Sporadic Spring

'Morden 6910'

ProfessorRoush admits, woefully, wistfully and wantonly, that this Spring season is definitively not living up to is hopes and dreams and expectations.  That early promise of so many buds on the redbud trees and lilacs so quickly turned to dust after a harsh and untimely freeze, and nothing yet in the garden is living up to the promises made in early March. 

'Morden 6910' (foreground) & 'Harison's Yellow' 

Even after I dismissed my anticipation for magnolias, lilacs, daffodils, redbuds, and Puschkinia, I maintained it for the waves of roses, peonies, and flowering shrubs to come, but so far, nothing is yet living up to my desires.  Roses are blooming sporadically and sparsely, one bloom at a time, while others wait.  Lactiferous peonies, normally dependable mass spectacles here, are also either sparsely budding or begrudgingly offering only single blooms one by one.  Even the Itoh peonies this year,  including my established bright yellow 'Yumi' and 'Bartzella', are withholding their masses of cheerful color.

'Nightmoss'

There are still a few bright spots, but I'm receiving only mild consolation from them.  Yes, 'Harison's Yellow' (above) put on a still-ongoing show, doing its best to make up for the shortcomings of its neighbors.  And I've been delighted by the large, single-flowered, bright red blooms of 'Morden 6910' on my still-young plant (above and top).  I hope that one has a good third season of growth ahead of it!  And the purple, Paul Barden-bred, moss rose 'Nightmoss' gave me a few scrumptious blooms in its 2nd year (right).  I love that deep moody purple!

unknown Itoh peony

There are the usual "surprises" also, those first blooms on new plants that I planted and forgot.  This peony,front and center on the walk to my front door, managed two blooms on a very small plant (left), and it's beautiful, but I have no record of planting it.  It is obviously an Itoh hybrid, but which one?  If I got it from Van Engelken, it is most likely 'Julia Rose', but it is much too gold-colored as it ages (below right) to confirm that identity.  Other than that, I don't have a clue of its provenance.  My frustrations and joys are mixed, as always.

unknown Itoh peony, aged

At this point, I don't know what to expect for the rest of the year, and it is only mid-Spring.  My daylilies, killed to the ground in the late freeze, have all grown back and look healthy, but was their bloom period affected?  I just don't know. The Orientpet, Asian, and Oriental lilies all look good right now, healthy and tall and starting to bud, but it only takes one good storm with lots of wind to change their outcome.  Yes, I stake them, some of them, but I can only do so much. As always, the nature of a Kansas garden is subject more to the whims of weather than to the intent of its gardener.

Is It or Isn't't?

'White Gardenia'

ProfessorRoush almost wrote the title as "Is it or Isn't It?"   Looking it up, it seems there is much debate over the use of "isn't", or "is not".  What I really mean, minus the contractions, is "Is it,?" or "is it not it?", so the use of the second "'t" seems sensible to me.   But, then, "isn't't" only saves a couple of letters and cannot be found online, so I think I've slipped the surly bonds of English and need to come back to Earth.  

'White Gardenia'

Similarly, my parsimonious nature has caused a matter of great controversy in my garden.  Three summers ago, I bought a bag of bargain peony roots (containing two roots) labeled as 'White Gardenia', a peony that I didn't have in my garden.  I suspected a scam from the outset, as big box stores seem to be prone to offering common and popular plant varieties labeled as something else, something new, and also because the store was selling another peony variety labeled 'Red Gardenia', which doesn't seem to exist.  I purchased them only after confirming that 'Gardenia' exists, the latter a 1949 introduction by Lins.  It is, by description, a very floriferous Paeonia lactiflora variety with 6+ inch blossoms of pure white and a strong Gardenia scent.

