It’s cold outside, bonsais in the frost (12/27/2022)

I am sure that almost everyone knows by now that we have been in for some amazing weather here in the eastern two thirds of north America. We were hit by the polar vortex and what is called a bombogenesis. It was something that was predicted some time ago, I even wrote about it in a post a week ago and predicted that I might need to write my final year’s post about it. Well, here I go.

My main concern was how the greenhouse would hold up to winds approaching hurricane force and temperatures around 10 degrees Fahrenheit or around -12 degrees Celsius. I have most of my tropical trees in the greenhouse and as you can see in the photograph included with this post, I have two small heaters installed in the place. One heater of 700 watts comes on based on where I set it; while the other is 1200 and is connected to my thermostat which switches it on at 42.5 degrees (or 5.8 C). I think this is still pretty darn cold for some of my trees, and I hoped it works. Before the weather blew in, we had some freezing nights, and the greenhouse could handle it well, eventually putting the nighttime temperatures around 45 to 50 degrees.

With the cold coming in, I was nervous, and I also needed to connect our birth bath heater coil to the same outlet. I had planned to wake up every few hours that first night to make sure all went well. We went to bed at around 11 and the temperatures outside had already dropped to 15. The temperature in the greenhouse was a comfortable 55. I felt good. I woke up at 12:30 checked the temperature in the greenhouse with my remote temperature gauge and it read 29 degrees, 3 degrees below freezing. Holy shit! My trees!

I went on the deck naked (we old hippies still sleep in the nude, but boy it was cold 15 degrees being nude on our deck) to push in the ground fault interrupt that did not do it and then I figured out that it must be the breaker. Back inside I found the tripped breaker, reset it and I noticed that a light in the greenhouse came on. This is an indicator light on the extension cord showing it has power.

Now what triggered this? The only explanation I had is the coil that keeps the bird bath water from freezing. It pulls 200 watts and must have been working overtime. I went back to bed without further thinking about it, but after a brief discussion with my wife we decided that I should unplug the thing and dump the water out of the bath to prevent it from cracking.

So, out of bed and downstairs I went. I pulled on my ski parka over my nude body, slipped on some shoes and stumbled outside in the dark and cold to get the job done. Boy, that was cold on the bare legs, buttocks and elsewhere. I described it to a friend, and he wondered about any shrinkage, honestly, I had no time to think about that issue; in addition, it was way too cold for that, so let’s not go there in this post.

Once reset, within minutes the greenhouse was back above 32. I woke up two additional times that night and the temperatures hovered around 45. In the morning the outside temperature was 7.5 degrees or about -13.6 Celsius.

I am not sure if I lost any plants, time will tell. Now a few days later things still look ok, but you never know. One of the YouTube shows I watch mentioned that ficus trees in particular might not like colder temperatures, and I have at least six different ones in the greenhouse. It looks like one of my hibiscus trees is suffering as well, but I think that was from before the polar vortex.

It is now after Christmas and temperatures are supposed to warm up the next week. The day-time temperatures in the greenhouse topped 70 degrees in the sunshine today. I am pretty happy.

I expect that this will be the last post of 2022. So, folks, I hope you all have a great New Year. I am looking forward to the new year as well.

The interior of the greenhouse on December 18.  You can see the two heaters on the tile, pointing in two different directions.  The small cube is the 700 watts heater and the cream one in front is the stronger one.  I had put the tile and cinderblocks in as heat sinks in the hope to moderate the temperature swings.

Rural development mis-steps (12/19/2022)

I suspected already that my end of year post would not be the last. The reason was that Christmas weekend the nighttime temperatures were going to dip to 18 or so degrees Fahrenheit or almost -8 degrees centigrade. I figured that was probably worth a post on my greenhouse performance and bonsais.

Little did I realize that our Governor would get me riled up in the meantime. I have started to call him tRumpkin; however, his real name of course is Younkin. So, what has Younkin (a.k.a. tRumpkin) been up to this past week to get me back to writing a political post again?

For one, tRumpkin is proposing stricter abortion rules in his new budget. All my readers know that even as a full-blooded male, I am fearlessly in favor of women’s right, and very pro-choice, or better in favor of allowing women to choose what to do to their own body. As you can see in this paragraph, I have written many posts on it and if you like to read more opinions of mine check these out. I will not go into it any further here.

There was another thing that our governor who seems to be completely out of touch with reality wants to do. According to tRumpkin and his Homebuilders’ Association cronies, there seems to be a shortage of affordable housing. Actually, I can somewhat agree with them this far. But now comes where we diverge. In his ultimate stupidity (he thinks it is wisdom) tRumpkin wants to ask/mandate the counties, cities, towns to open their rural areas to smaller lot sizes and thus allow denser development in these areas.

Rural areas around us typically allow lot sized of 3 acres (about 1.2 hectare) or larger. This would allow for the location of a septic system since these rural areas are typically not serviced by public sewer. Moreover, these large lots usually support larger homes that are built by more affluent folks, we often tend to call them MacMansions since they all tend to look somewhat alike or cookie cutter. I am sure that all these richer folks in their four- and five-bedroom homes will welcome a neighborhood with half or quarter acre lots and low to middle income folks nearby. Oh, and maybe some townhouses anyone and a dollar general which is the only place some of these folks can only afford to shop? I am not being disparaging, condescending, or facetious, but I can predict their reaction: “not in my back yard (NIMBY).” Younkin lives on a private 30 acre horse farm in Great Falls, Fairfax County, Virginia. I am sure he will subdivide his land and make it available for the construction of low-income housing.

In addition to this tRumpkin proposed to make all this development a bit easier by relaxing the wetland and other environmental regulations. He saw this one correctly, I teach in my classes that all the easy-to-develop land has already been taken, and the remaining land has issues. It either has horrible soils and cannot infiltrate water and is unsuitable for septic and stormwater management, or is a wetland, you name it, it has issues. So, let’s build these lower income neighborhoods in or near wetland areas or other marginal areas. Wetland areas flood more frequently, who cares a little mold won’t kill them, and if they get sick, that is what we have the emergency rooms for or the 24 hour clinics down in the strip malls. The folks in the MacMansions live high and dry and if something happens to them, God forbid, they have insurance, and the government will bail them out.

Furthermore, let’s not talk about paving over nature in the age of climate change, biodiversity loss, and other environmental disasters (boy, I already wrote about this in 2015). Let’s all migrate to the countryside and pave it over. tRumpkin’s proposal is going to make this all worse. Abandon the inner-city, instead of redeveloping it and making it more livable. More livable inner cities like in Europe would attract younger folks from all walks of life as well as lower income folks. This would work, as long as we make them livable and erase the food deserts that exist in many of our inner cities.

No, Governor Glenn Younkin you are out of touch with reality while living your sheltered life on your 30-acre horse farm. I am sorry, but you are not a man of the people, you are a conservative elite who has never worked a decent job in his life. I want to bet that you do not even know the price of a gallon of milk, a loaf of bread or a bale of hay for your horses.

This red oak grows in the Colonial Battlefield National Park.  It is one of the stately trees grows in a grove.  It is actually one of the smaller ones, but what impressed me on the morning I took this picture was the shadows on the trunk that shows the live veins which are a sign of advanced age or development.  Thank goodness, Glenn Younkin's proposals cannot harm this grove; however, if it depends on him, these trees would go to the lumber mill or worse the paper plant and the area would become another subdivision.

