Plastic fantastic lover (1/18/2026)

I am traveling this week and was struck by what is on my pill box.  We live in a "What the Fuck" time. (I know it is a plastic box)

A few years ago, I first learned from the book “Finding the Mother Tree” by Suzanne Simard that trees in the Northwest had accumulated fish DNA. This occurred in trees with a lot of fish carcasses around the base. All these fish bones were likely left there by bears (grizzlies) after they ate the salmon they caught. Can you imagine bears leaning against a big tree and munching on dead fish. It sounds like a Gary Larson Far Side comic. Some of these trees were a considerably distance removed from the stream from which the fish were harvested by these animals. It seems the mycorrhizal fungi were decomposing the carcasses and sharing the nutrients including the DNA with the tree.

Thinking about it, it begs the question will human DNA also be incorporated into nature? Could it be that the trees in the woods behind our home have some DNA from George Washington? He spent time in these woods, and I am sure that he left some DNA behind. I am not sure how long DNA remains unaltered when single cells are deposited in the natural environment.

Next question: is my DNA being incorporated into nature since I love to pee outside in the yard and in the woods? I learned that we are able to detect if people have corn products in their diet. Corn has a certain isotope composition that can be incorporated into our bones. An isotope analysis of these bones will show archaeologists what a person’s diet was like. Now this is not DNA, but I can now imagine that if I consistently use a single tree out there for my urination practice, it may actually incorporate something of me into its structure. This sounds like an idea that is fascinating and cool, but also scarry. Fascinating and cool because something of me may continue its presence after I am gone. I don’t know how long or even if it is more than a few molecules. Nobody has come back from being incorporated into a tree to tell me.

The scary part of this equation is that if this is true, anything we do has a long-term impact on nature. This seems to be undeniably the case anyway. It might explain why the eggs of chickens that are fed fish by products have a fishy taste, or the milk from cows solely grazing in organic pastures has a higher nutritive value than those fed with corn. The milk from these pasture and grass-fed cows has a higher Omega fat content. I have also heard somewhere that the meat from these cows rivals the Omega fat content of salmon.

While that may be not the scariest, even scarier is that we are so busy screwing up nature. We appear to be cavalier about what we are doing; it is insane. We know now that plant cells have PFAS and microplastics in them, and those chemicals are also being incorporated in us. We now find these chemicals in our brains and in men their testicles (this reminds me of Jefferson Airplane’s Plastic Fantastic Lover). Plastic babies anyone? (Is that a Frank Zappa song?)

It is unbelievable what we are doing to the environment! And then to think that the current administration is dialing back the clock and weakening the environmental regulations in favor of industry. It also seems that the large Wall street firms are distancing themselves from environmental causes. Many of the most polluting industries are in or near minority areas. It seems to be another form of genocide that they are attempting. Affluent folks can afford more expensive organic food, the costlier glass food storage containers, and so on, but let’s feed the poor and racial minority the unhealthy processed food. This seems to be the plan of the ultra-rich and the Stephen Millers of the bunch. If they cannot kill them with the Trumpstapo, by rounding them up and shooting them using the military or ICE like what happened to Heather Good, then we can at least try to poison them slowly. It is obscene! 

We need to set aside our politics. We need to protest what is going on in our environment, and fight for civil rights, environmental and social justice . Alternatively, we need to prepare ourselves to apologize to our children, grandchildren, and future generations for fucking up their world.

No snow in Montana in January.  Must be global warming.  

Does the natural world communicate with us? (1/10/2026)

I have started to read a book by Robert Macfarlane entitled “Is a River Alive.” In the introduction he writes that his 9-year-old son asked him the title and premis of the book, and when he told him, his son said: “well, that is going to be a short book, of course it is.” Reading this I wondered whether nature or the natural environment is talking to us. I am a pantheist and would like to argue that even rocks, stones, and clouds are alive and communicate with us, even though they do not have DNA.

This idea reminds me of a post I wrote some time ago entitled: “Does the world love us.” These are interesting questions. I know that I love the world. I take a walk with my dogs in the woods behind our home almost every morning. I wrote about this in 2018 (The Old Man and the Woods), where I describe taking a walk with our previous dog Jake. To think I called myself old more than 7 years ago. I had just re-read Hemingway’s book “The Old Man and the Sea,” and felt inspired by it. I just used the title to spin off the title of my post.

I try to live in the moment whenever I am out in nature. I always look around, take it all in and try to learn. For example, I love large beech trees; I like their elephant skin like bark, and I love their root spread. During the past years I have tried to make an inventory of the large beech trees in the woods behind our home. I do this by getting off the trails and bushwacking. To date I have found 17 bigger trees. I have no idea how old they are, but I always wonder if they were planted by folks that lived back there before it was converted to park land, and unlike the pines, oaks and maples these beeches were never harvested.

