Pretty Things To Look At

I'll be the first to admit:  I'm not a flower guy.  We overwhelmingly plant things that we can eat.  I take that back - I primarily plant edible things.  Tricia plants flowering plants.  As I walk around in the yard on a nice spring day before it gets too hot, I begin to take in the pretty view.  First thing I notice is one of our many azalea bushes.  Most of the others' blooms have long since faded.  Azaleas are short lived.  They explode in awesome blooms and then just like that, they are gone.  There is one bush that has some nice azalea blooms on it:

I call this one our "watermelon" azalea.  The black anther of the flower and the reddish color of the bloom remind me of what it looks like to cut open a cold Charleston Gray on a hot summer's day.  I think of cutting pieces off of the wedge of watermelon with a butter knife, sprinkling salt on the melon with a salt shaker, and then popping the cold, sweet watermelon in my mouth.  

As i continue to walk, there is a blanket of white Dutch clover covering most of the backyard.  It's nearing the end now, as the days warm to the upper 80's already, but the honeybees are still doing their job on the clover as you can see by the busy bee in the direct center of the photo below.

Speaking of clover, I planted a couple of pounds of Crimson clover in the backyard for the bees.  It's starting to bloom all over.  I'll try to get some photos of all of the crimson blooms.  It's really a sight to see.  I certainly hope the crimson clover seeds and comes up again next year and the years following.

Finally, the first of the Louisiana iris bloomed this morning.  What a regal flower!  As with the crimson clover, I'll share more photos when all the Louisiana iris is in bloom.

Again, I'm not a flower guy, but those flowers I noticed inspired me to stop and take notice of the truly beautiful things around me that I might otherwise ignore.  I hope you have an enjoyable day, taking in and savoring the things of beauty that surround you in your life!

Riches in the Ditches

Beauty is truly found in unsuspecting places.  All you gotta do is have your eyes open to see it and appreciate it. I think I've already told this story, but every year I see it and it reminds me.  About 24 years ago I was farming rice on our family farm.  I distinctly remember driving my truck down a gravel road between Carrier Road and Cotton Gin Road.  I was on my way to check the irrigation well we called the "big well."  It pumped cool, clear water from 180 feet below the flat, hot surface above.  

The well, powered by a big engine with straight pipes, was loud.  It roared.  The horsepower of that engine was impressive, lifting columns of water from the underground aquifer to the rice field where the fields were kept with a good flood of 6 inches of water for months.  Rice likes its feet wet.  When you got out of the truck, the noise of the engine would hurt your ears.  If you went at night time to check the oil in the engine or make sure that the dripper was still dripping hydraulic oil to lubricate the bearings, the manifold would glow cherry red. 

On this particular day, it was around noon.  It was a sultry summer day.  The air heavy with humidity, the mosquitoes buzzing, hungry for a feast of blood from some unsuspecting beast or man.  The sun beat down in punishing fashion.  As I was about to turn in, I noticed it in the ditch.  It was a clump of beautiful flowers.  Now, I'm not a flower guy, not a bit.  But it was hard not to admire this flower.

The Louisiana Iris.  It's the state wildflower of Louisiana.  The state flower of Louisiana is the magnolia flower.  It's flower is pure white, with a fresh, clean fragrance that you can't stop sniffing to get just one more scent in your nostrils.  The downside is that if you cut it off the tree to bring it inside, it turns brown very quickly, as if to communicate that it's better to leave it on the tree and admire its beauty in the outdoors.  The Louisiana iris is a vibrant purplish blue color, the color of royalty.  It has hints of deep gold that accent its beauty.  

How could something so beautiful be in a ditch and not in a manicured garden?  Because, like rice, the Louisiana iris likes its feet wet and what needs beauty more than a roadside ditch?  A couple decades ago, every rice farmer worth his salt had a Pony #2 shovel with an ash handle in the bed of his pickup truck sharpened to a razor edge to cut through levees and the tough leathery bodies of the cottonmouth moccasin, our arch enemy in the rice fields.

I pulled my shovel out of the back of the truck and walked to the ditch, pushing the ubiquitous empty beer can floating in the muddy water out of the way.  I dug deep into the soft mud and scooped out a big scoop of mud, making sure I had all the roots of the iris.  I had to rescue it and bring it to our new home 30 miles north.  I did leave some behind, though, as that roadside ditch needed beautification as well.

I planted it in a low area where a ditch on our property carries rainwater.  It always stays sort of wet and I figured it would be a good home for the Louisiana Iris, bringing beauty to our home.  And it has.  Each year, I look on it and smile and remember finding it.  The iris has thrived, multiplying and filling the ditch.  It blooms each April, never disappointing.  The wife and I always look for its blooms and announce to each other when the first bloom appears.