December 2022 (12/15/2022)

December: it is that time of the year again. Many of the “How to blog” websites tell you it is time to write a year in review post. Should I, or shouldn’t I? I am writing this as I am sitting in my hotel room in Lynchburg, under much better circumstances than my last visit to the area around the end of March. It was the same day we put our dog Jake to sleep, and I had a rough time driving and staying here. I drank and ate too much that evening, and it wasn’t even satisfying. Oh well, isn’t that the case that many drunks or overeaters feel afterwards? Did I learn anything from that? Tonight, I did, I just had one and a half beer and some nice Japanese food. Back in my room before 7 and now behind the keyboard.

While I am not sure if I will publish this post tonight or even during my stay here in Lynchburg tonight or tomorrow evening, I do feel compelled to write a little bit about the year and about life in general. Life this year has been good. We are back from COVID (although I read it is back in an upswing); we are wondering at times if we had it in June when we suffered from a summer cold but tested negative, once. I decided to take part in a medical experiment and took an experimental RSV vaccine. Our daughter got married and we are still paying for it. Oh well, it was worth it and fun. A week before the wedding we moved my 95-year-old father-in-law from independent living to assisted living. In other words, July was an absolute blur. It was an insane three weeks for us, but it was Nietzsche (I think) who said, “What does not kill me, makes me stronger.” We definitely gained a lot of strength in July, and we are still drinking wedding beer, or better I am using it as the liquid in some of the bread I am baking, in particular my rye bread.

From this year’s posts you can see that I still travel for work and teach. Again, today my supervisor wanted to know how long he can still rely on my or in other words, when I will retire. Loyal readers know that I struggle with this. I enjoy teaching, but then I feel I also need to spend more time with my bonsai trees. I have a greenhouse now, and it looks like that I am getting more serious about those darn little trees. Yes, I have been dabbling around with them for the past 34 years, and in a way, so little to show for. For all those years, I should have had some magnificent trees; but I have ignored them for extended periods during those years. They were pot bound and that does not help their development.

So yes, I am still kicking and screaming, working, complaining that I am getting old and decrepit, politically active, baking bread, hiking, forest bathing, and bonsai growing. I love my beers, although it seems that my taste is changing from IPAs to black lagers. I am getting bored with American restaurant food (I assume that this is because I am eating out so much during my travels) and I am starting to like Japanese food best.

While not a true a look back on the past year, I hope this is somewhat of a review of my life to-dated. As I alluded to in a similar post last year, maybe it isn’t very Buddhist to look back (and live or dwell in the past). It may be better to live in the present and prepare for the road ahead. As I recently mentioned, I am in a good place mentally, I have been feeling happy lately. Hopefully 2023 will be as good or even better. But who knows, I might get inspired to write another post this year. Cheers!

Having breakfast at the hotel (The Virginian by Hilton in Lynchburg).  This is absolutely a nice hotel.  I visited two microbreweries: 3 Roads which was OK and Star Hill, a satalite brewery from the main one in the Charlottesville area which was great.  Lunch was in Rustburg and dinner at El Jefes Tacos (good) and Mizumi Japanese Bistro (absolutely great). 

I am happy to be alive and happier than a clam (11/29/2022)

Strange title to this post, isn’t it? Today, during my morning walk in the woods with the dogs I was overcome by this feeling of extreme happiness and contentment. I was feeling happier than I could remember ever feeling before; even during my daughter’s wedding a few months ago, although I felt pretty damn happy then, but also full of anticipation, thinking about everything to come the rest of the day.

Come to think of it, this was probably one of the happiest moments in my life. So, what brought this on? I am not on drugs, and as I mentioned in numerous posts of mine, I am not particularly depressed or optimistic. Neither am I a pessimist or optimist. Well, thinking about it during my walk, I concluded I was happy to be alive, and even that thought did not bring me down!

Let me explain.

Bad news abounds, three mass-shootings lately, two of which were here in Virginia and one in Colorado Springs. My wife and I were talking about the shooting in Colorado Springs and how a brave guy put himself at risk and stopped the shooter. We were talking about “What would you do” in such a situation. Armchair quarterbacking is easy, but my first reaction was that I would not hesitate and try to stop the shooter. As I explained to her, I survived at least four episodes where I should have been killed by a gun in Uganda, but somehow escaped it, and once by a natural disaster in Nepal. While I am not invincible, I have been so lucky to have lived through these episodes and survived this long. Therefore, it would be ok if someone gets me, if I can save someone else’s life; I lived a full life already. The thought of that full life did it to me, it made me realize what a great life I have led, and I should be happy.

Now I was walking with my dogs today. In winter we usually we take one of two routes. One takes us behind our home through the woods and then back to the neighborhood to the front of our home. This is about a mile and a quarter long walk. The other one starts out the same way but veers off into a trail that eventually leads you to what I consider to be a piece of relatively old growth forest with huge oaks and yellow popular trees. The stand has an understory of pawpaws and maples. That route is slightly longer and is only in nature.

My plans today were to walk around to the front as we call it. However, the dogs had another idea. They wanted to take a left into the woods to the old growth, my favorite area and surely theirs as well. This time we walked a bit further than usually because it felt so good. The dogs walked calmly, and we were just enjoying ourselves. It was then that this feeling of extreme joy came over me and it has not left me. I was in a high of the woods, the sights and the thoughts.

Researchers talk about how important forest bathing is for your wellbeing. The looks, the sounds (or the lack of them), and the smells, the phytoncides are so good for your health, mind, blood pressure, and overall wellbeing. It seems that one walk in the woods can last weeks. I sometimes have two or three walks in the woods each day. I wish they were cumulative; I would have enough for the rest of my life. Let’s just hope I can capture this happy feeling for a bit longer.

This photograph of the old growth was taken a week ago.  My wife can be seen in the middle of the trail.  You can see the beauty and size of the trees.  

Natural turnover everywhere in these woods.  Mushrooms are active all over the place.  I just love looking exploring and just taking it all in.

A quick after remark.  This past evening ( the evening after publishing this post) we were walking the dogs, and I saw two falling stars in a row.  The both radiated from the direction of Mars.  The first shot right into the constellation of the Gemini, almost directly towards Castor and Pollux.  The special thing is that I am a Gemini and have an affinity to those two stars.  The second meteor shot away less than a minute about 90 degrees away from the first towards to tip of Orion.  Absolutely a great ending on an already great day.

Thankful that nature is part of us (11/23/2022)

Of late, I have become increasingly introspective. Whether that a sign of the changing seasons and the approaching solstice, Christmas, and New Year, or just a sign of aging and the approaching consideration of retiring, I really don’t know and couldn’t care less. As my regular readers know, when I become more introspective, I start asking the perpetual question: Why the hell, am I writing this blog? I have seen so many blogs or bloggers who quit after so many years. Is it worth those measly 200+ readers every month? Last month I had 224 hits and this month I am already up to 374 hits; the average this year is 205). As you can see, I am no influencer, nor did I ever intent to be one. I have nothing to sell or to give away right now. If you want me to sponsor or promote you or your product, we can talk I would not mind. I have bought and used products from various bonsai suppliers and maybe one day I’ll write a review about what I like and what I did not.

Early on this blog was meant to document my travels through Virginia as an instructor. I had learned to love this state and discovered all it’s beauty. Having studied photography in the past and giving it up as a serious hobby or even as a possible profession, I felt this was a way of rekindling it. Soon the captions with the photographs started taking over and I felt I had so much more to say that could accompany those photographs; the story behind the photographs, the items that I could not capture, things on my mind. If you are a regular reader, you have seen me mention that before. This blog became a diary of sorts, a reflection of my thinking at times, a travel log, my political rant, and as I mentioned in my last post my way of trying to educate, maybe one or two readers so now and then, or at least help them think critically.

