That Change-Of-Insurance Time of Year Again

Phooey!

I'm so glad I don't have to deal with it. I'm on straight Medicare, plus the additional "Cadillac" supplement plan. It's such a good deal that the government discontinued it, although the plan is grandfathered in for those already on it. Yeah, the price of the latter goes up each year, but it's certainly been giving me my money's worth since I first got it. I get the medical costs summary sheets in the mail. They tell me what kind of unearthly costs I've pulled out of the system since the last letter, what regular Medicare knocked them down to as a permissible charge - which they accept just to get patients and at least some money promptly. Then the forms list how much of that Medicare pays for, which is still just a percentage  of the allowed cost. After that I see what my "Cadillac" plan kicked in. Finally is the best of the news: how little I myself have to pay. Most of the time it's zero.

I've been putting that to damn good use this last year and a half! It reminds me of the year I had three cardiac procedures weeks apart.

On the other hand, Steve puts his faith in his Medicare "Advantage" plan. It covers most things, but it tells you which doctors you can see, which hospitals you have to go to, barring a life-and-death emergency, and follows other stipulations. As a result he's paying off several medical bills for individually agreed upon prices every month. He's had a tough year.

Just to add insult to injury, they sent out the dreaded letter informing him he's going to have to pick a new insurance plan starting in January. He had a better plan the previous year, but that company sent him the dreaded letter as well. We are both used to shopping around for Part D plans, the ones covering medications. It seems each plan covers different percentages of different medications, likely dependent on how the pharmaceutical companies change their prices each year, or what restrictions the governments puts on prices for say, insulin. My letter on Part D changed my cost on several medications next year by small amounts each, from no cost to under $5 each. It will be a nuisance, but not more.  Steve's Part D is included in his "Advantage" plan, and will be what the new company says it is. No separate shopping around, either a benefit or a disadvantage. We'll see.

He got on the phone this afternoon, calling back on one of those flyers getting sent out by alternative companies. Ironically, the company that just kicked him out was among them. Good old left-hand, right-hand, no brain between. Or maybe it's just cheaper to sent one out to EVERYBODY on a large list. 

His call lasted around an hour. They had lots of questions for him, he had lots for them. This time he found out our primary doc isn't on their list of acceptable doctors, what they call "in network". They did have one about a mile closer. I'm keeping the one I have, thank you. I like her for my needs. Even more, I'm willing to sit in the waiting room a bit longer knowing she takes several extra minutes listening to her patients to get the full picture of their condition and needs.  But Steve called the clinic to make a get-acquainted visit with the new plan's recommended in-network doc. Yes, she's going to get paid by the old insurance now, and seamlessly (we hope) switch over to his new plan next year. He'll visit her in a few days to check her out. 

I hope she works out for him. I was on an "Advantage" plan early in my time of being on Medicare, just one year. I was given a list of possible "in network" doctors. Of those fairly nearby, I heard over and over that they weren't taking any new patients. The last on the list, farthest away, was open to more customers. I quickly found out why. His waiting room was nearly empty each time I went, and I was getting weekly blood tests there while on a blood thinner and needing testing. He had almost no personality, never asked how I was doing, just announced test numbers and whether I should change the dose. 

The minute Steve got a doc he really liked was just after I switched back onto "real" Medicare, so I switched to that same doc just a few blocks away. My next change was the one required by our relocating 1800 miles away. Just too long a commute!

What's fun is when various medical services back where we lived three years ago still reach out trying to remind me I need their services again. All have been notified that we no longer live in the state.  No, I'm not going there for an eye check, or a mammogram, or anything else! Sure, it would be covered. But how about the mileage, and cost of a motel and eating out?

It Rained... Again... No, Honest!

I know last time it rained things were just a little bit disappointing. I mean, five drops? I'm not sure if that was better or worse than no rain at all.

