Butterflies I have seen this year

in my garden.  Many I have never seen there before .  Some of these photos are mine; others I took from Google. My iphone camera isn't sharp or fast enough to catch them:

yellow sulphur

dreamy duskywing

Buckeye

Cabbage White

Frittilary

Painted Lady

Red Admiral

Silver Spotted Skipper

Monarch

 Monarch Caterpillar on Swamp Milkweed

Yellow Swallowtail

Beecology

I have become very fond of pollinators in my garden,  I am even learning more about native bees!

Parts of an interview copied from  A Way to Garden   - a great blog by Margaret Roach:

BIOLOGIST ROBERT GEGEAR wants our help. He wants us to become Beecologists, as in, citizen scientists who help with the study of the ecology of bees. Our native bumblebees, specifically. He wants us to get to know them by taking photos, and contribute to scientific research by sharing those sightings, and in the process, learn to make gardens and landscapes that support them.

In our chat, I was surprised to learn that a bumblebee species may prefer a different plant for nectar than it does as a source of pollen, and also what role pollen serves for the bees (not just for the plants they pollinate). And that though there are a lot of lists out there of “bee plants,” many of them aren’t based on research—but rather on less-formal observations of bees being seen on certain flowers. It’s time for that to change, and each of us can help.

Rob: So I started to do field work looking into some of these causes, and found some really interesting findings, looking more at the species ecology. And it was just myself and one grad student, and I needed to scale up the project. And so I thought, there’s no better way to expand out than to include citizen scientists in the project, and so I created the Beecology Project, which is my way to rapidly collect data from a large area. And these data are on the ecological preferences of different threatened pollinator species, and also trying to get information on plants and pollinator interaction.

And so I was giving a talk, and this was the first Beecology talk, or first or second Beecology talk, I said, “I’m looking for this bee, it should be in this area, it’s at higher elevations,” and at the end of the talk, someone showed me a picture of the bee.

Margaret: [Laughter.]

Rob: So since that, many people have shown me pictures and submitted pictures of this bee, and I now have a range map for the species that I was told was no longer in the state. It’s alive and well in the state, and I am currently studying it, to try to figure out what its ecological needs are, where does it like to nest, what does it like for nectar and pollen source, where does it overwinter, so that I can figure out why it’s no longer in certain areas where it was historically, and hope to bring, expand the population back into those areas.

So people sending in… There’s another species that’s rapidly declining, and I was just earlier today was meeting with a Beecologist, and saw the species in their garden, and they were telling me what they’ve seen it on, and they’re going to do some observation for me to figure out what the ecological needs of that species.

Now, you have a particular interest, you know, we hear about a lot of headlines the last couple of years, especially about honeybees. Colony collapse disorder, and this and that. And I’m interested in that, but you’re really focusing on bumblebees, our native bees in the genus Bombus, yes? And so it’s a little bit different from the honeybee thing.

we’re starting with the bumblebee, and I’m focused on the bumblebee, and I’ve been studying it for over 20 years, but really the techniques we’re developing and some of the information that we’re gathering can be applied to all types of pollinators, not just bumblebees.

The bumblebees are easily accessible, are easily identifiable by citizen scientists, which is why we’re starting with the bumblebees.

Margaret: O.K. And when you say the bumblebees, there are… I’ve read in different places in the United States that there are 46 species, or 49. I don’t know how many, but who, what’s the number?

Rob: [Laughter.] The number that I give is “approximately 50,” so there were some parasitic bumblebees that were in a different genus, that were changed from Psithyrus to Bombus, and now are included in that bumblebee number, so the number went up when those species were included. There are roughly, so roughly 50—25 east, 25 west—and as you go farther north, you start to get new species… or diversity increases generally as you start to move farther north, and to higher elevation.

Margaret: So you said that you were just talking about the importance of honeybees, especially in the agricultural setting as pollinators. I sort of think of them as like a farm animal, in a way, do you know what I mean? We’ve put them, humans have put them into service to do this work, and in fact we imported them when we came to settle this country since they’re not native to here. But the bumblebees, as native bees, are I think what’s called a keystone species. Can you explain that?

Rob: Yes, so again, in the ecological context, what our native pollinators do, including bumblebees and the other things that I mentioned, it’s not just… What I want to point out before I go into the keystone species idea, because it’s not just the animals. We talk about pollinator decline, and it’s really focused on the animal, so we’re concerned with saving the bees. But really, what’s important here, the term “pollinator” itself is a plant-based term, and an animal can only be called a pollinator if it’s performing a particular service to the plant, helping it to reproduce.