But I do not write every waking moment of my life. So, what do I do in my spare time, when it is either dark outside, when I don’t work, don’t write these damn posts, walk my dogs, work on my bonsai trees, cook, or bake bread? Notice I left out any water-based activities like kayaking and sailing as well as biking! Somehow, I need to get back into them, but I have not sailed or kayaked for a long time. Ever since I broke my wrist, I have shied away from biking, although my wrist is completely healed. Then to hear folks near us were killed while riding bikes and broke all kinds of bones. That does not help us getting back on the bikes. But I increased my time dedicated to the environment, nature, and my bonsai.

The real answer is, I watch a lot of YouTube videos, read blogs, and listen to podcasts. My wife and I keep telling each other that we need a life, and we should go see a movie or watch a TV show, so we can talk “intelligently” with friends and colleagues about current cultural things.

What I am trying to convey here is my love for the world. The YouTubes and podcasts mostly deal with nature, science, and human interaction. Few of the latest ones I took in was the YouTube video by Mirai on Ryan’s creation of the different U.S. forests. I also listened to his interview with folks who climb the big trees in California for research as part of the forest creation; this was on his Asymmetry podcast. Both were great. While I already know this, I appreciate more and more the fact that I am part of nature and that I can not function without it. I need it to recharge; when I walk in the woods, I need to touch a tree trunk with my bare hands, feel it, be one with it, be one with nature.

Truthfully, we are part of nature, and that is very important to remember. The natural world does not care who we are, what we look like, what we wear or even what are political leaning is. I keep reminding myself of that and the need to honor all species (although maybe not the roaches and mosquitoes that invade our home at times). But what I am trying to say is that with my forest bathing, with my walks in nature, with my bonsai and trying to recreate those old trees, and just being in the moment, I am aware that I am part of a whole, a minute part of this earth. That is what I have been realizing more and more these past few months.

I was reading an on-line article which discusses the fact that without life in general, this earth would not exist. There would not be limestone, or even soil, both of which are formed by life. Organic matter would not exist, carbon without life? You get the message? The earth would look like Mars. Damn, an interesting concept, isn’t it? The earth and the evolution on it formed life (read us), and life is part of the formation or evolution of the earth. We all affect each other. Now in the Anthropocene the impact of humans seems to be accelerated and not in a positive way (I know, here I go again, and I’ll stop).

But all you, my 200+ readers of my posts sit back, take a deep breath, and think about it. You are part of nature and nature is part of you! With everything you are doing you are impacting the Earth and you can choose whether that is mostly positive or negative. The Earth will give you the same treatment in return since it is part of you. The problem is that it is also part of your children, grand-children, and generations to come. They bare the consequences of our actions or inaction. Introspective anyone?

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

I had to steal this picture from the Rodin museum in Paris.  I visited it in 1976 and need to do it again soon.  But this is probably how I currently feel the most, contemplative.

Half Full or Half Empty (11/18/2022)

Is the glass half full or half empty, that is something I sometimes ask myself. Regular readers of my blog probably know that I can be either a pessimist or an optimist or maybe both, at times. A friend of mine who read some of my posts called them scarry (I think). Now, he is a foreigner, as I am, so maybe he meant ominous. Honestly, I don’t intent my posts to be negative, as such. A lot of them are biographical, telling you readers about my past or my current life. Some of my posts tell you about my thinking and quite a few about my political and environmental leanings. They are not intended to upset you (maybe except for one or two); however, the teacher in me wants to challenge you, my readers to critical thinking at times. Yes, I would not mind persuade you to change your minds, my way.

As I mentioned just now, I encourage critical thinking, not necessarily my thinking. However, what has been upsetting me most, is folks that just accept everything that is being handed to them on a platter, or told to them without questioning it, investigating it, and just taking it as the new truth. This is what I started seeing with a lot during the past 5 years of the conservative MAGA folks. While a lot of us progressives will take everything that folks tell us with a grain of salt, even if it is from the mainstream media, our political leaders, or even our churches, it seems that the MAGA folks close themselves off from all alternative thinking. The latest example is the Arizona republican candidate for Governor Mrs. Kari Lake, who told the press she would only accept the election when they were in her favor.

So, why am on this soap box today? My recent posts have been so non-political, so non-controversial. Why now. The elections are over anyway. The big red wave did not happen. It seems that most election deniers were denied elected offices by the public. Voters voted with their brains. The glass was half full after all. My wife saw the glass as half empty going into November, I predicted it would not be that bad. Did I win? Who cares? Often, I needed to remind my wife that this was not the end of the world we are living in, but we need to fight, our way. That it would all come out OK and it did! The elections are behind us. Or are they?

One of the principles from my Unitarian Church tells me, I am free to independently search for my own truth and meaning. This applies to religion, society, and life in general, as long as it does not hurt anyone else. To me this applies to everything in my life. I am seeing that the American electorate did the same thing, they did not sheepishly follow the directions of the red-haired biggest looser who seems to want to try to lose again.

I agree, this year started out poorly (or the glass emptied) with the Supreme Court decision on abortion. We were all angry. In my wife’s eyes this was the end of the world. I agreed it was terrible, I demonstrated with her and agreed we needed to do something about it and work to defeat the conservatives. She is a woman, who was much more affected by that decision than I as a guy; I understand that. I wrote a couple of posts about it, we sent money to political candidates, and the Planned Parenthood. We made an informed decision to do these things without being encouraged or almost forced to do so. We did not roll over because our politicians or religious leaders told us to do so. I am neither an optimist, nor a pessimist. Am I a realist? I don’t even know that. In the past I was a pessimist for sure, most of my life. Old age is mellowing me. Maybe I’ve become a fatalist, but then I do believe we can change our fate, instead of just sitting back an taking it as it comes. That is what I try to do here and in life in general, and in my job; all in the hope that I create a few extra critical thinkers before I leave this earth. I try to do that overtly in my classes, in my sermons, in my interactions with people and here in my blog posts. Because that is what we need to do to make a better world, and this is the only way I think I can make a contribution to that.

A mushroom?  How does this fit in with what I wrote in this post.  A mushroom is the fruiting body of thousands of mold threads that are growing underground and that we cannot see, When the time is just right (the right temperature and humidity), all the hyphae get together and decide to for a mushroom to have "mold sex."  They do very well on their own without sexual breeding, but this mixes the chromosomes which is good for future evolution etc.  To me it shows the importance of the unseen, the undercurrent, being able to subtlety work on blogs like this hoping to come to fruition and help change the world a little bit.

Bonsai Philosophy (11/7/2022)

During the recent meeting of the bonsai club that I am a member of, I asked one of the members for critique on one of my trees. It is a willow oak that I dug up out of my back yard and have had in a pot for about four or five years now and it is doing really great. The trunk of the tree is still fairly thin and here in lies the rub.

The member that I asked the critique or help from is advanced; I consider my skills somewhere in the middle, having gained a lot of YouTube knowledge. He is part of a bonsai club in northern Virginia and gives workshops up there. He is very good. In other words, I appreciate his feedback. His first remark was that based on the circumference of the trunk, “the tree should be approximately 4 inches tall to be in proportion.” My tree right now is two feet tall. While I agreed with him, if I want a finished tree; however, this tree is in development and hopefully by letting it grow tall, I can get some girth on the trunk. Cutting the tree that low is scarry to me. I do not see any leaf scars down there and I am not sure if it would back-bud or die when cut that low. I am not sure if I am prepared to risk it.

