Gratefully Thankful

ProfessorRoush is fully aware, and mildly abashed, that it has been quite some time since my last rose posting on this blog, but I promise that I'll get to one soon.  The next victim has, in fact, been chosen and is waiting in line.

Today, however, I awoke uncharacteristically grateful and I would be distinctly ungrateful if I ignored the feeling.  I'm not given to displays of random emotion, but I can't shunt aside the contented feeling warming me up on this cold Kansas morning.  I'm grateful for my life and my home and my love with Mrs. ProfessorRoush.  Grateful for my children, now almost grown and gone.  Grateful for the donkey's and the new barn cats and my garden. 


I'm grateful for the plants and life of the prairie.  I'm particularly grateful for the native blue sage that pops up randomly in my garden beds and provides a cooling reflection of the clear summer sky in the doldrums of August.  I'm grateful for the prairie grasses, and for the ample sunshine that makes it all possible.  I'm grateful for the mornings given to my life, fields dewy and golden with the rising furnace.

I'm extremely grateful for the Internet this morning, ready with all the information of the world at my touch-typing fingertips, including the origin of the word grateful.  ProfessorRoush's mind doesn't work in a straight line, often taking bends and u-turns through a maze of thought, and somewhere along this little piece of writing, I began wondering why we say that we are "full of grate."  There is no definition of "grate" in the English language (to sound harshly, to irritate, a frame of metal bars to hold wood) that seems pleasant.  Happily, a short search informed me that "grateful" derived from an obsolete meaning of grate as "pleasing", from the Latin grãtus as in gratitude, and that the first known use of "grateful" was in 1552.  It seems odd that "grateful" would have survived in the English language while "grate" no longer is defined as "pleasing."  It seems odd that I would even wonder about it.

But, strange as it is, I'm also grateful just to wonder about it.

Bluebird Harvest

While I was harvesting pecans, I was also taking advantage of that beautiful November Saturday to make my Bluebird house rounds.  I would rather do this annual chore now, in the sunshine and mild wind, traipsing up and down the hills through the tall grass, before the world gets cold and breezy again.

I'm pleased to report that 11 of 19 boxes, were occupied by Bluebirds this year, a record for me.   Eight of the eleven were boxes of my own North American Bluebird Society-approved design.  Of course, many of you remember the hatch group that I watched closely this year, raised in this nest (to the right) as it looks now and pictured during their growth period (below to the left).   If you haven't seen them before, this is a pretty typical nest for a bluebird, perhaps even a little on the cushy side.  Eastern Bluebirds are not, by any anthropomorphic comparison, very good architects and they seldom place more than an inch of unorganized grass in the bottom of their boxes, varying a little upon the depth of the box cavity.

Of the other eight boxes, two were completely unoccupied and six were occupied by whatever species in my area fills the entire box, top to bottom, with small twigs (House Wren?)  The latter six boxes were all close to the border of the trees in the draw.  I had placed them along that border but facing the open prairie, thinking that the Bluebirds would like the sites, but the Bluebirds seem to be drawn to boxes out in the middle of the grasses, on fence posts.  Since Bluebirds often start nesting in early February in this area, I presume they've got first choice on most of these boxes and are leaving the boxes around the woods and ponds for others.  I think this year I will move some of the woodline boxes out farther into the fields just to make sure I've got a surplus of Bluebird-approved housing in the area.

I have to be a bit careful, however, of my site selection.  I've found that the donkey's like to rub the boxes left within their reach, often to the point of knocking them down, so I've moved several boxes to the opposite side of the fence from the donkeys or into corners where the little brown asses will have trouble getting at them.  Ding and Dong must not like Bluebirds as much as I do.

Pecan Plenty

In the midst of a hectic early November, I almost forgot to collect pecans from my young tree, but after driving over them a few times, I did eventually notice that they had fallen from the tree and were awaiting harvest. 

Of course, my epiphany came when I was rushing around doing other things and so I picked them up as rapidly as possible and filled my pockets.  The ultimate result was this previously picked, pocketed, and photographed pile of perfect pecans placed on ProfessorRoush's kitchen counter.  There are, for those who want to know, 83 pecans in this pile.

Last year, I gathered about a dozen pecans from the tree at harvest, the first year it ever bore fruit.  If my crop proliferates at the rate of 83/12, or 6.92X per year, then next year I should harvest 574 pecans, and the year after I should get 3975 pecans, and then 27500 pecans in 2016, and 190348 pecans in 2017. 

I think I'll stop counting after that since I'll literally be rolling in pecans.  Or I can just start counting pecans by the dump truck load after 2017.  Pecan paradise awaits.

Rosette Reckoning

'The Magician' Rose Rosette

I suppose some are wondering why ProfessorRoush has been so quiet for the past 9 days?  I'd like to tell you that I've been on a fabulous vacation to a tropical isle, but truthfully I've just been swamped with lots to do and haven't the extra energy to write.  Well, that, and my gardening depression over what I'm about to show you.

Last Saturday, after the leaves finally were blasted off the roses by a cold spell, I used the opportunity of the bare stems to assay my roses for any signs of Rose Rosette disease.  And, of course, I found plenty of possible lesions, on 5 different roses to be specific.  One of the more definitive examples is pictured at the upper right, from a cane on 'The Magician', a recent shrub rose bred by Dr. John Clements.  The red arrow shows the thickened, thorny cane in question, originating from the much smaller branch indicated by the white arrow.

'Darlow's Enigma' Rose Rosette

Other lesions, such as that on 'Darlow's Enigma', pictured at the right, and 'Vanguard', pictured below left were a little less certain, but still highly suggestive.  The fourth and fifth possible victims are unfortunately two Griffith Buck roses, 'Iobelle' and 'September Song'. 

In the positive column, only a single cane was affected on each rose and each one high on the cane at that, and I wacked every one of these diseased canes off at the ground level in hopes that the virus didn't spread to the base.  I would also note that none of these roses are over 3 years old (are they thus more susceptible than established roses?) and that I found no lesions on any of  my Old Garden Roses or my "real" Rugosa Hybrids (I don't really count 'Vanguard' here since its foliage is not very rugose).



'Vanguard' Rose Rosette

On the negative side, two of these newly affected roses were Griffith Buck roses, increasing the affected number of those hybrids to 3/6 in my garden.  Thus 50% of the roses affected so far are Buck roses, although Buck roses do not account for nearly 50% of the roses in my garden.  Are they more susceptible?  Or am I seeing more on Buck hybrids because they constitute a majority of my "modern" rose hybrids; those that are not either Hybrid Rugosa or Old Garden Roses?  I don't know.