A few days ago - too busy to notice it then - much less write about it - there was most of a day and some of the night full of light but steady-ish rain. I'd been busy with computer issues, and wasn't really paying attention except to be grateful I had an excuse to avoid outside chores after the last batch left my unused muscles sore, and concentrate on the computer. Then of course there was a modest family party to plan and prepare for, kind of a conglomeration of birthdays plus celebrating the new porch/stairs combo being finished. 

Was it really only Wednesday that the rolling garbage bin had to be brought back from the street after weekly emptying and tucked discretely out of sight again? I finally had cooperative weather to move it out and back long enough to stay dry myself for both moves. It was my final return to the house after all that was finished that I noticed the blob of red in the garden. With no flowers currently blooming, it stands out, even if the forecast freeze hadn't materialized. It's where the rain gauge sits, poked into the ground next to the border, mostly free of all foliage. 

It's one of those with a wide top and a narrower tube, so amounts are exaggerated to the eye but marks give the actual amount. Each inch of rain fills about four inches of tube. The tube can be lifted out of its holder to drain and easily replaced. Altogether it's so much easier to use, read, and empty than a plain tube. There is another piece of floating plastic in the tube, rising and lowering depending on how much water is sits on, also red for easy viewing from the house without having to head outside in the rain unless one chooses, generally done after rain ends. If it's more than five inches, the tube is too full to be accurate. Not that it happens around here, but hey, just gotta explain. Whenever possible I buy those for wherever home is, even Phoenix. It does occasionally rain there too.

This time it actually registered an inch on the gauge. Real rain! After so many disappointments all summer, and despite heading out and back in several times refilling the garbage and recycling bins, or in and out of the car running errands, I left that little proof of moisture actually arriving this time sitting in the bottom of that tube.We had a whole inch of rain!

I suppose next time some is forecast, I'll actually have to go out and empty the tube first. I'll want to know how much the forecasters are lying about rain totals next time! For now I'm just enjoying it.

I Just Walked Out Of Walmart... ARGGHHHH!!!

I walked in with expectations of finding an employee to answer some questions for me. Up to today, it's been my experience that most employees are helpful. Of course most of my questions simply refer them to their hand-held units telling them which row in the store the item I need  is in... this time. The store seems to play a sadistic game of moving things all over every few weeks, whether an aisle or a whole department. When I ask, they are  very friendly, and if I can no longer reach that high to get it, help is at hand.

When I walked out, I was fuming. I'd been prepared for a wait, for complications, and for a long time working through exactly what I wanted. I left fuming and looking for a new vendor. (It looks like Etsy can fill the bill.)

I have a plan I've been working on regarding presents for people. It's getting about that time. I'm not making sterling jewelry any more. I have no access to a kiln these days to work on glass fusion projects.  What I do have in great plenty are photos, mostly nature photos since I rarely shoot people. I could be there ostensibly to record their activities - and have been many times with growing grands and great-grands - when something else will draw my attention. If we're having a bonfire for the gathering, like years ago at what in now my son's house, the camera almost mandatorily turned to capturing the flames. If we were at a vacation spot, the people could do their thing and I'd be shooting scenery, whether flowers, weather, mountains, rivers, or critters if they would hold still enough. If they were fishing I'd go for the lake or river or the actual fish. Perhaps the person was needed to hold it, just for proof of size... or lack thereof. Sometimes the trail of line across the water with resulting ripples was more interesting.

I've been going through them with my project in mind, looking to find the "right" photos for each person, based on what I know about what they like to look at. I won't say more because some of them actually read this! But I came across the information that Walmart's photo department could actually produce what I wanted.

Special preparation was needed. Almost none of what I have planned limits me to a single photo. So I've been very busy in my photo library, well over 5,000 files as I started. I had already pulled hundreds of photos out to make space for new, putting them on a collection of thumb drives. Others got tossed as unworthy to even return to and look at myself. My camera shoots 16 megapixel files, pretty dense if uncropped for things like piling into emails, or ever sending video to somebody. (Yes, I've seen that it can be done, just never shown how to do it myself. Search "lizard porn". My footage, somebody else's work to make a file small enough to go online.) Recently my laptop has been struggling when I'm writing something. It's not the typos: I take full responsibility for those. But I'll be typing away and the letters will stop appearing on the page. No cue, no warning, just white space. 

