Acceptance

I've been to Florida and back. It might have been jet lag. Perhaps I was verklempt. I've been back a couple days.

I would have put the age of my grandparent's house at 88. A recent claim was made for 97. It's an old house. That claim does make the gardens 97 at a minimum. They could be older. I know my people. The gardens began the moment they owned the land. All the structures came after. The house was the last of three living quarters that got built.

I have known this garden my entire life. It has changed the entire time.

Round about one hundred years later, this house and garden is our family's version of Grey Gardens. I imagine it is a pretty common scenario these days. There isn't enough money or energy to keep things in tip top shape. We get by. Decomposition can only be slowed so much.

The dominant aspect of the garden is close to two acres of azaleas under massive oak, magnolia and pine. A plethora of vines, including the thorned, twine, crawl and clamber to the top of deep thickets of azalea. It is an ongoing assault of the last thirty years.

Some camellias have managed to remain. The gardener this land needs has moved on in a blur of familial vibrations.

My nieces and nephews are all adults in their mid-twenties. Their parents have aches and pains and issues of some sort or another, the early signs of decrepitude. This house is older than everyone who gathered in it on Christmas Day, save verification for one with the claim of 97 for the house.

The interstate south of Columbia, South Carolina to the Georgia border sucks. I have found a most enjoyable and time efficient scenic bypass. I saw lots of cotton and black people and log trucks hauling pine. A little church glittered at me on the way. I stopped for a closer look coming back.

Robertville, South Carolina.

The small rural towns I drove through were as old and decomposed as my destination. The railroad tracks they hugged used to bring life. There is not enough money anymore to keep things in tip top shape. A time passes away.

Solly, the solstice kitty was here when I returned. She was looking much perkier and feeling a lot less bony. A scab on her lower right jaw had come off and was hanging by some hair. That got cut off. It revealed a well healed cut on the jaw. Two lumps on her neck turned out to be ticks. Those were quickly removed.

She got some canned food, cats like gravy, and a good bit of loving. Three other cats who had been cooped up for days also needed to be out. If Solly is going to live here, the pecking order will have to be worked out. All I can do is let it happen. There has already been close contact and pretty good civility. Her status as a bony kitten helps no doubt.

Later that evening I heard a couple of quick shrieks. Solly was gone for the night. She was back the next morning. The next day she had her dinner and promptly left, headed into the forest. I didn't worry. If that cat has been living here for months, she has a safe nest out there some where.

She wasn't here this morning or when I got home this afternoon. I stood in the hollering next door spot and called. She showed up half an hour later. Everything seems to be on track. Next up is an end to baby making for Solly. I won't be having a feral cat colony.

Solly has had a bad hair life.

With Button in charge there are bound to be a few more bad hair days. He likes to jump on people's heads just so they know. I just told him wait until she gets bigger.

The purple glass knob from the front door of the long abandoned garage apartment is certainly close to one hundred years old. It was not easy to get it off. Metal from a hundred years ago is the real thing. It's not like the current cheap crap from China we are being consumed by.

Shiny objects and gardens are in my gene pool. A time passes. Memory clings to objects.

Up On The Parkway

On Monday we went for a drive on the Blue Ridge Parkway. There is more than one scenic byway is this part of the world.

We stopped for lunch at the Pisgah Inn. It is way way up at the top of North Carolina.

The forest stretched as far as the eye could see which is some distance despite the haze which I actually think was smoke from all the fires out in the Pacific Northwest. I know that orange glow of light in the setting sun. Only smoke does that.

The New England asters were beginning to bloom.

One dead tree remained standing.

A butterfly on thistle.

The parkway is at its highest elevation in Haywood County, North Carolina. We were riding along at 5,000 to 6,000 feet up. There were views all over the place.

And lots of goldenrod along the mowed edges.

I even saw a gentian.

And that was my Day Without Labor.

A Rare Sighting

The Christmas excursion is over. I have returned and set the beasts free. Better to keep them safely locked inside than out there and miserable with the wild things. They may or may not agree. It is weather dependent.

I returned with what I assume are two antique cement pots that belonged to my grandparents. I should probably check my assumption to be sure. I saw that they needed a new home and gathered them up.

