Healthy Houseplants Puzzle Plant Killer

Plants in our house are prospering quite well, and seem to be in perfect health.

I don’t know what to do with them.

This is a … well, I don’t know what it is, but it’s growing. Isn’t that a common line in horror movies?

 

I’ve never had a healthy, growing plant before. They’re getting so big, some needed to be transplanted into larger pots — something I never thought I’d have to deal with. Not that we don’t have other pots: I’ve got a whole graveyard full, piled in a corner of the garage. A plant transplant has never been an issue for me, because there’s no point in transplanting something dead.

 

Usually our plants look more like a limb that got torn out of the tree by a storm and ended up broken and crushed in the front yard. Like this one.

 

At the moment they’re enjoying the outside weather, but they’ll come in for the winter and huddle shivering in a corner, just like I do. One is an aloe plant, and yes: You can use those to treat burns. We have a little experience there. Another one is a vine thingy that likes to wander, and there’s a tall, stiff-leaked whatchamacallit that just sits there, getting taller. Plants are a good thing: They filter the air, provide oxygen, look good, and seldom have to go out for a walk.

 

We do have a lot of flowering plants in our yard. Well, most people call them weeds.

 

So I should be happy, but frankly, it’s freaking me out. I’ve been having nightmares of the plants wanting revenge for their dead comrades. Soon they’re taking over the house: sending roots all over, turning lights on and off, running up the utility bills. I wake up screaming, “They’re alive! THEY’RE ALIVE!  Close the fridge door, they’re letting the cold air out! Don’t touch my Mountain Dew!”

Okay, so my dreams aren’t all that exciting. But usually the only things that prosper in our house are the mice, and ... say. You don't suppose the mice are amateur gardeners? 

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Remember, every book you buy keeps me in plant food.

 

Spring Has Sprung For Now, and I Have Photos To Prove It

I experienced something very odd the other day: I tried to get the lawn mower started, and I did. First time. It took all of twenty minutes to fill the gas and oil, check the filter, connect the spark plug, and fire it up. And by fire it up, I do NOT mean it caught on fire.

This has never happened to me before.

I had the whole day blocked off to work on the mower, go get parts, call for help, and throw things. What the heck was I supposed to do with the rest of the day? And then I realized, oh, yeah: I could mow the lawn.

The latest bout of upper respiratory ick and my lack of exercise over the winter kicked my butt, and it took me two days to pick up a winter's worth of sticks and dog poop and finish mowing. But that's okay, because it meant I was outside without a winter coat and gloves (although I did wear a hoodie and jeans). Granted that this particular April has been awful, but spring still sprung, and that beats winter all over.


The lilacs, despite my best efforts for the last thirty years, survive. I love the scent of the blossoms, right up there with the smell of fresh-mowed grass. Sadly, I have to smell the mowing of others: When I mow my own, my allergies kick in and I stop smelling after a short time.

But how long the lilacs will last I don't know, because I couldn't bring myself to cut down the trees that have grown up within the lilacs. This one, I think, is a cherry tree. I think.

This one, among the other stand of lilacs, is a type of apple tree. I think. I'll keep you updated, unless they come alive and kill us in our sleep. Who knows?

There are also these little purple guys, who live in the grass alongside wild strawberries, dandelions, and other various "weeds". If it gives the bees something to keep them alive, I'm okay with that. I'm not fond of bees, but I am fond of what they produce.

If you look carefully, you can see some dandelions here, in the front yard. Oh, and the dog. He came out to watch me mow, but I really don't think he was impressed.

This is all well and good, but judging from the way this spring has sprung I should probably go make sure the snowblower still works.

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Flowers Are Better Than Snowdrifts

            This will come as no shock to anyone who knows me, but I love spring. To paraphrase some action movie or other: Winter is the disease, and spring is the cure. Summer is that wild celebration you throw when you realize the disease is going to strike again, so you might as well party.

            This being Indiana, there could be a foot of snow on the ground by the time you read this, but at the moment it’s been pretty nice in between the thunderstorms. Wait, let me check …

            Huh. Heat wave. Better than winter, when snow is some kind of permanent nightmarish superglue. Nobody ever froze to death in a thunderstorm, unless they hid in a chest freezer. That would freeze your chest.