I concluded I was keeping it way too busy. So first thing was to weed out what was possible. Seventeen pictures of something?  Surely I can purge a strong majority of those. I find that I tend to be fascinated by certain subjects, to the point where another person might take two shots and note that my library holds dozens of the same thing over the years. Like my favorite daffodil, for example , a frilly double in white and orange. This double is my favorite shot, with others I haven't gotten to yet to purge.

Like Steve, I like to shoot dead trees, whether standing or sprawled across the ground, like this sensuous beauty:

Or this complicated hulk:

And of course I shoot sandhill cranes whenever possible.

So my first and most frustrating task was clean out the library. I'm down a thousand-plus shots at the moment, with about half left to go through. The issue with keeping text registering is better, but I can still be a couple sentences ahead of where the last letter gave up in frustration before I notice. So the side job is both rewarding and frustrating at the same time.

 My plan involved combining photos on whatever topic, but I had questions, involving size and spacing. I had been warned that their machines would crop and arrange the photos as it chose, not necessarily as I'd choose. And I'm really, really fussy! To me several combinations only worked a single way with a specific layout. I needed to talk to a real person, somebody familiar with the process and how the software works before I committed to spending a chunk of change. I had a thumb drive of photos in my pocket to start the process.

I walked up to the electronics counter, holding the experts and cashier for all electronics including the photo center. Nobody was there except one person cashiering in the department. Usually it keeps two busy. The line was long, and I excused myself from where I've moved up to in it and wandered back to photo to see if there was anything there to answer some of my specific questions. 

First question was answered: nobody had been hiding in here, busy with something, anything. The next thing to catch my eye was a price list sitting out near a picture of the media for my desired project. I'd been in a couple weeks earlier when there was an actual human. The first thing that slapped me in the face was that prices for what I wanted had just doubled! Ouch! Do I need to reconsider? 

An employee approached, pulling items out of a basket and putting them into a cart, obviously to be moved elsewhere. I asked her did she work in this section or just passing through on other store business? For all I knew what she'd picked up were returns or for some other reason needed to get off the floor. She answered it was her station. 

Now hearing that, wouldn't one expect some kind of familiarity with the merchandise? Especially since every year going there for photo greeting cards, the equipment and programming were overhauled and for luddites like me there had to be some kind of help. In answer to my question I was told to look at the material laid out on the counter. Yeah, been here long enough to have done that. All it showed were pictures of somebody else's irrelevent types of  projects, and those glaringly offensive new prices. In short, she didn't know, didn't want to bother to find out, and didn't care. She walked away to prove it.

In response, off I went to the pharmacy, a line I thought I'd be waiting in anyway to pick up a meds refill for Steve, a good use of my time while the hoped for project got a go. One hour service was a possibility, per a previous discussion with a different employee. Then I walked out, returned to fuming, after a time out for the pleasant interaction in pharmacy.

I have other ideas and questions other people can - I hope - answer for me on the strictly photo side, like can two photos be fused into one on a laptop (mine or theirs) so I'd have control of location of each in relation to each other, margins touching? And if so, how?  Or how do I get a photo off the thumb drive and back into my laptop library so I can do  some different cropping to get a product with different size requirements? My system takes photos off an SD card but has no interest in accepting one off a thumb drive so I can crop it differently... or anything else I need. I can, once it's on the desktop, the only place that I can get to hold it, pop it into an email or this blog. I just can't change it except for size to fit either of those. Software for resizing photos for both of those comes with their programming.

I WANT ACCESS TO THOSE PHOTOS!!! They're mine. All mine. Somebody must have an answer. Even if it's in a different direction, so long as it's not toooooo expensive.

Having An E-penpal ... Uh, A keypal? An Epal?

