Alexandersmap

    Category: Garden and Home

    • The Evasive Groundnut

      “I discovered the ground-nut (Apios tuberosa) on its string, the potato of the aborigines, a sort of fabulous fruit, which I had begun to doubt if I had ever dug and eaten in childhood, as I had told, and had not dreamed it.  I had often since seen its crumpled red velvety blossom supported by the stems of other plants without knowing it to be the same.  Cultivation has well-nigh exterminated it.” – Henry David Thoreau, Walden

      “Hannah Bradley later told her family that “she subsisted on bits of skin, ground-nuts, the bark of trees, wild onions and lily roots” on the trek to Canada.” – Jay Atkinson, Massacre on the Merrimack (endnotes)

      Apios americana, also known as the American groundnut, potato bean and several other names, is an indigenous plant that grows in the forests from Canada to Florida.  I’ve had a strangely compelling fascination with groundnuts since I read a description of Hannah Dustin, Hannah Bradley and other prisoners of the Abenaki who kidnapped them digging around in the woods of New Hampshire wherever they were encamped to find groundnuts to eat.  I live in New Hampshire, I wander about in the woods (though not often enough) and I found the fact that these groundnuts were so readily available to be fascinating.

      Reading about Benedict Arnold’s men starving on their march through the woods of Maine when they invaded Quebec, or Roger’s Rangers starving to death as they evaded the French and Native Americans during campaigns in the Lake George/Lake Champlain region have made me wonder about this evasive groundnut even more.  If this was a staple of the Native American population’s diet, and were known to men like Robert Rogers, why were so many of them starving?

      Henry David Thoreau alludes to one reason in Walden when he writes about discovering a “now almost exterminated ground-nut” someday resuming “its ancient importance and dignity as the diet of the hunter tribe.”  These New Hampshire woods that I like to wander in were once fields as settlers plowed fields and brought in livestock.  The stone fences that criss-cross the forest betrays the history of this land.  So for a farmer from Massachusetts living off the land may have been tougher than it is today.  As ancient forests were cut down and plowed fields took their place the groundnuts became harder to find, just as wild animals who were hunted for food became harder to find.  For the native population who lived off the land as hunter-gatherers, this must have been particularly devastating.

      Over the last few years of gardening I’ve noticed some invasive vines growing into the yard.  I sprayed some of them along with the poison ivy to knock them back, and pulled them off the fence and a spruce tree in the yard.  Imagine my surprise when I realized that the plant I was aggressively expelling from the edges of my yard was the very plant that I’ve been wondering about.

    • Backyard Observations on this Easter Sunday

      The deer are 50 yards away moving silently in the woods.  Their movement betrays them as much as their flicking white tails.  Another few weeks of spring buds leafing out and I won’t see them at all.  We glance at each other occasionally just to keep tabs, but otherwise go about our business in our own ways.

      The red wing blackbirds call out in the forest, no doubt telling each other how close I am to the feeders they hungrily raid.  They travel in packs, those blackbirds, and they make quick work of the seed.  There’s a chorus of other songbirds surrounding the yard.  I can pick out a few, others blend together.  A lot of conversations this morning.

      Writing this I’m buzzed by a fat bumblebee flying over to the flowering Mountain Laurel.  A squirrel circumvents the yard eying me warily as it makes its way to the base of the feeder, looking for the seed the blackbirds toss aside as they pick through for the juiciest meal.  A chipmunk scurrying along the fence joins the squirrel for an easy meal.

      Human neighbors are using this time for chores.  I can hear the hum of a pressure washer a few doors down, and hammering of something or other nearby.  My chain smoking neighbor’s phlegmy cough invaded my space and I brace for the smell of her cigarette wafting over the fence.  Some things aren’t welcome.

      The air cools quickly as the warm sunshine gives way to overcast skies.  The day changes quickly, and I’ll take it as it comes.  We have places to go, family to see.  I’m reluctantly getting up and heading inside.  So much to do on this Easter Sunday.

    • Pruning

      “Relentlessly prune bullshit, don’t wait to do things that matter, and savor the time you have.” – Paul Graham

      Spring is a good time to assess the yard, clean up the debris that accumulates over winter that was covered over in snow, fix things that need fixing, and prune the trees and shrubs to clean up any winter kill and promote growth of healthy new shoots.  I’ve gotten better at pruning over the years.

