A long Ago Bluebird Summer

The house was built in '91, finished in late July. It was up to us over many coming years to make what we would of the yard, from a screen house, deck, and shed to gardens to trees, to sunken fish ponds, metal ground supports for window wells, a driveway, and lowest priority (except by everybody else's standards) a grassy lawn. We were required immediately, however, to seed it with at least rye grass, the lowest quality we could get away with, to which we immediately added white clover, blue violets, scillas, and a huge variety of other things. Garden flowers spread out and baby trees came up everywhere, still requiring much attention.  More plants seeded themselves, like patches of creeping charlie. Taller plants included a variety of trees, lots of mid-sized and short trees and bushes which provided any combination of flowers, fruits and nuts, vines wound through the chain link and between weeds in the yard, grapes grew on an arbor.

The back yard was chain-link fenced for dogs and visiting children, none of which should be allowed to get lost. By the time in late summer it was move-in-ready, the weed grass was six feet tall. We were required to mow it. It did keep the wood ticks down and made walking easier at least. Large boulders dug up in digging the basement were buried until I caught them at it one day, and the final one - as far as I was informed - was left on the surface in the back yard.  Free sitting space, right? I got an offer from a neighbor some time later to help bury it. I guess then was when they figured out we were a little different. It should have been obvious well before.

When dandelions and creeping charlie covered the lawn, we were expected to poison them. Instead we grudgingly mowed them along with uncounted other plants when enough reached the mandatory mowing height of 12 inches to irritate somebody into a complaint to the city. Most had bloomed and dropped seeds by then. We added trees and bushes over the years, our emphasis on fruits and nuts that would do their own thing without attention, and had the same plan with perennials, be they flowers or ferns. A few of the latter, planted on an unmowable north slope, tried to fill a quarter of the yard. Still trying last I looked. When one thing didn't thrive, it got replaced, sometimes by us, sometimes by a bird dropping. We still presume that's where the wild strawberries recently growing near the street are from. Teeny, tart, and delicious is the pronunciation.

Grass was a reluctant nuisance.  One rigid form fish pond which cascaded into a second one grew a combination of yellow iris and cattails, after hosting tadpoles and dragonfly nymphs. We tried lotus the first year, which was about how long it lasted, but the flowers were exquisite. They were replaced by water lilies and water lettuce, both of which moved into the basement in stock tanks for wintering. Papyrus was tried, enough said. Fancy stuff gone, natures supplies a new tenant. Occasionally money changes hand.

The huge vinyl-liner pond was filled with koi at first, along with waterlilies and water lettuce. Koi were rapidly replaced by similar looking shubunkin, three species of local frogs and toads, and whatever insects needed it.

It became a rich habitat, and nearly all visitors of any size were welcomed. Even if they had to climb down their tree.

 

We differed greatly from most of our neighbors. They looked around them at their borders and saw a lawn. We looked around and saw a yard.

 
Where else could you enjoy your now pink dandelions by shooting them at sunset from on your belly because you were young enough then? Even if the neighbors saw and thought us nuts, they were polite enough to remain silent ...in our earshot.

We had regular visitors when the yard was deemed empty,

 

And plenty of larger visitors to entertain and cook for on a summers eve. Firewood was forever plentiful, just needing collecting and sizing. There was always somebody to cook and more people willing to eat.

We put in a huge raspberry patch which performed well at producing a bounty of large vines and berries, all needing a protective wire fence around it with a gate on one end. Compostables were simply dumped in there to keep the soil rich and the workload lighter than bagging and hauling curbside would have been. It was one of my favorite parts of the yard .

The fence posts quickly got decorated with wooden bird houses. Occasionally the houses had occupants. At first we had tree swallows. After that we hosted wrens. We had just bemoaned not being right for bluebirds when ... guess who showed up?

I was thoroughly surprised, but had time to dig out a lawn chair and camera and plunk down across the yard a ways to try to catch some of the action with maximum zoom. Usually if I take enough pictures I can get a few good ones.

Mama promptly showed up on what looked to be her favorite perch aside from one of the the birdhouses, a fence post.

Usually with both of the pair out and about, not busy towing building materials to the house, it meant feeding was necessary. It likely meant at least one hungry chick in the box. Since this was our first sighting of either in our yard, we were last to the party.