One of the beeches I found the other day

I am in LOVE, whenever I am in nature. Even in times like the other morning when we ran into Blondie, the blond coyote and our two dogs go absolutely insane. But as the song goes “Love hurts,” and I often find it more entertaining that aggravating, even if their howls and barks are deafening and they are trying to pull your arm off (yes, we always walk them on the leash). Those coyotes are getting bolder. Early in the morning, around 2 am on January 1 and 3 they were in our neighborhood, just a few houses over. Their howling and japing woke our dogs, and our dogs woke us. It was crazy.

But back to our woods. Before the invasion of the English settlers, the woods behind our home were the home of the Kiskiack tribe, a group that was part of the Powhatan Confederacy. Kiskiack means wide land or broad place in their native language, and it also seems to be the name of the town they lived in, near the current Yorktown. From what I can determine, the woods must have been cleared in spots for agriculture using slash and burn. Corn was their main crop. The area was also used as hunting grounds.

The Brits eventually cleared large tracks for the cultivation of tobacco. Our woods were part of something that was called the Edgehill Plantation, although there was no actual plantation house. The area was straddled by two roads: Warwick to York and Hampton to York (later on Warwick was incorporated into the town of Newport News). During those times, our region was a very active participant in the Revolution and later the Civil War. I wrote a tongue in cheek post about it once <here>.

I do not exactly know what happened after the civil war. It was around the 1930s when our immediate area was taken over by the National Park Service and most likely the Newport News water works. Recently, we examined the tree rings of a large pine that had fallen across our trail, and someone cut the trunk to allow passage. Dating it by counting the tree rings showed us that it was approximately 80 years old. It appears that the tree probably germinated around the 1940s and was allowed to grow without much interference. This again dates to a time just after the annexation of the area by the Park Service. The tree was one of the bigger ones and is located in an area with some of the largest trees in the woods behind our home.

There is so much to explore and think about when I walk through nature, listening to nature talking to me and to each other.

The beeches so far

A good haul today, we found 3

Embraced (7/18/2024)

In the more recent posts, I have mentioned that we had a contractor install a fence around our backyard. It was finished a little more than a month ago and we are really enjoying it. I have always been somewhat against fencing the backyard; however, now I am a convert. Our dogs Jasper and Radar enjoy the freedom of being able to roam our albeit small back yard chasing squirrels, howling at the trees that the squirrels escape into, as any good treeing coonhound should, and at deer outside the fence. Radar dapperly joins in, although he does not howl. In addition, the dogs have rip-roaring wrestle matches. I think at least three or four per day.

Since part of the backyard is in the shade we had a lovely cover of moss instead of grass. Well, that was completely torn up and destroyed by our canines and their wrestling matches. Oh well, as they say; we all enjoy a good fight. Us watching it and the dogs performing it.

We built an additional fence with sticks that fell out of all the trees in our backyard. It serves somewhat as a divider in the yard and a place for birds to hide and hang out. We planted pollinator plants along a path that I put in along the stick fence in the hope that one day it might resemble something like an English cottage garden. The area is being overtaken by a gourd of some kind. It was in our compost and based on our dietary habit, I expect that it will be acorn squash. Our green tunnel is being colonized by tomatoes and green beans. We have been eating grape tomatoes and snacking on the miscellaneous green been. It is an experiment that we will repeat next year.

I have noticed that we spend a lot more time in our backyard, now that we have a fence. The major reason is that the dogs can be with us. Jasper the hound is a runner and hunter. Radar cannot be completely trusted, and we were afraid that would attack people and other dogs that wander by. Before the fence we would either put them on a running leash or leave them inside when we went out. Inside, they would be barking to let us know that they wanted to join us. Outside on the long leash they would constantly wrap themselves around our seats, shrubs or trees. Now they are free to roam and wrestle.

The other night I had decided to go outside to urinate and was struck by an epiphany. Like every other full-blooded man, there is nothing better than pee against a tree and ruminate at the same time. Yes, I announced recently that we had a powder room again and my forays into the backyard to micturate were over. However, I still enjoy going wee-wee in the natural environs. One evening while taking a leak against a tree I had a flying squirrel scamper down the tree to see what all the rustling noise was all about or maybe it was protesting my use of its tree as a urinal. We met eye-to-eye and after further inspection the squirrel climbed back up the oak.

Back to the subject at hand, the epiphany. So, what was that realization that I had? Sitting on the concrete garden bench in the dark in front of our Buddha statue, for the first time I felt like the garden was embracing me. While I could not even see the statue in the dark, I felt one with nature, the world, with the yard and everything in it. I suddenly realized that without a fence our backyard had no limits; there was no cohesion to it all. Somehow that night, the fence gave me a feeling of a hug, of keeping me in her bosom and not letting my mind and spirit wander all over the place.

Now you all know that I am a strong believer in and practitioner of “Forest Bathing.” I have given a sermon on the practice and written 54 posts on the subject. I love wandering in the woods behind our home and absorbing nature. In other words, this feeling of being embraced by the fence came as a surprise and I have not been able to shake it. Three of four times per day I enjoy walking a circle through the yard, inspecting things; pulling a weed or just sit on a bench or a chair to take it all in, fantasizing bout what to do next in the yard or just meditating. It is an amazing feeling and I guess it is still forest bathing since the yard has many trees and we still border the woods. I am enjoying it; let’s hope those feeling does not go away.

