got free mulch from the county landfill.  I later worried that maybe it had some contaminants in it that I might not want on my veggies, so I just put the weeds from the mulched area into a separate compost pile.



 

My desultory manner works well for the ornamental pile.  I do on occasion turn the pile, but mostly I just let it sit and when I need some compost from the pile, I thrust a shovel in at the bottom and bring out compost.  A piece of wire mesh which I picked up for free, set over a bucket, works to screen out the larger pieces that aren't sufficiently decomposed.

 

 

 

I sometimes wonder if there was decomposition in the Garden of Eden.  Things rotting seem a little less than perfection, don't you think?  But when you think of how the cycle of rotting things helps replenish the still living things, I think I glimpse a little redemption.  Compost, glorious compost.








 



     

My Heart Leaps Up...

My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.

           

        William Wordsworth

 

 

 

 

It's always a delight to see a rainbow.  Here is one Caleb and I saw Tuesday as we came through Sanford.

 



Blue on blue

A friend sent me this picture of an indigo bunting with the Blue Ridge Mountains as a backdrop.  I believe the bird is in a hawthorn tree.  What a lovely scene!
(click on the image to enlarge)

Wildflower favorites from childhood

I remember as a child enjoying wildflowers very much.  I appreciate that we weren't distracted by electronic devices (thanks, Mom), and we spent many creative hours playing outdoors.  We might serve up a miniature "mess of squash" consisting of the unopened yellow buds of false foxgloves or we might have a dish of "scrambled eggs" made of crumbled open blooms (that we only pretended to eat, of course).

(photo courtesy wpclipart )

 

Any new flower that we had never seen before was noted with delight.  There was something magical about the vivid red of the first cardinal flower I ever saw by a stream in a wooded portion of the neighbor's pasture.

(photo courtesy wpclipart )

 

 

There was something mystical about the orange "fairies" I saw dancing around a rarely seen (for me) orange fringed orchid.

(photo courtesy wpclipart )

 

 

I remember once inspecting a rosepink (kids are closer to the ground, and close inspections of wildflowers were second nature) that impressed me so with the color pattern and the most marvelous scent I could imagine.  HERE is pic which does it justice.

 

Some of the wildflowers I remember from childhood are part of my landscape today.  I was pleased to learn as an adult that the flower we simply referred to as the Borden flower (because it reminded us of the daisies around the neck of Elsie the Borden Dairy cow) was actually a perennial (chrysogonum virginianum or green and gold) being sold by reputable plant companies.  I dug up a clump and put it in the landscape. 

It is right beside my butterfly weed which was also a childhood favorite.

 

And despite my attempts to pull them up as weeds, I manage to have Queen Anne's lace here and there.  That's really okay because it reminds me of riding down a bumpy dirt road to Grandma's house in summertime.  The Queen Anne's lace bloomed along the side ditches.  As with the butterfly weed, my older sister told me what it was called.  She has always been a wealth of information and assistance!  I was fascinated by how the one flower seemed to be made of so many smaller clusters of yet smaller flowers.  Here is one in my yard.

 

 

Another favorite which springs up here and there in my unkempt flower beds is Venus' looking glass.  I knew it by its face when I was a child, but only as an adult did I learn its name.  My older brother told me the name.  He has also been a wealth of information.  Encyclopaedia Britannica says "The long calyx (collection of fused sepals) resembles a mirror handle and is the source of the plant’s common name," but I like to think that the beauty of the plant equals the reflection of Venus, the goddess of beauty, when she looks into the mirror.  Usually when I see the stalks emerging in my flower beds, I intentionally leave them to grow.  Here are a couple of shots I got the other day of my Venus' looking glass.

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for looking at the wildflowers that grow along memory lane.



 

   

 



Sunday thoughts: peace

John 16:33

These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.