I just kept shooting while I could, thoroughly enjoying what we never thought we'd have in the yard. By the time there was a chance to watch them again the parents were gone, the box empty. I prefer to think the babies fledged safely and the family was off somewhere in an even better habitat learning how to survive.

Ending September

September has always been a special month for me. Summer is often uncomfortable, between heat, humidity, and bugs... and when growing up, often lonely. September meant the return to school, teachers who mostly praised me and my accomplishments, people my age who, if they didn't necessarily notice me at least mostly weren't mean to me. Being back in marching band and choir meant fun activities, and with rare exceptions the classes meant new things to learn. Mosquitoes started dying out, thank goodness as I didn't reciprocate their "affection." Frosts might arrive a bit early, their tannins making the whole world smell different in a very welcome way. The uncontrollable curl in my hair would start to relax... just a bit, and while it would never be fashionably straight, at least it was less frizzy. Mostly September was freedom from home. All the rest was a bonus.

It announced itself in colors in northern Minnesota. On the resort there was an endless supply of oak trees, and if they turned brown quickly, at least there was some color before leaf drop.  But the real signal the universe sent was the arrival of two things: sumac leaves turning red, and little wild asters blooming blue. September was here again!

Now, being further south in the state, the color bonanza is more of a hail to the ending of September. But it still starts with the sumac plants putting on their Joseph's coats of colors, challenging the other plants to follow suit.

It can begin with noticing  single hanging branch, its leaves individually and as a group a riot of color. Eventually the whole slides into crimson and off into magenta, ending in deepest red-brown covering the banchtips, just a seed spike left, crowning woody branches.

Long before they have a chance to slide away into sleep the tiny blue asters are up in their last hurrah of tiny blooms, pushing up between spent leaf litter one of the last good snacks for the bees to bring home before winter.

Other plants aren't common enough for you never bother to learn their names before they add their glory into the mix, a last chance to try to ensure a next generation before snow covers them again.

While many others went through that stage when nobody noticed, aside from pollinators, and now...

hang around waiting for conditions to knock seeds loose in amounts large enough...

that a sufficient quantity reach the perfect spot on the ground, like this field clover, that next year's bounty is guaranteed.

Others provide abundant fruits for whatever will eat then and drop seeds to the whims of fate with a light coating of "repelling fertilizer" as a parting gift...

while other just weave themselves into the understory and scratch inquisitive passers who might disturb their chosen winter homes, from which they'll emerge the next spring.

Many oaks seem to go straight from green to brown-and-down before they sleep, while others are more thoughtful about leaving us a show. They've already given an abundance of acorns reminding us that it's well past time to quit wandering barefoot underneath their branches.

. There are vines with the sole aim in life to climb trees as if to leave us a show. They are the most dependable show around, whatever the summer has been like.

At the end of September, many sumac plants have lost a large number of leaves, or turned a washed-out red aging towards burgundy, with dark seed pods poking up above the branches, soon to be all that remains on the branches. It's still declaring fall is starting, if not fully started, even with the occasional brand new occupant in the batch just getting into shedding its green. This year there still has not been a frost. But October will provide one, and during the next month every tree in the state will wear it's Joseph's coat of many colors. 

Some have already started. It's looking a bit pale so far, thanks to the drought. But I'll have pictures.

It Rained!

 It rained! I heard it! 

I woke up early this morning, looked out the window, and all was dry. Mind you, I couldn't see much that early, but the streets do deflect the lights ever so faintly from the neighbor's porches to our window facing the street, even in the darkest night. Especially in the darkest night, where aside from the shine of wet pavement all is black except any lights left on overnight.  With no street lights here, barring a passing car those porch lights separate us from solid black. The doubled bright lights signify wet roads. They work even better once it snows, unless, of course, those neighbors decide to become snowbirds and head south over the winter, like we used to, and set their porch lights to "off".

But there was no glow, and I needed to hit the bathroom, the next first thing on my morning list. Now two bathrooms in a two-person house may seem a luxury. Try it yourself when both are near or past 80. Patience is a memory. Neither bathroom has a window in it, which affords us both privacy. Both have a skylight in the ceiling, which affords us their use without turning on a light to inform any nosy sleepless neighbor about our very personal habits.