I'm not sure if there is a specific term these days. But regardless, this is the second time I've had one. The first time I had never met the person in real life, only on a community type site. With that other one we corresponded on various things until he died, from climate change to the challenges of disabilities to sharing his art.

This time it's somebody I have met, immediately liked, and put her on my emailing list for jokes and other trivia when I get a list of jokes or silly signs that I like enough to share. I recently heard from her with bad news she had to share, that her last two close family members had recently died, and she was now in an assisted living facility. Not only was she grieving, she was less than impressed by the high price and low quality of care of the facility. At least she knew some of the people in there, having lived in the general area for a number of years.

I can't go visit her in person. 1800+ miles is a humongous drive these days as well as awfully expensive, and I no longer fly because I use the "wrong" middle name and the state refuses me "Real ID". Either is expensive. When we lived in Arizona most of the year she'd be a hop and a skip away. We demonstrated together and chatted while doing so as long as that group lasted.

But you're reading this and know I can communicate online. So can she. I didn't have her new physical address but still had her email one, and did what I can do: sent her a chatty email and sent a photo of a flower I found especially lovely from my summer garden. As I put it, I couldn't send her real flowers, but I could send her this one and she could still have it any time she wished to look at it. Any of the other ones she'd gotten for the two funerals would be long withered and tossed.

She emailed back expressing her appreciation, and we started a daily correspondence. I'd send her flower photos and chatty news, occasionally input on some similar issues I'd had myself or some questions I thought she might find helpful to ask. I informed her I would continue to do this every day, so long as she emailed anything back to let me know she was still there. (I'd had that issue with my previous e-penpal. He'd died and I hadn't known until months later when somebody reached out to people he'd been corresponding with to let us know what had happened.) I in turn reached out to the online community who knew him and where I became acquainted with him to let them know his fate, as well as a reminder of why he'd been a valued member there... and to me. I have no expectations that anybody would do the same in her case, so I let her know stopping correspondence would be my signal she couldn't any more. I won't have any idea who's left in her life to mourn her passing to express sympathy to anymore. Friends at the facility will be informed of course.

Most days I go through my photo library and pick out favorites to send. Most come with stories attached so I share those as well, but briefly. For example, I'd say this was taken at (_____ National Park)  and add a query might  she like more from there? It might be a flower from where I used to live and got dug and relocated so is now blooming in both locations. Or rainbows.... or birds.... or fall foliage.... or whatever it happens to be. 

This week I'm going though photos from Alaska. Now other than common garden flowers like the incredible variety of columbines popular where we stayed, they are reduced to just a colorful multitude of flowers I'd not seen elsewhere and have no names for, like these,

sitting at the foot of a rapidly retreating glacier, or this,

from who remembers where, or even this

 

delightfully intricate little gem from some walking path on a tour which couldn't possibly escape my eye. Have you ever seen such a frilly little gem? I still have never seen another. Once the Alaska flowers run out, there's glaciers, mountains, ocean life behind glass, in hand, or viewed from tour boats... if they are desired. I could add from horseback, but mostly those are close-ups of horse ears, and I doubt they'd be interesting. Any time my attention was drawn from the horse, he stopped for grass while the rest of the tour dutifully kept going without us. I guess it beats getting one who always wants to gallop and toss me though. Not so wonderful photos however.

I "only" have somewhere over 4,000 photos still in my laptop, with some hundreds more each on a collection of thumb drives that actually survived sitting in AZ for a few months while we looked for a new home to move everything into up in MN. Yes, my favorite collection, the best from Crex over a couple decades, didn't survive but for some reason it seems most of the others have. So we can continue this correspondence for years. If by then we have to start going through them again, does anybody think either of us will remember what's a repeat?