'White Gardenia'

Both my purchased specimens survived and have slowly built themselves into a nice clump, blooming just now.  However, the presence of a few red streaks on the blossoms makes me wonder, "Did I purchase two, more common 'Festiva Maxima' varieties, or the intended 'Gardenia'?  My identification woes are complicated by the fact that some online sources describe 'Gardenia' as "a fragrant, ivory-white peony cultivar with 6+ inch flowers featuring blush-pink outer petals and red-tinged tips", and by the fact that I can't distinguish the fragrance of gardenia from peony, having few, if any chances to experience a real gardenia aroma in this Zone 5 area.  I  will admit that the fragrance of these blossoms is lighter, and more pleasant, than most peonies, and that the blossoms are larger than 'Festiva Maxima'.  Online images of 'Gardenia' are also not helpful, as a few, but not most, show the red streaks similar to my specimens.

'White Gardenia' ???

I'm reasonably suspicious, however, that these are in fact, the historic 1851 'Festiva Maxima' cultivar, based on the fact that these plants lack the red stems that all online sources ascribe to 'Gardenia', and because the described pink blush is missing from all of the blossoms on both my plants.  Also, these plants are blooming at the same time as my established 'Festiva Maxima'.   Now, the question is, is my big box store source to blame, or are these two cultivars mixed up in commerce these days?

'Coral Sunset'

You are probably thinking that I shouldn't care; I should just be grateful to have two healthy peonies in my landscape.  But the "plant collector" part of me just can't let it go.   Thank God, my 'Coral Sunset' purchased in the same manner and around the same time, seems to be exactly that!

Nyctinasty

Quit yer giggling, some of you! "Nyctinasty", or "nyctinasties" in its plural form, is not etymologically based where you're thinking, but on the root word "nastic"; of, relating to, or constituting a movement of a plant part caused by disproportionate growth or increase of turgor in one surface.  "Nyctinasty", a new word for ProfessorRoush's vocabulary, is the term for the circadian movement of plants (such as the closing of flowers or reorientation of a leaf position) that occurs in response to changes in light intensity and temperature.  This circadian rhythm is carried out by by a special organ in some plants named the "pulvini", a swelling at the base of a petiole or petiolule.  

For those "in the know", as you now are, nyctinasty differs from tropism, which is the term for plant movement in response to growth stimuli, such as when sunflowers follow the sun.

'Prairie Moon' at night

I was prompted to look up and learn the proper label for the phenomenon because I noticed for the first time, that when the peony 'Prairie Moon' blooms, it closes its flowers each evening; something I learned out of frustration one night when I thought, "hey, 'Prairie Moon' is probably blooming at its peak and I should get a picture and blog about it."  Needless to say, I learned something new that very night about this cultivar after its many years in my garden, and I had to go back the next morning to photograph its open and voluptuous blossoms.   The photos here in this blog entry were taken the same day; the "open" photos at 3:25 p.m. and the "closed" at 7:38 p.m.   Interestingly, in my blog about 'Prairie Moon' on 5/3/2023, there are photos of both closed and open states, but I was evidently curiously incurious about the process then.

If you read the Wikipedia entry for nyctinasty, it will veer into a sleep-inducing paragraph of phytochromes and protein Pr and PFr states and potassium gradients, but all those subcellular processes add up to the fact that in the pulvini, water moves into the lower cells (ground-sided), swelling them and closing the petal. Wikipedia also tells me that an alternative mechanism exists through hydrolysis of bioactive glycosides.  I am fortunate to have a scientific education that helps me understand all this, but I am also fortunate that understanding the process doesn't diminish the wonder and "awe" of it for me.  "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth his handywork": Psalm 19:1 KJV.

'Prairie Moon' midday

Online sources theorize that nyctinasty is likely a response to preserve pollen, decrease nightly predation, and minimize temperature decreases and water loss at night.   It occurs in many plants, but I haven't see Paeonia listed among those.  Most legumes close their leaves at night.  Flowers that close at night include daisies, California poppy, Lotus, Rose-of-Sharon, Magnolia, Morning glory, and Tulips.  Some flowers, pollinated by moths or bats exhibit nyctinastic flower opening at night (for example the Nicotiana).

Anyway, now you know.  If you're looking for me at dusk, at least for a few weeks, you'll find me in the garden looking for nyctinastic behavior in other peony species.  I think 'Prairie Moon' may be unique in that respect, at least in my garden.