The next discussion point was movement in the trunk. My tree has a double trunk that are both about as straight as arrows. The discussion was about using very heavy copper wire to put some movement in the trunk. The following discussion ensued. A lot of bonsai artists including my advisor likes to put in exaggerated movement into trees to represent the age of the tree, ravaged by time and the weather. They also reflect the artist’s ability to work with the plants. I am not sure if I am a huge fan of all these trees with strange twists and turns that all these bonsai “artists” put in their trees. One of the YouTube channels I watch is the Bonsai Zone by Nigel Saunders. Nigel used to be a model builder, and his philosophy is (as I understand it) to create trees that are a copy of what they look like in nature. Well, I hardly see a contorted twisted willow oak in nature. My mentor for the day pulled up some pictures of mature willow oaks on his phone and had to agree. Trunks are mostly straight, and the canopies are brought.

Personally, I have a few trees that I am twisting and turning, but most of mine are clip and grow, like Nigel. Mine are mostly small. While I would love some larger specimen, being almost 70, my time to grow and lift large trees may be limited. Being a naturalist, a biologist, I like to recreate nature and walking in the woods, the day after the meeting I noticed that 90% of the trees had arrow straight trunks. Some of the understory trees were twisted: maples, ironwood, pawpaw, hornbeam, etc. They were looking for light, those sun flecks.

Naturally, making a forest like bonsai with multiple trees, we need to start thinking about making trees with relatively straight trunks. That is what we see in nature, the competition for light. But then, are there twin trunk oaks? I actually have a triple trunk oak in my front yard, and one of the tallest oaks on my favorite trails behind my home is a twin-trunked red oak. I did learn something. I am not yet going to cut off the leader (which I had planned to do) in the hope to develop a thicker trunk. Moreover, I am going to plant it on a rock!

All together it was a win-win meeting for me. I really encourage everyone to join a bonsai club, if you grow then and have not joined one yet. 

The willow oak of today's discussion.  As you can see the trunks are too thin and the side branches are not well developed.  My fear is letting the top grow too much might kill the side branches.  I put the rock there just now as a trial.  It is too big, but that is what we were thinking about with root over rock. 

This is the only strangely shaped oak that I know in the woods behind our home.  My wife calls it the howling dog tree.  It is in one of the ephemeral ponds and I assume a regrowth from a stump that broke off.

The twin-trunked red oak in the woods behind our home.  This tree is at least 300 feet tall, and the trunk is huge; you would need at least four persons to span around one of the trunks. 

Autumns of the past, present and future (10/27/2022)

I somehow enjoy autumn, fall or whatever you call it. I prefer the British word autumn over the harsher word fall that they use is this country. I understand a lot the leaves must fall, and that juxtaposition is not lost on me; but still, the word autumn sounds so nice.

As a kid I never experienced anything like autumn, or at least I don’t remember it, growing up in the tropics. I know that as a two-year-old I must have spent a change of seasons in Antwerp, Belgium, where we lived for a year. I remember seeing pictures of me in the snow, but I do know that we were back in the tropics before fall arrived the next year because my brother was born in early December. You were not allowed to fly when heavily pregnant back then (air pressure changes would make the baby pop out in the 1950s), and from what I know, we arrived back on our tropical island around August or September. Actually, my brother was born on December 5th which is Sinter Klaas (Saint Nicolas’ birthday) for us Dutch folks and that was a bitter disappointment to me. I had asked the good old wise guy for a sister, and he had delivered a brother to the hospital, or at least that was what my father told me. That is still the first memory I have; I was three and a half years old.

Our vacations, a few months back to the Netherlands every four years, never coincided with autumn; I think. Although I do remember briefly going to first grade in Terbregge, a suburb of Rotterdam, during our first vacation. This must have been in September, so I guess, theoretically it was fall in Holland. My luck, I came down with mononucleosis or kissing disease, a six-year-old kissing? Obviously, it was a vacation to forget! Moreover, I remember running home after school, to my grandmother’s home, where we were staying that vacation, and pooping in my pants; I had to go so badly. Yup, forget that vacation.

After that though, I do not remember any autumn visits to the Netherlands until I moved there after my 16th birthday. I lived with my aunt and four cousins that first autumn and I remember that she rented a cabin on or near the Veluwe in the center of the Netherlands. De Veluwe is a natural area that has a sandier soil and consist of woods and heather. Part of it is a National Park or a nature preserve. I remember walking through the woods often alone, (my cousins were not outdoorsy) during that week looking over fields of blooming heather. It was foggy at times and for the first time I heard the call of the coocoo. It was absolutely magical and amazing for a lonely, 16-year-old introvert who had just arrived from the tropics where it was always summer and was now temporarily living with five females (women and girls).

Autumn, a time of death, recycling, eventual rebirth, Halloween, the rutting (breeding) of deer, bucks will shed their horns (a.k.a. racks) to build back larger and better, even our elections, you get the idea (hopefully not the death of democracy as we know it). Farmers are harvesting, the grapes are coming into the wineries (ah, Beaujolai), the first beers are being brewed from the fresh grains (what I knew as Bock Bier in Holland, although it was usually released after the New Year). It is a mystical time and a time of hope, rebirth around the corner.

Walking through the woods behind our home I notice that the colors are more intense, partially because of the lower sun angle, and partially because of the changing leave colors. I don’t think we have seen the sun in three or four days now. It has been a bit dreary, but that makes it even more fall-like with temperatures in the low 60s (around 15 degrees C). In my days in the Netherlands this was the time for foggy days.

The seasons, the diurnal fluxes (day and night) and even the differences in day length between summer and winter are fascinating to me. This is what triggers autumn. Some of these triggers will probably never change, while seasons may change over or maybe even within generations, partially as a result of climate change. Sitting here writing this, I come to remember my college plant physiology courses where I learned about the mechanism of day length or better night length on hormones and plant response (read leaf color and plant senescence/dormancy for the winter). For example, maples start changing color when the days and nights have the same length (September 21), while oaks generally do it around the first frost.

But enough science speak. It just made me wonder how organisms or plants would or are adapting on other planets in other solar systems where there is a different gravity, season length, day or night length, year length, light intensity, wavelength of the light being emitted by their sun or suns, composition of their atmosphere, and soil types. I expect that those organisms have evolved there over a long time and should be adapted. They should probably thrive. In our case, because of human manipulation of our environment, the changes might be going too fast for some of the organisms to adapt, which may lead to mass extinction. Punctuated evolution anyone? Who knows?

Read up on that, I might write about that one of these days a bit more. Right now, I am just enjoying autumn; however, you know me, my mind cannot help wandering and wondering a bit. It is autumn, time for death and rebirth!

Nothing better than an early morning autumn walk in the woods with the dogs.  As most of you know, this is my passion, experiencing the sights, sounds and smell of the woods behind our home.

This picture was taken mid-afternoon, during a lunch walk.  I just enjoyed how the two trunks (the young and the old) mirrored each other.  As a bonsai guy, this is what we are after when we try to create movement in our trunks, or trees in general.  As I mentioned I am always, studying and wondering.  I also let my mind wander. 