            The only bad things about warm weather are pollen and bugs, and pollen can be medicated. I like to think of allergies as a luxury tax for being able to walk outside wearing less than eight layers of clothing.

            One of the first signs of spring – other than any part of my skin being seen outdoors – is the appearance of budding plants and flowers. That burst of color, a visual shock after months of white and various shades of dirty gray, does more to cheer me than all the chocolate in Hershey.

This is nothing to sneeze at. Actually, it is.

 

            Maybe you could say my love of spring is like a red, red rose. I came up with that all by myself, honest. Well, I stole it all by myself.

            I need to see that color outside, because inside I’m the kiss of death for a plant. There’s a graveyard of flower pots in my garage, sad rows full of bare earth and dead, dry stalks. In the plant community I’m known as the Mark Horseman of the Apocalypse. The last time I walked through a botanical garden, twelve species went extinct.

            I’m the Darth Vader of plants; I just choke them out.

            And yet, just outside the house, plants thrive. Like the spiders who invade my home every year, they live for the thrill of being near danger. Mind you, I had no idea what those plants were, until I found a phone app to identify them.

            According to the internet, the various plants around my house include:

            Lilacs, which produce one of the most wonderful scents since fresh baked chocolate chip cookies. I bought lilac scented laundry detergent over winter, but it just wasn’t the same.

"I wish Mark would get out of the way so I get a picture of the lilacs."

            Narcissus, a variety of daffodil. Narcissus sounds so much more exotic and interesting, though. Narcissus is also a character from Greek myth who fell in love with his own reflection, and thus is a hero to many in Hollywood. Things ended badly for Narcissus; but then, the Greeks wrote tragedies, not comedies.

            Tulips, a flower that first came from Holland, Michigan. Some people from the Netherlands visited Michigan, and so fell in love with the flower that they made it their own and also nicknamed their country Holland, which seems like some kind of intellectual theft, to me. But revenge is sweet: For a time tulips became so valuable in the Netherlands that they replaced the national currency. Their entire economy crashed when some kid took his thumb out of the dike, looked around, and said:

            “Dude. They’re flowers.”

            At the moment my tulips are in hiding, waiting to see if I go crazy with the lawn mower or weed spray. However, a line of eye-poppingly colorful flowers eye-popped up against the neighbor’s house, where presumably they’re safe from me. Silly flowers.

"Just stay closed until he goes away."

 

            Then there’s forsythia, a bush that sprouted some bright yellow blossoms. Someone told me I shouldn’t trim the forsythia, but it grows so fast that one of its branches once stabbed me in the leg as I innocently walked by with the garden sheers. One year I didn’t trim it at all, and a film crew came by and paid me a hundred bucks to use it in their low-budget monster movie, “Attack of the Sixty Foot Sythia”. I don’t know what they left out the “for” for, except maybe that “S” sound is scarier: Stormtrooper; Scythe; Senator …

             I also have some roses, but as of this writing they haven’t bloomed. Maybe they’re standing by with the tulips. Waiting. Plotting.

            Oh, and dandelions – how could I forget dandelions? Weeds, you say? Nonsense! They’re harmless and colorful, they make necklaces and wine, and what the heck is wrong with that? Those are flowers, believe it; the narcissus lovers are just jealous.

            In any case, any bloom that doesn’t immediately kill you is better than a snowdrift.

 

 

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November Mowing Pictures

Just to remind you that this too shall pass, here are some pictures from when the weather was much nicer--in November of last year. Hard to believe anyone would call any part of last year the "good old days", but at least we weren't on the edge of world war. As for weather, I just saw a prediction of a couple of inches of snow for this weekend, which is normal for basketball playoff season.

------------------------------------------------------- 

 

I get such a kick out of mowing the lawn in November. It means I'm not shoveling snow, for one thing. This year I got one last mow in before all the ick began, and I took some pictures along the way because nothing says "safety" like holding onto a roaring lawn mower with one hand while aiming a phone in the other direction.