Truncated Spring

Merely a few weeks back, on March 14, I wrote a blog full of hope for a gradual and beautiful Spring. "Irrepressible Spring", I titled it.  At the time, we'd had warm weather and it looked like everything was in place for a gradual, unprecedented garden year.  The plants were all greening and budding up.  Redbuds and lilacs looked like I've never seen before.  To borrow the style of our current President, "no one in Kansas has ever seen anything like it before, it was going to be spectacular!" 

It turns out that Spring can he suppressed. Now I'm reminded of Euripides; "Deus quos vult perdere, dementat prius", which Google translates as "God first drives mad, those he wants to destroy."  One very cold night about two weeks ago, as in my last blog, my hopes turned to dust, to browned buds of yet-unborn flowers and shriveled leaves. Early growth on the roses was wiped out, daylilies were killed down to the ground, and most buds on lilacs browned and fell off.  My redbuds never bloomed, nor did the forsythia to any great degree.  The bloom of Magnolia stellata I featured in the previous blog is, alas, the only one I am to see or smell this year.  To give you some idea of the losses, the picture at left is Magnolia 'Jane' just 3 days ago, a few stray buds blooming near the ground, nearly every other bud on the bush a dried and shriveled husk. 

Of all my lilacs, only 'Declaration', a Syringa hyacinth cultivar, bloomed in any abundance, an entertaining treat to the bumblebee as pictured above.  Three or 4 years old, it struggles in a dry summer, but is now repaying my efforts to periodically give it some extra water.  I'll gladly accept its tribute to my toils.

Paeonia tenuifolia, the Fern-leaf Peony, survived the cold, which didn't surprise me now because I know the delicate foliage hides a resilient nature.  A month ago, this clump was 6 inches high and the new foliage felt like velvet, its promise still curled against the cold.  Now it blooms alone in my front landscape; a bright red remedy for a broken heart.  

Of all my Magnolias, only the blooms of tardy 'Yellow Bird' survived the frozen night.  Now, it lights up the back yard, the only sign of its struggles perhaps that its yellow hues are a little lighter  than in previous years, at least it made it through the cold.  A lot of my Spring optimism rides with 'Yellow Bird' each year, so I'm thankful to see that its delayed timing strategy worked once again.

Now, I bide my time, waiting to see what recovers; to discover what will develop and flower normally and what may still yet be affected.  The peony, rose and daylily seasons come in rapid waves of succession soon, and, chastened, I hold no anticipation now that all will be normal in the year to come.  I merely will wait and hope the garden will provide.

Calamities & Casualties

Dead/dried Forsythia blossoms

"If you want different weather, just wait 15 minutes and it will change."   Every Midwestern American gardener knows some version of the prior statement, but I maintain that Kansas gardeners live and suffer this axiom daily.  For proof of my assertion, I offer this blog to prosperity, a historical, if not hysterical, example of the trials and tribulations in a Kansas garden.  Start, if you can stand the pain, with this photo of the dead and dried remnants of forsythia that remain today as testaments to the trials and despair of gardening in Kansas.

A promising display snuffed out

If you review the lovely early blooms and thoughts in my previous blog entry of  3/13/2026, and the scrumptious photos of daffodils from 3/01/2026, it will be obvious that this year I had high hopes for a rare, gradual transition to Spring weather, gentle winds, slowly-increasing daily high temperatures, and soaking periodic rains.  Today, I look wistfully back at those hopes and want to shake myself out of a nightmare, curious only to know who spiked my cereal with hallucinogens to create such fantasies, and what actual pharmaceuticals were used.  The photo at the left is the same Forsythia bush that is the second photo in my blog of 3/13/2026, without any of the just-starting-to open yellow buds of the latter.

These once were daffodils

On approximately 3/15/2026, the weather patterns took a sharp cold turn, record lows on several nights leaving me with the remnants of formerly jubilant plants that are pictured here, gasping and crying at tattered and dwindling dreams of  paradise denied.  Not only did the cold spell crush any nascent anticipation I had for the most vivid forsythia display in many years, it prevented any recovery from unflowered buds.  It also transformed growing sprouts of plants that normally are quite cold-resistant into shapeless and slimy piles of dead vegetation. These daffodils had only 2 days of bloom and no time at all to store energy for next year.  Can they survive?