We even used a shovel to move some of it near the sidewalk on our back patio.  It announced its happiness to be in that location by spreading quickly to fill that bed.  Now we can enjoy it in two locations - the back patio and the ditch that runs through the grove.

We enjoy their blooms while they last.  Soon their beauty fades, however.

But we're left with the anticipation of the blooms next April, signaling spring and bringing back remembrances of finding riches in the ditches.

Lovely Louisiana Iris

About twenty four years ago, I was in my pickup truck at the farm in Oberlin.  I was driving down a gravel road that is between Cottongin Road and Carrier Road.  Our family farm has land the borders the southern part of that road.  There's a rice irrigation well there that we called the "big well."  It was a 12" well that had a big engine powering it.  I can remember as a kid riding along with my dad as he checked the oil in that well engine.  It would run for 24 hours a day for weeks on end flooding the rice fields.  The sound the engine would put out was excruciatingly loud.  When we would check the engine at night, the exhaust manifold would be so hot, it would glow 'cherry-red.'

Back to that day 24 years ago.  I was driving my truck with the windows rolled down listening to some country music, I'm sure.  I had my elbow resting on the door as I observed my surroundings.  Then I spotted it.  There in the roadside ditch in front of what was an old home-place, was a big clump of Louisiana Iris growing in the muddy water.  They were blooming.  I'm not even a flower guy, but I couldn't help but admire the beauty.

I got the shovel out of the bed of my pickup and scooped up one bunch of the iris out of the ditch along with the mud and set it in back of my truck.  I had a plan.  We had just bought the land where we were going to build our home.  I figured it would be neat to start something so beautiful at my home that was originally in front of an old, old homeplace.  Why, generations of people could enjoy the beauty of the Louisiana Iris.  I would plant it in the lowest, wettest part of our yard.  It would be the gift that would keep on giving.  If I could keep it alive...

Twenty four years later...

That shovel-ful of iris has expanded around the water oak that I planted it near and fills the ditch.  I think it is happy there.  And the blooms!  Have you ever seen something so beautiful?  Every spring, they brighten the yard with royal purple and yellow blooms.

We have a back patio and a couple of years ago, Tricia moved a few of the iris in the bed that borders the patio and the house.  That was a great idea.  They thrive there.  Rain falls off the roof, fills the water catchment tub we have for the honeybees and then spills over.  The soil stays moist there, making it an ideal spot for the iris.  It gives us a good chance to admire the blooms as we sit on the patio.

Plants tend to bring back memories.  You can look at trees or shrubs or plants in the yard and remember...  Oh, that's the Confederate Jasmine that's from my grandmother's house.  Or, that's the Formosa Azalea from my other grandmother's house.  Every time I look at the Louisiana Iris, I think about seeing them growing in the ditch on that gravel road at the farm as I slowly drove by that day.  I'm glad I had my shovel and thought to bring one home. The lovely Louisiana iris is still going strong after all those years.

Photos On An Afternoon Stroll

Afternoons are nice times for strolls.  Tricia and I have started a new habit of walking in the afternoon.  I'll talk more about it next week, perhaps.  There's always lots to look at.  Sometimes from a new perspective.  Afternoons are usually slow and less fast-paced than earlier in the day.  I walked through the garden and caught the sunset against the healthy sweet corn.  I expect the corn to begin tasseling in the next couple of weeks.

The green onions are all flowering now.  The honeybees are absolutely LOVING them.  They were flying all over the place.  Try to count how many are on the flowers.  They were buzzing loudly and flying this way and that.  We let them get after it.

Here is a close-up of two honeybees knee deep in onion flowers.  Onion flavored honey, anyone?

I have two stragglers that still need to be transplanted into the garden.  The first is a couple of sweet basil plants.  The next that will be transplanted is tomatillo plants.  My first plants died due to some issue with our grow lights.  I replanted them and about 5 plants are shown below.  It is our first attempt at growing them.  We want to grow our own to make homemade tomatillo salsa.  We had a post on it a couple of years ago.  You can read it here: Blog Post on Tomatillos  I can't say enough how delicious this is hot out of the oven!

Our final stop is on the back patio.  Tricia had an idea of splitting off some of our Louisiana Iris that grows in the ditch and planting some near the patio.  She did and they are very happy here.  It has been dry so the leaves are yellow, but the flowers are breathtaking.

Here is a zoom-in of the Louisiana Iris.  The colors are so brilliant, they make your eyes hurt!

I wish everyone a very good weekend.  Hug your mommas for Mother's Day!