Our volunteer gourds

Night in the yard, it was at that time I had the feeling of being embraced!

Black-eyed suzan and the stick fence on the left.

No more ambition? (6/14/2024)

Ambition is a curious word to me. The Oxford Dictionary gives the following definition: “a strong desire to do or to achieve something, typically requiring determination and hard work.” Now that I am retired, I have put ambition to the wayside and just want to experience and hopefully enjoy life, however much of it that I have remaining. I am still reasonably healthy, at least I have not been told something different.

I am not sure if I had a lot of ambition when I was working. Maybe not like others, but I did have a desire to achieve things. I always believed in down time, to relax and recharge. My brother, who I have not interacted with for at least 10 or so years had an amazing drive or ambition. He wanted to become a pilot, and that is what he eventually achieved. He tried to instill the same ambition in his two kids. I know that he looked down on me for what and who I am. So much so that every time we visited with him, I had the hear him tell us how successful and rich he was, compared to me. My brother told me that when I visited and they invite guest over, that they told the other guest to dress down, because I was only a jeans guy, had no class, and would feel out of place when they would come dressed the way they regularly do when socializing. While the saying tells us that the clothes make the man, comfort and my disdain of status permitted me to dress as comfortable as possible and while we may not be able to match them and their rich friends, we are pretty darn well of. Moreover, my international work taught me that we all put on our pants one leg at the time, and fuck status, I often had to communicate with the folks in the village and could not dress like a fashion model, that would hurt my credibility. While visits to my brother upset me at times, it was really upsetting to my wife. I was able to accept him who he pretended to be. But when you treat my wife like shit and every time we visited she left crying because of their treatment of us, I hope you can imagine what led the eventual split between me and my brother.

I may have had very few true ambitions during my entire life, unless enjoying life and learning from it can be called an ambition. If so, I am one of the best. When we were working and living in Yemen, our work days were from 7 am. to 2 pm. Lunch was a 2 and then I usually took a nap. We would then often work in the yard around our home for the rest of the afternoon, or I would work on my 1964 Land Rover. But, we probably had the best landscaped area of the three homes on the compound. My colleagues had drive and would go back to the now empty office or work at home on project related items after hours. They resented me for keeping to the official work hours. I needed to recharge and spend time with my wife who wasn't working.

No, I am not perfectly balanced even after all the self-care I just detailed. I have had my depressive moods, but I have come out of those. I sometimes wonder if minor depressions were seasonal or tied to other life stages (I have been unemployed a few times in the past).

I think that I have been happier these past few years than any other time of my life. It has been nature, forest bathing, biking, being outside in the yard, with my bonsai, or on the water where my spirits were lifted. I just needed to fully experience life around me. I can really just sit around and stare into infinity and not do anything but think. It is my form of meditating. Do I feel guilty doing that? Not one bit, well maybe after ten or so minutes it sometimes feels like I need to do something. But my motto now is: No more ambition but experience and love life to the fullest since I have no idea how much of it is left!

A photograph I took sitting in the backyard doing nothing.  Just enjoying nature and our almost completed fence (it is done now and a report will follow soon).  I often site in the Adirondack chairs and either just stare at the trees or work on my bonsai.  Very relaxing! 

Save the environment (05/18/2024)

We were informed in one of the recent issues of the Washington Post that the sea level is rising faster than predicted all along the Atlantic and Mexican Gulf coasts. There are regions where the level has gone up 6 or more inches, or for my metric fans, 15 cm. Amazing to think that this occurred during the past 15 years, or less than a generation.

You probably know (from reading some of my past writings) that I have been very concerned about our global environment and argued that we are stealing from the future of our next of kin. In my posts of the past 11 years, I have 5 posts with the key word environment, 52 with environmental, 5 with environmental justice, 60 with global warming, and 39 with climate change. Some of the posts will have multiple keywords, and there will be some overlap. For example, I am sure that I will be using all these keywords for this post. I probably have missed using these keywords in some of my posts. But so be it. I have now published 545 or more posts in this blog, since 2013. This means that more than 10% of my posts somehow deal with environmental issues including global warning, or at least use one of these keywords associated with them.

Why do I harp so much on this issue? I am 70 years old, and I have no idea how much longer I will live. I will be long dead, by the time the shit hits the fan, so to speak. Our financial advisor makes me live till 94 in her calculations. May I only be so lucky or maybe unlucky. It would be fine with me if I could live till that ripe-old age and maintain some mobility and not suffer much mental decline. It would be nice to see any potential future grandchildren. Living till 94 would make the oldest grandchild a maximum of 23 when I die. Boy my daughter better hurry up. No pressure though. I am a strong believer that families should have no more than two children and admire those who stay childless by choice. One of the causes of the environmental decline is the overpopulation of this earth or exceedance of the earth’s carrying capacity as first proposed by Malthus. Malthus determined that the earth could only handle a certain number of people. If he was correct, it means that we need to reduce the overall birthrate on earth. I wrote about this <here>. However, on the other hand, I also read that we need more young folks if I want to keep enjoying my social security. We are in a pickle, aren’t we?

