Bison Bust

ProfessorRoush often, perhaps almost monthly, has the opportunity to travel east of Manhattan towards Topeka on the major traffic tributary of I-70.   Just before Exit 328, on the south side of the road, is a metal shed with the slogan "Know God, Know Peace, No God, No Peace" in large letters that can't be missed by weary passengers from either side of the highway.   Of more immediate interest, to myself and perhaps others, is that the field next to this shed often contains a herd of 30-40 bison, grazing peacefully in the mornings against a virgin backdrop of Kansas prairie.



Recognizing the potential for a great photo or two, every time for the past year that I've headed to Topeka or parts beyond, I've tried to remember to bring my Nikon.  Unfortunately for me, the whole expedition has become an exercise in frustration, or, viewed in more charitable terms, an object lesson in the difficulties of obtaining a perfect photo.  Each time over the year that I have passed the field with a camera in the car, ready to pull over at the slightest glimpse of dark fur and stubby legs, there hasn't been a buffalo in sight.  Or it's during the middle of a thunderstorm.  Or it's too dark to get a usable photo.  On the one or two occasions that I've passed when every condition has been perfect;  buffalo present and during a dazzling and photogenic snowstorm, or in gentle morning sun with perfect light on the prairie, I have always managed to forget the camera.

It was with every good intention to remember the camera that I set out yesterday on the journey.  I was looking forward to the photogenic possibilities the January morning offered;  foggy, misting, and overcast.  The perfect conditions to create a nice mood image of ancient buffalo on the timeless prairie.

And then one mile from the exit, as I began to anticipate the buffalo, it hit me;  no camera!  What a professorial idiot!  Already 25 miles distant from home, I knew I was missing the perfect opportunity but there was no turning back at this point.  All I have, once again, is a haunting iPhone camera remembrance of what might have been the next Twitter sensation.  As I pulled off to the side of the highway, zoomed my lowly iPhone to full magnification, and tried to capture the wary expression of the adult male bison who guarded the rest of the herd, I knew only that once again I had failed miserably, soon slinking away on my travels with only the memory of a perfect photograph lost.

I'm Dreaming....

...that Christmas was white this morning instead of the golden but ubiquitous brown of the
Kansas prairie in winter.  Our White Christmas came a week ago in the form of 5 inches of heavy wet snow that melted within a day of it's arrival.  However fleeting, it made for a glorious morning while it was present.  How I getting out onto the pristine earth after a snowfall; the feeling of solitude and rebirth in a hushed landscape.

The local winter drabness is mitigated when the dried remnants of Fall are reduced to abstract ornaments on a white canvas.  My front landscaping bed might abound with color and texture in early summer, but I would argue that there is no more visual interest at that time than seen in this photo from last week. Remnants of phlox and yellow twigs of euonymous and a golden vase of dried grass contrast exquisitely with the frozen green pot and dark green hollies.   The mad sniffing dog, Bella, can be seen at mid-right, one long soft ear flipped over her head while she tracks some small, helpless, and probably long-gone creature around the hollies and burning bushes.

Bella and I were happy about the snowfall, but, thank you Winter, that's enough.  Leave us now and bring Spring in your wake.  It's hard for a proud dog to track when most of the interesting scents are buried beneath new snow, and it is hard for the gardener to siphon energy from a frozen landscape.  Today, Christmas 2014, is bright and sunny here in Kansas, but not a creature or green leaf yet stirs from winter slumber.  And I in my jammies, and Mrs. ProfessorRoush cooking madly over the stove, will just have to wait, yet, through a long winter's nap.

They're Inside the Perimeter!

In my ongoing series of skirmishes with the fluffy-tailed, cloven-hoofed denizens of my local prairie, ProfessorRoush must admit that some strategic and tactical setbacks have occurred recently.  To be more frank, in less carefully-chosen phrases, I'm losing the battles AND the war.

After my earlier discovery that the local antlered vermin had been feasting each night on my prized strawberry patch, I responded with efforts to fortify the electric fence and increase the nightly watch.  I recently discovered, however, that my trail camera surveillance system had been mysteriously rendered inoperative for the past month.  I've hypothesized that it might have been hacked, in like manner to the recent Sony incursion by the North Koreans.  I don't believe it is too far-fetched, based on current evidence, to imagine a command center of hacker white-tailed deer, sneering behind their computer scenes as they erase any digital evidence of their glutinous feasts and plan further raids.  Regardless of the exact cause of camera failure, I have no recent intelligence of the number and distribution of enemy forces who form nightly incursions into my garden.

Further, early today when I accompanied Bella on her morning duties, I saw, in the melting remains of yesterday's snowfall, evidence that the brazen venison-carriers are now venturing right up to the castle drawbridge.  The first picture, above, is evidence of a hoof print approximately 10 feet from the sidewalk in the front of the house.  The second picture, at left, shows a print mere inches from the front sidewalk, and illustrates that this enemy soldier is probably within range of sampling my infant Japanese maple.

That is suicide bomber range, folks.  I mean DefCon 1, Emergency Alert status, zombie herd is coming, range.   Strap a little C4 to these fleet garden terrorists and they could take out command post and gardener in a single strike.  What am I to do?  I'm afraid the fallout from nuclear strikes in the scrub brush of the draw where they sleep would drift back over home.  I would just cry havoc and release the dogs of war, but my personal "dog of war," Bella the beagle, is a great alarm system but a coward at heart, and that won't work either.  I need a new plan.

Basil Indicator

ProfessorRoush is, at times, an incredibly bad gardener of houseplants.  I am usually able to keep them alive, but, with the exception of an occasional Pothos sp., they don't often thrive under my care.  There is, for example, an infamous episode some years ago during a period when I had approximately 20 thriving orchids and 10 Christmas cacti, all of which would even occasionally bloom.  I adjusted the thermostat when we left for a Christmas vacation and we came home a week later to find that I'd accidentally shut the heat off and the house was hovering at 33ºF.  Not a single orchid survived the episode.  The Christmas cacti sulked for a bit, but eventually decided to give me a second chance. 

I restrict myself these days to Zygocactus and Pothos.  Occasional gifted houseplants and the annual poinsettias are held prisoner and then offered as sacrificial lambs to the houseplant gods to curry their favor in the direction of my Christmas cacti.  In place of the ceremonial altar and a flint knife, I have substituted benign neglect and the arid, desert-like humidity of the natural Kansas environment, watering only when I see signs of wilt.

That practice has not been kind to the mandarin orange and lemon tree that Mrs. ProfessorRoush insisted I add to our floral menagerie.  Both trees spend their summers outdoors on the porch, where it is moderately humid and I frequently forget to water them. They spend their winters indoors where the humidity is very low and I frequently forget to water them. 

Recently, I noticed that my fairly spindly orange tree was wilting at the top (above).  "Wait a minute," I thought, "orange leaves don't wilt; they yellow and fall off."  And indeed, on a closer look, I recognized there was a second stem in the pot; a spindly sun-starved basil that presumably was an offspring from one of our herbs, which also spend summers in pots on the back porch.  You can see the second stem better here at the left.

I'm certainly not going to root up this volunteer.  If a weed is just a plant in the wrong place, this "weed" is in the right place.  Mrs. Basil has done me a favor by going to seed and placing an offspring here in this pot to be nurtured.  The rest of the winter, I think I'll just watch the basil as an indicator for watering this pot and the lemon tree next to it.  Maybe both trees will now have a better chance to live to see another spring.  Besides, the basil smells so good.