Ride with Me

Lately I've been meeting my sister in law to walk her dogs at Lillie Park. The beauty is, whether I walk Butch (left) or Brandy, I'm never on poo patrol! I ride my bike to the park and then take a longer ride after walking the dogs. I thought you might like to come along. Relax, you don't have to worry about mosquitoes or humidity, and I'm doing all the pedaling.

I ride through Mary Beth Doyle Park on the way to meet my SIL. I talked about this retention basin last time, and you can see the water level has gone down.

After leaving Lillie, I take the new bike path as far south as it goes. I'm heading out of town, so I see pastoral scenes like this with corn as far as... the next subdivision.

Having an odometer is a mixed blessing. It's cool to know how far I've gone, how fast I'm going, and what time it is, but it also kind of pushes you to do more miles to round up (13.56 miles is for wusses! Gotta do at least 15). I often add miles on side streets, which is how I discovered Freedom Drive. It's a ridiculously short dead-end street off another mostly-forgotten dead-end street with light industrial buildings, many abandoned. I guess it makes sense that freedom hides in a dilapidated place many of us never choose to go. And biking is freedom for me. One of the few ways an otherwise inelegant person can fly.

Sometimes I also ride through subdivisions. Caution: I brake for free plants.

I didn't need any lilies, oops, irises, but I loved the sign.

Heading west, I generally take this dirt road though it can be bumpy, which reverberates through your whole body in a disconcerting way. The tall plants on either side are invasive, non-native reed grasses, Phragmites australis. A horticulturist once described the ID process this way: "If you're in a wet area overgrown with a single kind of really tall grass, and you're not sure if it's Phragmites... It's Phragmites."

A boardwalk view of the marsh at Marsh View Meadows Park.

I always get excited when I see burdock because my first thought is always prairie dock! Burdock is a biennial thistle whose seed pods stick to your clothes. The mosquitoes were wicked in this spot.

Ann Arborites know you can forget about the summer when the sumac is on fire.

"In harmony?" Yeah, I'm not buyin' it either...

Just because they kept the silos, doesn't mean the farm's not gone. Not harmony.

But, look, here's a working farm, just down the road from said bid'ness park.

And here's the best location for listening to frogs in southern Ann Arbor, Morgan Woods Nature Area, northwest corner of Morgan and Stone School Roads. Can you see the jewelweed at the bottom left?

I was hoping some of the alpacas would be out at the local alpaca farm, but they weren't. You'll have to make due with this trumpet vine. I know it's not the same, but it's what was there.

A killdeer!

Heading back into suburbia now.

I love the contrast of this working farm and south Ann Arbor's two tall buildings to the west.

The same farm, looking south, contrasts with a small light industrial complex.

Directly across from the farm to the east is a strip mall, which includes my high-end soil supplier, the Grow Show. The two duuuudes who run it are awesome.

The last time I passed that farm, they had an 1800s buggy (minus the horse) for sale.

This tractor is way cooler.

This sign is in a friend's neighborhood, not on my normal route, but it could just as easily be. It's so quintessentially Ann Arbor.

OK, fess up. Did the title get you humming Nelly or John Mellencamp? I went both ways!

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August Blooms

I was just thinking it's been a while since we've walked around my garden together and it's even time for the August Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day!

I have to start with this retro green and rusted lawn chair, which I found curbside. I struggled with at least five contortions before fitting it into my non-hatchback Focus. At one point it fell out of the trunk and was dragging on the road (I am not exaggerating)... and it hit my foot on one lift. But I'm stubborn and just knew it would make the perfect plant stand for my pot of elephant ears, ferns, and coleus.

I grew potatoes for the first time this year. I decided to use a storage tub (with holes drilled in the bottom), so I could fill it with composty goodness. You know they're ready to harvest when the foliage dies. I started them from seed potatoes, and they were ridiculously easy to grow and they tasted so good. And digging for the taters was fun — there's just something about sticking your arms elbow deep into a nice soil-compost mix and rooting around... aaaahhh!

Here's my second harvest of 'Bintje' potatoes. Nom nom nom!

I'd more or less given up getting eggplants this year, when I saw a tiny 2-inch fruit on August 8. Holla! I thought it was solely because, as Lisa put it, they were "abused as a seedling" (I left them in those small cell packs way too long before transplanting), but it turns out several others have reported their eggplants are late this year too (Ha! it's not all my fault!). We had a really heavy rainstorm and on August 14, the eggplant had tripled in size.

Tomatoes are looking a little small compared to everyone else's, but I don't have too much sun and the soil is bad here, despite improvements, so I'm glad to get even a few tomatoes per plant. They're all heirlooms and each plant is a different variety. I have another two tomatoes in the ground out of view, plus five more in containers. I just realized this whole shot, with my home-made compost bin and rain barrels, plus the random stuff I have set around to squelch weeds, makes this an excellent #uglygardens vignette.