Lilacs bloom in the spring. Except this year, because this is 2021 and Mother Nature wanted to remind us of what we'll be missing for the next several months.

Most of my fire bush died this year because of another plant that grew up and strangled it--which I didn't notice until the remaining fire bush started to turn color. The part that remained after my slashing massacre seems to be doing okay ... so far.

 

I've never understood why some people hate dandelions. I mean, they're flowers. Those little vines that want to spread everywhere, now those I hate.

Oh, I forgot to mention: growing right with the lilacs were cherries, from a tree I didn't even know was there until late last summer. I'm so bad of this yard thing.

Well, it was nice while it lasted

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This month's newsletter: Furry Friends and Fire Photos

In  this month's newsletter we discuss tired dogs, almost-horses, fire photos, summer, and the health risks of competitive clogging:

https://mailchi.mp/956dcca14183/summer-and-new-projects-loom?e=2b1e842057

Did I mention summer? I'd be so much happier with its arrival if it actually stuck around for more than a few days. Heck, I'm still waiting for Spring to arrive--apparently I blinked.

Still, any season with flowers is better than a season without them.

This one has somehow survived all my lawn care efforts for decades. I don't know how.

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It's a wonderful world. It is, TOO.

See, here's the thing: Life goes on. Morning always comes. The Dude abides, stuff like that.

I'm no philosopher. What I am is a student of history, and I can tell you this right now: Not only is the coronavirus outbreak not the end of the world, but the human race has been through much, much worse. Plagues, wars, dictatorships, natural disasters, holocausts, reality TV, we've seen it all. Tell me the Kardashians aren't deadly, at least to your brain cells.

Yes, do what you can to stop the spread. Yes, have calm, reasoned debates about how to tread that fine line between protection, rights, and economic needs. No, don't break down in a screaming hissy fit every time everything doesn't go your way--see previous sentence.

This is a time, as with any crisis, when people need to come together. Let me rephrase: This is a time when we need to get along--to, in the immortal words of the guy the Romans executed (no, the other guy, from the movie), "Always look on the bright side of life". Yes, it's a frightening, frustrating time. But ask yourself this:

Did I make things any better by yelling and hating everyone?

No. The answer is no, you didn't. Sheesh.

For all the virus and discontent floating around in the air, it's here: Spring arrived, anyway. Why not try a spring-like attitude? Laugh. Love. Leave the room a little brighter than when you entered it.

There are all sorts of places where you can get some fresh air without being breathed on. This one is Chain O' Lakes State Park, and see? Getting green!

And don't go around breathing on people.

Oh, and hurry up, tornado season is here.

The world is so good, it even feeds us.

But at least it's not snow

Before we went for a walk earlier this week, we first had to find a place that wasn't a path of mud, or a new stream with mud underneath. Mud was fun when I was little, before I was responsible for cleaning it up; these days, not so much.

So we settled for the campground at Chain O' Lakes State Park, where the roads between the sites are paved, and that worked out pretty well.

As long as you didn't go off the paved roads.

 Elsewhere things are the same as they are all over the Midwest--soggy. The park's beach is gone, and a beaver dam we spotted over the winter is either washed away, or completely underwater. Every swampy area around is now a lake, although I suspect that's not going to cut down on the mosquitoes.

Last I heard, we were about two and a half inches over our normal rainfall for April, and April's usually a pretty rainy month. Still, there are places that have it way worse than us, especially those near major rivers.

Besides, April flowers bring ... well, you know.

Thanks for the OTHER flowers!

I made a mistake that I need to correct: I assumed the flowers we got after my mother-in-law's death (see my last post) were from both the Sheriff Department and the Fire Department, mostly because we have employees of one that are members of the other, and vice-versa. But the day after I posted about the flowers from the Noble County Sheriff Department, we got this beautiful plant from the Albion Fire Department:

My wife told me mum's the word, so we had an hour of silence before she explained that she thinks these flowers are mums. I know what you're thinking: How will I keep them alive? I dunno. Luck? Miracle?

I was going to go up to the fire meeting tonight but we're both still feeling crappy, so I want to extend my thanks to all the firefighters here. It's nice to be thought of by both these great groups of people.