We can also discuss classical music, which we both love. Or places we both have traveled which hold special memories. Or the issue of having somebody with their hand out for your possessions or money which they firmly believe they have a right to control even while you still can, and legal protections one can put in place so any final wishes are carried out as desired. She needed to set up a reliable trustee, while I was made one years ago for a minor child with a difficult parent who was convinced it should go for a more expensive wardrobe when I limited spending to health and educational expenses. Different sides of the coin, different experiences, different states, but same problem. We have stories to share. When she needs to vent, I can "listen" using skills training and years of experience as a facilitator in a support group.

Of course I'm presuming I'll outlive her. She's 16 years older, whatever that means these days, but I'm still connected to close family - in fact, close family on both sides - and am now mostly free of pain, unlike her situation, and can get out and about for activities I still love. Right now I'm in the planning stage for everybody's home-made holiday presents this year while still putting the gardens "to bed" for winter, both of which keep me feeling productive and useful.  None of which are  guarantees of more years to come, since nobody gets that guarantee, but they are incentives to continue.

On Overhearing A Neighbor

 Sunday was like summer in October for us, a light breeze and full sun, 87 for a high, a perfect day for those fall outdoor chores. We still haven't had our killing frost, or even a light nipping one. For me it was perfect for making and cleaning up fall cuttings by stuffing them into boxes. All I needed to do was move my folding chair a couple more feet to the side along a garden bed to grab the next batch of last week's dried clippings, break them into shorter pieces,  stuff the box for taking them for compost, and move on. I wasn't making any noise, so sound traveled perfectly from a few yards away.

Apparently some Grandmother had her granddaughter over for a visit, playing outside of course. There was another child there that  she was scolding, though I saw never of the children. I hadn't had even a  clue anybody was there until I hear one single, emphatically loud sentence from the girl:

"Stop that! This is my Grandma's garden and they love their tomatoes !" 

Hmmm, apparently somebody else didn't love tomatoes? What was their plan?

Oh, the thoughts running through my head at that. It's getting close to Halloween, and I can imagine all kinds of things kids can get into who don't respect tomatoes, not one idea among them that didn't involve mischief: picking and throwing them at... (where did your imagination just go? Maybe waiting for them to rot first? Were you thinking splatting another person? Messing with somebody's house? Car?  Would it involve breaking something? )

I love that the little girl defended Grandma's garden. It's rare to still have them on the vine this late in the season, so Grandma is likely thinking her unusual abundance is a blessing with food prices being so high these days... a very necessary one, especially if a young child is aware of them being valued. 

But the person being scolded, what was their plan? Where did it come from? Peers? Parents? Media? I never had the kind of upbringing that tolerated any of that kind of mischief, not with food, not with toilet paper, not with paint. I did hear of high school students using fertilizer on an unloved teacher's lawn that would darken the grass there for possibly years with some very rude words, but while laughing at the cleverness of it, I would never have considered it myself. I save much of my mischief for words on a page, while trying not to be hurtful.

How about you? Who taught you what's OK when mischief is afoot? What do you teach your kids? And who would you protect from it?

There's Always One!

Yesterday we drove down to southern Minnesota to visit a relative, doing a nice long extended bit of "leaf peeping" along the way. We have lots of fall color around home now, being much further north, though not quite at peak. 

There was much less color as we drove south, but Highway 169 there follows the general path of a major river, the Minnesota, after it turns north to join the Mississippi way up in the Twin Cities, so the wide valley is bordered by hills which bore tops much further along than all the fields in the process of changing color. As the driver, that meant glimpses caught here and there. Most of our way the hills were full of maples, so oranges and reds were well represented. There was a single beige-leafed tree in a yard next to the highway we passed while wondering why anyone would plant such a thing.

I'd added extra time into our route before we were to meet, due to a major construction project being in its second year in a town called Jordan. Last year the northbound side was expanded, with walls added to keep noise out of the residential area it passes through. From appearances the highway is becoming more freeway in places with bridges and ramps instead of left turns and stoplights, both for speed and safety. Meanwhile there are long delays. Two highways combine and cross the highway we were on, per the road signs, currently controlled by a light while narrowed down into one lane southbound with construction vehicles very present but inactive over the weekend.