So, what small things am I doing to protect the environment?

1. 1. We bought a hybrid vehicle. Our car does not have the best gas mileage, but it makes us feel good. Our other car has better highway mileage, and we can now be selective about which vehicle we use for a certain trip. Yes, we have the van, which is a gas guzzler, but I wonder what was better for the environment, flying across the country for two or driving? If you read this and know the answer, leave me a comment.
2. We pick up our dog poop when we take them for a walk. This helps in keeping the nutrients out of the Chesapeake Bay, and hopefully helps the environment.
3. In addition, we tend not to fertilize our yard, except my bonsai trees. However, that should not cause a lot of runoff. Fertilizers I have includes some powdered Miracle Growth for my trees and bonemeal. We use compost, both stuff we produce ourselves and some storebought compost. Pesticides and herbicides are not available at our home. I even chase off any lawn maintenance or bug control salesperson from our property.
4. Our yard has a lot of trees, and we call people that cut the trees in their yard: tree murderers. I call it tree genocide.
5. In retirement, I am starting to grow our own food again, and I have just seeded a pollinator garden.
6. We are slowly weaning ourselves from the use of plastics. The most recent thing we did was to trash our plastic cutting boards and some of the plastic storage containers.
7. I am involved in the environmental committee of our UU church, or what is called the “Green Sanctuary” committee. We donate a lot to environmental groups as well.
8. Lastly, and I am sure I can think of more items, we try to eat organic and semi-healthy. We are not vegetarians, but we are aware of the food additives and the danger of highly processed foods. When I have time, I try to bake our own bread, which has much less unpronounceable additive in it than storebought bread.

No, we are not perfect, but at least we try to leave something for future generations to enjoy. Where can we improve what we currently do to preserve the earth for future generations? Let me know!

This cartoon shows what I am afraid of (so I stole it).  Conservatives seem to harp about deficit and money but appear not to give a damn about the environment!

Nomads, day 34 (10/4/2023)

We are home after 34 days on the road and let me tell you it feels good to us weary van travelers. This is how day 34 transpired:

Day 34: Natural Tunnel State Park – Gate City – Abingdon – Salem – Home

On the evening of our 33rd day it came to our attention that our battery was dead. I had put a bug-screen in the passenger window and lowering the window resulted in partial opening. After a little I figured out that it wasn’t a malfunctioning window, but a dead battery. I tried to start the vehicle but to no avail. I approached the folks next to us and they had one of those starting gizmos. We made a deal that we would try to use it in the morning; however, that did not ease that evening’s sleep.

Now try to jump a Ford Transit Van. We finally found out that the battery is located underneath the driver’s seat. However, you don’t jump the vehicle on that; you could not sit in the seat and turn the key. After looking under the hood we found a place for the positive jumper cable to attach to, but the negative was not to be found. We clamped it to the body of the vehicle; no that did not work. Back to the manual: jumping the battery, page 188. Ah, there is this one bolt sticking out underneath the hood hinge where you need to attach it too. Which bolt? The photograph is very unclear. Let’s try this one; success!!! We can get on our way.

Breakfast in Gate City and off we go. Gate City, the county seat of Scott County is a lovely little town, and we may need to return to explore it. We drove a few miles through Tennessee (Bloomingdale) and then permanently back into Virginia. I had to drive through Abingdon, a town I like a lot and to show Donna around. We eventually made a brief stop at the start of the Virginia Creeper Trail, fleetingly walked a short distance on the trail with the dogs. It is a six-hour drive home from there, so without further hesitation it was on to home. A quick burger in Salem and a gas and coffee stop interrupted the drive which got us home around 5:30.

We found that our home was in great shape. It smelled good, probably thanks to the dehumidifier we had installed in the crawlspace just before leaving. The dogs were happy and so were we. Thirty-four days on the road is long (yes, we stayed for a week at our daughter’s and slept in a real bed). The home survived, my bonsai trees are looking great; in all, we are happy campers (pardon the pun).

This is the end of this series of my travel blog. I still plan to write a summary post, in which I will try to summarize the trip, discuss some of our experiences and what we learned. So, stay tuned.

The beginning of the Creeper

I was so happy to be able to Donna this 150-year-old (or older) white oak at the beginning of the trail

Bonsai lessons (8/7/2023)

I had the pleasure the other day to have a grandmother and her grandson over to look at my bonsai trees. The grandmother is a friend from the yacht club, and she had heard that I grow bonsai. Her teenage grandson had tried to grow a bonsai from seed; however, it never germinated. We had already made two appointments, but they never panned out, and this time they were 30 minutes early.