      I watch less television than ever.  I moved all my social media apps into a file called Time Suckers.  I deleted Words With Friends and other such games.  I steer clear of negative people who infect the air with poisonous rhetoric.  I eliminate a meal more often.  I’m not a monk mind you, but I’ve gotten better at pruning over the years.

      Instead, I write more than I’ve written since college.  I exercise every morning even if just a little bit.  I read immediately after exercise, even if just a little bit.  I research the places I go and look for interesting things to see and do there and try to get to those places and then write about them to help me remember what I saw and learned during my visit.

      I’m more present in the moment.  Not just the easy stuff like smelling the roses when they’re in bloom, but the harder stuff that’s easy to ignore.  I wash the dishes, sweep the floor and do the laundry.  I call old friends and family more often, and try to see them when I can.  And in work break out of the familiar routines and make new contacts, learn new skills and push myself out of the comfort zone.  I’ve gotten better promoting growth over the years.  And savoring the time that I have.

      I was going to end this blog post right there, and in fact did publish it.  Then I read Brain Pickings today and apparently I’m not the only one thinking this way today.  Maria Popova tackled time management in her own way, with quotes from Walt Whitman, Seneca and others.  So instead of ending this post on my own observations, I’ll lean in on Seneca to wrap up this post:

      “Set yourself free for your own sake; gather and save your time, which til lately has been forced from you, or filched away, or has merely slipped from your hands…  Certain moments are torn from us… some are gently removed…. others glide beyond our reach.  The most disgraceful kind of loss, however, is that due to carelessness.” – Seneca

    • Late Bloomers

      I was doing some yard work this week and stopped to consider the roses.  I have these tea roses that bloom constantly throughout the summer and well into the fall.  It’s got these masses of light pink, fragrant blooms at its peak in June.  With a relatively mild autumn, we had blooms much later into the season than usual.  But some of the rosebuds waited too long to bloom, and were frozen in place.

      We hear a lot in culture about late bloomers.  Colonel Sanders comes to mind.  And there’s a place for late bloomers in culture and in nature alike.  But there’s a lesson in the roses too.  Don’t wait too long to bloom, or you may die with unfinished potential.

    • The Best Available at the Time

      Today I took this picture of a hummingbird.  Well, I took many pictures of a couple of hummingbirds and this one was good enough to post.  I know several photographers in my Facebook community who will look at this and bite their lip at my amateurish use of filters or aperture or whatever.  That’s okay with me.  While I wish the body wasn’t as blurry as it is, these suckers move fast, I don’t have 10,000 hours to dedicate to mastering the craft and at 52 I don’t really care whether someone harshly judges a picture I took.  Photos are time stamps of what I was looking at in a particular moment.  The 25 other photos I took to get this one go into the recycle bin.

      I recently heard a Tim Ferriss podcast interview with Brandon Stanton, creator of Humans of New York in which Stanton readily acknowledged that he’s not the best photographer, but that’s never been the point of it anyway.  His real strength lies in pulling stories out of the people he photographs.  And really that’s why people follow Stanton’s work.  He’s a master at going deep with his subjects.  He also mentioned that he’s interviewed and photographed thousands of people over the years, and most never make the final photoblog.  Those cut either hold back, decide they’re not comfortable with what they said, or perhaps Stanton didn’t find it as interesting as another person he photographed.

      Facebook is where we post pictures of the best of ourselves.  Great sunsets or vacations, adventures we’re on, fun times with friends and family, etc.  And I try to keep up as best I can, though I’ve toyed with the idea of deleting my Facebook account for years.  I don’t because it’s the only way to keep in touch with people I grew up with, worked with years ago, moved far away or simply don’t see regularly.  Some people hate Facebook because they feel like they’re not living as good a life as someone else.  I believe most people will post the good stuff and not the challenges they may be going through in their lives.  Which is why I appreciate those who open up about their struggles.  Chasing perfection is a fools game.  None of us are perfect.  Judging yourself based on how many likes you get is a dead end game.