As usual, signs warn people long ahead to use both lanes until you have to merge. It gets the most people through the merge point faster. As usual most people believe that means move over into the one through lane immediately so you can sit and stew for an extra ten minutes at being passed by all the vehicles who actually read the sign and are passing you and merging at the last minute, for some reason selfish enough to expect you to grant them room after they've sped by for so long. How rude! 

FYI I pulled over to merge about four vehicles from the single lane, right behind a truck towing a flat of some sort with vertical ladders sticking up from the back. I figured correctly that the following vehicle would be giving it a wide space instead of tailgating it, likely fearing either of those ladders could fall back and hit their car it they got too close. It's not that I wasn't more confident about how secure they were fastened, I just liked a nice space to move into, so I could give that vehicle plenty of space myself. I'm always more comfortable when not tailgating. Meanwhile there was more time for leaf-peeping during the long stops still ahead.

As slow as we were at that point, Steve rolled down his window. He asked did I hear the  sirens? In a couple minutes I did. While slowly approaching the light, noticing how all the different lanes were allowed through or stopped in their direction in sequence, especially noting that our single lane was still single at the light. Other directions had a turn lane with it's own arrows at the light. With no turn lane, anybody needing to turn after the arrow disappeared held up all traffic wanting to go straight, until the next cycle. No wonder our lines we so long! We both had plenty of time to note a police car heading straight through and past, lights and siren on.

Our lane eventually disgorged another few cars, and Steve noticed a collection of people in the intersection in the next lane over from us. It turned out they were preventing our access to a through lane as we wound up shuttled into the turn lane despite going straight, As we were stopped again, he pointed me to the action blocking forward traffic's lane. There was a motorcycle down, and people gathered around a very still person lying on the pavement, flat out. Since they were talking at the person, I presumed it wasn't a fatality, or at least not yet. The police vehicle had gone straight past, which I found weird, but apparently there was another crisis elsewhere. 

Getting our light to proceed, I did so while Steve maintained his view of the accident. He identified the victim as being female, and with no helmet in sight. Neither of those facts I'd had time to note myself, but it put into context the person kneeling at her head end holding her head very still, a hand on either side. I presumed they had some kind of training to know why/how to do that, even though no marked vehicles were stopping those lanes. As we passed through only cones had been set out, the same cones as earlier but now taking one more lane so only the turn lane had traffic. The room was needed.

Gaining our second lane as we continued on our way past the construction, we wondered why the cop sped past and no ambulance had appeared, but a mile later saw the familiar box shape of the ambo, and later its colors, heading our way from the other direction. All that was left for us to wonder at was why anybody would be out on a motorcycle through a construction zone - or anywhere for that matter - without a helmet?

But there's always one. Ouch!

Guillermo!

 Full disclosure here: I have never in my life watched "Dancing With The Stars". Until now it's never occurred to me that it would be worth my time, much less even checking out what channel it airs on. Snooty skinny athletic famous people in fancy dress moving in prescribed ways, presumably designed to push the typical viewer into being fat-shamed and clumsy-shamed, as well as supposedly envious.

I've already spent enough of my life feeling like that. I grew up being everything that wasn't attractive. I practically failed in gym class if it were possible. I never could do pull-ups, managed a few sit-ups, never climbed a rope.  My first time on a trampoline in class a forward drop turned into my head going down between the bungee cords and my legs continuing over and off the apparatus. Our teacher was terrified I'd have broken my neck, scolded me soundly thinking I had done it on purpose, and barely got around until that moment to scold the very distracted "spotters" and teach them their proper duty of preventing exactly what I had accidentally done. 

Dance? In school it meant square dancing, easy enough to do as soon as you understood the calls, but basically a brisk walk with turns, trying not to hit the other people who hadn't quite figured it out yet. Besides, it was something our parents might have done but our generation just wasn't into. Things like the jitterbug were appearing, and nobody gave lessons on that. Not in my experience anyway. I did manage the twist, privately and with nowhere to use it.  No, it didn't slim my belly.

