#i think the California poppies (yellow) were some of the first to bloom

[lunaris-the-hummingbird]

My Garden!

I'm working on a propagation project too ⬆️

[sonderoan]

[Image: Two photos of large terra cotta pots on a concrete porch, taken about 7 months apart.

In the first image, the pots are mostly bare, with a few tomatillo sprouts and some twiggy rush milkweed (Asclepias subulata) plants.

In the second, they’ve become a little wild; Scrappy-looking tomatoes spill out over the edge of one pot beneath the canopy of a large, desiccated tomatillo plant, a basil plant is looking quite happy with its bushy leaves and delicate white flowers, and spindly rush milkweeds reach for the sky with woolly plantain (Plantago insularis) and bladderpods at their feet.]

In June of 2020, I decided to get back into gardening.

I’ve long wanted to grow native plants and arid-adapted food crops, by way of Native Seeds SEARCH’s incredible seedbank of Southwestern heritage crops. I was meaning to journal about it, but I blinked, and suddenly it was 2021. So I will reflect! With lots of pictures hahahaha!!

I’ve been going through it this year! That’s not really a secret. But I thought it would be good to have an obligation to go outside each day, if only for a little while. So my birthday present in 2020 was two enormous terra cotta pots, some dirt, and a whole lotta seeds.

[Image: Mayo / yoeme basil blooms. They’re delicate, white, and clustered tightly together, looking a bit like strange orchids.]

I was only interested in growing wildflowers and native plants at the time. The crop plants were a compromise with my family, to get them to help me with the garden now and again. It didn’t work! But my mom loves to go out there and look at them, so it was worth it : -)

To this point I had mostly gardened indoors, raising nonnative succulents under extremely controlled conditions. Most of my attempts to move an indoor plant outdoors were met with disaster. I thought I’d have a hard time jumping straight into the Sonoran desert summer, but...

[Image: A few toa ke tsi tokia tomatillo sprouts surrounded by little punta banda tomato plants.]

... Plants that have lived here since time beyond time (and/or have been selectively bred by people who have lived here since time beyond time) know a whole lot more than you do, huh.

My food plants have been going off the shitts this past summer and fall. You can only see the shriveled remains of the tomatillo plant in the photo at the top of this post, but it grew into a monster.

[Image: The same tomatillo sprout, now quite big. At its largest it was almost as tall as I am, give or take the huge pot underneath it.]

[Image: Tomatillos! As in, the fruits! They are tiny, and encapsuled in a papery covering.]

I ultimately planted too late, though, and the tomatillos never grew large enough to be safe to eat. (they are poisonous when they’re small.)

[Image: One of the tiny, undeveloped tomatillo fruits peeking out of its papery capsule.]

Some even split open before they could properly ripen... It just got too cold too fast.

Eventually the tomatillo plant gave up the ghost. I intend to turn it into mulch at some point. The tomatoes, though...

[Image: Underripe tomatoes growing slowly on the stem.]

I took this picture today. For those reading from the future: It’s the middle of January.

Anyway. I’m writing all this now, because the native milkweed pot (my passion project!) has been unremarkable for most of 2020.

Now, I am not the rugged outdoorswoman I want to be, but I like to think I have a better handle on identifying mature plants out in the field than I do immature ones grown under ~ideal conditions. So, imagine my excitement when I see what looks like some kind of caltrop growing underneath my milkweeds in the middle of summer. California caltrop? Arizona poppy??

[Image: Puncturevine, with a single, tiny yellow flower on one stem and leaflets over all the rest.]

Uh Oh!

My naivete was rewarded with puncturevine (Tribulus terrestris). Puncturevine is an introduced noxious weed here in the Americas. She has super sharp burs for seeds that can embed themselves in the toughest of materials-- shoe soles and bike wheels and certainly human feet (ouch.)

Now, unlike the food plant pots, which use a typical potting mix, I used a mixture of cactus mix and local dirt for the native milkweed pot. So, I inherited not only the clay-rich, water-retentive soil of an urban irrigation ditch, but also the local seedbank, containing every native seed and noxious weed that’s ever passed through. Oops?

This pattern would repeat for most of 2020. I had broadcasted seeds for all seasons in the milkweed pot, but for a long time it was only popular with nonnative weeds and palm saplings (which are lovely, but I absolutely do not have the room for a palm tree on my deck.)

Suddenly I wake up, and it’s 2021. I go outside, and I realize I haven’t tried to identify the plants in my milkweed pot in quite a while.

[Image: The milkweed pot, brimming with life.]

[Image: Likely a bladderpod, Lesquerella gordonii. It has a tiny clover-like yellow flower atop woolly, spear-shaped leaves.]

[Image: The deeply dissected leaves of a Mexican gold poppy (Eschscholtzia mexicana)?]

[Image: The fuzzy, grass-like leaves of woolly plantain (Plantago insularis)?]

[Image: Some kind of Bowlesia, with maple leaf-lookin leaves?]

[Image: A leafy rosette of i-don’t-even-know-what! iNaturalist suggested some kind of horseweed or fleabane! I Don’t Know!!]

:’ -)

[jmeelee]

Sterek Week 2019 Theme: Scene Stealer

Rated: G

Words: 1200

Scene Stolen from Outlander

+++++++++

People disappear all the time. Many of the lost are found, eventually.  Disappearances, after all, have explanations. 

Usually.

-----

The fall morning dawns crisp and cool; the kind of day that makes Stiles grateful for the kiss of the sun.  Yesterday's torrential downpour washed away the last remnants of an unrelenting summer, leaving behind air so sweet Stiles can taste earth on his tongue.  Red and yellow leaves madly shush like irate librarians under his sneakers, while snapping twigs pop like gunshots, echoing throughout the hush of the preserve. 

On days like these, Stiles thinks about Derek Hale.  

Derek drifts in and out of Stiles’ head, a handsome vagabond.  In his carpetbag, he carries Stiles’ youthful regrets and a soft, irreplaceable piece of his heart.  Sometimes he leaves as fast as he arrived; a ghost on the peripheral of Stiles’ vision, summoned by a scowl, over-arched eyebrow, or throw-away gesture, and gone in the blink of an amber-colored eye, not returning for months, a year.  Other times, he stays awhile, unpacking all the things Stiles thought were carelessly thrown in the back of a Toyota Cruiser and driven out of Beacon Hills five years ago.  When he overstays his welcome, Derek’s smile sharpens, a blade in the dark, so quick and bright Stiles tastes blood in his mouth every morning Derek stubbornly remains.  Eventually, he finds the strength to banish Derek back from whence he came.   