It was fun to be back somewhat in the teaching mode. We started out looking at my 35-year-old Siberian elm, this is one of my favorite trees and it is in quarantine. The quarantine is not because of disease or something like that, but somehow when it is on the tables where I keep my trees, the Japanese beetles find it and it seems that only hit my three Siberian elms. I have a stand of canna lilies nearby and they are a favorite of these ferocious insects in my yard. But somehow when I move them away from my tables and the lilies, these elms are more or less safe from these bugs.

Walking around the tables and showing them my little trees was a lot of fun. The kid was very inquisitive, and grandma could not get him away from the place. He seemed particularly impressed by the tree (cherry) which I had to go at with a saw-saw or hacksaw. The root was simply too big. Grandma was impressed with my American hollies; she hates those prickly leaves. Fun was talking about my citrus trees that I grew from seed. As I told them anything is possible, with a little knowledge.

We talked about styles; how to miniaturize the leaves; root pruning; best time of year to work on them; pots; and of course, soils and fertilizer. I have written about this before, but it seems that everybody wants to buy a bonsai tree or has bought one once in their life. I think at least 95% of them invariably die within the first few months.

Most of this is soil related, the trees at the big box stores usually come in crappy soil in pots that don’t drain very well. The result is root rot when the temperatures rise in the pots, and they do not drain. Plants die or at least get weak. What to do? Repot? If you do that, you kill the poor guy. No, we just need to make sure we do not over or under water too much and we might want to protect the container from overheating. Additional issues seen is the lack of light. Folks put their first bonsai inside on the coffee table. However, it was an outdoors tree that likes full sunlight. Death is imminent. Finally, folks may start pruning or shaping to quickly and weaken the tree.

We talked for over an hour and a half. It was fun talking about my trees and what I do with them, my plans and more. It was just plain fun interacting with someone who was interested in my hobby and sharing these things with him. It made me feel good for the rest of the day.

The lower trunk of my Siberian elm.  It is approximately 35 years old and was developed from seed.  In the soils post that I have link to above, there is another picture of it.  This tree has gone all over the country with me and has been ignored for a while.  It is finally on a decent trajectory.

This is the cherry that I got earlier this year.  It was a thick stick in a pot with a horrible root.  I used the hack saw to cut 2/3rds of it and planted in an Anderson flat.  It seems to be doing well.  I have no idea what styling decisions I will make in the near future but will probably have to cut it shorter.

One of my hollies.  Maybe not really visible.  It has been in a pot ffor at least 7 years, I dug it up in my yard.

The citrus plants grown from seed.  This is their second summer, and they are enjoying themselves.  I have a few oranges and lemons, all grown from seeds.

Travels continue, Blacksburg and vacation in Virginia Beach (4/28/2023)

I wonder if some of you have gotten tired of my writings about my “great goodbye tour?” Well, it is almost over. After two days in the Blacksburg area, this week it is a welcome vacation week. So what the heck, I’ll report on Blacksburg and on my vacation. My vacation was spent in a cabin at First Landing State Park in Virginia Beach. Hopefully this combined post will make it a little more interesting; but don’t hold your breath.

The interesting thing that happened this time was that the vacation started of with a phone call and discussion with the social security office, trying to nail down my payments once I retire by the end of May. I had to interrupt my lunch, sit in the car and be submitted to an interview for close to an hour. Where was I born; when did I get married and where (how do you spell Gouda? Oh that’s just like the cheese, duh); what was the birth date of my wife; her maiden name; why did I not show any income between 1983 and 1989; you get the idea. But all good, I will get Medicare and social security. Rejoice, I can afford to retire!

We canceled one of my two classes in Blacksburg, maybe prematurely, but the boss Kevin, who we often call a nervous Nellie, was afraid that we were not getting enough attendants to make the class pay for itself. Oh well, at least I did get a chance to go there and say goodbye to the Virginia Tech campus, and one of my dearest friends, Chuck. Some of my students were pretty darn close to me as well, we had been going back at least 10 or more years (at the end of the class I actually got a hug from one of them).

I always look forward to having dinner with Chuck on one of the nights I am there and this time was not different. The first evening, dinner at Lefties that lasted two hours. The food was good, beer selection decent (I only had one), but the company and conversation exquisite. After dinner I stopped by Starbucks on the way to the Huckleberry trail where I walked a mile and a half with an Americano in my hand. Just a great evening to start my stay in the area.

The Huckleberry is a rails-to-trails park that used to be only 12 miles long, but has been lengthened over the years. I am not sure how long it currently is, but it is a great trail. I used to bike it when visiting the area; however, I am not able to make sure that I can pack my bikes in the State vehicle that will be assigned to me at each trip. I need to disassemble my bike to fit it in the trunk, and that still does not fit in some of them. However, walking parts of the trail is fun too, especially around nightfall.

The next evening, I walked the trail again, with my coffee. I did that after visiting the “Eastern Divide” brewery. This was my first visit, and the beer was good. They had some decent choices. I did not like the commercial building and, to tell you the truth, the restaurant that was built in with it was so, so. I found the food overpriced and not the best. They kind of have you by the you know what, since it is in a commercial/industrial area and there are no restaurants nearby. I, for one, need some food in my tummy when I drink alcohol.