After school I didn't do anything resembling dancing until about age thirty, where I learned one could sign up for lessons in beledi, better know as belly dancing. Most people's reaction to the name is it's all about sex. When danced in a bar by prostitutes, that's likely. But for the serious dancer it's about getting the body ready for childbirth by strengthening the pertinent muscles. It's also about sensuous beauty, which is not about an invitation to sex... unless for that specific special someone.

 Its basis is all about isolation of movements. Think the head slide for example. You stand straight (not still but that's part of choreography once you master isolation) while your head, also perfectly vertically straight instead of tilting back and forth, slides back and forth over your shoulders. It has to be practiced in a mirror, like most of the moves, which the classroom we were taught in had along one wall. We also had an excellent instructor, with six weeks of lessons followed by performances by the class and/or individuals. Those recitals were open to family and friends... for those not too shy to invite them. Costumes were made for them, while leotards and a veil were for class. The group performance was choreographed by the instructor, with moves we'd more or less mastered. Individual performances we choreographed ourselves, even picking our own music. I retain the flexible spine I developed, but knees and shoulders now prevent the more athletic moves. I had gotten to the point where, first time in my life, while on my knees I could do a back bend and come up out of it again without rolling over onto my side to stand from. I was strong and graceful for a few years. But there are few opportunities outside of a class to continue that, and once a single mom, no budget for classes. So that, and years of life later, I'm back to not being strong or graceful.

It is this experience I bring with me to judging the appeal of Guillermo on Dancing With The Stars. I'd never heard of nor seen him either, until Colbert was forced off late night TV. (For those worrying about him, he's involved in some project (movie?) about the Lord Of The Rings universe, something he's long been fascinated by and expert in.)

I looked for replacement late night humor programming and settled on Jimmy Kimmel. I never watch the interviews of famous people, on either program. I need a few laughs before I sleep. Here of course I became aware of Guillermo, announcer and sometimes comic relief. If you're not familiar, he's short and pudgy, always smiling a lot. Not what one typically thinks of as the ideal dancer, stereotyped by being slender and athletic, what passes for glamorous.  Contestants are "stars" and he doesn't fit the standard bill. Apparently he's not a particularly experienced dancer either. Like most of the world, he likely danced for fun in social settings, if at all.

His partner is a star, also somebody I'd never heard of until I started watching Jimmy Kimmel's show and the talk turned to the dancing contest. Her name? I can't remember. The two of them started on the contest for fun, making do with putting on a performance to entertain us, even if that entertainment was laughter. The judges hated them. The online audience loved them, or possibly just hated the judges' attitudes. Their votes after the show have kept the pair from being eliminated despite the judges' rankings. Each week the same. Dance moves could be as funny as Guillermo rolling on the floor or even falling splat on it. His partner is beautiful, graceful, dramatic. Did I mention she is currently 5 months pregnant? They are there to have fun. Guillermo has been working hard at becoming a better dancer. The audience loves it! 

The judges scores keep going lower. From what I see on Kimmel's show, the judges keep getting more acerbic every week. This pair is dancing their way into the world's heart. I'm not sure which combination of motives they have for putting the pair through. Do they hate the judges? Do they see the standards imposed as a putdown on every average person as never good enough? Are they just rebelling at being told what to value? Do they simply need some humor in trying times? There are certainly enough needs for humor that doesn't put average people down as worthless. Times are tense. People need a break. 

Give them a voice - or a vote - and find out just how loud they roar!

Hopefully in more ways than one!

Fall Cleaning

 I know, it's spring cleaning that's supposed to be the tradition. But that's indoor cleaning, and frankly, I always figured the regular cleaning, if kept up, pretty much eliminated the need for it. The only spring cleaning I've done for decades has been going through all the paperwork I save throughout the year before I file income taxes. Sometime around mid April a whole lot of paper gets into the recycling bin.