But he bursts into technicolor life today, face and hair bathed in the early-morning sunlight flickering through the trees, shirt a hair too tight, walking beside Stiles on his woodland errand.  This is Derek’s stomping ground, the land he treads with silent feet, both then and now, real and imaginary.  This is private property.  His presence is a gentle hum in the back of Stiles’ mind.    

Stiles’ meandering path eventually brings him to the secret garden he planted deep in the heart of the preserve, where rich and hearty soil feeds sage, mugwort, damiana, coltsfoot and more.  After a few years of careful tending, the roots are strong and the plants are abundant.  “You need to be that spark, Stiles.” He ruminates on Deaton’s prophetic words while he snaps off some stems, enough to stock his expanding apothecary and get the McCall pack through until Spring, wrapping the sprigs in white cloth before stuffing them into his beat-up leather satchel.  Spells scroll through his brain, their ingredient popping up for him to mentally tick off; a druid’s grocery list. 

Be that Spark.  He’s trying.

Twenty minutes in and the gentle hum at the back of his skull has turned to a mildly incessant roar.  

He turns from the garden, eyes narrowed, and steps over the two-by-fours outlining the raised plot, ears instinctually following the noise.  Derek disappears when Stiles focuses on his footing, gone back to South America or Atlantis or the Bermuda Triangle, whatever inaccessible place he resides these days.  Stiles’ satchel bumps against his spine as he follows the steadily swelling sound down a steep embankment, over a stream pregnant with rainwater, and through thick brambles.  

Carefully pushing aside a prickly, overgrown hedge with his fingertips, Stiles comes face to face with the stump of the Nemeton. 

“Huh,” he grunts, momentarily disoriented.  He glances around, blinking at familiar forest grove.  Water oaks reach their gnarled arms toward each other, tiny branches clasping like fingers overhead, creating a trellised canopy leading down to the freshwater preserve.  How has Stiles not realized his little garden was planted so close to the magical tree?  

“I’m sorry, Boy.  I have nothing left to give you.”  Yeah, nothing except the willies, even after all these years.

The buzzing grows louder.   

“What the hell?” Stiles whispers aloud, edging closer.  He searches nearby branches for a wasp nest, thinking that must be the culprit. Then he remembers being six-years-old, running around his yard playing war with Scott, and limping inside to his mother with a painful, swollen foot, a battle wound earned from stepping on a ground bee. He makes a cursory examination of the base of the Nemeton.

Half-way around he spots broad palmate leaves attached to long stems, twisting around a bulging root and stretching toward the sky like tiny umbrellas.  “No way!” Stiles exclaims.  “American Mandrake shouldn’t be growing here!”

He forgets the ominous susurrus in the excitement of discovery.  Stiles flips open his satchel, kneeling in the soft, damp dirt.  Medicinal potions and defensive spells unfurl like flower petals in his mind, and he braces himself with one hand against the smooth, flat surface of the nemeton to—          

The tree screams. 

Stiles backs away as fast as he can on hands and heels, scrambling in a reverse crab-walk and tripping on the short turf, ass connecting hard with the ground.  He stares at the stump, sweating profusely, stomach roiling.  The now-deafening noise continues.  Stumbling to his feet like a newborn colt, he staggers away, heading in one direction, then another, teeth grinding, aching, jaw locked.  His head spins and his vision blurs, the sound pulling him apart from the inside out.  Pulse fast. Skin crawling. Hair prickling on his neck, on his arms.  Elemental terror.

Then, silence.

Or as blessedly close to it as he’s going to get.  He bursts through the tree line, ears ringing like he’s just left Jungle on ladies' night. He shakes his head like a wet dog and Derek’s beside him once more. Really, Stiles?  A shitty dog joke?  Relieved breath rushes from his lungs, only to reenter in gasping sobs: he hadn’t realized he’d been holding it the entire time he was running.    

A three-story house materializes like a beacon in the mist, picturesque and vaguely familiar.  Stiles staggars toward it, taking in the widow’s walk, dormers, and checkerboard windows surrounded by dark slatted shutters. Evergreen bushes line a hip-high brick retaining wall in the front yard, and a generous porch extends down the first floor, bright purple California poppies growing along the stone foundation.

Huh, he somehow finds the brainpower to think.  Those usually bloom in March and April.  

The panicked bodily reactions retreat bit by bit, falling behind with each step, bringing Stiles closer to the home.  Warm orange rays paint the wood siding in becoming shades of blush, and Stiles blames his recuperating senses for taking this long to notice the sun is setting, where moments ago it was barely 9 am.  His long-sleeved plaid overshirt is stifling in the heat, when earlier it had been a comfort against the chill.

His heart, barely recovered, beats again in double time.

Where am I?   

The front door of the house swings open and a young man emerges onto the porch, stepping out of the warm entryway light like a scowling angel.

Stiles may not have recognized the house, but he knows this man.

Grief and joy knot tight in his chest, a snarled mess, tangled like vines in the brush.  Is he dreaming?  Is this a memory?  Another comforting fantasy? 

Was Stiles called to this place?  Or did he come despite it? 

The man on the porch opens his mouth.  “This is private property,” he declares, voice younger, more unsure than Stiles has ever heard it, a stilted warning, lacking all the pain, suspicion and anger Derek hid under aggressive

eyebrows and leather jackets. 

Oh no, Stiles thinks, eyes going wide.  He’s asking the wrong questions.

“When am I?”

[bethestaryouareradio]

Weeds, weeds, and more weeds

By Cynthia Brian

“You may know the world is a magical place when Mother Nature creates her own jewelry.”  Maya Angelou

Spring is the most colorful season of the year with a cornucopia of bulbs, flowers, shrubs, and trees in bloom. It is also the time when Mother Nature shares the ornaments that most gardeners loathe…weeds! 

Although I am aware that a weed is just a plant growing where I don’t want it, this year those plants are in profusion everywhere. My garden is bursting with blooms, blossoms, and weeds. For the past month, I have spent hours on my knees pulling the roots of numerous unwanted characters to edit my beds to my definition of beauty. Three types of weeds in my landscape are the most egregious: black medic, Carolina geranium, and common grasses that have blown in from the surrounding hills.

The best method to eradicate and control weeds organically involves several steps. 

First, it is essential to pull the weeds with the roots attached as they develop. The goal is to get rid of the weeds when they are sprouting and, definitely before they set and scatter seeds.  

Second, enrich the soil with compost. You will find more weeds will emerge because of the nutrient-rich soil.

Third, go back to step one and remove the second batch of weeds.

Fourth, top-dress with three inches of organic mulch which can be bark, straw, cocoa chips, shredded leaves, or even grass clippings. 