As promised, a mixed bag today. After returning from this relatively short trip to the hinterlands, we celebrated my wife’s birthday, and took off for a few days in a cabin at First Landing State Park. We had walked the trails in the park some 5 years ago, so we thought we knew what to expect. However, I was still taken aback by the cypress swamps, and in particular by the mature loblolly pines and live oaks. One of the pines was recently cut and I took my time to count the tree rings and I came to at least 80 (probably more) which dated the tree to the time that the park was established (1936). The pines gave me an inspiration for the styling of my loblolly pine bonsai trees, which everyone tells me I am insane of even trying to grow as bonsai. What did we do at the park? We hiked, ate, read (NPR’s This I believe), and rested. On Tuesday I logged more that 20,000 steps on my Fitbit, and boy that steak on the BBQ tasted mighty fine! This is another State Park in the long lit of State Parks that I visited that I would recommend. Actually, there isn’t one that I did not like, but maybe Claytor Lake is the least!

Ok, this became another travelblog, again with little substance, life philosophy or teaching (actually maybe a little teaching in the captions of the last photograph below). I promise that I will get back to that eventually in my blogs. That these blogs will become more edgy. As I mentioned it feels like the closer that I get to retirement, the more nostalgic and inwards I am becoming. But this shall wane! I shall rise from the ashes.

Eastern Divide Brewing Company beer selection.  Good beer, so, so food, a very big place.  I usually do not like establishments with a huge beer selection, because it usually means that they have no specialty and do an average job on all beers.  This was an exception.  Their beers were good.

My IPA with a view.

First Landing State Park.  Just a small live oak among the loblollies.  I just enjoyed this evening walk.  

Bald Cypress knees, also known as pneumatophores.  Pneuma is from the word lungs and the original thought was that this is how these trees were able to transport O2 to their roots.  I have read somewhere that this has been proven to be incorrect.

Winter, love it or hate it (1/20/2023)

Having been born and grown up in the tropic I never particularly like cold, cloudy, dreary weather. As a novelty it is fine: a “snowstorm”, a few inches of snow, a day below freezing and a night around 10 degrees Fahrenheit (-12 degrees C). But to me it gets old very quickly, I like it above 80. Strangely enough, winters in Gallup, NM were tolerable. There nights might dip to 15 below zero Fahrenheit or negative 26 C, while during the day it would still go up to 40 degrees (4.4 C). The advantage of living in the high desert of New Mexico (7000 feet or about 2100 meters above sea level) is that it was sunny almost every day and that compensated for a lot of the temperature swings we experienced.

So, was this feeling of dread in the winter caused by seasonal affected disorder (SAD) and the lack of sunshine, or my hatred of the cold winter season? I really don’t know, maybe both. I know one thing, ever since COVID I have been working at home and my home office has a lot of my tropical bonsais and plants around. Yes, my greenhouse is too small to house them all. I run several grow lights on timers to allow these plants to survive, and I am constantly radiated by these lights when working here in my home office. I know that my mood has been much better in winter since COVID and maybe it is all these grow lights, who knows? Maybe it is all the oxygen I am bathing in released by those plants in my home office, or the walks with the dogs in the woods behind our home I have every morning. Or all the above?

Believe it or not, this was not what I wanted to write about when I started this morning. But if you know me, a mind is a terrible thing to waste, and my fingers tend to go where no fingers have gone before, on this keyboard at least; this is what came out up to now.

Back to the subject “du jour,” or subject of intention. What I do like of winter is my ability to see the branch profile of trees. As a dilettante in bonsai, I have this perverse interest in the profile of trees, and the best time to examine this is in winter. You can clearly see the branch patterns, the ramification of the branches, basically how the canopies of the trees are constructed. I can learn how to duplicate that in my trees. Study how oaks do it versus maples, even versus pines. You can see oddities that you might want to try to copy on your benches. More and more growers aim to mimic the natural growth habit of their miniature trees to what the mature counterparts look like in nature. In the past they wanted to make something strange, now it is more “does it represent what you see in the natural environment?” I love it.

I find that there is always something different and new to see in winter. In the summer many of the trees and canopies are obscured by leaves (you must be my age to notice all my hidden rock music and other non-original references/plagiarisms today). It is important to be able to see things in real life and on the trees on my benches. This winter I have been studying both and slowly pruning the trees on the benches. I might actually start thinking about repotting some of my trees, if it was not going to rain this Sunday. I need to get a jump on the season, this year I have a lot that need work done. There is of course a risk of some heavy frost until the end of February; however, if I keep track of the ones I repotted, I could move them into the greenhouse or the garage for a night or two if it gets too cold.

Concluding, while I miss the tropics and used to loath the winters for it’s cold, damp, dismal, dark and dreary days or even stretch of days, I am starting to appreciate them for what the bring when I am out and about. I also like it because it allows me to see the profile and structure of my trees unencumbered by leaves and it forces me to prepare for repotting season.