..

Here's a lovely poem by Linda Gregg:

Let Birds

Linda Gregg - 1942-2019

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Eight deer on the slope
in the summer morning mist.
The night sky blue.
Me like a mare let out to pasture.
The Tao does not console me. 
I was given the Way 
in the milk of childhood. 
Breathing it waking and sleeping.
But now there is no amazing smell
of sperm on my thighs,
no spreading it on my stomach
to show pleasure. 
I will never give up longing. 
I will let my hair stay long. 
The rain proclaims these trees,
the trees tell of the sun.
Let birds, let birds.
Let leaf be passion.
Let jaw, let teeth, let tongue be
between us. Let joy.
Let entering. Let rage and calm join.
Let quail come.
Let winter impress you. Let spring. 
Allow the ocean to wake in you.
Let the mare in the field
in the summer morning mist
make you whinny. Make you come 
to the fence and whinny. Let birds.

From All of It Singing: New and Selected Poems by Linda Gregg. Copyri

August begins

My Cardinal Flower is flourishing in the courtyard garden.  The other day I watched a hummingbird dancing around it.

Glad to be talking about something else besides political peril.

Here's an August poem:

"How sociable the garden was.
We ate and talked in given light.
The children put their toys to grass
All the warm wakeful August night."

-  Thomas Gunn, Last Days at Teddington


and another:

"Open the window, and let the air
Freshly blow upon face and hair,
And fill the room, as it fills the night,
With the breath of the rain's sweet might.
Hark! the burthen, swift and prone!
And how the odorous limes are blown!
Stormy Love's abroad, and keeps
Hopeful coil for gentle sleeps.

Not a blink shall burn to-night
In my chamber, of sordid light;
Nought will I have, not a window-pane,
'Twixt me and the air and the great good rain,
Which ever shall sing me sharp lullabies;
And God's own darkness shall close mine eyes;
And I will sleep, with all things blest,
In the pure earth-shadow of natural rest."

-  James Henry Leigh Hunt, A Night Rain in Summer

It's all about the money

On this last day of July, I am still wasting a lot of thought time on Donald Trump.  I am so worried about our country.

The other night on the Rachel Maddow show, Jamie Raskin said some things that really rang true. I looked up the transcript:


REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD):  A lot of people believe we`ve been in an

impeachment inquiry ever since we started looking into potential high

crimes and misdemeanors and the misconduct of the executive branch.  Other

people thinking impeachment query doesn`t begin until you actually have

articles of impeachment.  I would say we are in an impeachment

investigation.

RASKIN:  Sure, we were just confronted with overwhelming evidence of high

crimes and misdemeanors 10 episodes of obstruction of justice presidential

candidate is campaign welcoming with open arms foreign interference in our

presidential election.  You know, if Bill Clinton can be impeached for

telling one lie about sex, that`s low crimes and misdemeanors.  This is in

the category of high crimes and misdemeanors, and we`re investigating it

and we`re trying to figure out whether these are high crimes and

misdemeanors that justify impeachment. 

But I would say that our investigated future involves a lot of other

issues.  You know, I think the American public has the sense that money is

really at the heart of the Trump White House and he has essentially

converted the presidency into an instrument of self enrichment a money-

making enterprise basically for himself and his business and his friends,

and that`s what the whole federal government has turned into.

And so, we need to investigate whether the foreign Emoluments Clause,

Article 1, Section 9, Clause 8 has been violated and is being violated

every day.  There have been reports that different foreign governments have

basically been filling Donald Trump`s pockets through the Trump hotel,

through the office tower, through the golf courses.  There`s the domestic

Emoluments Clause which says that he`s limited to receiving his salary.  We

can`t increase it, we can`t decrease it.  And yet every time they go to

Mar-a-Lago, for example, they`re spending $75,000 or $100,000 that goes

directly from federal government agencies and departments to the Trump

hotel. 

So, that I would say should be the beginning of following the money but we

remember that Donald Trump said that he would basically blow up the special

counsel investigation if they looked at his finances.  He`s not going to be

able to hamstring.  The U.S. Congress in the same way.  We`re going to get

to the bottom of all of it. 

Fearful

I have been reading a book by Doris Kearns Goodwin:  Leadership in Turbulent Times. 

In her book  Kearns looks at four presidents: Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, and Lyndon Johnson, and particularly examines how each one handled a particular crisis in his presidency.