I am always experimenting with how best to accomplish a weed-free garden. Here are some things I discovered this year.

1. The most densely growing patches of weeds, especially Carolina geranium and hill grasses, were in areas where I had only amended with shredded leaves or had done nothing at all.

2. Where I added two inches of enriched soil without any top dressing, weeds grew lush and full but were easily pulled by hand.

3. In beds where I only added wood chips, a smattering of weeds emerged, mostly black medic.

4. In places where I had brought in new soil and topped it with wood chips, there were fewer weeds easily yanked by hand. 

5. In areas where I did a two-step mulch of shredded newspaper and cardboard topped with bark, there were minimal to no weeds. My observations indicate that a two-step mulching procedure worked the best. It is more labor-intensive yet effective.

Carolina geranium (Geranium carolinianum), also known as cranesbill because of its profusion of half-inch beaks after flowering, is a very dainty and pretty weed when it is young. The palmate leaves are lacy, fern-like, with hairy petiole stalks and tiny five-petaled pink flowers. For the first month, after it sprouts, it resembles a ground cover. As the weather warms, it seeks the sunlight while branching out two feet or more. The seed has a hard core which allows it to withstand a long dormancy in the soil. Carolina geranium is not edible, but its roots, considered anti-bacterial, anti-fungal, and astringent, are used as an external medicinal herb to stop bleeding and as a gargle for sore throats. Hand pulling while it is still young is the best control method.

Black medic (Medicago lupulina), also known as yellow trefoil or hop medic, is a broadleaf plant that looks like clover with yellow flowers. It establishes itself in areas that have endured drought, in disturbed soils, or those in need of increased irrigation. As a legume, it fixes its own nitrogen which helps it to overcome lawn grasses in nutrient-poor soils. When the flowers mature, they form a black seedpod which lends itself to the name. A friend of mine informed me about its nutritional value as an herb. In Mexico, black medic is highly desired as an edible green and is expensive to buy. The leaves are bitter when eaten raw, but when cooked, taste like spinach or collards with a high amount of protein and fiber. It does have antibacterial qualities and is also considered a mild laxative. Bees are attracted to this plant. It makes marvelous green manure. To control black medic, it is critical to hand-weed making sure to pull out the taproot. 

Many of the hillsides are experiencing a super bloom of California poppies (Eschscholzia californica) mixed with purple vetch. Having grown up with these beautiful orange globes and vetch, when I witness them growing as natives, I am overjoyed by nature’s jewelry. California poppies are the state flower of California. Purple vetch, also known as American vetch (Vicia americana) or hairy vetch, is a native nitrogen-fixing cover crop that our family used to feed our cattle on our ranch. It is considered a weed, but I think of it as a valuable wildflower because it is great fodder for wildlife while adding biomass to the soil. The plant attracts beneficial insects to the garden and the flowers entice bees. Growing alongside vegetables, it acts as a living mulch. Vetch is a climber to about two feet and spreads through rhizomes. To control it, cut and leave on the surface of the soil to suppress other weeds.  Native Americans consumed vetch as a food and used it for poultices. 

Make sure to consult a medical professional before consuming or externally applying any plant that you are unfamiliar with. Although many plants are herbs and helpful, individuals could have conditions that could make ingesting or topically using the plant reactive and dangerous.

Once you’ve managed the weeds, you will enjoy the bounty of blooms erupting in our neighborhoods. Lilacs, wisteria, hyacinths, tulips, bluebells, calendulas, freesias, Chinese fringe flowers, Dutch iris, bearded iris, Santa Barbara daisies, osteospermum, azaleas, camellias, jasmine, redbud, and even roses are bursting with color. (Make sure to pick up fallen camellias to maintain the health of your shrub.) Fruit trees continue their parade of blossoms including cherry, apple, pear, crabapple, and Asian pear.

The grass is green, the weather is mild, and our gardens are the place where we can unwind and connect with the magical natural world. Celebrate Earth Day on April 22 and nurture our planet by protecting and appreciating our natural environment.  Recycle, reuse, repurpose, reduce. Weed, seed, feed.

Your home will shine with Mother Nature’s colorful plant jewelry.

Happy Gardening. Happy Growing.

Photos and more: https://www.lamorindaweekly.com/archive/issue1504/Digging-Deep-with-Goddess-Gardener-Cynthia-Brian-Weeds-weeds-and-more-weeds.html

 Press Pass Weeds: https://blog.voiceamerica.com/2021/04/14/weeds/

Cynthia Brian, The Goddess Gardener, is available for hire to help you prepare for your spring garden. Raised in the vineyards of Napa County, Cynthia is a New York Times best-selling author, actor, radio personality, speaker, media and writing coach as well as the Founder and Executive Director of Be the Star You Are!® 501 c3. Tune into Cynthia’s StarStyle® Radio Broadcast at www.StarStyleRadio.com.

Buy copies of her best-selling books, including, Chicken Soup for the Gardener’s Soul, Growing with the Goddess Gardener, and Be the Star You Are! Millennials to Boomers at www.cynthiabrian.com/online-store. Receive a FREE inspirational music DVD.

Hire Cynthia for writing projects, garden consults, and inspirational lectures.

Cynthia@GoddessGardener.com

www.GoddessGardener.com

[mmwm]

While away recently for a family funeral, spouse and I took two hours off from running errands, making calls, buying and arranging flowers, delivering food, and so on, to visit Mill Mountain Park in Roanoke, Virginia, on a chilly spring day (60F and windy!). Advertising for the park describes the trails at Mill Mountain Park as “some of the best in the area. The trails feature Roanoke’s highest point — the summit of Mill Mountain (1703 ft.) and the Roanoke Star. This area offers 900 acres of park space atop Mill Mountain, picnic areas, two scenic overlooks, access to additional trails, the Mill Mountain Zoo and the Mill Mountain Discovery Center.”

*

We first ambled through the wildflower garden, 2.5 acres of land “carefully planned, weeded, planted and maintained by [Mill Mountain Garden Club] members since 1971.” (In 2014, the club used the “lasagna method”, a version of sheet mulching, laying down newspapers and leaves to smother invasive plants and prepare the ground for planting.) Having just driven south 13 hours from northern New England, where crocuses were about all that was in bloom, the sight of spring ephemerals and other perennials already in bloom made our hearts sing.