I just enjoy looking up to see how the branch structure is in trees because that is what we try to mimic in our bonsai.  This simply profile is just nice to look at.

This is a closeup of the picture above.  Somehow two trees grew together and formed this bizarre looking tree that almost looks like a man with two legs.  During the summer there is a hedge here and this was the first time I discovered it. 

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. 

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.

Disagreement (4/18/2022)

All right, somewhat of a disagreement ensued at home when I told a neighbor that I was not interested in using another neighbor’s services because he and his wife were rabid tRump supporter in the past. In fact, at one point they had more than ten tRump for president signs in their yard. Donna thought I should be more neighborly, tolerant, less rabid myself and just tell him I was not interested instead of trying to explain myself.

I had an additional reason for it, he was the person who actually tried to pick a fight with me on Facebook when I posted an article on our community’s site about the importance of trees. He was so proud of cutting the 15 trees in his front yard. It is always nice to see that tRumpers have plenty of funds to finance the cutting of their trees and then pay for the air conditioning bills for the added heat in their homes. I am just appalled by their blatant disregard of the environment. On top of that, landscaping, hell no! Their property still looks like crap, and I was able to identify their son as one of the vandals of one of my posts before.

Armageddon cannot come soon enough for these folks. Anything they seems to be after is to hurry up the destruction of the earth. Who gives a shit? As long as you go down to hell with as much money, who knows, you might need it down there, either to keep up with the Jones or to bribe the devil or his cronies. Oh, maybe it is heaven they think they will be going to, or is there really such a thing? Wishful thinking folks, when you are dead, you are dead, and you cannot take anything with you!

The problem is what you leave behind, an environmental Armageddon where your kids can’t breath clean air; have to live underground because of the depleted atmosphere that cannot filter out the cancer causing UV radiation; and have not enough food because of the drought and heat brought on by the global warming that was cause by your greed for money and environmental off-handedness? Look at the bright side, you will not be able to see that you great grand children will have mutated into ducklike creatures with webbed feet and have scaly skins like lizards. This is why I have become somewhat bigoted against people who wear that stupid ex-president, wannabe dictator on their sleeves.

I am not against Republicans per-see, some are reasonable; but I am done with that bunch that is trying to take away women’s right to choose; change the country’s history by denying slavery because it makes white people feel bad, who cares that blacks feel bad about it; change voting rights; and pull all kinds of other crap to keep the power in the hands of a few powerful with men. However, I am particular against folks that are climate change deniers, those that are cavalier about the environment, about nature and trees. So yes, I will be somewhat vocal at times; I am (not) sorry!

Mommy, can I go play at the surface. No dear, you just had a growth spurt and shed your skin and it is more sensitive to the radiation. But why mommy, I want to play outside. One hundred years ago sweetheart conservative rich people only cared about money, status, and power. They did not want to acknowledge that they could not take that with them when they died. As a result, the environment is poisoned, and humans have mutated. As a result, we can no longer live on the surface or spend there for a long time. The radiation is bad, and the air is bad. That is why we are only allowed to spend less than an hour on the surface. Thank goodness some inventive folks were able to harvest energy that allowed us to live and survive underground, but we have no idea how many other human communities remain on earth and how they live.

What does the word environment mean to you? (12/14/2021)

What comes to mind when you hear the word environment? That was a question I read in a periodical I get called Yes! Yes! calls itself “Journalism for People Building a Better World.” It is a very provocative and informative magazine, and I enjoy it. The question what the word environment means to you was partially answered in the magazine, and I thought it was worth spending some time on here in my blog, since I often write about the environment, environmental protection, and environmental justice.

The Oxford Dictionary defines environment in two ways:

1. The surroundings or conditions in which a person, animal, or plant lives or operates.
2. The natural world, as a whole or in a particular geographical area, especially as affected by human activity.

From a biological viewpoint, some define environment as follows:

1. The uninhabitable portion of the environment
2. Uninhabited part, and
3. Inhabited part of the environment

Those darn biologists again! They know how to ruin a good thing and make something uninhabitable. But I guess they (we) are correct, places like the lava flow in Tenerife or Iceland are still part of the environment and are pretty darn uninhabitable. It just makes it sounds so clinical.

I guess, I could just copy what is written in the article since I assume that not many of you read the magazine, but that would be plagiarism, now wouldn’t it? Still, to paraphrase what Breanna Draxler wrote in her article, she writes it should not (only) be the charismatic things around us like the National Parks, the majestic peaks, and the beautiful forest. However, it should also the mundane including the soil, our air, things around our home, our workplace, and schools. We should understand how we are interconnected with each other, with the planet and everything living on it. Wow that is a Unitarian principle if I have ever heard of one.

The article then goes into environmental justice and makes the argument that wherever the environment is under assault, the local inhabitants will be under assault as well. It always seems that these inhabitants will mostly be minorities, especially women and children.