These used to be irises

And worse, there has been no real moisture yet, no showers to quench the thirsty soil and replenish the ground stores stolen in our arid winters.  The earth around these plants is dry dust, no help for sparking any rebound in these poor perennials.  How can an Iris come back from this kind of damage?

Even the daylilies are in shock

I have yet to spend much time in the garden this season, weeks and nearly months delayed beyond normal chores, and I feel despair at every step into the outdoors.  I fear, presently, that the garden will lose an entire season, bypassing spring bulbs and blooms in all their pastel glories and moving on straight past lilacs to peonies or roses, if indeed, either of the latter survive to bloom.  I've never seen daylilies in this condition after a spring freeze and every clump looks like this.  Will this be the year without daylilies?  What spark remains for the gardener's soul when hope has fled?

Irrepressible Spring

The first 2026 Magnolia stellata

Color is returning to the landscape, foretelling Spring right around the corner, just past another cold spell or two, and along with the cheery garden tones rises the mood of ProfessorRoush.  I'm starting to feel the itch, aren't you?  You know which itch that I'm talking about; the itch to get outside, breathe clear air, feel the sunshine on your skin.  The itch to feel alive.

'Meadowlark' Forsythia

Oh, if only the wind would die down just a little more and the sun would shine just a smidge brighter, and the air would feel just a touch warmer on my cheeks!   I don't feel I'm asking for too much; it is not like I expect yet the soil to be warm and moist as I run my fingers into the ground, or that I am disappointed that the asparagus is not yet bringing forth a fresh crop.  These things will come along in their time.  Right now I just want Paradise: sunny days, gentle breezes, thirst-quenching gentle rains at night, and a gradual transition to Spring.  A return to Eden is the eternal dream of Man.

Dutch Iris & complimentary Siberian Squill

But, alas, these brave early explorers, the precocious first open bloom of Magnolia stellata, the vivid yellow blooms of  'Meadowlark' (Forsythia ovata X Forsythia europaea) and 'Golden Times' Forsythia (Forsythia intermedia 'Golden Times'), the shy grape hyacinths (Muscari sp), and the purple Dutch iris (I think?) complimented by the self-spreading squill, these are, all of them, soon to be punished for their boldness.  They've brought joy and light and color into my world at present, but tomorrow's forecast is for snow and 60 mph sustained winds, a blizzard busting in on my celebration.

Grape Hyacinths

I could rave on and on about the necessity of Forsythia in the Spring landscape, even while the yellow hue of most cultivars is seldom perfectly clean enough for my taste.  I could disclose the nostalgic reasons for maintaining this single clump of grape hyacinths in my garden, the descendants of memories brought with me from my boyhood Indiana home, even as they display the ravages of my fickle Kansas climate.  I could lament the brief  display of the Dutch iris blooms near my front walkway or the foolish waste of  the blushing Star Magnolia bloom, destined tomorrow to be merely a brown shriveled husk, if it can be found at all.

'Golden Times' Forsythia

Nay, I will instead speak here only of the gift and the beauty of these flowers, however fleeting.  They are portents, harbingers of  sunnier days and warmer soil to come.  Promising Spring, they prophesize the awakening of the world, a new season of growth, and the banishment of all forms of ice from our lives.  Blooming now, they call me out into the world, they stir my soul, and they awaken my spirit.  I am forever grateful for these first flowers of Spring.

Halfway Insanity

Scilla siberica

You all know ProfessorRoush hates the seasonal time change even under the best circumstances, right?  But, facing the semi-annual, government-imposed, tyrannic shift of one hour in my biorhythms this weekend, just when I thought the world couldn't get any more crazy, it did indeed take one more step towards the abyss.  I was minding my own business the other day, deep in my morning pre-work routine with the local news playing in the background, when I heard something said about a proposal before Congress to make Daylight Savings time a 30 MINUTE shift instead of a full hour. Since no one could conceiveably be that cuckoo, I assumed I was hallucinating and went on about my day.   