The entrance, with white dogwoods and pink-blooming redbuds:

wildflower garden trail

First, three species of trillium:

white Trillium grandiflorum

closer view of white Trillium grandiflorum (I think … was surprised to see the pink blush)

yellow Trillium luteum in bud

close view of red Trillium sessile, I think (variegated leaves)

small colony of red Trillium sessile (I think)

Bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis) leaves (the flowers had already gone by):

Star of Bethlehem (Ornithogalum umbellatum) flowers; lots of people want to eradicate this little gem from their lawns and garden plots as it spreads quite rampantly:

Another ephemeral, Twin Leaf (Jeffersonia diphylla), the leaves only here; Wikipedia says they’re “uncommon spring wildflowers, which grow in limestone soils of rich deciduous forest:”

Virginia bluebells (Mertensia virginica) are also spring ephemerals; “[t]he flower buds of Virginia bluebells are pink due to a chemical called anthocyanin.  When the flower is ready for pollination, it increases the alkalinity of the flower, changing the color to blue.” I guess these were almost all ready for pollination!

May Apples (Podophyllum peltatum) were colonizing and blooming. They always remind me of childhood, when I walked a mile or so to 3rd through 6th grades, mostly through a suburban neighbourhood but also through some woods, the closest of which to the elementary school was filled with these every spring. We called them Maypops, which is one of their common names. It’s said that when the May Apple leaves start to flatten, it’s morel season!

This is a plant commonly in flower early in springtime here in N.H., too, if it’s Uvularia sessilifolia (Wild Oats) as I think. But it could possibly be Uvularia puberula (Mountain Bellwort).

One non-ephemeral perennial in bloom this late April was Honesty (Lunaria annua), also known as Money Plant: “Like all members of the mustard family (Brassicaceae), the flowers have four petals. The leaves of Lunaria are roughly heart-shaped with a toothed edge. … The easiest way to  identify honesty is by the unique, circular seed pods that form soon after the plant flowers. The shape of the pod calls to mind a coin, hence the name ‘money plant,’ or sometimes ‘silver dollar plant.'”

Another purple bloom, that of the dwarf crested iris (Iris cristata), I think:

This Red-Stem Stork’s Bill (Erodium cicutarium), also called Redstem Filaree, was a new one for me, even though it’s found in northern New England; it’s small, low-growing, and considered a lawn weed:

I also wasn’t previously aware of Primula elatior, oxlip, not native to the U.S.:

I think this is a wood or celandine poppy (Stylophorum diphyllum):

This is a species of Euphorbia, perhaps Euphorbia cyparissias (cypress spurge) or E. virgata (leafy spurge) — I’m inclining toward the latter:

I took this shot of a variety of blooms because I liked the way it looked, and the Plant ID group on Facebook helped me identify Packera aurea (Golden Ragwort — the orange-yellow daisylike flowers) and Geranium maculatum (Wild Geranium, the pale purple flowers) blooming.

The dogwoods were fully in bloom in Roanoke, both white and pink!

I had never seen this foliage before; it’s Arum italicum, also called Italian arum, Italian lords & ladies, and large cuckoopint. It’s not native to the U.S. but has been introduced to only seven states: Virginia, North Carolina, Illinois, Missouri, California, Oregon, and Washington. Its “[g]reenish ivory flowers resemble those of its relative, Jack-in-the-Pulpit, and appear in midsummer followed by stunning orange-red berries” (per White Flower Farm). It’s very poisonous.

We saw a bluebird while in the wildflower garden, too, but a bit far away; still, it’s recognisable.

*

After basking in the wildflowers, we just had time for a 30-minute walk on the Star Trail before prepping for the funeral visitation at 3 p.m.  If I’m ever in Roanoke again, I hope to walk more of these trails; they’re not challenging, if you hike or walk much, through some can be a bit steep, and they are all short — ranging from the .22 miles of the Watchtower Trail to about 1.5 miles, the Monument Trail — but they interlock with each other and the roads up the mountain, so you can create a longer walk or hike, and they are only a few minutes from downtown, though, in fact, it felt to me like the sort of place you might run into a bear. And the views of the Roanoke Valley on a clear day — which we had — from the top of Mill Mountain (where you park), are forever.

There’s a handy sign mapping local mountains in view, with their elevation and distance away:

*

The trail map, posted on a kiosk, was useful and seemed accurate for the most part, except that we could not find the Mill Mountain Greenway (inset map) — we walked around for about 20 minutes hunting for it.

*

Some photos from the Star Trail (yellow).

Star Trail entrance (shows blue marking but it’s actually yellow)

on the trail

Star Trail with yellow trail marking

some of the trail was rock or gravel, some clay, with a bit of washout in places, but it wasn’t a wet day, so no problems walking it

I’m always happy to find Spotted Wintergreen (Chimaphila maculata), here with a trio of tuffet-shaped seedheads

more Spotted Wintergreen (Chimaphila maculata) plants — there were lots of them in multiple locations on the trail

mosses

Pearl Crescent butterfly (probably) with some damage but it was flying OK

boulder along trail

a duskywing (Erynnis sp.) butterfly

duskywing (Erynnis sp.) butterfly on blueberry buds

well-marked trails

bench near trail marker

Largus sp. (bordered plant bug) on a rock along the trail

Off the trail, we saw and moved this handsome millipede in the parking lot!

*

Thanks for taking this field trip with me!

Field Trip: Mill Mountain, Roanoke, VA While away recently for a family funeral, spouse and I took two hours off from running errands, making calls, buying and arranging flowers, delivering food, and so on, to visit Mill Mountain Park in Roanoke, Virginia, on a chilly spring day (60F and windy!).

[blangle-blarping-spoon]

Picnic Under the Stars

For the First Voltron Ficnic! 

Gen, PG/G, no bad things, mostly fluff and the closest I can get to achieving humor, Words: 1506

(Has the main seven but focuses mainly on Pidge, Lance, Hunk, Keith, and Allura.) -------------- “This is the biggest field I’ve ever seen,” Lance said, strolling out of the castle’s lift and onto the planet’s surface.

 “You’ve never been to the midwest, have you?” Pidge asked, helping Hunk carry some containers stocked with food.

 “Nope,” Lance shrugged. “Does it look a lot like this?”

“The grass isn’t purple, but it’s pretty close.” she shrugged. “Just add more tornadoes, and you’re good.”

 “The Galra would love it here,” Hunk commented, grinning. “Even the Blade loves everything purple.”

 “Yeah, what’s up with that?” Lance asked. “I mean, I get that they have purple fur and scales, but they’re way over the top.”

 “Hey, Galra Keith, why do all of your people love purple?” Hunk shouted over to where Keith and Allura were spreading out the thick white bedsheets they found.

 Allura stiffened from where she was shaking out the wrinkles, looking up with a concerned expression at the comment.

 Keith’s face fell into a scowl, letting go of the sheet with one hand to flip off Hunk, which caused the other three to laugh. Keith rolled his eyes at them, smiling a bit at the teasing.