Aside from privacy, those skylights also give us enough light to find our way around those two tiny rooms in complete safety. It's never completely dark here with a square sheet of glass allowing light in from the sky. In the right conditions I can see stars. (I do have to stand half in the tub and look straight up, of course. Nobody thought to put them in a more practical place for stargazing.) Even in cloudy conditions there is still light coming through since there are no real Dark Skies here, five blocks from downtown, tiny as it is, and 40-50 miles from some location in the Twin Cities. We finally found real Dark Skies a few years back, dark enough to see the actual galaxy instead of a very occasional fuzzy home hint of ... something... even when we also could make out the Big Dipper and Orion on our "clearest" nights. I remember taking pride once in being able to count nine stars in Pleiades, not just seven. That revealing, mind-boggling, actual galaxy-the-way-the-serious-photographers-caught-it spot was over 1200 miles away from here as the car flies. 

FYI that's not the way I drive, of course! Honest, Mr. Policeman!

This morning in the wee hours, when the house is as silent as a house can get with two clocks that tick each second and with two humans in it who have achieved that point in life where sleep never arrives on a schedule, much less each other's schedule, I heard raindrops hit the top of my skylight. Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip.

Silence, such as it is here, resumed. WE HAD RAIN! So it was only five drop hitting a skylight, so what? It was rain! I poked my head out a door a few minutes later. Streets and sidewalks were dry. That didn't matter. 

WE'D HAD RAIN! 

I'll be heading out later in the morning to put the hose on the gardens. The flowers need it before a frost eventually arrives. They wouldn't believe me if I told them it had already rained in the night. They keep telling me we're having a drought.

When Google Is STUPID !

 OK, one could argue that this happens so many times that there is no single answer, that it's just expected. However, I was researching a favorite topic this morning, and took that journey down the interminable list of self-asked questions Google invents (in order to show off what it knows so you keep using it for searches?)  that make one question who on the planet would really ask them? And why?

This one  started with a change in the weather. The fall chill drove me to hunting for long sleeved shirts in the closet. A couple have never been worn, are synthetic fibers with very narrow upper arms, and may as well be donated to a thrift store. They just feel claustrophobic, and don't move with me. But a bit of further searching, not quite getting into full winter wardrobe yet, found the perfect shirt, a long sleeved comfy cotton tee. 

Not only is it comfy to wear, it holds special memories from our honeymoon trip down to Arizona years back in hopes of finding a house we could afford, right at the bottom of the recession when prices had just started their upturn. It likely was a case of "pick something right then or be priced out of the market." History quickly proved that. I'd secured a realtor, had a schedule for touring properties after we arrived, and gave us extra time to take a new-to-us route for scenic purposes. One planned stop was in southern New Mexico, at Bosque del Apache. Think of it as a larger, southern version of Crex Meadows, as well as a part of the national park system. For me, the attraction was its status as a major southern wintering ground for sandhill cranes. If you've followed me here, 'nuff said.  

Of course we had to wait till after the ceremony, set for Valentines Day because, hey, Valentines Day, then spend the necessary days driving down. Coming out of our motel that morning, and checking in to the refuge building to pay our fees (and shop) we discovered that our timing was absolutely  perfect! That is, perfect if we wanted to arrive the day after they all flew north! There were still disappointing photos to be taken as well as things to buy, including this particular shirt for me and a silver and turquoise belt buckle for Steve. Of more importance through the years, it was our first opportunity to buy our Senior Citizens lifetime free pass into any national park or national monument. One purchase of $10 to last a lifetime! Only one was needed in the car to get whoever was in the same vehicle in free as well. Last time we checked the price had jumped to $80. Ours has been very well used in the years since, both parks and monuments. 

My other purchase hadn't been worn yet, just tucked away, still pristine on its hanger until a few days ago. It has the name Bosque del Apache on it, and is decorated with sandhill cranes!  OK, a few other birds too, I will confess, but they're just not sandhills.

While waiting in a line at the pharmacy last week while wearing it  I was asked where Bosque del Apache was. I let her know it was in New Mexico, and a major wintering grounds for sandhills. She knew we were less than 20 miles from their fall staging grounds at Crex while we were talking in that store, and we both had visited it. I'm pretty sure her initial reaction was New Mexico was way too far to go when she could see sandhills locally. Maybe she'll get sick of winters some day and decide to check it out. I did warn her to be there early enough to see them before they flew north. The line took one of us and ended our conversation, so I didn't get a chance to tell her those were the other sandhills, the lesser ones, which fly to Nebraska around the Platte in spring. Our local ones, the greater sandhills, fly down to the southeastern US and back. The two kinds diverged around 3 million years back.

