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.