Hackberry Trees, etc, #4

Here it is close up....

I wish I could tell you the names of all these, but as I said they are all very old, and only my newest ones have names.

The new ones were only planted in October, so they didn't have as many blooms as these. The ones that are so rampant have been here for years, and badly need thinning. Which is my plan for the fall.

I guess that's more than you ever needed to know about daylilies.

Thank you Sharon,
I really appreciate the survey.
You've got me thinking about how daylilies might be used in mixed perennial beds. So far, I've just put them at the front, in part to easily see how they are doing.
As I said, up to about three years ago, I was salting perennials beds with clumps of oriental lilies. In our area, lily beetles now make using oriental lilies, like that, impossible.
Thanks again,
Had better get to bed.
Back tomorrow.
Charlie

See ya, Charlie.
Have a nice evening.

ahem. Should you lack space to plant out what you thin, I can always give you my address.


Christi

don't have pictures switched to Mac yet.

With a suggestion like that, the least you could do is come help thin them out, Christi!

Morning, my friends...another pretty day out there.
Gonna go check it out....

Hi Sharon, Hi Christi,
Don't want to bore anyone with too many pictures, but had to go to school garden today. Put the garden in, when I worked there (mainly during lunches - to maitain my sanity). Here's the reason I still maintain their garden - free.
Charlie.

Currently in bloom: false sunflower, yellow loosestrife, purple loosestrife cultivar (Morden Pink), shastra daisy, erigeron, a rose, siberian mint, mallows, goldenrod (just coming into bloom) and Scottish harebells (latter, a weed I think I control).

Oh how pretty, and what a nice tribute.
Something wonderful you left them with.

Congratulations, Charlie.

My neighbor made a couple of plant benches for me, out of old lumber, and i finally finished painting them today. Had two community pots that were frying on my driveway. By way of explanation, I have two front doors and one opens onto the driveway. Didn't occur to me the heat would affect the potted plants. But it did, so I just spent a day or two painting it and getting those plants up off the hot spot.

All children should be so lucky to have your garden, Charlie. Very uplifting.

Christi

Lovely color combo, Charlie...
Hi LouC...

Very welcoming, Sharon. Another oddity, I also put "man in a boat" at the bottom of large potted plants.

C;hristi

Going back outside. Still putting Hazey Blue on the deck (and me and all my clothes)

Thanks Sharon and Christi,
Sounds like Sharon is about as hyperactive as me - also with her writing and the art! I feel tired.

On one occasion, students with bad behavior, were sentenced to help me in the garden. I considered myself a gardener (and a chemistry teacher) not a prison warden with a chain gang!

Days are made for filling up.
Otherwise they are like an empty vase, not very pretty unless something is in them.

yep, I am a whirling dervish, a spinning top...sometimes with no direction in mind.
Tired is good, let's me know I am still alive.

Lovely blooms, Charlie.

I also painted an old glider on the back deck, and used the second bench to lift up these pots back there.

Now I gotta find something else that needs doing...

The kids were actually pretty good, but terribly incompetent. I saw a kid stick a spade too deep into the heavy clay soil and instead of pulling it out a bit, keep pushing down on it until it snapped in two.

But I bet they learned a lot from you, good or bad kids...can't help but learn when one is 'doing'.

What's the little open building used for?

I really hope that Christi has more common sense than the two of us.
They also sentenced malefactors to help the cleaning staff. I can appreciate the objections of the cleaning staff: 'Bad people, become cleaners'.

Same thing when they sent me kids who could not get along in other classes....scheduled them into my studio classes. Most of the time it worked, because for instance, if they put them into a ceramics class they could take out frustrations on a piece of clay or on the potters wheel. Most of them weren't bad kids, just tangled up with hormones and emotions they didn't know what to do with.

The worst were the 'bad' girls with an attitude and a mouth.

I could more easily deal with the 'bad' boys than with the 'bad' girls.

I do agree with you Sharon - I also always felt the 'charming rascals' were fun to be around. Had one kid in a general grade 11 class, growing space irradiated seeds, who said he wouldn't be in the next day. I said "Why?".
I wasn't supposed to ask. He said, "I'll be in Court tomorrow". I said "Why?"
I shouldn't have asked that either. He said I've been charged with selling pot and possessing of a sawn-off shotgun. Teachers are never told things like that. Must say I liked the kid and got on very well with him. The only problem was that when the mice ate the seeds in the lab, I let him bring in replacement "orange seeds" which turned out to be pot! We couldn't help laughing. Apart from a few hiccups like this one, I really agree that stable and friendly teachers are a good influence on not so stable and generally quite friendly kids.
Detail of rose bush at front of school.