 Lance walked over to Allura, patting her on the shoulder. “No worries, alright? We’re good.”

 Allura relaxed a bit, piecing together that it was either a “human thing” or “these particular humans’ thing”. She smiled. “Yes, of course. Do you know how long Shiro and Coran said they would be?”

 Lance shrugged, picking up part of the second bedsheet to overlap it with Allura and Keith’s sheet to widen the area. Pidge was already on the other side doing the same thing, while Hunk and Keith were setting out the food containers, Hunk chatting excitedly while Keith listened intently.  “Not long, I think. They’re lugging down the space-lemonade and the box of view finders.”

 “Space-viewfinders!” Pidge added.

 Lance nodded. “Space-viewfinders.”

 “They’re just viewfinders.” Allura huffed, sitting down on the sheet. “You can’t even see that much of space with them. Only what is already viewable based on your position and lighting.”

 Pidge snickered at that, giving Lance a look that almost made him laugh, but he swallowed it, sitting down next to Allura. “But we know they work though, right?”

 Allura shrugged in a way that was equally casual and poised. “There’s plenty of them in case any fell into disrepair during our stasis, but I highly doubt that. The technology is very simple.”

“Yeah, simple enough that we have our own version of them on Earth. They’re kid’s toys,” Pidge added, flopping across the bed and propping her head in a hand. “I’m surprised you even had them.”

 “We used to watch all sorts of astronomical events,” Allura explained. “It’ll be nice to continue the tradition.”

 “Stargazing parties aren’t the most popular activity for humans, but you’re luckily surrounded by the biggest space nerds on the Earth.” Lance gave her a thumbs up. “How’s the food, Hunk?”

 “Delicious and warm, and no one’s sneaking bites until dinner,” Hunk replied. He and Keith started spreading out the plates in the center, little untippable pots with thick, steaming hot entrees and bright sandwiches on platters as well as sauteed vegetables with no doubt the perfect combination of spices.

 “How do you make space food look so good?!” Lance drooled, reaching out to dip his finger in the sauce, but Hunk grabbed his hand with lightning speed, holding it inches away from the food.

 “Nope.”

 Lance snickered, surrendering to the mighty force that is Hunk and his culinary command. Hunk papped his face, grabbing the last plate from Keith’s hand and setting it out. Hunk sat down on the other side of Allura sitting with his back to the group to watch the sunset. Keith closed up the rest of the containers and took a seat by Pidge’s legs. She poked his thigh with her shoe, and he swatted at it halfheartedly.

 There was a moment of quiet, the five of them just enjoying the soft breeze and the sound of the grass moving with it. This planet’s sun was also main-sequence star like Earth’s, though it looked a bit bigger in the yellowish sky, and it was setting fairly quickly, letting the purple night taking over.

 “Did Altea have fields like this?” Hunk asked, toeing the purple grass. He was tempted to take off his shoes, but he doubted that’d be a good idea.

 “The grass was green, and it often had flowering plants like the juniberries, which were my favorite.” Allura explained. “They were a pinkish purple color with three petals and long yellow pistils. What about you?”

 “I love poppies,” Hunk said, sighing. “I like them in that orange color that reminds me of parts of a sunset, and the petals kind of form like a funnel or a bowl shape. There are some pretty fields of them in California.” He sat quietly for a moment. “What’s your favorite flower, Lance?”

 “I always liked the uh…” Lance trailed off, deep in thought. “I think the English name for it is a royal poinciana? It’s a tree, and it has these bright red flowers grouped up together at the end of the branches, and it looks like the tree’s on fire. It’s pretty common where I’m from.”

 The silence was heavy once he finished talking. They knew he missed his home, and he has trouble talking about it. “... Pidge?” Lance whispered.

 She cleared her throat, fiddling with her glasses. “I don’t really care all that much about flowers.”

 Hunk and Allura turned, watching with curiosity. Lance almost looked offended.

 “I mean, I’m not a bee or a hummingbird or an insect, so why should I care?” Pidge rambled.

 “Because they’re pretty!” Lance and Allura said simultaneously. Keith was snickering quietly, and Pidge kicked him.

 “I mean, I guess if I had to pick one, I’d say a daffodil.” Pidge looked at the sunset, trying not to make eye contact with anyone. “They’re my mom’s favorite. Bright yellow stars with orange bells in the middle. They’re some of the first flowers that bloom in spring where she grew up.”

 “Aww, that’s sweet.” Hunk smiled.

 “Shut up.”

 “The robot does have a heart.” “She also has a foot that she can shove up your-” “Language!” Lance interjected. He reached over the dinner set-up to flick her in the head.

 “And you’re next, I’ve just decided,” Pidge declared, her glare vicious. Keith decided not to hold her back if she wanted to jump up and tackle him.

 “Keith?” Allura asked, looking to him.

 “What?” he asked, his attention drawn away from Lance and Pidge’s bickering. “Your favorite flower,” she reminded him.

 “Oh.” He paused, looking at the grassy hills in thought before nodding and meeting Allura’s eyes again. “ I never really cared about flowers either-”

 “-See? It’s not that big of a-”

 “-Pidge, shut up-”

 “-whoops-”

 “Anyway,” Keith said over them. “When I lived on my own in the desert, I saw the cactus bloom and it was really nice to see. It was peaceful,” he finished, looking around a bit uncomfortably.

 Lance smiled. “I’ve never seen cactus bloom. I bet they were pretty.”

 “I tried picking a few of them,” Keith admitted with a grin. “It did not work. I was picking spines out of my skin for three days.”

 Lance couldn’t stop laughing, even when Coran and Shiro arrived to join them, Shiro holding the mice in one hand and a storage box in the other. Coran passed the large pitcher of lemonade to Hunk, who placed it in the middle of the spread.

 “Favorite flower, GO!” Hunk said as soon as they arrived.

 “Lilies?” Shiro shot back, his tone giving away his confusion.

 “Krysantlia bushes,” Coran said decisively.

 “You only say that because my father thought you liked them and kept planting them in the garden,” Allura teased. With a raised eyebrow from Shiro, she continued. “Coran is quite allergic to their pollen, and his skin breaks out whenever he touches it.”

 “They were plenty enjoyable to see from inside,” Coran sputtered indignantly, sitting between Lance and Pidge while Shiro walked around to sit between Hunk and Keith.

 “Until he had some brought into your study,” Allura quipped, the whole group to laughing at the story.

 Coran, by now, was a bit red in the face. “What’s a lily?” he asked, changing the subject.

 “They’re a white flower that grows on lily pads, which float on top of the water and root themselves  at the bottom of a pond,” Shiro responded. “Why are we talking about plants?”