I read the section on Lincoln’s crisis first.  It was about the Emancipation Proclamation, and his strategy for making it take.   It also talked about Lincoln’s choice of cabinet members of all his rivals, something Donald Trump would never do.

But this description hit me because it made me think of the present time. 

It was about Teddy Roosevelt’s time:

“The dangers of the age: the rise of gigantic trusts that were rapidly swallowing up their competitors in one field after another, the invisible web of corruption linking political bosses to the business community, the increasing concentration of wealth and the growing gap between the rich and the poor, the squalid conditions in the immigrant slums, the mood of insurrection among the laboring classes.”(244)

And then, there’s Sinclair Lewis:

Here is Penguin Classic’s back-cover blurb for Sinclair Lewis’s 1935 novel It Can’t Happen Here:

"A vain, outlandish,anti-immigrant, fear-mongering demagogue runs for President of the United States – and wins. Sinclair Lewis’s chilling 1935 bestseller is the story of Buzz Windrip, who promises poor, angry voters  that he will make America Proud and prosperous once more, but takes the country down a far darker path. As the new regime slides into authoritarianism, newspaper editor Doremus Jessop can’t believe it will last – but is he right? This cautionary tale of liberal complacency in the face of populist tyranny shows it really can happen here."

Trump stirs up his cult

At a rally in North Carolina recently, the President of the United States deliberately stoked up the coals of racial hatred as he attacked four Democratic congresswomen of color, particularly Rep. Omar. The crowd chanted "Send her back!"   but this woman is an American citizen and an elected official.

The cartoons and memes reacted.  Here are some of them:

and this:

and an old favorite of mine:

Everyone's Gone to the Moon

I just can't believe that fifty years have passed since the moon landing.   I remember it well.

I wrote this poem about it  ( sort of )  perhaps thirty years later:

Everyone’s Gone to the Moon

Rousseau painted the gypsy sleeping under the full moon

in dazzling deep cobalt sky ,

dreaming face like a totem serene

in a dream of lute music.

Pipe song,

grazing wildeyed lion

huge behind him

standing guard over his dreams

bedhead mane stiff with moonlight

eyes wild white balls and staring corneas

tail at the alert

1969 and I’m serving drinks

at the Kennett Square Country Club,

so glad to be 21 and able to serve drinks.

The golfers at the bar stare with wild white eyeballs

at the tiny moonman in his white spacesuit

moving jerkily on the cratered surface

faceless, the glass in his helmet shining back

the distant earth

and I notice it without much excitement,

immersed as I am in being 21 years old,

thinking this will happen a lot

from now on.

In my dreams.

Reunion Planning

"All Together, all together, still, still we meet...

Hearts and voices light as ever, Alma Mater, thus we greet...

Friendship's links may ne'er be broken, bright is its chain

Though the parting words be spoken, through the years we'll meet again..."
 ( Alma Mater, Saint Joseph College, Emmitsburg Maryland)

Our thirtieth reunion

Our forty-fifth

Thirteen of us got together this past week to plan our fiftieth college reunion, which will take place in March, 2020.  We partied, too.

A true garden is never finished

I've had successes and failures in the courtyard garden so far this summer.

The successes have been the perennials planted two, three, four years ago, which have prospered and grown.  Also the Swamp Milkweed which came up by itself...

One big failure was my fault:  I killed my beautiful Borage with too much water. The stem rotted at the base.  I've saved many seeds from it, though, and hope to have it again.

The Artichoke withered and died, too.  Don't know why.
And the flowers I attempted to start from seed?  Only Queen Anne's Lace  and  Larkspur made it.
The others:  Stock, Mignonette, and Shirley Poppy sprouted, but overnight one night some creature came and ate the seedlings!

Then the grounds guys came and did some necessary weeding and thinning and mulching. That was great, except the person wielding the weedkiller spray hit some of my plants, too.  That way I lost the Cleome, the Scabiosa, the Calendula, and possibly some of the Larkspur.  So it goes.


I read May Sarton's diary of her gardening,  Plant Dreaming Deep,  a long time ago and should try to find it and read it again now that it will mean so much more .  One thing she says:

"Gardening gives one back a sense of proportion about everything - except itself."

-   May Sarton, Plant Dreaming Deep, 1968

Gardens Unfolding

"Gardens are not created or made, they unfold, spiraling open like the silk petals of an evening primrose flower to reveal the ground plot of the mind and heart of the gardener and the good earth."

-  Wendy Johnson, Green Gulch Farm Zen Center, 2000