In Glory, the Sky

There are moments here on the prairie, exhilarating and yet satiating, when the Kansas sky flows deep down into my soul to quench the fires that often rage within.  Summer scorch, drought, floods, grasshoppers, late Spring freezes, winter ice, and tornadoes, all merely are prices we choose to pay in exchange for sunsets like this, golden and tranquil along the western horizon.  This blessing from a particularly merciful Deity came last Friday night after the passing of the storm cell pictured below, a knot of winds and rain rolling first from southwest to northeast as I was lamenting that it was going to slide past us to the north, but then suddenly shifting south under the influence of prayer and anguish and proceeding to drown my sorrows from a thundering heaven.  Before anyone asks, these pictures were taken without a filter, the world presented here as it appeared in, as they say, "living color," the sun and sky conspiring to beauty despite their amateur photographer.

A strange sequence filled the heavens after the storm.  First, an emerald haze formed to the south and east, lightning and thunder chasing the rain and roiling clouds into the darkness of the night.  Then, on its heels, a low bank of clouds appeared in the north and west as in the photograph below, fluffy and solid, a line of marshmallows aglow against the setting sun.  If the Rapture had come at that moment, sweeping across the earth with this silent wall of softness, I would have surely accepted the juncture as a fit beginning to the End of Time, perfectly executed and consummated.

 

The world didn't end, but the evening did as the sun sank into the westward clouds, leaving me not behind after The Rapture, but still in a state of rapture, thankful for the soaked earth and the colorful firmament glowing with glory, a tapestry of oranges and golds and pinks and yellows reflected off the wet ground to bid me a peaceful and restful night, the gardener's soul refreshed and satisfied. 

Nest Eggs

Like my friend Connie over at Hartwood Roses, ProfessorRoush has been marveling of late at the display of life represented in his garden by its more finely feathered inhabitants.  After spending the early Spring fretting that my self-designed Bluebird boxes had an unusual number of vacancies, the second wave of Bluebirds has hit and every box within easy sight of my garden is occupied by a bright blue aviator.  This picture, taken with my iPhone, was captured one night recently after I saw momma scoot off her nest in the box nearest my vegetable garden.  I'd watched her flying back and forth from the box for about three weeks.  Aren't they just a beautiful shade of blue?  About half the size of the Robin eggs I photographed earlier this year, these four eggs looked for all the world like delicate china just got shipped to me in a straw-padded box.

The very next day, by a happy coincidence, I looked again and those beautiful eggs had already been replaced with these jaundiced, mostly naked and very tired chicks.  Mamma Bluebird was not happy that I was back peering into the nest box.  I'm going to leave these babies alone for a couple of weeks, at least until I'm able to hear them crying for food as I pass by.  Sshhh...they're sleeping right now!









The Killdeer have also been busy feigning injury in an attempt to lure my lawnmower away from a certain patch of grass in the front yard.  They've undoubtedly  been bragging to their friends about their success in that endeavor, because a 6 foot diameter patch of my front lawn hasn't been mowed for 3 weeks now.  In the center of the grass, of course, is the usual clutch of four exquisitely camouflaged white and black speckled eggs.  In actual fact, if this spot looks familiar to you, it's the exact same rocky four inch area where a Killdeer couple hatched four babies in 2011 and I blogged about here.  Amazing, isn't it?  An acre of mowed prairie in my front yard and these parents pick the exact same spot to raise a brood.  Are they the same couple from two years ago?  Are they offspring from that nest?  Are there other factors about this spot that make it so attractive and so different from another rocky spot less than 2 feet away that I, a stupid human observer, would have said was nearly identical? 

All of which leaves me wondering;  Did the Killdeer just start nesting this particular spot since I built a home and started mowing the prairie for them?  Or have there been decades.... centuries.... millennia of Killdeer offspring born on this same patch of earth, in the grazing grounds of ancient buffalo?  I'm just shivering in delight at that thought.


Update 6/29/13, 8:26 am:  Mrs. ProfessorRoush mentioned to me last night that she had seen a "bunch" of little birds and two big ones running around the front driveway.  I checked this morning, and sure enough the Killdeer eggs hatched, sometime between Thursday evening and yesterday evening.  Four little balls of fluff on stilt legs running around being inefficiently herded by two anxious parents who seemed to be dividing their efforts;  one to corral babies and the other to feign injury and lead me away.  How can a 0.5X1.0 inch egg turn into a chick about 4 inches tall and 2 inches around almost overnight?  And we humans complain about how fast our children outgrow their clothes!

Wild Ginger Woes

My, that's a beautiful rose, isn't it?  This exquisitely formed and delicately colored Hybrid Tea-style bud belongs to 'Wild Ginger', a 1976 introduction by Dr. Griffith Buck.  Unfortunately, this is one of only two decent pictures I've ever been able to take of this rose.  If 'Wild Ginger' was a human being, I would say that she was camera shy, but the truth is that she just seems to be an unphotogenic muse.  For a rose bred from a seedling of 'Queen Elizabeth' and 'Ruth Hewitt' crossed with the pollen of 'Lady Elgin', she's also not very regal in form. 

'Wild Ginger' has been growing in my garden for 4 years, and that beautiful bud perfectly represents the always unfulfilled promise of this rose, an instant of perfection followed by inevitable disappointment.  Maybe this roses' failings are my fault; a placement too shaded by taller shrubs around it, a lack of air circulation leading to disease or too much competition from nearby perennials.  Perhaps this is just a rare Buck rose that doesn't meet my expectations.  It might do well in some climates or microenvironments but it surely doesn't like where I placed it in my garden.

Officially an orange-blend Grandiflora, 'Wild Ginger' grows tall but has given me only a few sparse 4 foot tall canes that whip and often break in the Kansas winds.  Blooms are mildly double and large, with 20 petals or so, with a mild fruity fragrance, but I see them borne singly more often than clustered.  The buds are indeed beautifully colored, but they open quickly into flat, disorganized messes.  Even when partially open, the petals often seem misshapen or deformed like the photo at right.  The orange and pink and tan color shadings are definitely "to die for", but the petals spot quickly with rain and are often affected by Botrytis blight.  'Wild Ginger' has dark green semi-glossy leaves, but they are prone to blackspot and the overall bush form is more like a spiky Hybrid Tea than a nice shrub rose.

In a nutshell, as beautiful as she is, 'Wild Ginger' is a soiled dove in my garden, prone to fungus, blemished, and frankly not very attractive below the neck.  I hope that somewhere, there's a climate where she stays more groomed and less diseased, and I intend to give her a chance in more sunlight as soon as I can get a cutting started from my sole own-root plant.  That action might just be an antiquated male reflex to save a soiled dove, but I can't give up on a beautiful lady without trying at least once to see how she'll do in a palace with clean clothes.