October travels and what's next (10/24/2022)

While I have been (or will be) teaching three different weeks this month, I only had one overnight trip. One trip was to Hampton, approximately 20 minutes from my home, and I am going to Richmond this week. Richmond is my home office, and although it is an hour and twenty minutes’ drive, I am not allowed to stay overnight, at least not on the boss. However last week I spent some time in Portsmouth, which is technically closer to home, but further away from the office.  Moreover, the traffic here in the Hampton Roads could make the commute 2 hours although it ordinarily may take only 35 or 40 minutes.  Hence, the need to stay overnight at that side of the tunnel. 

The Portsmouth class was not scheduled. We had some turnover at work, and I needed to pinch hit as you might call it. So, I spent 3 days helping to teach Erosion and Sediment Control Plan Review, a course I used to teach a lot, seven or more years ago. Naturally at the end of the day I need to come down and try some of the microbreweries on the path to my hotel, the Hilton in Suffolk. Both breweries were new to me.

On the first day I tried the MoMac brewing company. The beer is decent and the guy behind the bar was talkative which was great. I really enjoyed their Schwartz Beer. Their IPAs tastes good. All fine. It was here that I received the word that the assistant brewer from MoMac will becoming the brew master at one of my favorite microbreweries in my area: Capstan.

The second day was at Harbor Trail Brewing Company, not far from MoMac. Harbor Trail seems to be a very young establishment (3 months old), but boy, I love their black IPA and their regular IPA was good too. The girlfriend of the soon to-be new Capstan brew master was behind the bar, and he popped in as well, so I had a great time. Having to drive to the motel after teaching a full day, I don’t dare to drink much more than one beer and a small taster of the other.

This post serves a quick update on two breweries and my travels this month, so no literary masterpiece again. I have three more trips planned for November and December. Next month it will be Winchester and in December I will be going to Virginia Beach and back to Lynchburg. That will do it for the year. I am looking forward to Winchester. I have not been there since before COVID and I love strolling downtown and eating at some of the restaurants. Pre-COVID (four or so years ago) there wasn’t really a nice microbrewery with a good atmosphere in town (or at least I don't remember them). I remember two pizza joints with their own beer, but hopefully they have gone up in the world. I will report out.  Weather permitting, I tend to stop for a walk/hike either at Sky Meadows State Park or the State Arboretum, on the way out there.  I really love those two places.

At least there will be plenty to report about the other two towns. So, stay tuned my friends, the quest for the perfect microbrew, restaurants and just travel will continue.

The Schwarz Beer at MoMac was really tasty.  The had two IPAs that they would like you to compare.  Skeeter Juice and one for the Aussie name of mosquitos (Mozzie Juice).  Interestingly for me, I could only taste the Mozzie Juice which is made with Australian Hops on the tip of my tongue and no where else in my mouth.  I never had that with any other food or beverage.  A strange experience.

A view from the bar at Harbor Trail Brewing.  I really like this place.  Google maps had a difficult time putting me here since it is on a corner of an intersection.  Again some good beer here!

Greenhouse Construction (10/21/2022)

As promised, time to report on my greenhouse construction effort. Sorry, this is not going to be my best prose, but more a chronology of my construction effort. I ordered the 6x8 feet kit about a month and a half ago through Amazon from Veikous. I finally decided that most of the hurricane season was over and that we had a good chance that we might get spared this year. It really felt like it should be our time, after 19 years. As they say, there is still hope. Please not.

I had ordered a greenhouse kit before; it was a closeout deal from Walmart they said on an add on Facebook; sixty dollars. I paid using PayPal in June, and it never arrived. I still need to see how I can get my money back (update I just did get my $59.99 back).

A few weeks ago, I started putting the bottom frame together in order to figure out what the footprint of the contraption was, and where we wanted it. The next point was leveling it and making sure it was somewhat anchored. Previous videos and reports recommended not placing it on pressure treated beams (something about galvanic action); moreover, the aluminum beams are completely closed and there is no way of attaching them to the beams. I eventually decided on Camo blocks. While this might look strange; however, I think in hindsight it was a good decision; I was able to feed an extension cord through these footers for the heater.

Once located and leveled, I killed all the weeds growing in the footprint with my flamethrower. I lined the inside with weed blocker and filled it with approximately 2 inches of crush and run, basically waste material from the granite gravel industry. Then it rained. This is probably the reason why the humidity in the greenhouse at night is 99%.

Finally, two and a half weeks ago, my friend Mustafa (aka Kadri) and I got together to put the greenhouse together. The day before I had put all the parts out and sorted them. On the day I started at 9:30, my bud arrived around 11 and we were done around 5 that evening. The only thing that remained were the gutters and the anchoring cables. Once that was done, I could put in a table and move the plants in.

Tables or table was the question, and then what material? I decided to construct them from cinder blocks. For one it was cheaper (I found them on Facebook Marketplace for $1), and I was hoping they would absorb and retain heat. It took me two trips with my car and trailer to get the blocks and I spend the next day putting it together. I decided on only one table on one side and leave the other side open for taller plants. Once I had the table set up, I covered the ground with pea gravel to make it look more presentable. I did this after I covered the central area with tiles to make access easier. I bought a remote recording min-max thermometer, so I could see what the temperature was in the greenhouse. This was important to me because I want to house my tropical bonsai in it. The greenhouse without plants, with the bench was consistently 3 degrees warmer at night, although it got up to 90 degrees during the day. But please note that the facility gets approximately 3 hours full sun, that is it. Now with plants the temperature differential is approximately 4 to 6 degrees by sunrise (a full night of cooling down). This is good, since the temperatures have already dropped to 36 degrees Fahrenheit or 2.2 degrees C.

I spent the next two days moving plants in and taking the gutters off to be able to caulk the seams under the gutters with silicone caulk. Herein comes one complaint about the greenhouse kit. The groves to slide the panels in as very shallow and could pop out fairly easy with a strong wind. Silicone caulk does a great job; however, nowhere in the instructions do they call for it or recommend it. Except online they mention on the order form that anchors and silicone caulk are not included (hint, hint?). You get the idea; I had figured out the anchors already and read about the silicone as well. It rained after the construction was completed and rainwater got in the honeycomb structure of the panels. This could have been avoided if I had sealed it with silicone if I had known about it. I really hope this will not become an issue when we get frost. One final minor issue was that the instructions for the window installation were incorrect, but that was easily detected and solved.

Overall, I am happy with the greenhouse. It looks good and hopefully it will serve its purpose. Now I need to redesign what we are calling our “Bonsai Zone.” I know, this is not very original. One of my favorite bonsai YouTube gurus Nigel Saunders calls his garden and show “the Bonsai Zone” and since I watch his show almost daily and my wife listens to it, she coined my small area the Bonsai Zone as well, and it stuck. Oh well, the Virginia Bonsai Zone.

Below are some pictures of the construction process and the result. I will keep you updated on the progress of the greenhouse, my plants and the redesign of the “Zone.”

P.S. I want to thank Nigel and Connor for some advise prior to the construction of my greenhouse.  Thanks guys for the encouragement and advise.

Fall is in the air (10/9/2022)

Fall is in the air here in Yorktown. The weather has been unseasonably cold. The past two days we have recorded the coldest high temperatures ever (54 degrees Fahrenheit or 12 degrees Celsius). We first had the affect from hurricane Ian and then it seems Ian may have combined with a cold front and turned into a Nor’easter to give us two days of cold drizzly weather.

This has me somewhat worried about my tropical plants on the benches outside. So much so that I pulled my Fukien Tea inside for the past few days. It is my understanding at least that they do not do well in temperatures below 60 degrees. I really need to finish constructing the greenhouse. I completed that this weekend, except for benches and some finishing touches. More about that in my next post.