But, NO, if you look it up, a U.S. Representative, Florida Republican Greg Steube, has introduced the "Daylight Act of 2026",  proposing to permanently set US clocks ahead by a HALF HOUR.  Now, make no mistake, I am completely down with moving to permanent Daylight Savings Time, but a full hour forward, not just 30 minutes! Of all the idiotic, backward, confusing, imbecilic, dumb (I'm now out of adverbs) ideas, this one is a prize-winner.  

Abeliophyllum  distichum ‘Roseum’

American's have enough trouble with the metric system, but now some Floridian moron wants us to remember that the time in England (Greenwich Mean Time or "GMT") is now 5.5 hours ahead of the Central Time Zone?  Or that, if I am phoning Berlin Germany, it is 6.5 instead of 7 hours ahead?  Why not just go ahead and make the shift 35 minutes ahead while we are trying to complicate life?   Or 29 minutes ahead?

Folks, we have to kill this bill and quick.  The sentiment to get the government out of our biologic clocks and stop messing with us on a semi-annual basis is spot on point, but let's keep it simple and make it an even hour, please, so that we aren't further down the rabbit hole of separation from the rest of the world.   Write your Congressman, write your Senators and voice your opposition!  Let We The People be heard!  

Abeliophyllum  distichum 'Roseum'

Sometimes, I am tempted to support a return to tarring and feathers, and  this is close to one of those times.  If that's what it takes to keep this insanity from becoming policy, then I'll supply the firewood.

Oh, yeah, regarding the photos here:  Spring is coming on strong, and I've witnessed the first Scilla siberica (top right) this week, and the Pink Forsythia (Abeliophyllum  distichum ‘Roseum’‘Roseum’) is in full bloom.  I always wish the latter had a better, less straggly form, and more prominent blooms, but this early in the season, I try to cherish whatever I can get!

Brave Little Warriors

 A warm couple of late February weeks teased this early single daffodil out into the open in my back patio bed yesterday.  Foolish little one, I could have told you this warm sunlight wouldn't last, for I, an apex consumer and representative of a species that has some grasp of weather patterns, knew the coming forecast calls for a cold snap, a light snow, and several days of cold rain.  And this afternoon, I sit cozily indoors, writing in this blog, while rain patters on the adjacent window and you shiver in the back yard.

The courageous daffodil above has many brethren nearby who weren't so brave, weren't so foolish with their lives and resources, and they conserved their time and effort, comfortable to delay and follow the crowd; individuals not, but safe in number.  They won't be first in line for pollination or growth, but their patience may yet be rewarded by the chance to procreate and spread.  At least they will be growing and blooming in less-dry ground, nourished by the Spring rains we have coming.

Outside too, this Winter Jasmine, Jasminium nudiflorum, is beginning to bloom, this southern-most-exposed clump blooming while a greater mass behind it waits for warmer weather.  I don't recall where or when I purchased this plant, but, come February when it blooms earlier than anything else in Kansas, I'm ecstatic once again that I have it.  I don't know much about this plant, but its hardiness and tendency to form local clumps suggests to me that in the right conditions, it could be invasive.  Here, restrained by winter droughts and drastic climate changes, I'm just happy to see it survive each winter.

And inside, this Amaryllis I showed you in the last blog is just outdoing itself in abundance, spreading joy through my little world.  The morning sunlight behind the blooms really highlights their happy-go-lucky orange-ness, don't you think?   This is the sight that greats me each morning as I feed Bella, and every day it gives me strength and promises me the sun and warmth will come back yet another season.  I go off to work with its memory daily, clutching this picture in my mind while I wait for Spring.

Tree Holes and Ground Tunnels

ProfessorRoush has been absent from the blog lately, but I've not been idle!  Various work and other duties have stolen my time away from the garden and the blog, including the loving, care, and feeding of Mrs. ProfessorRoush.   We're nesting a bit, buying some furniture upgrades and aiming for some functional and cosmetic house improvements.  One thing to watch for is a report on the Great Deck Replacement Project of 2026!