 Keith shrugged. “Stream of consciousness, mostly.”

 Shiro passed around the viewfinders, or space-viewfinders to Pidge and Lance’s insistence. Hunk gave the blessing to dig in, and they dined out in the field as the sun winked away, replacing the cloudless sky with a bright tapestry of stars. They invented constellations, as the glittering patterns were never touched before by any living being.

 They all sprawled out underneath the stars, looking through their space-viewfinders and remembering times of old and new.

[couchcushings]

5, 13, 14, 29

5. since how long do you write?

Oh lord like idk since I was 12 really?? But long before that little Chelsea was dreaming stuff up and telling herself stories at bedtime.

13. hardest character to write

*sideeyes bram van helsing* Uh well someone has been causing me writerly trouble lately but overall I have more trouble with my OCs because they start to get wildly OOC from how I designed them. The little bastards.

14. easiest character to write

I have this weird thing where if I listen to someone/read them for long enough I can hear the words with their voice. Which is apparently A Thing. But at one point the answer was Dr. Miguelito Loveless because he had such a unique dialogue style that it was hella east to just hear things in his voice. Right now? Golly, right now it’s probably one of my OCs but most recently it was HM Murdock.

29. favorite story/poem of another author

Right now I’m hella into Lovecraft like I’m literally typing out one of his stories so I can get the feel of his heady-ass unnecessarily purple-as-fuck prose. It makes my head hurt if I don’t hydrate adequately before I read it. Favorite story by him is, currently, The Statement of Randolph Carter because it’s so short and perfect and it has a gr8 ending. My favorite poetry is by Stephen Vincent Benet and I’m just going to link you to some because otherwise I’ll talk about it all night. And I’m leaving my favorite piece of poetry by him under the cut because it’s hella long.

INVOCATIONAmerican muse, whose strong and diverse heartSo many men have tried to understandBut only made it smaller with their art,Because you are as various as your land,As mountainous-deep, as flowered with blue rivers,Thirsty with deserts, buried under snows,As native as the shape of Navajo quivers,And native, too, as the sea-voyaged rose.Swift runner, never captured or subdued,Seven-branched elk beside the mountain stream,That half a hundred hunters have pursuedBut never matched their bullets with the dream,Where the great huntsmen failed, I set my sorryAnd mortal snare for your immortal quarry.You are the buffalo-ghost, the broncho-ghostWith dollar-silver in your saddle-horn,The cowboys riding in from Painted Post,The Indian arrow in the Indian corn,And you are the clipped velvet of the lawnsWhere Shropshire grows from Massachusetts sods,The grey Maine rocks--and the war-painted dawnsThat break above the Garden of the Gods.The prairie-schooners crawling toward the oreAnd the cheap car, parked by the station-door.Where the skyscrapers lift their foggy plumesOf stranded smoke out of a stony mouthYou are that high stone and its arrogant fumes,And you are ruined gardens in the SouthAnd bleak New England farms, so winter-whiteEven their roofs look lonely, and the deepThe middle grainland where the wind of nightIs like all blind earth sighing in her sleep.A friend, an enemy, a sacred hagWith two tied oceans in her medicine-bag.They tried to fit you with an English songAnd clip your speech into the English tale.But, even from the first, the words went wrong,The catbird pecked away the nightingale.The homesick men begot high-cheekboned thingsWhose wit was whittled with a different soundAnd Thames and all the rivers of the kingsRan into Mississippi and were drowned.They planted England with a stubborn trust.But the cleft dust was never English dust.Stepchild of every exile from contentAnd all the disavouched, hard-bitten packShipped overseas to steal a continentWith neither shirts nor honor to their back.Pimping grandee and rump-faced regicide,Apple-cheeked younkers from a windmill-square,Puritans stubborn as the nails of Pride,Rakes from Versailles and thieves from County Clare,The black-robed priests who broke their hearts in vainTo make you God and France or God and Spain.These were your lovers in your buckskin-youth.And each one married with a dream so proudHe never knew it could not be the truthAnd that he coupled with a girl of cloud.And now to see you is more difficult yetExcept as an immensity of wheelMade up of wheels, oiled with inhuman sweatAnd glittering with the heat of ladled steel.All these you are, and each is partly you,And none is false, and none is wholly true.So how to see you as you really are,So how to suck the pure, distillate, storedEssence of essence from the hidden starAnd make it pierce like a riposting sword.For, as we hunt you down, you must escapeAnd we pursue a shadow of our ownThat can be caught in a magician's capeBut has the flatness of a painted stone.Never the running stag, the gull at wing,The pure elixir, the American thing.And yet, at moments when the mind was hotWith something fierier than joy or grief,When each known spot was an eternal spotAnd every leaf was an immortal leaf,I think that I have seen you, not as one,But clad in diverse semblances and powers,Always the same, as light falls from the sun,And always different, as the differing hours.Yet, through each altered garment that you wore,The naked body, shaking the heart's core.All day the snow fell on that Eastern townWith its soft, pelting, little, endless sighOf infinite flakes that brought the tall sky downTill I could put my hands in the white skyAnd taste cold scraps of heaven on my tongueAnd walk in such a changed and luminous lightAs gods inhabit when the gods are young.All day it fell.  And when the gathered nightWas a blue shadow cast by a pale glowI saw you then, snow-image, bird of the snow.And I have seen and heard you in the dryClose-huddled furnace of the city streetWhen the parched moon was planted in the skyAnd the limp air hung dead against the heat.I saw you rise, red as that rusty plant,Dizzied with lights, half-mad with senseless sound,Enormous metal, shaking to the chantOf a triphammer striking iron ground.Enormous power, ugly to the fool,And beautiful as a well-handled tool.These, and the memory of that windy dayOn the bare hills, beyond the last barbed wire,When all the orange poppies bloomed one wayAs if a breath would blow them into fire,I keep forever, like the sea-lion's tuskThe broken sailor brings away to land,But when he touches it, he smells the musk,And the whole sea lies hollow in his hand.So, from a hundred visions, I make one,And out of darkness build my mocking sun.And should that task seem fruitless in the eyesOf those a different magic sets apartTo see through the ice-crystal of the wiseNo nation but the nation that is Art,Their words are just.  But when the birchbark-callIs shaken with the sound that hunters makeThe moose comes plunging through the forest-wallAlthough the rifle waits beside the lake.Art has no nations--but the mortal skyLingers like gold in immortality.This flesh was seeded from no foreign grainBut Pennsylvania and Kentucky wheat,And it has soaked in California rainAnd five years tempered in New England sleetTo strive at last, against an alien proofAnd by the changes of an alien moon,To build again that blue, American roofOver a half-forgotten battle-tuneAnd call unsurely, from a haunted ground,Armies of shadows and the shadow-sound.In your Long House there is an attic-placeFull of dead epics and machines that rust,And there, occasionally, with casual face,You come awhile to stir the sleepy dust;Neither in pride not mercy, but in vastIndifference at so many gifts unsought,The yellowed satins, smelling of the past,And all the loot the lucky pirates brought.I only bring a cup of silver air,Yet, in your casualness, receive it there.Receive the dream too haughty for the breast,Receive the words that should have walked as boldAs the storm walks along the mountain-crestAnd are like beggars whining in the cold.The maimed presumption, the unskilful skill,The patchwork colors, fading from the first,And all the fire that fretted at the willWith such a barren ecstasy of thirst.Receive them all--and should you choose to touch themWith one slant ray of quick, American light,Even the dust will have no power to smutch them,Even the worst will glitter in the night.If not--the dry bones littered by the wayMay still point giants toward their golden prey.