Having some spare time on my hands after my errand was done, I decided to Google Bosque del Apache and see what else I could find out about the place. It had been a long time, and we now had great-grandkids down in New Mexico who might be interested when they get a bit older. That's where Google did its thing with a list of self-generated questions it "thought" might be relevant on the topic of cranes. It seems any interest in a topic, as shown by reading another question/answer, kicks in that process. One can get lost in the rolling drum of a series of repeated questions provided to everybody who keeps arrowing down. What? There is more information from repeating their question/answer, question/answer over the same things?  People forgot fact one by the time they reached fact seven and had to start over? Regardless, I already knew a baby crane was called a colt, but read on through their list to see what other factoids might be interesting.

Did I mention some of those questions that "people" allegedly ask are stupid? A case in point and the reason for this post: what does it mean when a crane visits you?  You mean there's a reason? OK, I'd say it's (always) "hungry and feels safe enough to look for food in your direction. The Google process sets you up to assume this alleged human, which it's asking itself the question for, is looking for supernatural meaning, like are you blessed or cursed? Will you be lucky... gambling? in love? in long life? Apparently Google got a bit more pragmatic to the point of the ridiculously obvious:  "you are likely observing a large, elegant migratory bird passing through a wetland, field, or open prairie."

Well, Duh!  

But now I have my own questions for Google.  Why did it say "likely"? Are there other situations in which one "comes to visit you?" Are we talking about a healthy bird here or one that's delirious? Why wasn't that specified in either  question or answer? Was it opening the question of what a sandhill looks like?  The words "large, elegant, migratory bird" are pretty much its definition. The question already defines it as a sandhill crane, making that "answer" totally, insultingly  redundant! Where it is "passing through" is its usual habitat. Why is that likelihood part of the answer? Redundant again. Nobody wants to know those typical behaviors as an answer in a silly question supposing they have "meanings"? And just what's going on where you see one and assume it is "visiting you", evidenced by how Google's question is framed? They don't visit you. They go on about their lives, eating, growing, mating, raising and protecting families.When they notice you they're "likely" to fly away. What does any of that have to do with what it means? It might as well have answered itself with " (put favored deity's name or preferred substitute like "luck" here) has blessed you with the sight of something magnificent because you held still and shut up long enough in the right place for it to feel safe."

You need meaning beyond that? How about adding, "If you fell in love with this special creature, want to see it again, spend more time outdoors in its habitat remaining still and quiet, and start taking better care of your planet!"

I wonder what self-questioning Google has on that subject?

The Tracking Tease

 I ordered a bottle of pills from Walmart when I put in last week's grocery order for same-day pickup. Not prescription-important, just supplement-important, but something I take regularly, and it was getting low. After a couple bad experiences back when Trump started throwing tariffs around like candy from a parade float, where I paid for some things which never arrived and the store took no responsibility for a refund, I promised myself to only order what could be picked up from the store. The trick is to read the fine print and see if they offer same day delivery on the item, for an extra fee of course. But these come from inside the country, and I order them fairly regularly, like a couple times a year. No problems... yet.

It helps that they come with tracking. But then so did the forever-missing bathroom rugs and battery clock. They were all also promised in two days. Eventually I bought those things a second time...  by walking into a store and finding something actually in stock and suitable... enough. The rugs aren't the color I wanted in the bathroom however. I settled for black because the store I was in had it. It's technically a neutral color. (Did you know there is no scrap of lint in a bathroom that is black? Everything shows,,, and sticks in the fibers through the laundry cycle.)

Steve also had a shipping issue this last week. During his hospital stay the surgeon requested he bring a piece of specialized medical equipment he uses from home, along with its cords. The cords never returned, and they each have unique plugs. He wound up calling the company rep and had replacements sent out, Fedex. They offered tracking with a link to his email, and he watched the days count down, finally getting the magic words informing him his package had been delivered.