In the meantime, what else is there to do but somehow enjoy this cold weather and spend time outside in the woods behind our home. It is cold enough to really knock down the tick, mosquito and in particular the chigger population. If you are not from the southeastern and the lower mid-western U.S.A., you might be unfamiliar with chigger, but they are almost microscopic mites (spiders) that crawls up your legs and loves to lay eggs in your skin in areas where the skin is restricted by clothing. This includes the elastic bands of underwear, socks and alike. Bites where the eggs are deposited itch for days if not weeks. Chiggers seem to go dormant when the night-time temperatures go under 55 or even 60. This is usually by mid to late October in our area, so we go to go out in the woods and forest bathe at least two weeks earlier than other years. I expect they will be gone till next summer. Of course, we could spray ourselves with all kinds of insect repellents, but honestly, I try to stay away from that stuff if I can help it.

I find it nice to reacquaint myself with the woods I have avoided since spring. I have missed it. The ephemeral ponds are dry now; we had an extremely dry year, and they are waiting for a good rain to raise the groundwater level and fill up. At least I had a chance to walk into the middle of a dry pond to admire a resurrection fern which would be unreachable when the pond is full. Tree leaves haven’t started turning yet so everything looks green. We had a little rain, and a few mushrooms are raising their heads and so are a few Indian pipes. Indian pipes are parasitic, like mistletoes but on the roots of trees. So much fun exploring again. For the rest little has changed. It is just good to be out there to pick up the sounds and smells of the woods.

Fall is in the air, and it is nice to be able to enjoy it again.

Resurrection fern growing on an oak tree (most likely an overcup oak) in one of the ponds behind our home.  This fern is known to be an epiphyte or a plant that grows on another plant. 

Another epiphyte, Indian pipe or better a parasite.  This one has no chlorophyl and lives on the roots of trees.

Stormwater, soil and bonsai, Part 2 of 2 (9/22/2022)

As I mentioned in the previous post, soil is one of the most important factors in plant establishment. I tell my students that crappy soil means a crappy vegetation or plant establishment. I even quote President Franklin Delano Roosevelt who famously said: “A nation that destroys its soil, destroys itself.”

Roosevelt said this during a meeting of the governors association in 1937 when he announced the establishment of the Soil Conservation Service. It was a reaction to the dustbowl and catastrophic flooding that had occurred in the past few years. Roosevelt and his scientists instinctively knew that if we lost all our topsoil, we would lose all our fertile land in the prairie states, our bread basket, and the great depression would return and continue forever. Moreover, it is something we encounter in some of the lesser developed countries when we try to explain the famine they experience. Their soils are screwed up by years of mismanagement. That mismanagement is often caused by the lack of knowledge.

Enough! This lack of knowledge is also the blame for what happens on construction sites and what beginners do with the first bonsais they buy from the big box stores. Yes, me saying this, makes me think I desperately need to re-pot that Fukien Tea that I saved from the sales rack at Lowes last year. I never re-potted it, but it has survived one year and it seems to like what I did to it. Note to self, Fukien Teas or Carmona are notoriously finicky.

Back to construction sites for one more paragraph. All that equipment and material on the site causes the compaction of the soil. And growing roots need to penetrate, push through that compacted soil. There is a point where they give up, they can simply not do it! Neither can water infiltrate that soil. This becomes a problem especially in areas that are designated as infiltration areas. We can bring in all the topsoil or specialized soil mixes, but if the subsoil is so compacted plant establishment is in trouble. Some soil preparation such as ripping or plowing may help. However, that costs money and if you are a builder and in it for profit, you could just cover it with a thin layer of top soil, hide the problem and walk away from the project. The new owners will find out a few years from now when the plants start failing.

Mass commercial bonsai growers in China do the same thing. They have pots with small drainage holes that don’t drain vary fast, they use crappy soil that don’t drain very well and they just plop a plant in those pots. They produce thousands at a time. The problem is folk buy them and do not know how to take care of them. Take my Fukien Tea for one. It was dying on the sales rack when I bought it. These plants do not like night time temps under 60 degrees. They do not like the soil wet. The soil in my pot was terrible.

The first thing many folk will do, is prune. They would want to make it look like a classical bonsai. Problem 1, the plant loses more leave, less evaporation, needs even less water. Some will want to transplant it. This puts more stress on the plant and it dies. Others don’t do anything to the plant but think they need to water it often (Problem 2). The soil stays wet all the time and in the heat of the summer wet soil with little air means rot, no oxygen in the root zone, mold growth and there goes the plant! But I watered it every day! Exactly! Problem 3 is that the weak tree weakens even more. You get the picture?

I water a lot of my trees every day too. But I have a very course free draining soil. When I do not have free draining soil I do something else. The first thing I did with my Fukien Tea was cover the soil with a layer of diatomaceous grit that I use in the soil mix that I make. It turns dark grey when the soil is wet and white when it is dry and it is therefore a great indicator when that lousy soil that the Chinese gave me needs water. I covered the soil of another little tree that I bought for $14 at Ikea with akadama which turns pale yellow when dry and is dark yellow when wet. Giving me the same principle. Akadama is a specialty clay from Japan that does not break down.

So what should you do when you are an aspiring bonsai grower? Here I am not talking to the experts, we all have our own favorite mix. My YouTube friend Nigel Saunders has a mix of 50% floor dry and 50% perlite with some fine pine bark mixed in it. He has been using it with success for the past 7+ years, I think (go look at his YouTube channel The Bonsai Zone). I mix 40% diatomaceous grit (that I get at NAPA auto parts), 40% perlite and 20% commercial Cactus mix. I use the cactus mix because I travel a lot for work and need to depend on others to water. The cactus mix adds enough organic matter to hold water for a longer time. When I grow conifers, I add some akadama to the mix (20% or so). Akadama makes the soil acid and the story is that it helps with the development of finer roots. Others use pumice in their mix or lava rock. As you can see these are mostly what are called soilless mixes. The objective is that they drain quickly. You can make them yourself, but you can also buy ready-made mixes from commercial bonsai stores online or maybe even in your community.

Hope this was fun and informative. Shoot me a message/email if you have any questions or comments. I love to write more about soil and bonsai, thus staying away from politics and all that other stuff. On another note, I bought a greenhouse kit, so stay tuned. Maybe soon a post on the construction and use.

The Fukien Tea to the right and my ginseng fichus to to the left, with an edelweiss stuck in the middle.  Both trees need to be worked.  I am still surprised that the edelweiss survived it so far.  It was a gift from a friend who grew it for her kids.  I need to pot it down and try to grow it as an accent plant.  In the big planter to the right I am growing some red maples seed from a tree that is at least 100 years old, some crabapples, bald cypresses and a few zelkova seedlings.  They all have to be transplanted next spring.

Stormwater, soil, and bonsai, part 1 of 2 (9/19/2022)

The past week I was traveling again to train the folks in the state of Virginia. This time my travels were to Wytheville (look in the labels section), a town I have done some extensive writing about in my blog, and I might do some more in the future. However, that is not the subject I would like to tackle today as you can probably surmise from the title of this article. Now at the beginning of writing this article, I expect that I will break it into at least two parts, so this will be part 1.

What do you do after class?  You stop at your favorite microbrewery in town.  As I mentioned in a previous post Wytheville has two, and during my previous visit this was my favorite, and it remains in the top spot!