[wickedangelblog]

5/4/2017

The gardens are coming along. I feel like i’m running behind on planting everything.. But really, i’m a bit early for some things....tomatoes, peppers....so let’s hope for no surprise late frosts! 

I’m actually amazed at how well i’m staying focused on this, not getting distracted and forgetting about it all. lol Sad, but true, i’ve had that problem in the past. 

So far, what i’ve gotten done... In the front, i’ve dug out the sidewalk gardens and planted everything. I may be planting a few seeds, still. It looks a little sparse....but then, everything will get bigger and come together more, in time. I’ve gotten a few things planted in the front gardens. For a while, all we had there were the roses. I planted some seeds in the back corners of the gardens today. Tall pink zinnia, purple zinnia, mixed liliput zinnias, shasta daisies and mixed california poppies. Which i’m now thinking poppies may have been a pointless flower to plant, because the blooming season for poppies is early spring. Oh well, the foliage is supposed to be fern-like, so it will still be pretty around the little (hydrangea?) tree-like thing. I can’t wait for the new rose to bloom. It has buds on it. I need to remember to plant morning glory, passion flower and moon flower seeds......probably just one of each....to grow up the front porch. Especially the moonflower vine, it’s suppose to be really fragrant. 

I need to plant the impatiens in the shade garden on the side of the house. I’m not sure whether I will plant anything else there, I may just plant the impatiens I already have and impatiens seeds. They are so pretty in mass plantings, they brighten up a shady spot. 

On the sunny side of the house I plan to plant some sunflowers (one type gets up to 8-12 foot tall), a “love lies bleeding” amaranth plant, and some random flowers. Maybe zinnia, marigold, balsam camellia. 

I have about 1/2 of the big veggie garden planted. Had 2 1/2 rows started with tomatoes and 4 pepper plants. Planted the rest of the tomatoes.....24 plants in total, and 6 cucumber plants. Then I did 3 1/2 rows of seeds. A few more tomato seeds (I know, I know...lol I love fresh tomatoes, though), cucumbers, peppers, zucchini, two kinds of yellow crookneck. One is called Pic n pic hybrid, it is supposed to be very productive. I planted some pickling cucumbers. Hoping to make some homemade pickles this Summer.

I still have so much left to plant. The other 1/2 of the big garden, the rest of the small gardens (lettuce, radish, onion and carrot gardens). Then, the corn garden.

I hope everything grows well. This is my first actual veggie garden. Trying to get it all done before it starts getting too hot out. And, the earlier the start the better. 

I’m so nauseous. I’ve had stomach pain and nausea today, it’s worse tonight. Anyway, off to bed!

[dougbushphotography-blog]

Spring Wildflowers

Spring is one of my favorite times of year (is there really a bad time of year in California?) Wildflowers are an absolute highlight for me and something that I look forward to every spring. With such diverse topography, micro-climates and soil types throughout the state, there is a mind blowing variety of wildflowers waiting to be found (especially after such a wet winter.) It is a bit of a treasure hunt really and you never know what you’re going to find…

Having lived in San Luis Obispo for a few years back, I lived in close proximity to some notable wildflower hotspots, famous locally and throughout the state. From the arid valleys on the east side of the county - Carrizo Plain and Shell Creek Road- to coastal locations such as Montana del Oro, wildflowers are abundant in the area when the conditions are right. Montana del Oro is the name of a state park on the coast just south of Morro Rock. The park got its name, literally translated to “mountain of gold,” from the Spanish explorers who first arrived around 1562 when the coast was in full bloom.

While I lived in the area, I saw some gorgeous displays. Due to the extreme drought however I never got to see the most famous location, the Carrizo Plain, in full expression. Last Saturday however, I looked at Elena and said, “hey, should we just go for it? It is 5 hours away but who cares, let’s go!” An hour later we were on the road…

As we traveled from the Bay Area down 101, we saw few wildflowers from the road, other than the roadside poppies and occasional lupine. As we turned east from Paso Robles however, the displays started to appear gradually in the distant hills. Splotches of gold could be seen here and there but were relatively sparse. As we entered the valley proper, that’s when we started to see the full extent of the bloom. There were tens of millions of flowers carpeting the valley floor and the sides of the hills on either side of the valley. It was truly spectacular.

One area of flowers was especially dense. The displays are just surreal. The flowers are so abundant, it is almost hard to comprehend it all. When seen from a distance, the flowers create what truly appear to be lakes of color. There was one distant display of a purple flowers known as Common Phacelia that we honestly thought was a lake – until we got close enough of course.

It is hard to sit out there among the fields of flowers and not think to yourself, “what is the meaning of this!?” There is one particular idea that really hit home. During the day, you stare out at all the fields of color, made up of orange fiddlenecks, yellow tidy tips, goldfields, purple phacelia and others – and the abundance of color moves you. When you close your eyes, your ears are filled with the sounds of bees and other insects, happily buzzing along, as if you are in the midst of a busy insect intersection. With the plentiful numbers of bugs, it is no mistake that you also hear the sound of meadowlarks, thrush and other birds calling near and far.

As the sun sets and you nestle in to your sleeping bag, the sounds change. The colors of the valley are muted by night and the sounds of the day disappear. Then that silence is interrupted by the scurry of small feet. With your head resting on the ground, you can hear the sounds of the endangered kangaroo rats who traverse their underground network of tunnels. Like the bugs and songbirds of the daytime – the kangaroo rat also has her own antagonist. The owls screech sporadically through the night. The rare but boisterous sounds of coyotes calling to each other across the valley pairs well with the sliver of a moon overhead.