They didn't happen to mention to where. I checked the main covered porch, our usual required location. Fedex had been doing a bang-up job of getting things there since we moved in. No, nothing there. I checked the little porch near the street, nothing over it to protect deliveries from weather, just a sign telling delivery folk to use the other porch. Nothing there either. Might they have set it in the community center, the lobby of which holds a standard USPS wall of locked mail boxes but also gets miscellaneous boxes dropped there as well, including boxes of garden veggies to be shared, or book-exchange stacks under a bulletin board. Not there either. When he asked Fedex to have the driver clarify where the package had been dropped, they informed him he needed the tracking number. He'd never been given one, and somehow the company rep didn't have that information. It allegedly had been tracked all this time, but nobody had that missing piece of information!

With that in mind, and my pills running late,  I checked Walmart's  ordering page. In very tiny font at the top it announced the package was being delivered by 7PM that day. I could track it. When I clicked on tracking, it actually worked! My package was still in Atlanta, its point of origin. Yeahhhhh, it's not gonna be here tonight. I gave it another couple days before checking porches again, and went back to the ordering site. Yep, still going to be delivered at 7PM. 

Nope, not delivered by 7 PM.

I still hadn't run out of my pills, and gave it another couple days before checking in again. What? They don't know where it is? AND THEY ACTUALLY ADMIT IT???  OK, patience. Another couple days and they found it. For five days it registered in Atlanta. The next three in Nashville where they apparently lost it again, since notices said they were searching for it. Later the slippery little bugger had been located, but no notice that it was moving again. Once it left Nashville, it next registered in Hodgkins, IL. Well, that's getting some closer anyway. Each time I checked, it still optimistically declared it would be delivered by 7PM. 

WHAT? DID THEY FINALLY HAVE STAR TREK TECH SO THEY COULD BEAM MY PACKAGE DIRECTLY TO MY HOME FROM THERE? AND THEY WEREN'T USING IT?

Those cheapskates! At least it was moving again, though.

Next day it showed up in Eagan, MN, a suburb south of St. Paul.  OK, closer, but puzzling. Eagan is where the USPS major sorting center is. Fedex usually winds up in a huge sorting center in a northern suburb of St. Paul before hitting the small trucks.

Last night it was in Minneapolis, which is the wrong direction as any tired flying crow will realize. Of course it still promises 7 PM delivery. Still ain't gonna happen. It's close, and I could get it here from there in an hour, but that would be with a single package on board and a straight shot. It still had to hit that big distribution center north of St. Paul to get on the truck heading our way.

I checked my pills supply. Yep, I still have enough to get through next week. Come on guys, it's a race. Can you get it here by then? It still claims it'll be here by 7PM. 

It just doesn't say which week.

Two Solutions In One

Fall planting is finally finished. There are still cleanup issues after we get a frost, but that's mostly cut back and collect dead stalks, with a spot of weeding once the ground is visible again.  Then it's just spreading some Preen to keep new weeds from growing from seeds. 

That's almost where I was before the day began. But some of my nursery-potted daylily plants going into the garden had root systems so thick they were deep round bricks, essentially. No hole in the garden's allotment of dirt could accommodate that depth of roots. They got bottom dirt removed, roots spread out as much as  my hands could, and planted a bit high anyway, hardy things that they are, with a promise to them - and myself - to add topsoil just as soon as I bought some. 

They are all doing well, thanks for asking. An actual rain helped.

That shopping actually happened the next day. The bag of topsoil sat inside the car hatch until this morning, providing a lumpy base for the groceries and whatever else went in there in the meantime. It is heavy after all. My surgeon would not approve my pulling it out. I don't bother to inform him that I have to lift things and carry them despite being over ten pounds. Instead I bring over the two-wheeler  (nowhere near as light as 10 pounds itself) to behind the car, slide the bag of topsoil over, lift it over the lip of the hatch and give it a semi-controlled drop onto the tray of the two-wheeler. It's worked before, this summer. Then of course there's locking the car, tilting the wheeler, and pulling it across the lumpy ground to where I'm going to work with its load.

I sit in a camping chair for most of that next part. Does that count for giving my shoulders the needed break? At least those pieces and chunks are each much lighter, mostly.