Lovely rosebush.
Yes, pot.
I had a dark room for film processing and printing just off my room. A well equipped room for teaching photography. It also had sinks and a high powered vent to rid the room of chemical fumes.
I had a couple boys who were of the rascal clan, and they began to show an interest in the dark room. Avid interest. So I taught them to process film and print the photos. They learned amazingly well, and actually excelled.

One time I got a whiff of an unidentified scent mixed in with the chemical scent.
Turned out that while processing the film, they were also smoking, yep, pot, in the darkroom.

I had to ban them from the dark room, and eventually they were also banned from the school...but for smoking in other places on campus.

I did not turn them in to the office for what I suspected was going on, since I had no real proof, just the vague scent and my suspicions, but they got caught anyway. Sad, because they could have been excellent photographers.

Very interesting Sharon.
Think some of the kids really need some attention. Hands-on activities also help. I too had the most problems with a very few "princesses", particularly one whose father had been President of the Parent Council. Keeping calm and carefully documenting everything wins the day. After a few months, she became quite friendly. I never had the pleasure of her father's company, but he's the one I wouldn't like.
Used to say to my close friends among the teacher: "I am Jack. Jack the Dwarf Killer". Have to laugh. Actually, would always speak for the class, never for myself, in dealing with problems. And always gave a kid a face-saving way out. The kids may be (academic learning) inert, but they appreciate fairness (and generosity). Found teanager tend to have a great sense of humor and generally be quite tolerant. Main thing they don't like is working!
So glad I'm retired. Trying to get people to work, was like pulling teeth.

Exactly.
My children talked me into getting on Facebook...thought I was too old, but did anyway. It is a social networking thing on the net, and you know who found me? Those former students that I had all over the years, some nearly as old as I am since I was only 21 when I taught my first group of 12th graders. It has been fun having them find me, and hearing about their lives. Made teaching seem more worthwhile...a lot of them were the troublemakers, but most have been successful in one way or another.

most start by saying they hope I don't remember their bad times.

I usually do, but don't mention them.

It was a long 37 years, those teaching years, but I wouldn't change a thing.

Love the story Sharon - that's today's teaching.
I too would not turn a kid in unless I had to (safety, a meaningful lesson, etc).
Had a very large and friendly 19-year old male student come to general chemistry lab drunk once. Of course, there was no lab for him at that time. We just kept him in the V.P.'s office until he'd sobered up. Several years later, I heard that he was a very successful worker with troubled children!
My only real complaint in teaching was always about the politics of it. I tended to see eye-to-eye with most of the parents, but at least here, if there was merit pay, it would go to those who play politics, not to footsoldiers like us.
Japanese iris in my garden (Jodlesong).

Great to get positive feedback later.
Interesting comment about the 'bad times'.
Carol taught high school 35 years. Me, only 19:
As much as I liked the kids and love Chemistry, I have to admit, that was enough!

Lovely JI....great color, not so bluish purple as most.
Nice violet-ish.

Humanities was hard to teach, but became fun when I incorporated little projects into it, like painting Egyptian hieroglyphs on rocks, using sticks that we roasted marshmallows and hot dogs on. It became charkole when burned on the ends, and that was our drawing utensil. Knowing the hieroglyphs allowed them some rather 'picturesque' words for the rocks, which no one else understood. It was fun.

Got to find something to eat, suddenly realized food must have been the last thought on my mind today.
Back later.

Sounds like you had fun in Humanities, Sharon.
One of the nice things about chemistry is that it has a lab side that kids tend to like. That brings the calculational and theoretical sides alive (as well as the everyday).
Never knew any chemistry at all when I started teaching, though had taught human biology at an advanced level. When started teaching high school, I didn't like their dissections. Have dissected many mammals, but am proud that not one of them was killed for dissection (usually accidents).
Did want to express my hope that you got food, but maybe this is not the place to express it!

Food....well, since I mentioned it first, just about anything is fair on this thread. Yes, I did get food, corn on the cob actually, with melted butter and a salad on the side! I don't eat meat, well, I do eat seafood occasionally, but the corn, though frozen, was very sweet and filling. Now I have grapes for dessert.