Why is it that when I start writing, things go where I did not intent it to go? This time I only read the introduction to Ms. Draxler’s article, and I thought it would make a great post: wondering what the word environment means to me. So, let’s see if I can bring it back to there. What does it all mean to me? As someone who is acutely aware of my surroundings, I like to “forest bathe”, meditate, observe and study nature, my environment is all around me, wherever I am and go. As I mentioned before, winter walks are my way of examining the canopy of trees in search of a design for the perfect bonsai. So yes, I consider myself acutely aware of my environment.

At the same time, I recognize the larger environment and often write about global warming. Right now, I am upset that our republican governor elect is either bowing to his own or to the conservative belief or bias and wants to dial back regulations that fight global warming and sea-level rise. The only thing I can think is “here we go again”. Let’s fight whatever progress we have made for future generations for short-term gain, and who really gives a damn how our kids and grandkids will suffer? Our generation’s legacy be damned!

To me environment includes all that and the people around me, my family and friends, you all who read my blog posts, my students, neighbors, foes, even my enemies, or shall I call them the folks I do not really like that much or get along with. That part of the environment is important. I once wrote a post on the difference between being alone and being lonely. As an introvert, I like being alone at times but being lonely without community or folks in my environment is not good.

In conclusion then, for me, the word environment encompasses everything, the whole, the web of our and my existence, as well the minutia everything and everybody around me. I need to cherish it and them, respect them, love them, take care of them; because they are all I have and all I can leave as legacy for future generations. They (you) contribute to who I am.

This photograph symbolizes what I am trying to tell you all here.  I walk by this scene probably at least once a day, if not more.  The perfect embrace of two different tree species: a loblolly pine and a maple.  If they can do it, humankind can do it, and fight for the environment on all different scales.

 

Mushrooms (11/04/2021)

In our area autumn is a great time to walk in the woods and hunt for mushrooms. No, I don’t hunt for edible ones, my wife is way to skittish and we would meet an agonizing end to our lives munching on a poisonous fungal cap of some kind. However, this past week I have been laying on my stomach in the woods examining them and taking pictures.

Here I am laying on the ground in the woods examining a cluster of oyster mushrooms.  These are edible; although since these are mature (as big as my head), they are tough!

My view from below, the oyster mushroom.

I was always impressed by mushrooms; I took a short course in mushroom growing in 1976 and got a certificate in it (official “mushroom grower”). From horse poop to your plate. It was part of my Agricultural Engineering degree. It was a week’s course and at the end you brought home a mushroom kit to grow them at home, under your bed. Boy, we feasted on mushrooms for months. I finally got rid of the textbook a few months ago.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s I had a post-doctoral job where I worked on mistletoe. Now mistletoe is not a mushroom, but as part of the job I assisted in teaching a class on parasitic plants, plant epiphytes and symbionts. Mistletoes being the parasites and mushrooms being symbionts. We were still starting to understand the whole mycorrhizal world of fungi, and after a stint in the mining industry I more or less left the field. I did a lot of ecosystem restoration, in particular wetland restoration but mycorrhizae were somewhat pushed back in my brain. Only when I started teaching and talking about stockpiling topsoil did it pop back up. Finally, the book “Finding the Mother Tree” by Suzanne Simard explained a lot of what had expired in the past 30 years in mycorrhizae research, and it only had gotten better. My appetite was awakened by the book called “Overstory” by Richard Powers, who has a character who is very loosely based on Suzanne Simard.

Mold, fungi are a powerful group of organisms in the world. They are the ultimate undertakers. It is amazing, over time they are able to break down everything that is organic. But then, at the same time it appears they form this almost neural underground network between plants that give forests almost a sense of intelligence. Trees seem to be able to communicate with each other, feed each other nutrients and water, by way of mycorrhizal fungi. These fungi have invaded the roots of the plants and thus connect one plant with another. There are two types ecto- and endo- mycorrhizae. If you are interested look up what the difference is. Maybe one of these days I’ll write more about that. However, today I want to write about mushrooms.

Because all those mushrooms we see pop up in the woods, in our lawn etc. are the fruiting bodies of the mycorrhizal fungi and some other fungi living in the soil. When the temperature, soil moisture and humidity are just rights, strands of fungi get together and decide it is time to procreate, make babies. That is what those mushrooms are all about. Just like under my bed. They bundle together, pop out of the ground, out of a log or whatever, and loo there is a mushroom. Mushrooms have gills and in those gills is where the babies are. Thousands if not millions of spores which get disseminated by the wind and when the land in the right spot, they become mold threads again and infect wood or tree and plant roots, helping the forest do its thing.

Some more photos that I took this past week in the woods.

Far too often when I walk my neighborhood and see sick or dying trees I wonder, has the homeowner been treating their lawns with fungicides and killing all the mycorrhizae in their yard, basically cutting their trees off from their peers? This of course can not be proven unless we dig the trees up. But this is why I do not use pesticides and fungicides in my yard. I want a healthy soil where I can and will allow that worldwide underground web to exist and allow those trees to communicate and help each other. Together they much more capable to fight drought, disease, insect attacks than alone and deprived of their mycorrhizal support network.