In the shed is a sharp toothed saw blade. No handle was attached, nor visible anywhere. For some reason I don't actually want the answer to it's covered with a couple layers of paint, red, then white. (Huh?) The teeth cover the entire length of one side except the final inch. But I have to grab it and saw the sturdy plastic bag with it (repeatedly stroking the same piece in the plastic for each cut of course -  that plastic is reallllly tough!) without donating any skin into the topsoil. Blood or other tissues either, one hopes. I do manage that part. Then I need to break up the formerly single solid chunk of topsoil, starting with a sturdy trowel and lots of leverage, into crumbs more resembling loose dirt, fill a collection of old pots and cottage cheese containers to the brims, and spread the topping over the needy garden. The eventual goal is level-ish ground, all roots covered, no topsoil saved for some imaginary future job... which otherwise translates to it taking up room in the shed in every single location that otherwise offers a flat solid spot to set one's foot safely on forever after. 

Accomplishing all that is the first needed solution. Doing it despite my fears of uneven ground making me fall would be the second solution. Well, combined with not actually falling, of course. The combination is the real reason the topsoil bag has taken up semi-residence in the car for so long, I almost thought about charging it rent. 

It wouldn't have helped.

An idea finally came to me, just in time for the next promised rain, likely to skip by as usual so I'd have to get outside tomorrow too, this time with a hose to settle the topsoil that still wasn't anywhere near the garden yet. Time to quit procrastinating! But maybe it would work out. The next rain disappointment coming along to nag me to get busy might not happen for weeks. It might even be snow by then. Brrrrr... no thanks!

Let's return to those containers of topsoil. I wanted them for spreading dirt in small sections around the garden, heavier in places with exposed roots, lighter when leftover dirt would be useful in nourishing next year's flowers. That in turn translates into detail work, the kind that was the final thing slowing the needed work down. I let an idea simmer for a few days, then decided today was it or else I'd have to risk falling again, or at least face the fear of it. Not absolutely sure yet which is worse.

I took the pots with their first load  - the dirt really expands when hard clods are busted up - and stood outside the raised ring of concrete blocks holding everything in place. Selecting the point along the circle closest to the plant needing the most soil, fingers metaphorically crossed that it would work, I threw the dirt in the direction of the base of that plant. 

It got pretty close.

Encouraged, I repeated, and repeated, and repeated on that side, then went halfway around the circle to get it from the other side for better coverage. By gum, it worked! Continuing in cycles of chop and crunch clods, fill containers, take over to the garden,  aim and toss, all the dirt was finally covering the garden, mostly where desired. Some of the leaves were also covered, but this late in the season, either I could nudge them and they'd drop the dirt, or let the elements take care of it by spring. Never was a step on uneven ground needed. I figured I'd let the theoretical afternoon rain show its muscles in dirt movement, or I'd deal with the hose tomorrow. 

Cleaning up the stuff scattered across the lawn to its designated niches in the shed -or garbage can - was in order, not just for neatness, but because if it didn't rain, the lawn would get mowed. Thursdays are mowing days, so regular that we tape the fee to the storm door if we're not going to be home. Our mowing lady has completed her college requirements, done substitute teaching last year, and is employed locally full time this year, so she'll swing by, pending weather, around suppertime. If I'm home I enjoy our five-minute chats when she does. It's almost enough to make me hope it doesn't rain this afternoon. 

Almost.

The Internet Says These Don't Exist!

 I'm talking flowers here, more specifically balloon flowers. If we want to get totally precise, balloon flowers that grow over five feet tall!!! I was given a plant years ago, so long, in fact, I've  forgotten its source. Did I actually buy it? Was it a present? Maybe somebody handed me one of those "Here, try this" kind of things from their garden? Somehow it got stuck in my brain that it came from my Mom, though by that time she was doing very little gardening, being in an apartment with limited dirt available. However it got into my garden in my previous house in Shafer, MN, it grew. And grew. And grew!!! 

 A lot of easy plants didn't. The dirt around the newly built house was fill over a former swamp, thus mostly clay, so bad it kept snowmelt puddles into summer in the low spot in a corner. Eventually somebody suggested putting in a weeping willow. We put in two instead, watched them spring tall rapidly, branching into climbing trees for kids. Without paying much attention, the spring ponds never came back, even after the trees had to be cut down. Examining the supposedly hard wood of their trunks, already rotting away in a few years while supposedly actively growing, perhaps they grew too fast. but they sure did their job! Regular trees do fine there after that. Apparently willow roots drive drainage channels through heavy clay.