They landed on the basement patio. That may or may not be their final destination. They may or may not get a paint job.

It was a rather warm sixty degrees upon my return. Then it began to rain. Any thoughts I had about attending to a small chore in the garden while I had a spare hour in nice weather dissipated quickly in the blur of wet and settling in.

I was happy to be back in my house and still enthralled with the progress of the Under Garden.

All the Hesperaloe parviflora did well over the summer. The drought probably did them good. The ones that did not bloom grew and sent up new crowns. Now they just need to evade another winter of root snacking by the voles. Damn varmints!

For the first time in three years, the cold hardy, evergreen, clumping Fargesia bamboo sent up new growth taller than the existing stems. It is looking nice and healthy again after suffering major set backs during the two Polar Vortex winters. I live on the edge of tolerance for many things.

I gaze upon a growing Under Garden and plan for an early spring planting to kick it up another notch.

No need pakalolo. The garden does trippy on its own.

We don't see him often, the actual gardener man. He rarely shows up in pixels. Something noteworthy happened. Elmer got a new hat, work jacket and truck. The final straw with the Ford Ranger from Maui with 189,000 miles was when the door handle on the drivers side broke. I was done. I conceded to the inevitable after repeated acts of disintegration had left me immobile more than once.

Don't I look happy? Granted, this was after two full days of driving with two not so good nights of sleep in between. My new hat came in the mail from a client who thought my head needed to stay warmer in the winter. It is red plaid on the back.

Just imagine. The Under Garden will continue to grow and I am going to kick it up another notch. It will be even more trippy next year. My new truck won't be so shiny by then.

River Banks Zoo And Gardens

I drove three hours south on Thursday bearing freshly dug parsnips and taters for a most delicious turkey dinner. The pre-planned excursion for Black Friday was a visit to the Columbia, SC zoo and botanical garden, RiverBanks. 

I came home to find I had missed the anti-shopping #OptOutside meme for the day. Being outside and hating shopping is completely natural for me. It is rather sad some folks have to make a special effort at that.

I of course was more interested in the garden than the zoo. The garden and zoo sit on opposite sides of the Saluda river with a pedestrian bridge across it. The recent flooding had closed the garden side entrance in another part of town so we started our visit at the zoo.

Nice metal lion.

The real thing looks ever so familiar to certain felines I know.

The animals could wait. We headed to the garden.

Nice gate for the pedestrian bridge. That looks like a hymenocallis, or Spider Lily, a plant native to the wet places of the south east.

Inscribed memorial or donor bricks lined the path across the bridge.

I don't know the history of this botanical garden. I did find one sentence that said the walled garden, which is the main component of this garden, was first opened in 1995. I do know Jenks Farmer, the noted SC plantsman and designer was involved in some manner.

Smaller themed gardens are contained within the formal structure and layout of the walled garden. It is very reminiscent of the Biltmores's walled garden. The central axis is an elaborate rill and fountain system.

I'm sure glad it is not my job to maintain this water feature. I know pond scum rather intimately these days. Keeping these things running is no easy task.

Late November is not prime garden touring time. Still, there was quite a lot to see and evidence of only a minor frost.

The plant collection overall was quite impressive, if not overly photogenic on a post growing season full sun day.

There were plenty camellias in bloom. There had to be in a garden in South Carolina.

I rather like this interpretation of the blue bottle tree. It reminds me of something.

It has what my bamboo bottle tree lacks, a good solid background.

A good thought for the day and every other day.

There was still quite a bit of nice fall color to see on my trip south.

Some ginko trees were in full color.

We toured maybe half of the zoo on the way out. The Galapagos Tortoise.

The Komodo Dragon, still growing.

Went to a tropical reef.

Saw some sea anemones.

And a tank full of jellyfish.

Next up was Antarctica.

Flamingos lounged outside the icehouse.

I can't have pink flamingos in my garden, that would be wrong. Maybe the Posh Estate could have some.

On second thought, maybe a flock of flamingos in the roadside vegetable garden wouldn't be so bad. It was a most pleasant Thanksgiving excursion.