Garden Musings In Motion

ProfessorRoush thought he'd attempt a wee little blogging experiment today and, at the same time, try to bring you a small glimpse of the fury of a Flint Hill's storm.  He has long wanted to include movies in the blog and it occurred to me that conversion to animated GIF's might work.  I apologize in advance if the files are a little big for slow Internet connections.

On 5/18/2017, there were severe thunderstorm warnings in the area, and sure enough, in the early evening the sirens started to blast and the Thursday night TV lineups were interrupted for continuous local weather coverage.  A Tornado Warning was posted directly for western Manhattan, and we began watching out the windows.  While taking the photo of the ominous cloud at the left, I suddenly discovered that in one of the recent iPhone upgrades, there was a new photo option for time-lapse video.

Modern technology is absolutely incredible, isn't it?  Who would have thought, 40 years ago at the beginning of the computer age, that a slim device in my pocket would become more versatile than any camera in existence at that time, would replace our entire stacks of records and tapes, would carry all our databases and records, and would manage all our communications in ways that we could never have imagined?  Each of these videos captures between 1 and 2 minutes of actual time, a time span roughly equivalent to my attention span and ability to hold the camera still with only moderate fidgeting.  Make sure you click on the pictures to view them in full size and majesty.

Setting aside my awe and wonder for technology, and moving on to my awe and wonder for Mother Nature, from our high vantage point northwest of Manhattan, we expected at any moment to see a long finger extend from the cloud to touch the earth, but it never materialized and Manhattan, and we, were safe.  When the rain and wind finally hit us, my garden took a little beating, but it too, withstood the test of climate with little damage.    ProfessorRoush was left only with the memories and a newfound magic ability to add to his photographic repertoire.

There's a second part of the experiment of course.  I was going to put the still photo on this entry first, but then thought, "Hey, who not lead off with a video?"  Besides learning if the videos would play in the blog, I also wanted to see what happens to the "preview" image created when some of you link my blog to yours.  Will it show motion as well?

(Postscript addition;  The "preview images" in links in other blogs DO show motion.  Yay!)

Shredded Former Garden

My initial inclination was to title this blog entry "Oh Hail No!" but I'm having a little trouble maintaining the required tone of humor today.  Feel free to join me in a simple soul-cleansing wail because I'm at a loss for words.  Following the example of the recently deceased Prince, perhaps I should just refer to this as "The Garden Formerly Known as ProfessorRoush's."

For those easily depressed by gardening disaster, this is your fair warning to move on to the next post.  For the rest of you, those curious souls unable to avoid gawking at car wrecks or fascinated by visits to Civil War battlefields, you can keep viewing this photo-heavy post, but I would caution you to have a barf bag at hand.  Feel free to "click" on any picture you want to enlarge.



We had a little storm here last night.  When I say a little storm, I am, of course, channeling our British cousins to understate a meteorological apocalypse that included a near miss by a possible tornado, a deluge of 4.2 inches in 2 hours, and about an inch of hail the size of marbles.  The photo at the right is a shot of my back patio during the storm, all while the radio weatherman was telling me to take cover.  It's illuminated by the porch light and it's dim and poorly exposed, but if you can see the ice on the ground you've grasped the obvious.






For a little better glimpse of this catastrophe, the proverbial plague of biblical hail, these two photos of the left and right sides of my front walkway, just after the storm, may be more illuminating.

I woke up this morning to a lot of damage.  There was no real structural damage to the house, but the garden has seen better days.  Just yesterday morning, I was admiring this 'Blue Angle' hosta placed right next to the front door; it was perfect then, not a bit of slug damage.  Look at it now.











This 'Globemaster' allium was getting ready to bloom.  I suppose it still might, but I'm betting it won't reach the glory I was expecting.















The Orientpet lily to the left was the picture of health yesterday.  Today it appears to have been through a meat grinder.  Still, it fared better than the Asiatic lily whose photo is at the top of this blog.












I had scores of irises starting to bloom.  I suppose they might still, but one wonders what kind of display I'll have from these.














This was a Sedum.  'Strawberries and Cream' to be exact.  "Was" is the active verb here.











When a tough daylily like 'Alabama Jubilee' gets shredded like this, well, you know you've had a storm.














And these were some gorgeous purple and white petunias that I planted just yesterday.  If I didn't know that, I couldn't even tell you what they were.












I tried to tell Mrs. ProfessorRoush that the remaining cherries would be larger and sweeter since these were pruned away early in the season.  She was neither amused nor consoled.













I'll leave you now, contemplating this abstract artform as it was created in my front buffalograss.  This is not a view of the Appalachians from space.  This is thatch, floated up from the roots of the buffalograss and deposited in waves on an almost level surface by the 4+ inches of rain.  I suppose I should be thankful that the torrential rain has cleared out the thatch for me and I have only to rake it up now.  I am most assuredly NOT thankful, however.  The magnolias were interrupted this year by the late freezes.  Now the irises, daylilies and alliums by this storm.  What's next?  The roses get hit by a meteorite shower?

Bring on the Storms

It seems like the weather across the U.S. has cooled a bit this week and the Flint Hills were no exception, with highs in the 80's and lows in the 60's the latter part of the week.  It isn't winter, but it's a darned sight better than the last month of daily 100's we had.

What we still need in Kansas though, is rain, and lots of it.  On August 20th, we got 1.7 inches of rain, the first significant moisture since early July, and I thought that would help quench the thirsty plants, but I divided a peony two days later and amongst the rock-hard clay clods I couldn't detect that a lick of moisture had been added.  I'm considering adding a motion-triggered camera facing my rain gauge to make sure Mrs. ProfessorRoush isn't adding water to the gauge just to help me feel better.  Even the areas I've mulched with 6 inch-thick prairie hay are dry underneath as far as I can dig with a mattock. 

This is want I want to see; Storm clouds rolling from my north and west.

It's bad enough that I'm seriously reconsidering the utility of ceremonial rain dances by the ancient prairie peoples. I've been googling "rain dance" and "Kansa" to see what worked best for those who survived on this land in the past, but to no avail.  My googles were in vain as so many of those traditions are sadly lost to history.  I learned only that the dancers moved in a zig-zag fashion and that the rain ceremonies were one of the few tribal ceremonies where women were also allowed to dance. I probably couldn't correctly do the steps anyway, but I wonder if my neighbors would mind if they saw me out chanting and wailing across the prairie?  Given my past actions, it's feasible that they wouldn't notice the difference from my usual gardening practices.

The current tradition of Flint Hill's gardeners is to pray loudly for the appearance of storm clouds such as those pictured above.  Now, yes, it's true, Kansas is a famous place for tornadoes, not because we have more than any other state (we're actually down a bit on that list, below both Texas and Oklahoma), but of course because of that darned Oz film that has so poorly stereotyped this state for centuries to come. The true case is that most of the native Kansans, or even the transplants, like myself, cheer up when they see those dark clouds coming over the horizon.  Yes, there's a small chance of destruction, but they also bring life-giving rain to soak the earth down deep into that solid sterile clay. It's a renewal of our souls. We, my neighbors and I, we watch the skies and welcome the building thunderheads.  My small wind vane warns me early as it swings first to the west to feed the storm for an hour or so, and then, in the seconds just before it hits, back to the east as the downdrafts swoop in.

It's time for Fall to come and wake me up some night with the wind howling through the storm doors or with a nice downpour on the skylights.  I promise, I'll just smile and turn right back over to sleep.  Come rain, Come life.