Most of you know that I teach subjects related to stormwater management and erosion and sediment control. One important item that factors in this, of course, is soil. For one, during construction soil is laid bare and becomes very erodible. Streams and creeks downstream from a construction site receive a lot of sediment from that site. On top of this, once construction is complete, we need to grow plants, a lawn or whatever. Here again, soil plays the star role. As I tell my students, a crappy soil gives you shitty results, while a good soil will give you great plant establishment. In other words, “you are what you eat” also applies to the vegetation we are trying to establish.

The current paradigm in stormwater is that we want to infiltrate as much of the stormwater that is being generated on a site as possible. We call this runoff reduction, or also low impact development or LID. The philosophy behind this is that all the roads, roofs, parking lots, sidewalks and alike, create more runoff than a virgin site, because they do not allow water to infiltrate. This has lowered the already declining groundwater table and is drying up of springs and the hydrology of streams and rivers. Of course, this was also partially caused by all the pumping of groundwater that our increased population pressure is doing. As a result, streams are becoming flashier and more polluted. Over the years, I have written about this; just look under the “Labels” column and click on stormwater. Now, runoff reduction and LID would help recharge the groundwater. In addition, it would allow some of the pollutants or contaminants to enter the soil and be broken down and cleaned up.

Well, this past week in Wytheville, I taught two soils courses, it got me thinking, and inspired to write this post. I work daily with soil as a bonsai enthusiast, I have realized that bad soil choices are probably why probably so many of the trees of the beginners die. I plan to reserve that for part two for my discussion.

I taught three continuing education courses in Wytheville. My Soils Concepts class is a full day course that goes from 8:30 to around 3:30/3:45 with an hour lunch. The next day I taught a Soil Amendment class from 8:30 to 12 and a Photography for Inspectors class from 1 to 3:45. Now, if you are going to ask me if I am a photographer, the answer would be no. However, I do have some formal training in photography and worked as a photographer for a bit. Some 45/46 years ago I did some work as a wedding photographer and a semi-professional photographer in the Army. But that is water under the bridge.

How about my soils background? How can I sell that? Well, I have an Agricultural Engineering degree, with some emphasis on soil science. I did an internship on soil fertility, and then in Yemen we did a soil survey and a soil hydrology study. During my MS study I studied a lot about soil/plant water relationships, while during my Ph.D. studies, I renewed my studies in Soil Morphology and Soil Identification. So, while my degree does not tell me that I am a soil scientist, I can fake it with the best. It is nice to be multifarious, especially when you are teaching. Although my mother always accused me to be a master of nothing (see also <here>)!

In my soils class I give my students some of the basics of soil, from an agronomic perspective, after which I go into how to handle soil on a construction site and how that soil handling impacts the soil. The afternoon is spent on talking about soil hydrology and on how engineers look at soils. Engineers have a very different way of looking at them versus the folks that grow plants and food on them. I tell my students engineers see soil as something to:

• Build on
• Build with
• Build in
• Support our buildings

While agronomists have words such as Alfasols, Histosols, Inceptisols, and Vertisols, just to name a few the engineers use the Unified Soil Classification System. Engineers may describe a soil as an organic silts and organic silty clays of low plasticity.

While this post is not an area to rehash what I tell my folks in class, I really try to push the idea that soil is one of our most important resources when it comes to plant establishment and infiltration of stormwater after construction (or what we call land disturbance). Often what happens is the compaction of soil, which does not allow for the penetration of roots and the infiltration of water. The topsoil is often removed and not replaced, making it even more difficult for plant to become established, and bare soil means erosion and less infiltration. Taking care of the soil is one of the most important things you can do as someone who is into construction, or as a homeowner. This is even becoming more and more important in these times of climate change.

Well folks, this is usually the length of my posts. In the next post I will try to elaborate and bring this around to growing bonsai. See you soon!

Another thing that my regular readers should know is, that a trip the Wytheville is always accompanied by a walk on the New River Trail.  The fall flowers were already in full display.

August travels or Hotels 12, 13 and 14 (8/31/2021)

Wow, yes I have missed reporting on some of my travels. It should not come as a surprise if you have read my last post. A move of my father-in-law, followed by the wedding of our daughter. Almost immediately I had to pack up get on the road, and travel for work.

• Hotel 12 was in Herndon at the Windham near Dulles Airport.
• Hotel 13 was a week later and I stayed at the same hotel again, the Windham, near Dulles.
• I stayed the week after that in Hotel 14 at the Renaissance in Portsmouth.

All three hotels were by the Marriott chain, a new experience for me. I frequent the Hilton and Holiday Inn chain, so this was new and honestly I was not disappointed. Maybe except the price of meals which was above my state per diem rate. But times both locations had so much going for them so I could go out and find something to my liking. I was lucky, the Renaissance gave me state rate, I booked in June, but a colleague who booked in July could not get the same rate and had to stay in a second rate hotel. This was no fun, in particular since we were teaching at the hotel. This will certainly be the deciding factor for us in booking future training locations now we have been stung once.

Great room and view at the Renaissance.  It's a shame that we might never stay there any more because of their treatment of State employees.

Only the second Herndon stay was I on my own, I traveled with a colleague the other two times. Knowing that my readers like to see my microbrewery and restaurant reviews, here they come.

During my stay in Herndon I visited two microbreweries: The Aslin Beer Company, downtown Herndon; and The Beltway Brewing Company in Sterling. A favorite between the two, I don’t know. They are both different and both very good. Aslin has a corner brewery vibe with a pizza shop attached to it. They make some good beer. Beltway is slightly more industrial and speaking with one of the managers the do some contract brewing for others. Beltway makes some mean empanadas, which tasted delicious, as long as you are prepared to wait and drink another beer. But then, the pizza at Aslin was great too. There are some other eating places around both breweries, more around Aslin and the second time around I ate at a Korean/Japanese restaurant (Red Kimono) nearby which was absolutely wonderful. Lunch places galore, I ate Thai, Indian, and Vietnamese. In other words I was in Asian heaven.

Just a shot of a beer at Beltway while waiting for my empanadas

Downtown Herndon in Fairfax County.  That evening there was a gathering of cyclist.

In Portsmouth there were no brewery visits, but we stopped by the Bier Garden, a German Restaurant and had some delicious German draft beers and food. I highly recommend it. There is a Legend brewery near the hotel, but I have visited the original Richmond location enough that this seemed redundant. We also ate at Fish and Slips a restaurant at the marina in the Portsmouth harbor. Last time I ate at this place as in August of 2000 when I was house hunting in the area. I could not help myself but I ordered a Manhattan. Food is good but deep fried thus not the healthiest. Other lunch places included a down town Mexican joint and a Thai place. Both great.

So now you are up-to-date!

Walking back from the Bier garden I saw this in the harbor and had to take this photograph. 

My August Sermon (8/30/2022)

I am sorry, but I have not written much lately. I have all kinds of excuses for this; they are all listed here in the following sermon I was asked to do in August. Now I am not horribly religious as some (or all) of you may know, but I am a decent public speaker and I do have a spiritual tendency. So here it is:

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Introduction to the topic:

I was asked today to be part of the team that discusses the subject of “Care of the Soul” or simply put: Self-care. Now I am not a therapist, and as many of you all know from two months ago, I am a trainer. One thing I learned from being a trainer is that to be the best you can be, you need to be clear and not speak over people’s head, you do not only need book knowledge, but also life skills, experience. In addition, you need to be full of passion for your subject, compassionate and not condescending. How can I do that every time and how do I get ready and prepare to teach week in week out? Some of us call it Groundhog Day. Well, I get to the room a half hour early to set up. I sometimes talk with a few of my students that wander in, but mostly I just need to be there, absorb where I am, take it all in, relax and go through that ritual of setting up and getting ready. I center myself.

