{"id":1239,"date":"2016-08-19T06:03:32","date_gmt":"2016-08-19T13:03:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/?p=1239"},"modified":"2016-08-18T19:50:23","modified_gmt":"2016-08-19T02:50:23","slug":"the-state-of-the-yard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/2016\/08\/19\/the-state-of-the-yard\/","title":{"rendered":"The State of the Yard"},"content":{"rendered":"

My Fitbit ran out of juice last night at 3:26 AM. \u00a0I knew it was going dead when it was time to go to bed. I went looking for the charger which turned out to be among the missing. \u00a0A wholesale search of the family room and patios failed to turn it up, and I finally went to bed, disgusted with myself for being so scatterbrained. \u00a0This morning, although I went out to do my steps early on, I was disheartened to think I was missing all those Fitbit steps. \u00a0Then I learned something surprising. \u00a0My iPhone kept track of the Fitbit steps even though my Fitbit Charge was, as Charles Dickens would say, \u201cdead as a doornail.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

When I came in from walking, 7000 steps to the good but still disheartened, I put our \u201cguy,\u201d Martinus, on the case. \u00a0Bill and I are sure good-looking but we\u2019re poor finding. \u00a0Tinus is not. \u00a0He found the charger cord hiding in the coffee cup holder in the car out in the garage. \u00a0And then I remembered. \u00a0Last Friday, on our way to Olympia for the very warm South Sound Reading Foundation event, I had to charge the Fitbit in the car and left the charger behind. \u00a0Whew! \u00a0Glad that mystery is solved.<\/span><\/p>\n

So now at 11:30 as I write this, I have my \u201cten\u201d both ways\u2014the Fitbit way and the iPhone way. \u00a0And no, that does NOT give me credit for 20,000 steps. \u00a0And as of now, Bill who started out a year and a half ago at 2,000 steps a day if he was lucky, is now up to 10,000, too. \u00a0There have been many incremental changes for both of us, and all for the better.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve said very little about the yard this summer, so it\u2019s time for a serious yard update. Last year, when we started walking, the garden was five years old but we had spent very little time in it. \u00a0(Too far to walk back then.) \u00a0All last summer, the changing landscape of the garden was a wonder and a marvel. \u00a0This year, it\u2019s familiar territory. \u00a0The blueberries and raspberries have come and gone. \u00a0So have the daisies as well as the brilliantly red crocosina (Crocosina\u00a0anrea imperialis if you want to be picky about it!) that the hummingbirds love so much. \u00a0There are only one or two hydrangea with any color left in the blooms, and the last petals fell off the lily today, but the black-eyed Susans are in full bloom. \u00a0And my wisteria, the one I wanted all my life, is a green jungle at the bottom of the steps with just a lavender bud or two sticking out of the greenery. \u00a0In other words, the garden and all its late summer changes are wonderful.<\/span><\/p>\n

So much for the flora. \u00a0As for the fauna? \u00a0Bella\u2019s and Jojo\u2019s mole total for the year is up to three. \u00a0At $250 per mole (according to a local exterminator) Bella has earned back exactly half of her yearly bill at the Eastside Veterinary Dental Practice. \u00a0Bella and Jojo dig up the creatures and drop them off in places where I can find the corpses and deal with them by means of a handy pooper-scooper. \u00a0It is also my job to go back around the yard and fill in the open-pit mines they dig in the mulch to get at the pesky creatures. I believe this is what\u2019s called a division of labor.<\/span><\/p>\n

As for the fish and the heron? \u00a0Let me say that the fish are fine, including a whole crew of six and seven-inch long four and five year-old goldfish and our six year-old koi–the Big Guy as we like to call him\u2014who looks like a hulking giant compared to everyone else. \u00a0The heron showed up once this year and landed on the lawn just north of the front fish pond. \u00a0Bill and I were sitting on the back porch at the time. \u00a0Bill grabbed my pre-loaded Nerf machine gun and fired off one of the whistling Nerf gun bullets. \u00a0He aimed over the pool house and the bullet landed in the pond somewhere south of where the heron was sitting. \u00a0He left and has not returned as far as we know. \u00a0In other words, the heron blaster was no problem for him, but whistling Nerf gun bullets are another matter entirely.<\/span><\/p>\n

This year a family of rabbits have turned up in our yard. They come and go on the wall on the far side of the dog yard fence. There have been a time or two when the puppies have come upon them down in the back yard. \u00a0What\u2019s the score there? Miniature dachshunds are quick, but bunnies are a lot quicker. \u00a0Oh, and a trio of deer\u2014two does and a buck–are spending a lot of time next door, chowing down on the grass and on the deadfall crab apples. \u00a0We\u2019ve not seen the bobcat recently but I suspect he\u2019s like Arnold and \u201che\u2019ll be back.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Sometimes I walk out back around the fish pond. \u00a0Sometimes I walk out front on the drive. Next to the turnaround out front is tree that always makes me smile and think about Jack in the Beanstalk. \u00a0It\u2019s a skinny tree with VERY LARGE heart-shaped leaves\u201424 inches wide and 36 inches or so long. \u00a0BIG LEAVES. \u00a0Last year, when I pointed it out to my husband, Bill pronounced it to be a weed and said it was growing too close to the driveway. \u00a0As a consequence, he asked the gardener to cut it down which the gardener did, chopping it off at ground level. \u00a0Well guess what? \u00a0That \u201cweed\u201d is back again this year, bigger and better than ever. \u00a0Last year it had one branch. \u00a0This year there are three, and as of this morning, it\u2019s a good twelve feet tall.<\/span><\/p>\n

So this year, I asked Alan Burke, our landscape architect from Classic Nursery to identify said weed. \u00a0He took a photo and sent me the following memo: \u00a0What do author J.A. Jance and the Dowager Countess Pavlovna have in common?<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Our mystery plant my short staff tell me, is not just “any” weed, but is in fact a\u00a0Paulownia tomentosa \u00a0or “Empress tree”…<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The generic name\u00a0Paulownia<\/i>\u00a0honors\u00a0Anna Pavlovna of Russia<\/span><\/a>. This woman had trouble aplenty, having almost married Napoleon… though had she done so, she might have been able to spend her twilight years lording it over her minions at St. Helena… \u00a0In China, the tree is planted at the birth of a girl. The fast-growing tree matures when she does. When she is eligible for marriage the tree is cut down and carved into wooden articles for her dowry. Carving the wood of\u00a0Paulownia<\/i>\u00a0is an art form in Japan and China. In legend, it is said that the\u00a0phoenix<\/span><\/a>\u00a0will only land on the Empress Tree and only when a good ruler is in power. (That said, it may die suddenly after the November elections) Several Asian string instruments are made from\u00a0P. tomentosa<\/i>, including the Japanese\u00a0koto<\/i><\/span><\/a>\u00a0and Korean\u00a0gayageum<\/i><\/span><\/a>\u00a0zithers.<\/span> (wiki)\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m glad to know this, and I hope you are, too, but as far as I\u2019m concerned, that Empress Tree still looks for all the world like Jack\u2019s beanstalk!<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My Fitbit ran out of juice last night at 3:26 AM. \u00a0I knew it was going dead when it was time to go to bed. I went looking for the charger which turned out to be among the missing. \u00a0A wholesale search of the family room and patios failed to turn it up, and I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[145,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-moving-target","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3nsBA-jZ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1239"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1239\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1240,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1239\/revisions\/1240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}