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| 'Champlain' |
"It takes a licking and keeps on ticking" used to be the advertising slogan for Timex watches during my youth. Maybe it still is for all I know, but I'm not sure Timex even still exists in this world of FitBit's, AppleWatch, and Garmin's. The Timex watch of the rose world, however, has to be
Canadian rose 'Champlain'. Mine is still out there "running", blooming despite the recent frosts long after most of the garden has gone to rest.
What a red, right? How much brighter, how much more glorious could a gardener ask for, especially now when the leaves are falling from the trees and winter keeps poking into fall. I can see this clump from my bedroom window, 50 yards away from it, calling me into the garden on a Sunday morning. It says "Cmon man, forget about the stupid time change this morning and write about me." "Write about the fact that I have one of the most frequent bloom cycles of almost any rose, that I'm impervious to summer sun and winter alike." "Write about one of the toughest and most floriferous roses of the garden."
And I can't, I can't be mad this morning about the time change. So much disruption of our diurnal rhythms and so much anger over political power wielded autocratically and irrationally just isn't worth the fight today when I'm staring at the happy face of 'Champlain'. Oh don't get me wrong, I woke up at 4:00 a.m. instead of 5:00 a.m. because my soul didn't get the memo about changing rhythms, and I waited the same amount of time for the sun to rise after waking. I just know now that I'll be driving in again with the rising sun in my eyes, endangering every walking or biking schoolchild for another month, and that I'll now be driving home in darkness every evening instead of having another hour of light to enjoy.
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| 'Polareis' |
But I won't be mad about the time change. I can't waste the energy for Champlain's sake and also for the sake of this last bloom of
beautiful 'Polareis', delicate and refined, pink tones betraying its dislike of cold mornings, embarrassment by the otherwise pure white petals. Yes, I know, if you look closely there is a little damage on the petal ends, but she's still putting up a good brave fight to the end. Another tough rose in my garden, hanging on to the last breath of summer.
Okay, yes, I'm mad as usual about the time change. I'm mad that my chances for a heart attack are greatly increased this week and that automobile accidents will increase due to bureaucratic political whimsy. As I've said before, a pox on the houses of every politician, Democrat or Republican, who doesn't repeal this nonsense and leave us on daylight savings time all year long. As I vowed last spring, I'm staying on Daylight Savings. If you want ProfessorRoush, you'll find him with his watch and computers set to EST, my new solution to the biennial B.S. imposed on us by our elected nonrepresentatives. Stores and schedules will now just have to confirm to my time, ProfessorRoush Standard Time.