Meanwhile, last year's Amaryllis is beginning to bloom again (photo top right).  I keep these "disposable" bulbs in large pots outside during the summer after they've bloomed, and then I winter them in the garage from late October through January once their foliage starts to dry.   I brought this pot indoors about mid-January and began to water it and the 3 bulbs of the pot have thrown up 3 strong flower stems (4 if you include the one that Mrs. ProfessorRoush snapped off this week by closing the adjacent window on it).  In the background of the photo above, you can still see the fog that stuck around until about 11am today (photo at left).  Hey, at least we don't have snow anymore!

One thing I wanted to include today was a plea to not be quite so tidy in your gardens that you destroy habitat.  This seedless cottonwood near the barn died last year, its weak wood topped by wind and snow, and I almost removed it this summer; or, more accurately, offered to "let" a friend remove it for the lousy firewood it would hold.  I changed my mind when I realized a flock of cedar waxwings were using it this spring as a collecting perch for their flock and I decided to keep it around another year.

And now a year later, it holds a secret and I can't bear to think about cutting it down.  A couple of months ago, as I was staring at these wretched skeletal remains and thinking about brittle, falling, cottonwood limbs, I noticed that it now holds a residence for a large "something."  Look closely at the previous photo and you'll see this 3"X4" nest hole about 2/3rds of the way to the top of the trunk.  Squirrel?  Owl?  Hawk?  I haven't seen the new resident coming or going yet, so its identity is a mystery right now, but I'm willing to wait and watch.  Personally, I'm hoping for "owl"; a nice screech owl family would be welcome tenants.

So, the new cottonwood hole is a great example of letting nature have its choice in our gardens, to increase our tolerance for that  planned garden neglectfulness that Mirabel Osler described in A Gentle Plea for Chaos.  I'm advocating for that, and yet at the same time, I'm wondering what creature is behind a second mystery that is occurring in my garden and I'm planning an attack on the latter.  Can you see the raised, superficial tunnels in the photo at right?   My back landscape beds are filled with them and they extend slightly into the yard around.  If I were back home in Indiana, where I encountered this frequently in the soft, sandy soil of my boyhood home, I'd say these were moles, but I've never had moles here before in my garden, nor found them at large in the prairie surrounding me.  The ground is just likely too heavy and rocky to entice them to even try to tunnel here.  These current tunnels are only in the cultivated bed and area of the grass and I fear they're another form of incursion into my space by pack rats and I won't tolerate that.   My embrace of natural ecology only extends so far!

Brave New World

2026 has just begun and I'm already salivating with the anticipation of another spring and summer ahead.  I certainly felt that 2025 ended on a high note, prompted, perhaps, by this amaryllis, a Christmas gift from a friend, that began blooming the day after I received it and bloomed across both Christmas and New Year's Day.  It is just now beginning to fade into the background and I need to remove the "waxy rubber" coat from the bulb, pot it up, and see if I can coax it to bloom again next year.  It certainly bloomed itself onto center stage for the holidays, a bright spot indoors when the seasonal grays imposed.  Look upon it, all ye, and despair not!

Outside, in the garden, all is quiet and dormant.  I keep the bird feeders filled with sunflower and thistle in the hope of keeping SOME movement and life in the garden, all while I also keep the rat bait stations filled to diminish the pack rat population and quell the seeming overpopulation of the filthy creatures.  I have recently noticed some "tunneling" in my back bed, and I'm wondering if moles are making a first-ever incursion into my garden or if the pack rats are merely switching tactics.

Garden statues, and other garden "bones", stand out in winter.  Mine are even more gray this year because I recently observed that my beloved "reading angel", a long-ago birthday gift from my wife and daughter, was disintegrating.  She had toppled over in fall, and her wings were in pieces on the ground and her concrete weathered and worn out on exposed dorsal surfaces.   Another statue, a long-eared rabbit, had lost an ear and broken off a paw over time.  I repaired both as best I could with some concrete patch repair and then I spray-painted most of my plain concrete statues to protect them, with the resulting flat gray appearance you see here.   Once it warms up, if the paint seems to protect them from weather and freeze-thaw cracks, I'll spray other concrete statues and then keep them painted in rotation.  One must care for our bones!