The front flower garden needed help, but no normal person would dream of putting in weeping willows there! Even I wasn't that insane!  I started driving to my former town on my way home from work with a tarp and shovel in the back of my car and hauled away free compost, a heavy load at a time over the tarp. (I was much younger then!)  Nobody ever thought to question if I still lived there, especially since I was such a regular for months. I had gardens planned for this new horror of a yard, where even after grass grew in and rooted, every step our dogs took was a pit punched through the grass for the next couple years. Sure, I know about lawn rollers, but never bothered. Everything planted at first was cheap to free, just work involved. What didn't work was exchanged for the next try. 

Some time in those first few years, the balloon flower appeared. This shot is a transplant of that plant's offfspring, it's first appearance in spring in its current location. I'm a bit ahead of my story here, but wheee, purple roots! For scale, the green blades are standard lawn grass. I don't care if it's fescue or bluegrass or or rye or whatever. It still has to be mowed. (The creeping charlie is invading just fine, cutting way down on passes with the mower. And yes, I can insist on no lawn chemicals on the land inside our rented boundaries!)

Back to the older house: The plant was a novelty, grew with little attention, and after something more than a decade, spreading thousands of seeds in whatever technique those use, managed to naturalize a couple of babies in its own garden. (Poor return on the plant's effort, eh? Something hungry down at soil level?) One successful baby - of course -  was in the crack between paving blocks making a walkable path through total chaos. We lost use of that path the first year it sprouted.

Why? Couldn't we just step around it? The reason we couldn't is what makes it the plant the internet claims doesn't exist: it's over five feet tall! Now its other offspring in that garden were that size as well, but I never thought to question it. It was named a balloon flower by whoever was its source, I called it that to whoever asked, and we all went on about our days... which for us meant a long detour around the outside of our large L-shaped garden instead of across the bend. It's been a great excuse for not properly tending weeds for decades.

Hey, don't scold!

After moving to Arizona after retirement as snowbirds, returning for summers to watch the grandkids grow, then selling out and returning back north for good within a few miles of the former residence, now owned by one of my sons, I needed to garden again. (OK, like I ever stopped!!! But familiar thorn-free plants were strongly  preferred this time.) Many of the plants filling empty spaces in a new-to-me yard came out of the former garden, usually with digging help from my son. It seemed like a wonderful idea to dig out the balloon flower from that path it had been obstructing for over a decade. Of course I wanted it! There were now several others in the mostly neglected L-shaped garden, and lots of other favorites had samples transferred - iris, daffodils, scillas and daylillies mostly, doing our best to split clumps instead of eliminate varieties. The occasional invasive lily-of-the-valley hitchhiked in other rootballs but are being religiously removed on sight! If around next year I WILL POISON them!

The tap root of the path-blocker was HUGE! My son dug and dug, finally arriving with a monster with roots longer than the stems they supported. OK, to be fair, the stems had been cut way back for the transplant. We know better than to ask bruised and chopped roots to support something huge. I set it up against one side of the She Shed in the yard, next to a peony bush left by a previous owner, kept on provision we liked the color once it bloomed again, both visible from a walking path that runs through the yard. People might as well enjoy it/them as much as we did. Knowing how tall it should grow. I went to the local hardware store for tomato cages, one to mark off and support the peony, the other to do the same for the balloon flower. The lawn here gets mowed regularly by fiat in the rental agreement, and mowers needed to be kept away from spring plants which hadn't shown up yet. It also needed to be 5 feet tall! That translates to a foot of wire in the dirt and a 4 foot cage above. Like adding belt and suspenders, I lined the loose dirt around the rootball with rocks large enough that any self- respecting mower's owner would never "accidentally" cut the unfamiliar bush down. It also reminded me where to water regularly, and where to look for first sprouts. The first spring, not all yet up to be in the photo above, there were 11 stems. Just call some late risers. I haven't counted stem totals since. I did notice mid summer that a couple stems escaped the cage and grew through the peony bush, by then too gnarly to straighten.

It keeps coming up. That's good enough for me.  With the winds off the lake around here, the cage also has each growing branch tucked inside the wire rings of the cage... if found in time.

