Purple in Rain
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My Marching Friends
I am proud of my marching friends.
Wearing red in Raleigh, North Carolina.
The people taking the message to their government.
The education of our children is OUR future.
We need to invest more. Respect more. Test less.
I started teaching high school biology in 1984.
It was the best department ever. My peers are still my friends.
My next position was in a community college. I was the night shift.
It was lonely, but wonderful.
Then there was middle school. The hardest job ever.
When I finish the book I am writing, I may write Seven Years in Eighth Grade.
My personality in combination with that job ruined my health.
I had my doctor’s cell number.
I have realized that I am a shepherd, not just a teacher.
I know my sheep and they know me.
It started out great. Teams and teamwork. Science budget. Supplies.
TASC training thanks to Duke University and Glaxo-Smith-Cline.
Then came the testing, and charting , and graphing scores.
The money and science disappeared. In its place was testing and testing and testing.
I went back to teaching college again. It was great, but I was tired and damaged.
I cannot go back. This I know.
But my heart is still in the learning, the caring, the science.
I had to leave my sheep to save myself.
So I watch the marchers with hope and guilt.
Hope for better pay, more money for supplies, more respect for all, getting back to the subjects instead of the scores.
These shepherds need help with all those little sheep of OURS.
Our flock is OUR future.
Red FLOWER
My Many Affairs with John Steinbeck
I met John when I was in the ninth grade. He was too old and wise for me.
His Grapes of Wrath was too detailed and wordy. I only liked the “Turtle Chapter.”
Years later, I was so engrossed in the Joads’ struggles that I skipped the turtle.
We met again while I was in college. His Red Pony broke my heart.
The short story “Junius Maltby” made me a more empathetic teacher.
I read The Log from the Sea of Cortez while in graduate school.
I could smell the sea and hear the seagulls. It was such an adventure.
An older, fellow biologist sharing his life at sea.
“Travels with Charley” took me places I had never been while in my thirties.
I am traveling with Charley again. I have been to these places now.
My experienced eyes recognize the land and the people.
He has been a great traveling companion over the years.
Now I know, he was not some brilliant, mysterious, older man.
He was just a real person looking closely at life and recording it for the rest of us,
who were too young, inexperienced or busy to notice these things for ourselves.
I still love him,
but now we are just friends.
FLOWER
Shopping During a Storm
yI know, I complained about them last spring in “Double, Double, Toil and Trouble.”
https://floweralley.org/?s=peonies
Maybe they have changed…or I have changed.
My plan was to cut some of each type of flower to bring into the house.
My mother was coming. She cannot walk the gardens anymore,
so I wanted her to see the blooms up close by bringing them in.
I have those eleven vases, you see.
https://floweralley.org/?s=eleven+vases
My daughter and I went shopping on Friday evening. A violent storm hit while we were away.
Hundreds of my flowers were beaten down by the rain and wind.
Instead of cutting flowers for my vases on Saturday morning, I was cutting them to clean up.
By Saturday evening, only a few iris were left. There were a few Columbine stems.
The only flowers worth their weight were those double peonies.
The very one that I complained about staking last spring.
Bowed, but held in the storm.
They filled one vase the iris another and that was enough.
Sometimes it takes just the right flower.
Not the large number, just a few.
Like friends.
Worth their weight in gold when you need them.
My apologies to my new friend the Duchess de Nemours Peony.
FLOWER
Saving Sea Turtles
I have always loved reptiles and amphibians. Their little faces are so cute. They seem to be tiny dinosaurs. They have personality. Quit running from them and make friends.
My favorite part of my visit to Florida was not the gardens. It was my time spent at the Loggerhead Marinelife Center in Palm Beach County. Maybe I should be turtlealley.
This organization was started by a Eleanor Fletcher decades ago. She noticed turtle hatchlings heading toward land instead of seaward. She studied sea turtles and started teaching classes.
Now this nonprofit is located at Juno Beach which is considered the most active nesting beach in the world. The dark dots on the map are nests of different species of turtles.
