wannabeherbal's Blog

Arrivals
Jul 10, 2007 | 2:16 PM PST
Tags: Baby , ladybugs , Bonsai

    They're HEEEeeeeerrrrrrrre!  First of all, my little apple tree climbing buddy was born 19 minutes into the 4th of July.  She's absolutely wonderful.  Way cuter than my other arrivals.

    That's right, there's more.  I ordered 1500 ladybugs (smallest quantity available) about two weeks ago, and they came yesterday in the mail. 

How cool is that?  They were very eager to get out of the cup, and immediately went to work for me, crawling and flying to where the irritating and damaging bugs were making my garden a living hell.  I'm pretty excited about them.  I really hope they get all the bastards that have been obliterating my chamomile.  It's too late for my cilantro, but . . . *sigh*

    In other news, I've taken an increased interest in bonsai as of late.  I actually went to a bonsai farm yesterday that I've seen many times from the road, but never stopped by before.  The plants were beautiful, old, and very very expensive.  To make matters more interesting, I was preached at (and even given a tract - of sorts) about Jueng San Do (an eastern religion) by the little old lady that owned and ran the farm.  The religion sounded like a bunch of self-help, the end is near, my spirit is your spirit, and rather hopeless crap (to be perfectly blunt), but the experience was . . . interesting.  I didn't buy anything.

    I want to post a new picture of my bonsai (the one I bought a couple weeks ago), but it looks kind of silly right now.  I have bread bag ties all over it, trying to train its growth.  I'll post a new pic when it doesn't look so awkward.  ;)

The apple of my . . . garden.
Jul 2, 2007 | 8:23 AM PST
Tags: life , apple trees , wonderment

    This is it: the final countdown has begun.  My wife is being induced tomorrow morning, so hopefully, by tomorrow evening at the latest, I'll be a father.  All of the preparations for the baby (whose name will be released to the world as soon as she's born) have reminded me repeatedly of the beautifully cyclical pattern of life.  I have thought about how it must have been for my parents, back before I (their first-born) was born.  The same feelings my wife and I are currently experiencing were no doubt also at work in them.  I've thought about how it must have been for my grandparents - expecting my dad as their first.  It's been amazing for me to think about the past with life itself as my vantage point.  At some point in the lives of every biological parent, they have been in my shoes, and now I join the ranks.

    The circular nature of life is one of the things I treasure about gardening too.

    When I was a kid, we would go apple picking.  I can remember with great detail one tree in particular.  It's branches were ideal for climbing.  Once I had managed to scramble up to the lowest of it's branches (which were probably only about four feet up, but you have to give me some credit.  I was only about 7 at the time), the limbs that led to the summit of the tree were arranged in a perfect staircase.  At the pinnacle of this 20-ish foot tree, I could perch comfortably and munch away a happy hour.  I've thought a great deal about that tree as I've grown up.  I've never forgotten the taste of the apples picked for the topmost branches, where I imagined only I could reach.  I reminisce nearly every time I eat a particularly tasty apple.

    About a month and-a-half ago, my wife had given me an apple with my sandwich for lunch.  It was the best apple I had eaten in a long time.  I saved the core in the ziploc baggie that had contained my pb&j, intending to plant it when I got home.  I wasn't sure if anything was going to happen.  After planting it, I began to wonder if maybe the growers of the apple had somehow engineered their apples to produce invalid seed as a way of guarding their product.  Of course, I told myself, that was ridiculous.  I continued to water the pot of dirt faithfully, and sure enough up came the tiniest of sprouts, Followed a couple of weeks later by another.

    I am constantly amazed at the sureness with which plants come into being.  So fragile, yet somehow, unafraid.

    The taller of my apple seedlings is now about 2.5 inches tall and magnificent already.  I know that the odds of these new trees' ancestry going back to the same tree I climbed as a child are stacked astronomically against me, but I'd like to think that they're at least distantly related.  I hope that some day my children and grandchildren will enjoy climbing to the tallest bows of these trees, picking a perfect fruit and munching away many a happy hour.