Eventually they grow tall, start their balloon  shaped bud in green, expand in their now thinner balloon shape in very pale blue, until finally the balloons pop open their centers and expand their petals out into a more traditional flower shape, attracting a whole lot of very small bees, at least around here anyway. They've been hard to reach in the old garden to see who pollinates what, so I just rely on whatever comes to do their pollination. It's not like they've ever needed me for the process.

Once the flowers are working on seeds, the petals wither, brown, and simply hang in place, protecting the seeds growing in the rim of a thickening upward-pointing pod, presumably so they don't drop too early, or even attract birds who'd digest them.

It works from the bottom blossoms up to the very top. In this case, those top ones are almost 5 1//2 feet tall!

Since the internet in its ignorance claims these are something else, due to the height, I checked out every single alternate it smugly informed me I was mistaking this plant for. The colors were wrong, the petal shapes and count per blossom were wrong, and none of them spent part of their growing lives as balloons. I wanted to be accurate, since I'd gone to a local garden center, described the plants, and offered to drop some off for them to grow if they wanted them. They offered to look at them. Period. If any employees were interested they could give them a try. (Perhaps they trust the internet's denial of the plants.) I assured them I wasn't asking for any compensation or store discounts on shopping.  I left with their offer of allowing me to drop off some for them to look at and maybe give a try. I suggested they give the plants two years to grow in a standard gallon pot, set a few by the entrance to attract attention, and find out just how many customers would want something totally (almost) unique.

I also assured them if they could grow them that they'd have something unique to sell their customers. My neighbors accepted seeds last year but nobody grew any that I heard.  I decided to do my own photo display for them, along with pods on stems in a large bag. The seeds look like grains of black pepper, tiny for such a tall plant, growing out of the top rim of their pod.  As soon as the former flower petals shrivel off and leave, seeds are free to drop to wherever. If they land on soil, you'll never find one. The internet suggests how to plant the ones they believe exist, starting them in spring. (Look it up.)

In lieu of a measuring stick, I had Steve take a shot of me standing on the same ground the plant was growing out of. (Good thing it didn't take him a long time or my nose would have been sunburned. I tried to keep at least the rest of my face out of the sun.) The tallest stems almost reach the top of my head. I'm 5 1/2 feet in sneakers, which I wore today. (A close look will show their bright pink laces.)

I decided if I wanted the garden center to take my offer and identification seriously, I had to first call in the Big Guns. That means my sister in law, with both advanced degrees in botany and years of teaching others how to identify what's around them. When I hit a snag with identifying a plant, usually for a wild plant in a photo, she's an email away and always appreciated. I detailed the issues, topped off with a photo from  the first garden from years back, with them leaning way over (uncaged) along the driveway and trying to crowd out cone flowers, both for color interest in a photo, and and size comparison. She quickly ruled: Definitely balloon flowers. The internet is wrong!

She suggested they might be a "sport", otherwise known as a mutation. We do know they grow in very different soil conditions,  even if only 5 miles apart. The garden center would be another 15 miles away, so similar climate. I expect if they can be made to grow, they'd be an interesting addition to many gardens.

Now I started to wonder if these are "registered" somewhere... or ought to be. And if so, how. All kinds of flowers have "societies" in charge of such details, and new sports get attention. I'm just not interested in that kind of bother myself, even though the idea of rocking the smug  internet sources on their fancy heels does tickle me a bit. But if they're to be accepted they would need to be named as the "______" variety of Platycodon grandiflorus .

I had a drive home from shopping to mull this over and tried several ideas, as if I could pretend for a moment to have the power to do that. I'm not looking for more than widening its range and giving more gardeners enjoyment. I don't want anything for the seeds except - perhaps - widening their appeal. All the idea has been, over all this time, is a gift. My persistence, my offer, my gift without strings. So if it's not catalogued somewhere by this time, named by somebody somewhere unbenownst to what is supposedly the biggest chronicler of facts on the planet, how about just calling it the "Heather's Gift" variety?

 Now the story doesn't end here, as the stems aren't ready for cutting yet, but I can add one more detail. The volunteer plant from the path, the one my son worked on for around an hour to dig completely out of the  ground? Apparently some piece of tap  root was left in the ground there. Guess what's back and growing as happily as ever in that spot?