In the same realm, our UU principles tell us that we have to show compassion in our relationship with others and help our fellow human beings. Boy that can be difficult at times, don’t you all agree? Here too, it will be a heck of a lot easier if we would be able to center ourselves and take care of ourselves first before we set out to help our fellow human beings, the environment and all other things we are passionate about.

Today we will be talking about that. How by helping ourselves be centered, or in other words, by helping ourselves first, we can help others more effectively and potentially make the world a better place.


Homily (or Sermon):

This talk today will be very autobiographically, so hold on to your horses.

As I mentioned in the introduction selfcare is very important to us all.

My wife Donna and I take our dogs Jasper and Radar out for walks at least three times per day. Jasper sometimes acts like he needs some selfcare and does not need a walk, but as soon as we open the door and are ready to leave with Radar he is at the door to tell us: Hey aren’t you forgetting somebody?

We both have a Fitbit and for the past seven years or so we have been in a friendly competition on how many steps we can get per day. It is hardly ever less than 10,000 steps. We tell each other that exercise is good for us, even if our ankles, knees and hips are hurting that day. We claim that it is good for our body and our soul. We have to make those 10,000 steps, darn it.

The story that Patricia just told us shows that while walking may be a great tradition, it may not be taking care of yourself, or helping yourself. Noodles the dog in our story decided he needed a break and wanted a rest, a no-bones snack day. He just wanted to laze around and together with Johnathan his owner they had a peaceful, meditative day at home where they were able to snack and get mentally charged for the next adventures on the road. They just needed to center and by doing so they helped each other.

In the introduction this morning I told you a little bit about myself and how I prepare for my classes. I teach 2 classes 1 to 2 weeks a month at different locations throughout the state. Yes, I had a colleague who called it Groundhog Day, since it we only have 7 or so classes in our portfolio. It would be so easy to start droning and make it boring for the students. But that isn’t helping my students who are required to take those classes. I ask my students to tell me when I start getting boring, because at that point I plan to retire. This is the reason why I have my centering or selfcare ritual at the start of each class. I don’t rehearse my classes, to me that makes it boring, but that mental preparation is important. Donna knows it, there are many times when I come home or call home and tell her: Wow that was a great class, we had some great discussions. In essence it was great for my and hopefully for their soul as well.

Looking through the literature what are some of selfcare category we need to consider? Some psychologists suggest there are five:

1. Physical

2. Emotional

3. Psychological

4. Spiritual

5. Professional

Take these for what they are worth, I really don’t want to go into horrible bosses and obnoxious co-workers. I still have trouble dealing with those at times. The best thing to do there in my eyes is take a that no-bones 15 minutes, remove yourself from what aggravates you and center yourself. I do that by going for a brief walk.

This ties into taking care of our physical self doesn’t it. Yes, we all should take care as much as possible of our physical self. Some can do more, some less. That’s OK. For myself I know that very strenuous exercise gets the endorphins flowing, which gives me that runners high and makes me feel good; although I might have felt like crap when I was exercising.

But what can I or we do for our soul?

Personally, we have had a rough but fun July. Arthur, my father-in-law needed to be moved from independent living to assisted living. Although stressful, that would have been ok by itself, were it not that our daughter was getting married the weekend after. So, we had a very intense couple of weeks. How did we take care of ourselves, how did we center, take care of our souls?

Walking to the front to give my daughter away on her happy day.  We had a wonderful few days and are so happy for the married couple.

We exercise or walk, we have our hobbies, and we have our community, our friends. In other words, we take care of our physical needs, our emotional, spiritual, and psychological selves. Let me explain.

You might have missed us in church. All these activities took place on the weekends, and we were crazy busy, so the UUFP was out. We had our daily walks, one of which is usually around 10 in the evening (a great time to debrief).

Donna has her knitting. As I understand it knitting, depending on the pattern, involves counting and sometimes intricate maneuvers tantamount to meditation. You have to pay attention. During easy projects she listens to knitting podcasts or watches knitting YouTube videos. We obviously do not watch TV. There was a period where Donna was not able to knit and after three days, she was antsy and told me she missed it.

If you have been to a previous talk or sermon by me, you know I am a huge fan of forest bathing. No, that is nothing indecent, but it is just lingering in the woods without a place to go. It is almost the same as meditative walking in the woods, taking in the views, smells, and sounds. Nothing better than forest bathing to recharge the soul.

I also grow bonsai, the other day I counted my trees and I have somewhere around 105 or so trees in various stages of training. I have had some for close to 35 years.

Working on my trees, from watering, fertilizing, the clipping branches, repotting, analyzing them, just talking to them and just being with them is pure meditative to me. In the evenings I watch bonsai YouTubes. Those videos were how I could and can escape at night, center and heal from a day’s work and stress. As Joanne once told me, you have given some of them 33 years of care and they are taking care of you, your soul, every time you are among them.

Other things we do as couple include biking and being on the water like kayaking. At least for us, the minute we are out there, we cannot think of what is going on in the world, our jobs, or in our lives, we can only just enjoy where we are and be in the moment.

Being in the moment is what centering is all about. Being in the moment takes care of yourself, your soul and forgetting about the things around you. Of course, without getting into physical harm. A lot of people use meditation or yoga to be in the moment; when I go to a concert I am in the moment.

Now based on what I told you here this morning we prepared a number of wondering questions for you. Questions to meditate over for a little while. I will ask them and give you a minute or two to meditate over them, to be in the moment with. You do not publicly need to answer them, but if you have the desperate need to tell them in public, I will allow you to do so.

After that we will sing a hymn and then Tara J. will lead us in a short session of chair yoga where she will help us to center ourselves and be in the moment.

I will preface the questions with a short anecdote about myself.

Question 1:

I have already told you some of my practices from Forest Bathing to working on my bonsai:

• Think about what spiritual practices you've found helpful in your own life.

Question 2:

Don’t tell him this, but ever since we moved my father-in-law to assisted-living, he is receiving more care from the facility. I have heard Donna tell him NO over the phone a few times now. Like NO the nurses or help are right there, ask them to help you. I know that in the past I have had a lot of trouble saying no to requests but in my old age it is getting easier.

• I wonder how we can find the balance between saying "yes" and saying "no".

Question 3:

This is what my whole talk has been about so without further ado:

• I wonder how you take care of your own needs so that you can then help other people with their needs.

Question 4:

This and the next question go hand-in-hand so hold on I will ask them both at the same time:

• I wonder how we can best serve others.
• I wonder what else we can do to center the people we want to help.

And Question 6:

• I wonder what other care my soul needs; do you know what care your soul needs?

Conclusion:

I realize that what I told you today was somewhat auto biographical, and as I mentioned, in no way am I an expert in centering myself or even being a balanced person. But boy do I try. Over my life I think I have gotten better at it, mellowed somewhat. But you better ask my wife privately if that is really true.

My philosophy of life is that as a human being we should try to help to make everybody’s life a little better than it was before, regardless of who they are. Very much like what is reflected in our first, second, third, fifth and sixth principles. We can only do that by being at peace with ourselves, and we can only be in peace with ourselves by centering ourselves and taking care of our own soul first.

Blessed be.