At this time of year, any color other than brown and umber stands out in the garden, so I was delighted to find this Yucca filamentosa 'Color Guard' in fine leaf and full variegation despite the frigid temperatures we occasionally see.   I have transplanted this clump twice over the years, and it has cloned itself locally, but this cultivar doesn't seem to have near the self-seeding tendencies of my more common variegated Yucca varieties.  And therein lies my primary observation of this blog entry;  whenever you actually want a near-ideal plant to spread like a weed, they don't, but turn your back on any  common perennial and they'll soon be choking out your most prized plants!

Have a happy and productive 2026 gardening year, my friends!

Bluebirds Down!

The unseasonably warm weather of the past few days lured ProfessorRoush out of the house and into the garden.  Christmas Day and Friday it was 60ºF or over, and the fog was heavy in the mornings; heavy enough to wet the grass and bring out the umbers and reds of the Bluestem grasses.  Mrs. ProfessorRoush loves the foggy mornings when the house feels isolated in a sea of gray and the garden edges are the limits of our world.  

Friday, high 65ºF, I straightened the garage, wandered the garden, target shot for awhile, and just generally enjoyed the free space of the garden, while yesterday it was outside "chore day" in the still 60ºF temperatures of the late morning and afternoon.  I started the day replacing the rat bait in the secure bait stations to diminish the pack rat population of my neighborhood.  All the bait stations were empty; am I poisoning the rats, or merely feeding them?  Afterwards, although I never claim to be any sort of a mechanic, I took a flat tire off of the lawn mower and attempted to repair it with placement of a rubber innertube.  That seemingly simple act involves getting the jack out of my jeep, assembling it, jacking up the lawn mower, removing the tire, and cutting off the existing valve stem in preparation, which all took about a half-hour.   Two hours after that, completely frustrated and defeated, I called a still-open tire shop (Burnett's Automotive of Manhattan Kansas) and took it there where they placed the tube and aired it up in 10 minutes free of charge.  Following that fiasco, putting the wheel back on the tractor was a cinch, the jack and tools were put back into their proper places and the job was complete.

At that point, I should have quit, but the weather forecast for today (Sunday) foretold stiff winds and a massive drop in temperatures, and in the back of my mind was the nagging thought that my twenty-four or so bluebird trail boxes had not been cleaned of old nests and paper wasp nets yet this season.  So I set out and rode the lawnmower where I could, and walked where I couldn't, to service the boxes in the spring-like temperatures.  It's a stiff up and down walk for an old man to the far reaches of the pasture where our house and garden is a distant dot.

Bluebird box nest

I am dismayed to report in hindsight that I found only eight or nine boxes with Bluebird nests and one very twiggy chickadee nest.  Many boxes were empty and I'm at a loss to explain the overall nest decrease from my previous high of 20 nests.  I had not noticed it during the summer, likely because most of the boxes that had Bluebird nests were boxes around the house and garden, so the Bluebirds within my daily vision had not diminished appreciably.  Distant boxes on fence posts of the pasture were routinely empty.  More predators? There did not seem to be more paper wasp nests in the boxes, and my impression is the latter were also decreased this year.    Poor environmental conditions?  More rain?   Less rain at critical periods?   A colder winter last year?  Are Bluebirds domesticating themselves, becoming dependent on populated structures and artificial nest boxes?  

Roush Bluebird Box design

I did get the impression that the newer boxes of my own design were more likely to have nests, and many of my older boxes are nearing 20 or 25 years old, so I have resolved to make more new boxes in the near future and to site them on isolated T-posts instead of on the fence lines so snakes and other predators have a harder time getting to them.  A proper Bluebird home is the least that I can provide as my contribution towards rectifying the environmental excesses of my own footprints on the prairie.