I was surrounded by passionate turtle lovers there. Many were volunteers.
The recovering turtles had names. Each one’s medical history and progress were known by the workers. They stood by the tanks and talked about each patient like it was a friend.
I saw several turtles get shots.
One big guy was loaded onto a stretcher
and taken inside to be treated and given an IV.
I felt like I was in a well-run Emergency Room. It’s a miracle!!!
Many of the patients had been found stranded by an ailment or injury.
One had gorged himself on shells and was bloated with fragments. They showed the bottles of fragments.
Another had a hole clear through its carapace that needed mending.
The saddest one of all was so sick that it stopped swimming, so that barnacles and other epibiota grew on its back and weighed it down.
It is a great place for school children to go visit. They will care more about turtles because they actually know some.
I really did not want to leave, but the bunnies would not like it if I hadn’t come home.
Creatures great and small, the FLOWER loves them all.
FLURTLE
Sculpture with Spirit
Ann Norton’s Sculpture Gardens at West Palm Beach, Florida was full of rare plants and huge sculpture,
but was never overwhelming or cluttered. I need that skill.
Each large piece was carefully placed in its own palm grove alcove
to be discovered and experienced separately.
Ann Norton’s huge ‘Gateway’ pieces were formed from handmade brick. They were engineering marvels.
These two peices were made of bricks from North Carolina.
I especially loved the huge Horizontal piece in its own canal. It’s bricks are from Mexico. I love art that can be interpreted in many ways. Ann Norton’s artwork left room for the imagination.
The ‘Seven Beings’ grouping of giant human figures could have been from the ancient past or the distant future. They were not intimidating despite their size.
I loved how “someone” was looking at you no matter where you were standing.
They stood silently in their own alley of palms. The individuals were slightly separated, so that each could be considered on its own as well as part of the “family/tribe.”
Each Being’s pose seemed to send some message through body language. I should have taken more photos of these. They were worth studying.
Her former studio was open to be examined. I always find the workspace of others fascinating and inspiring.
In addition to her sculpture, there was a visiting exhibit of fabulous work by Israeli-American artist Boaz Vaadia and two hundred and fifty rare palms and cycads.
No, I will not be posting all 250 of them. You wish!
Stay tuned. Those are coming next. The Florida blog blitz will continue.
FLOWER in Florida
We Are Real!
Have you ever wondered if the bloggers that you follow are real people?
Well, I have proof that both the Shrub Queen and the Flower are both real.
WE MET IN PERSON!
I went on a trip to Florida with Mr. Flower. I sent Shrub Queen a message.
I was going to be staying near her location.
She came and picked me up.
We spent a lovely day at the Ann Norton Sculpture Gardens.
That post will follow.
For now you can rest easy in knowing the Shrub Queen and the FLOWER are not robots.
The real FLOWER.
What’s so Great about Grass?
We may need to rethink this fescue fetish we have here in America.
Who needs grass when you can have your own meadow and eat it too?
Bright yellow Dandelions and greens mixed with a tiny purple blooming mint named Gill-over-the-ground and violets. Why that’s a giant salad. When is the last time you’ve eaten grass?
Not only is it lovely, but Goldfinches eat the dandelion seeds too. Recognize that yellow?
Now you tell me how a lawn of nothing but green could beat this?
Birds and Blooms. Just what I love.
FLOWER
Cedar-apple Rust
I am so glad I happened to have my camera during a trip to the dump.
As I was tossing recycle items into the bins, I spied orange gooey blobs on the surrounding cedar trees.
(Honey you finish up here, the Flower is on a mission.)
I had not seen these orange galls/telia in about thirty years.
These are caused by a fungus, Gymnosporangium juniperi-virginiana.
The fungus uses two host trees.
The red cedar shown here is one type and the other type of host is apple trees.
The galls turn from a brownish ball to a mass of orange tentacles after a rain in the spring.
These galls/telia release spores which catch the wind and may find their way back to nearby apples trees to cause a rust on their leaves.
You never know when you may need your camera. Always looking for a story.
FLOWER
floweralley 