Humanities was hard to teach here in the Bible belt, but i made my way through it. Hard for some folks to accept the validity of carbon dating. But that truly is a subject that we can't go into here on this thread. I enjoyed figuring out ways to teach it though, so that it was not offensive, so they learned what I wanted them to learn, for the most part. Probably forgot it immediately, too.

Several (at least partial) parallels between us, Sharon,
I haven't eaten my fellow mammals (red meat and veal) for at least twenty years. Once loved weiner schnitzel, but haven't had veal for at least thirty years.
Studied and taught (at university) the most contentious area of anthropology, the biological part (including applications of radiometric dating).
I do appreciate being "not offensive". But human beings are strange creatures.

The absolute strangest.
Yes, many parallels.

Conscious choices are often foreign to some, alien to others. And reasoning is beyond the realm of understanding usually. I guess we learn alot about human nature when we teach, more than the norm, anyway.

So do you eat seafood, as I do?

Yes, though not clams, lobsters and the like.
Actually was reading tonight about 'acid ash diets' (new on me). Seems it is relevant to arthritis. If I remember right, we eat (wild) salmon for omega 3 fatty acids (said to be good for arthritis). I just read that salmon was a high acid ash
food (said to be bad for arthritis). I'm confused!
Maybe too much knowledge really is a bad thing!
Better get to bed,
Nite Sharon,
Charlie

Confusing to me too.
Lots of things are confusing to me though.
Good night, Charlie...
Don't forget to feed Buddy!

I will never catch up with your wonderful chatter. Taking new pc and old pc to Apple store to have data transferred. Start one to one classes next week.

Will be offline again for a couple of days.

Common sense? It has been 100+ everyday for two weeks. During that time I have helped with remodeling the deck, adding two more beds, (flower), the endless work of the caring for everything in the garden, and chief painter of the deck. Mike comes in to watch golf. I go out early so I can acclimate as the temperature climbs. Summer in Texas is usually equal to winter in the north. Everyone hibernates to avoid the weather.

Toodle loo,

Princess Kilikina (my Hawaiian name)

LouC.....oops, Princess Kilikina
(Pronounced Ke.lee'.ke.naa no doubt) I really hope you hurry through your computer woes so we can see your new outdoor decor. We definitely need pictures!!!

Enjoy a cool day, m'dear....it is vaguely warmish here too.

Morning, Charlie, where will your wanderings take you today? Check out my blue garden article today, I sat out there last night and watched the full moon.....very very nice. Wish I could have included the mood with the article.

Warm today - but nothing like Christi's (Princess Kilikina's).
Surely Texas must be hotter than Hawaii.
Am amazed that Christi can garden in the heat.
Was planting shrubs today. Having to break up heavy clay and avoid cables and pipes - latter, particularly, not my favorite. Need to finish the job tomorrow.
Sharon, the blue garden article sounds very interesting. Like blue flowers.
Is it in Dave's newsletter? Haven't received that yet.
Charlie

Here you go, Charlie...the daily articles should show up on the right hand column of your home page, unless they are not set up in your preferences...you might check.

http://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/view/2541/

Thanks. I see Sharon.
Love blue flowers.
Don't know why.

Maybe we love blue flowers because there are few of them, and those that are, are relatively small. Except for Himalayan Poppies....those things are lovely and large, and they will not grow for me. Sigh.

Anyway, glad you found the article

Did a fair bit of reading re color perception in winter.
That after Carol and I continually seemed to see differences on the purple-blue continuum: she described particular flowers as purple, while I saw them as blue. Lady at house paint shop said same thing.
Apparently (my conclusion, I think), there may be a sexual dimorphism in purple-blue perception, with (some) women seeing particular flowers as purple and men (and some women) seeing the same ones as blue. Am basing this, in part, in what I read in Wikipedia, about the (claimed?) discovery of red color receptors in the retina of some women.
Purple is "seen" by the brain, not the eye: e.g. there is no purple in the rainbow. Purple results from putting red (low energy, long wavelength) and blue (high energy, short wavelength) visible electromagnetic radiation (=light) together.
Got my B.A. in Psychology, but that was a long time ago and things we learned in the Psychology of Perception then, are now quite out of date.