The seasonality of these wildflower displays and the faint but omnipresent soundtrack of the valley speak to an important principle of wildlands and to the significance of environmentalism- the importance of acknowledging the limits of what we are able to see, hear and otherwise perceive. For example, if you simply drove through this valley in the summer time, down a dusty road, in 100 degree heat, long after the blooms have come and gone - you would never know what invisible potential lay beneath the dusty and seemingly barren landscape. On a spring drive, or better yet a hike, the beauty and thus “significance” or “value” of the valley are much more obvious. My point is that maybe, more often, we should proceed with caution, walk lightly and remember that - “the world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.”

[sensitivefern]

ice plant, Livingstone daisy | Dorotheanthus The seeds are bound up in a fleshy capsule; dry thoroughly after harvesting before extracting the fine seeds... sow at 70 degrees indoors or out; evidently no pretreatment is necessary...

California poppy | Eschscholzia Gather the long, thin seed pods as soon as they turn color – before they burst open and ejaculate the seeds yonder... germination usually takes 10 days or so at a temperature of 60 degrees... sow successive batches... autumn-sown seeds can possibly sprout the following spring if given a comfy blanket...

===

April 15 [1854]. PM – This cold, moist, snowy day it is easier to see the birds and get near them. They are driven to the first bare ground that shows itself in the road, and the weather, etc., makes them more indifferent to your approach. The tree sparrows look much stouter and more chubby than usual, their feathers being puffed up and darker also, perhaps with wet. Also the robins and bluebirds are puffed up... The yellow redpoll hops along the limbs within four or five feet of me.

Martins the 13th... The arrival of the purple finches appears to be coincident with the blossoming of the elm on whose blossom it feeds.

Johnson in his ‘Wonder-working Providence’ speaks of ‘an army of caterpillars’ in New England in 1649, so great ‘that the cart wheels in their passage were painted green with running over the great swarms of them’.

[Thoreau, Journal]

===

PEDICULARIS: A large genus of the figwort, Scrophulariaceae, family, commonly called lousewort or wood-betony. Native to North America, some species grow as far north as the Arctic Circle. Annual or perennial herbs sometimes used in the rock garden for showy yellow, white, purplish, red, or rose spikes of tubular flowers, they are partially parasitic on roots of other plants. Propagated by seed or division, pedicularis needs native woods’ loam to thrive. Leaves are finely divided and fern-like.

Wood-betony, Pedicularis canadensis, grows to 1 1/2 feet, with soft, fern-like leaves and dull reddish or yellowish flowers in April to June. It is a common woodland flower. P. lanceolata grows to three feet, and has yellow flowers. P. densiflora is a crimson-flowered species, with flowers about one inch long, and is a native of California.

===

Discovery of the showy lady slipper: Walter Edmonds told me last year that his son had found some on the Black River and transplanted them to his place, and he called me up this year when they bloomed. They are on the bank of his brook – are really amazingly beautiful: the bulbous part is bright pink – rounder, less elongated than Cypripedium – and the steamers above are white; the inside of the bulbous part is striped with pink dotted lines, and there is a thing like a small petal that folds down into the bulb, the upper part of which is white and the lower part a pink-speckled yolk yellow. I had just learned from the Loomises that they had one... [The place] was plastered with No Trespass signs. I called up the name on the mailbox and found the lady of the family reluctant to allow me to come on the place. How had I known about it, etc.? They had moved out there because they didn’t want people around... But she identified me as the person who lived ‘in that stone house’ and told me that she... would be glad to have me come Saturday, so I went over with Elena and Helen. The orchids were growing in a bog, and they let us take two plants to transplant. I got a good and cheerful impression of the family and their place... They had 400 acres, very wild, with a delightful little lake in front of the house. They have also, I understand, the common pink lady slipper and the yellow kind.

[Edmund Wilson]

===

...and after toying with a mistress, Wilson confides, ‘I kept thinking when I got my hand near my face, that we had been eating fish’. A host of casually condescending ethnic and racial epithets and speculations figure in these pages, along with instinctive coupling of the words ‘Anglo-Saxon’ and ‘civilization’, as in ‘her high and nobly modeled brow and temples were no longer merely Anglo-Saxon, but showed the modeling of a high civilization’ and ‘their fine clear complexions, blond hair, thin and pale, fine civilized Anglo-Saxon types’. ‘Nigger’ seems to be Wilson’t natural way of referring to black people (even ‘coon’ occurs), though as the decade wears on, and he has visited the shacks of Kentucky and the slums of Chicago, the more respectful term ‘Negro’ gradually takes over. Wilson rarely fails to omit mention of Jewishness, however...

[John Updike]

===

❚Definition of artesian well 1. A well in which water is under pressure; especially : one in which the water flows to the surface naturally 2. A deep well [...] An artesian aquifer is a confined aquifer containing groundwater under positive pressure. This causes the water level in a well to rise to a point where hydrostatic equilibrium has been reached. A well drilled into such an aquifer is called an artesian well. If water reaches the ground surface under the natural pressure of the aquifer, the well is called a flowing artesian well. Artesian wells were named after the former province of Artois in France, where many artesian wells were drilled by Carthusian monks from 1126.

"When the Whip Comes Down" is a song by rock and roll band The Rolling Stones from their 1978 album Some Girls.

David Frum Retweeted PresidentialTrump I've called Chicago Mayor Emanuel to offer our assistance to help curb the horrific violence. We'll find solutions that can work - together. Donald J. Trump If Chicago doesn't fix the horrible "carnage" going on, 228 shootings in 2017 with 42 killings (up 24% from 2016), I will send in the Feds!

Hadley Freeman To the man who just stole my laptop on the tube, I hope your face melts off, Raiders of the Lost Ark-style 💔💔💔

Michael Moore Trump claims he won popular vote & 3 million votes for Hillary were fake. So clearly the election must be voided and redone. Let's do that!

Trump silences gov scientists at EPA &Dept of Agriculture: they're blocked fm communicating w public & press

Oh good, David Brooks is here to mansplain the Women's Marches to us silly ladies *stabs own eyes*

The Dumbest Thing You'll Hear All Day Jeffrey Lord, perhaps the single most ridiculous Trump sycophant in existence and somehow paid money to be an idiot on TV by CNN, offered up the dumbest anti-immigration argument ever: Mexican women don’t use tampons, so dry cleaners have to work harder to their clothes clean.

Jon Voight Says Miley Cyrus, Shia LaBeouf Guilty of Treason!!!

Cows investigate a turtle

TIL in 458 BC Aeschylus was killed by a tortoise dropped by an eagle that had mistaken his bald head for a rock suitable for shattering the shell of the reptile.