      I was at two events over the weekend.  The first was a Celebration of Life ceremony for my Aunt Debby.  She was a remarkable, beautiful person who always got me smiling no matter how self-absorbed in teen angst I may have been at the time.  She was incredibly perceptive and could see when you were struggling with something and give you a shoulder to cry on if you needed it, or infect you with her laughter until you forgot whatever the hell you were spun up about in the first place.  I’m a better person for having known her, and strive to be better still.

      The second event I went to was a party with my wife’s work friends.  I didn’t know anyone but Kris there, but I make a living building bridges with people and rolled with the opportunity to get to know a lot of people in different stages of life.  All good people, and I was struck by how close they were as a group.  This was partly because they shared a common struggle to maintain dignity while working with two narcissistic VP assholes.  Having worked for or with some truly narcissistic tools before it was easy to sympathize with them.  I’ve learned not to blindly respect people just because they have a title, but for who they are and how they treat people.

      The hummingbirds are constantly in the garden right now.  Bee balm in particular is a hummingbird magnet.  Wait a few minutes and you have one or two hummingbirds buzzing around.  That meant I had plenty of chances to get a perfect picture, and yet never quite got there.  Hummingbirds are curious creatures, and while I lingered near the garden waiting to check them out they would swoop in, hover a few feet from me and check ME out.  Turnaround is fair play I guess.  They didn’t seem overly concerned about my photos of them and whether I was getting their good side.  If my photography and writing proves anything, its that perfection is… evasive.  So be it.  Sometimes you just need to go with the best available at the time and move on.  This post is far from perfect, but I think it’s time to post it and move on to other things.

    • Tomatoes, Chicken Shit and Marcus Aurelius

      “…. Leaves that the wind. Drives earthward; such are the generations of men.”
                                                                                         – Marcus Aurelius (quoting Homer)

      “Even as are the generations of leaves, such are those also of men. As for the leaves, the wind scattereth some upon the earth, but the forest, as it bourgeons, putteth forth others when the season of spring is come; even so of men one generation springeth up and another passeth away.”
                                                                                        – Homer, The Iliad with the original quote

      We’re in the prime of growing season now and the tomato plants that I grew from seed are over knee high.  I’ve tried a couple of things this year that I haven’t done previously.  First, growing from seed instead of just buying plants at a local nursery.  I did that just because I wanted to do something “summer” in the middle of what seemed like an endless “winter”.  And second, I switched to chicken manure instead of composted cow manure.  This is a nod to my grandfather, who was known to gush about the benefits of chicken manure for growing kick ass tomatoes.  So far that seems to be bearing out.  Chicken shit is a derogatory term, but the real stuff packs a punch; pungent, powerful and efficient (a little goes a long way).

      The more I garden, the more I recognize the seasons for what they are.  And the longer I live, the more I see the similarities between our lives and the seasons.  There’s nothing revolutionary in this thought process, just refer to Homer and Marcus Aurelius and you see that countless generations of humans have thought the same thing.  This is our season, make the most of it.  Don’t fear the end, embrace the now.  I don’t view this as fatalistic, but pragmatic.  Believe me I’m in it for the long haul but know the deck of cards doesn’t always play out in your favor.

      A couple of seasons ago I had a problem with groundhogs eating half of my tomatoes and leaving the rest to rot in the sun.  Apparently they’d rather sample than finish the fruit.  Lovely habit.  Around the same time I had a nice batch of blueberries ripening in the sun.  The birds picked every last one of them before they showed a tint of blue.  Lesson learned.  Last year I planted pole beans to fill in around a clematis vine I had growing on a trellis.  The rabbits ate them all to the ground before they’d even reached a foot tall.  You just never know what fate brings your way, but I’ve learned to take measures to protect the fruits of my labor.  Don’t go through life trusting blindly that everything will be just fine.  Fence in your fruits and vegetables, change your passwords and lock your doors; trust but verify.

      “Life is short.  That’s all there is to say.  Get what you can from the present – thoughtfully, justly.  Unrestrained moderation.” – Marcus Aurelius

      Our growing season is pretty short, but it’s long enough to grow decent tomatoes.  Provide plenty of sunlight, nourish and give them a drink now and then, protect them from those who would harm them and if you’re lucky you end up with beautiful, ripe tomatoes later in the season.  It’s a basic formula for gardening and raising children, and it works well for how we maintain ourselves along the way too.  The last step of course is to savor the things you produce, the good fortune that comes your way, and the season that you’re in.