Fall cleanup around here is the outdoors kind. Most of it never needed to be done, but where we live these days, the management is fussy. Take the six old, wide hosta clumps around the outside. At the old place those always just stayed put, not clumps but long rows serving as garden borders. The flowers are ordinary until you shoot them from ground level.

The first hard frost always  killed them, and what was left just kind of turned into hosta soup that filtered its nutrients into the ground to nourish the roots the following year. Here, I'm required to cut them back, with the presumption that all the pieces go in the garbage.

 OK, I cut and pick them up, but just two of the clumps fill a large box or a huge garbage bag. So when I have something filled, scrunched down over and over into as small a size as possible though heavy, it gets transported over to my son's yard. That hole in the ground left when the fish pond was emptied and its liner removed got repurposed as a compost pit. A really BIG compost pit. A tiny handful of pulled weeds aren't worth the bother and hitch a ride in the weekly garbage truck. The boxes and bags get emptied into the compost pit, ready to be filled again as often as necessary. 

The long abandoned raspberry patch has been put back into use for raspberries again, which get turned into jellies and given out as presents in December. Well-composted refuse keeps them well nourished and productive. Not all the dead plants or plant parts go to his house. On a good note, there is no actual tree in this yard, and the handful of leaves which blow in are left in place for the weekly mowing to chop. 

 But the 28 foot patch of asiatic lilies, once they turn brown, are supposed to get cut back and removed before winter. They get pretty woody, though not too woody to decompose somewhat over winter. Ignored stems look like grey twigs the next summer and simply get in the way of any weed control. But once they feed their bulbs and die back, they're cut to the ground. They are gathered, broken/bent and packed into containers to go to the compost pit. It will take them longer to break down, but it will happen. For one thing, all the weeds suddenly revealed by the tall flowers getting cleared are still tender and full of water,  ready to spread seeds, easily pulled where reachable and packed along for the trip.

Earlier this week I started that long process. The lilies went first, while I had the most energy, enough for half the bed, but since we've not actually had a frost yet, only the ones that turned brown on their own were taken. That resulting selective cutting made the job more "interesting". There was a lot of bending over from outside the bed between plants with the clippers, avoiding stepping on others still feeding their bulbs. Eyes needed to also be protected from stalk tips, slowing the process even more. Only closer stalks to the front are gone through. They've all grown dense enough this last year that there's not room for feet, so it's all reaching in, grabbing, cutting, and removing. There's a chair I mostly work from for the close stalks, since these old legs haven't gotten this use for a long time. I haven't gotten a long handled pruner - yet - so with a raised bed it's all legs for the heavy stuff (meaning me of course), the up/down from the chair. The shoulders have gotten lots of light exercise earlier in the year, thus were well  equipped for their part of the task.. How do I know for sure? For the last couple days those legs have been reminding me they've been abused... every time I stand up. Shoulders to fingertips just feel normal.

At least the hostas are where I can sit next to them while cutting and collecting. There are still four mounds to go, but the three containers are back now ready to load up again. Those will be the easy exercise. Just grab a handful, clip through green stems and leave those 3 to 4 inches long. The balance of the asiatic lilies will wait till either we get a frost or they dry out on their own. Since I'll be finishing the bed then, effectively clear cutting, I can set the chair on one end since it fits within the width, and work my way steadily down, taking everything. It will be much easier. Maybe next year I'll wait for a good frost and do it all that way, easy peasy.

After that, of course, is the big job: cutting the huge flower heads off both huge hydrangeas and shaping the branches a bit. They were a bit slow changing color this year, only now in full glory.  I wonder if we'll have a few nice days left the end of this month... after my legs recover. That will need to be done regardless. The way those heavy flower heads bend over, the ground under them has grown full of weeds that can't be seen, or if seen with much trouble, can't be reached to pull them out when pulling could do any good. I'm talking early in the season before they spread more seeds all over.

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 reflect 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?