The Lily of the Valley

We sing a hymn in church called "Lily of the Valley."  It is such an upbeat and happy song, fast-paced and joyful.  It's not singing about flowers, but of one of the names of Jesus.  The Lily of the Valley is mentioned in Song of Solomon 2:1.  Here are the words to the first verse of the hymn.  Perhaps you sing it, too?

I have found a friend in Jesus-

He's ev'rything to me,

He's the fairest of ten thousand to my soul;

The Lily of the Valley- in Him alone I see

All I need to cleanse and make me fully whole.

In sorrow He's my comfort, in trouble He's my stay,

He tells me ev'ry care on Him to roll;

He's the Lily of the Valley, the Bright and Morning Star,

He's the greatest of ten thousand to my soul.

We have many flowers blooming in the yard right now.  I'll show you a few.  First, we have the amaryllis.  It is a beautiful flower that almost looks like it is not real:

Next, we have red lilies.  We've moved these around from place to place.  They are hardy and bloom every year in clusters:

Next, we have the show-stopper.  Louisiana Iris.  These things are stunning:

We have given some to our son and he's planted them at his home.  We've also moved some to a bed under the drip line by our back patio.  It all started here, though:

Approximately twenty-one years ago, I pulled my truck to the side of a gravel road by the "big well."  We have an irrigation well that pumps cool, fresh water from over a hundred feet beneath the surface to flood rice fields.  There is a ditch that always had water in it regardless how hot and dry the summer was.  This ditch was the perfect locale for Louisiana Iris to flourish.  They grew there wild.  I took out my shovel from the bed of my truck and dug a small shovelful of iris roots.  I took it home and planted it in a low place in the yard around an oak tree (above).  The iris is happy there and has multiplied.  Each year we enjoy walking by the blooming flowers and admire its beauty.

We're not the only ones who like the flowers.  Check out the dragonfly in the greenery of the iris!

And there is one other critter that likes the iris!  Tricia noticed that a Rhode Island Red hen was outside the fence the other day, scratching around the blueberry bushes and generally being a nuisance in the yard.  She chased the hen into the Louisiana Iris and discovered the hen's nest amongst the flowers.

He's the Lily of the Valley, the Bright and Morning Star,
He's the fairest of ten thousand to my soul.

 

A Springtime Stroll

This post will be short on commentary.  I'll let the photos speak for themselves for the most part.  Spring is very, very short in South Louisiana.  It changes from cold (cold for us, anyway), too cool (for a brief time), to hitting 80 degrees by 8 a.m. in just a few weeks.  We enjoy it while we can.  The April showers do indeed, bring May flowers.

Here you can see a bloom that is about to unfurl...

Here is that flower in all it's glory - the Louisiana Iris.  I love the colors!

They bloom like crazy for a while, but the greenery remains.  About 19 years ago, I spotted a clump of these growing in a ditch at the farm across from the big irrigation well.  I got my shovel and dug a sampling of the irises and planted them in a low spot in our yard where the rainwater generally keeps the soil moist.  The Louisiana Iris has thrived in this spot and has multiplied.

This amaryllis is happy and sports four large, red flowers.  We have these planted in some beds around the house, but this one always looks so nice in the terra cotta pot.

A close-up:

This bright pink azalea is one that came from my grandmother's house in Kinder, where Tricia and I lived.  We have it planted up by the road in front.  It is so happy in this location.  It blooms and blooms and blooms.  We've taken many pictures in front of it over the years and it reminds me of my grandmother.

A close-up:

Pretty in Pink

As I always say, flowers are nice to look at, but I like growing things to eat, so I'll leave you with this.  I mentioned to Tricia that I was concerned that our sweet potato harvest was too thorough this year.  I was worried we weren't going to have any sweet potatoes this year.

You see, many years ago, we composted a sweet potato in the garden after a meal, and a sweet potato vine grew and produced.  The same thing the next year.  And the next.  We have never planted any sweet potatoes in the garden since that initial, accidental planting, and each each we harvest a bunch of nice sweet potatoes.  I'm not exaggerating when I say that over the past ten years, we've probably harvested almost 1,000 pounds of sweet potatoes.

The original variety was the Beauregard, but since then, we've added some experimental varieties being grown by LSU as well as an Heirloom variety from Tennessee called the "Golden Wonder."  The harvest of sweet potatoes the following year is contingent upon not harvesting them all.  If you leave a piece of a sweet potato root in the ground, it will inevitably grow the next spring.  Well, I've not seen any sweet potato vines growing.  Until the other day!  Here is a healthy "slip" right here:

Since I saw this one, at least 7 others have popped up.  By mid summer, a quarter of the garden will be covered in these vines.  We will once again have a nice sweet potato harvest this fall if the Good Lord's willing.