I've saved my first tomato seeds of the season. Easy-to-follow tomato seed saving instructions, with photos, are here. This is my second year saving tomato seeds. I first used paper towels to dry the seeds in the final step, but the seeds really stuck to that. I then tried plain white paper and that worked a lot better. This year I found Colleen's instructions and I got some paper plates, which was genius. No sticking at all and much faster drying times.

The other thing I did differently this year was to wait for mold to form in the initial seed soaking. This fermentation step isn't necessary in terms of seed viability or vitality, but it makes the seed coating (gooey tomato gel) come off the seeds much more easily. Last year I skipped that step and rinsed and rinsed and rinsed and rinsed in a sieve. That worked, too, but was a lot more work.

My cup plant (Silphium perfoliatum*) is only 5 feet tall, though they can get to 10 feet in optimal sun. I wrote a bit more about it here.

Look who I found on the cup plant blossom — the soldier beetle is not only a pollinator, but it eats aphids. I love beneficial insects. Plus, it's just so cute!

Despite my laziness in not having planted this nodding wild onion (Allium cernuum) since my friend gave it to me in {looks around furtively} early June, it's blooming and doing well!

I love the almost-ready-to-bloom buds of rough blazing star, Liatris aspera.

Love the turkey-foot shaped seed head of big bluestem grass, Andropogon gerardii.

I have several clumps of tall coreopsis (Coreopsis tripteris), this one along the neighbor's fence.

Butterfly bush is bright and cheerful.

One of my many cultivar Viburnums. I love the berries. I do have a native arrowwood Viburnum, too. :)

I adore the buds of Japanese anemone. (All together now: "Noogie!")

Some of my Japanese anemone have already starting blooming.

The berries on this purple beautyberry shrub will turn bright, vivid, holla! violet in another month or so.

The front bed taken from the driveway, looking south. (Pinky says hi.)

The front bed along the house, taken from the porch facing south.

The front bed on the other side of the walkway, taken from the front porch looking west. (Say hi to Bizi** so she can ignore you!)

One of my favorite garden spots. I love the rattlesnake master (Eryngium yuccifolium) paired with the Russian sage.

And that combo close up.

Mexican hat.

The sunflowers I sowed on July 4 are about a foot tall and look like they're getting buds!

The Mexican petunia Sweetbay sent back in May finally has a bloom!!

My first-ever rose 'Golden Wings' is blooming again since I pruned the dogwood, which was blocking her sun, waaaaay back.

Even though I cut my sneezeweed back over a foot in early July, it's blooming now. 'Mardi Gras' has long since finished, and now it's time for 'Moerheim Beauty'...

...and the native yellow Helenium autumnale. It's tall and makes a great screen for one of my rain barrels. (See how you can't see it?)

I just love it close up.

Bees love my dahlia 'Bonne Esperance.'

I'd say my one (and only) 'Uchiki Kuri' squash is ready.

The ironweed (Vernonia missurica) outside my front door is a good six feet tall. I've read it likes it wet, though I never water mine. I also read it can spread, but mine hasn't (though it is true I collect its seeds).

I love its vibrant purple flowers.

And that's about it for today. It's too humid and there are too many mosquitos. Let's go in and have some zucchini bread and lemonade.

* I'm marking native plants in this post by also giving their Latin name. (No Latin name = not a native plant.)

** Bizi is Fiona's nickname; Jimi is James' nickname. People often mention "all your cats" and as much as I'd love to be a crazy cat lady, I have just those two. It hit me that perhaps the nicknames were interpreted as individuals, esp. as Bizi isn't so obviously derived from Fiona.

Thanks to Carol of May Dreams Gardens for hosting Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day.

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Forgiveness

We go through life with defenses we created early on.
Are you willing to soften those barriers to allow good things?
- Daily OM

I saw this on a friend's fb page this morning and it hit home. Hard. Sliding into the plate, with dust flying, chin scraped.

I was very open as a child. Sensitive, enthusiastic, trusting. I reached out. I got hurt. I blocked a lot of things out. I closed up, not realizing I had done so.

I think people who know me today probably still think I'm enthusiastic and open, because I try to be. Especially with people I trust. But I'm not. Not really open. Not with myself.

Why? Why is letting go so hard? Why is it easier to cling to past hurt? Why do things hide deep down only to come out when you least expect it, despite everything you do to chase them out?

Because it's not the world or other people I don't trust, it's me. I don't trust myself. I don't trust my feelings, my instincts. Despite everything I've tried to do the last few years, it hit me that deep down in the place you always try to block out and pretend doesn't exist, I don't feel I deserve good things. If someone says something bad about me, I'm quick to believe it. If someone says something good, I wonder what their angle is or brush it off entirely.

Why?

I've always been really hard on myself, held myself to standards I would never impose on others. That's one thing. The other thing is that while I've been able to forgive others (truly, wholly) so I could move on, I've never been able to forgive myself.

I see now this is something I really want and have to do. But how do you feel it, believe it instead of just hear yourself saying it? For now that's all I have. Words. I forgive myself.

I now return you to your normal garden blogging!

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