Sunday, March 20, 2011

Water Iris

I had absolutely no idea, whatsoever, that one variety of plant that I have been growing in my pond is a water Iris.  That's because there haven't BEEN any flowers coming out of any of them up until 24 hours ago.

I knew something was up several days ago when I saw these round shoots that seemingly appeared out of nowhere.  The plant itself is nothing but these tall, thin and semi-wide leaf-like things.  I thought they looked good enough in themselves.  I have 3 of these things growing in 2 ponds.  When I saw the tubular shoots coming up, my first thought was:  does this thing also bloom?  That is because I have a couple of other types of plants that do the same thing - leaves are thin, stalk type affairs, flowers come up in separate, tubular shoots.

Umm, 2 nights ago nothing, the next day 2 flowers in full bloom.  Absolutely beautiful.

So, someone is standing at that side door, looking at the flowers and telling me they were Irises.  I could not for the life of me remember the name of that particular flower until she said something.  That was Lynnette, who also said at least 3 times that "they are very hard to grow".

I had to laugh.  Perhaps dry ground based versions of this plant are hard to grow, there isn't anything that I have planted in the water that wasn't QUITE easy to grow.  More like weeds, do nothing and they will still grow like crazy.

I spent half this morning on the phone with Direct TV, I spent several hours working on the new pond including transferring some plants from the large pond to the new one and also  --  well -- catching fish in that larger pond isn't that easy with a small net.  I caught 3 goldfish and called it quits, the water was cloudly and all kinds of junk flowing around in it.  I also took back one very large goldfish that I first caught, put in the small pond and realized she wasn't like it at all.  She is HUGE with eggs.  I actually thought the smaller pond would be a better environment for her, but, I changed my mind and put her back in with the old population.

I then started pruning trees.  Just the Sissoo's. There are obvious points on branches where life meets death.  Yes, I cut back quite a bit of several trees back, lots more to go. In fact, this process of dealing with this winter's unusually and extremely cold nights with it's ensuing destruction of plant and tree life is going to take some time.  Much more than I expected.  I am glad this is a thing to do now at the end of winter and not at the beginning of hell summer.

The pond out front? Several more wheelbarrows of dirt left to haul out there and some decorative arranging of rocks and such and it is at least good to go for now.

The treatment of people.  Interesting topic.  How do I treat people, how am I treated.

I must needs get ready for the work week.

ben

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Monday

The U.S. at war again. Oh, we may be clouding it under the veil of the UN Security Council. It might be lessened due to the fact that we are claiming not to be taking the primary role in the lead of the nations that have come together to stop Qadaffi's slaughter of his own people, but make no mistake: we are at war.

If bombing another nation's military outposts and strategic military locations such as military airfields, from the skies via Cruise missiles being shot from warships and submarines, B-52's dumping bombs and jet fighters taking out tanks doesn't count as acts of war - well we all know, this is war.

Question: what is the outcome? What if Qadaffi leaves? Who is going to take his place or what entity? What if Qaddifi lays down his arms and stops the slaughter? Then what? Are the "rebels" organized enough to take on the role of running that nation? If they get control, what are they going ot do with it? Are they going to have free elections?

Perhaps that is why the U.S. isn't taking the lead in this mess, moreso, though, the expense of running 3 wars at the same time. Perhaps Iraq is done and over with, perhaps not, but we still have a lot of people over there. Afghanistan will never be done, not until we just up and pull out. Libya? Who knows.

I am not against going in that nation and shutting down Qaddafi's military, not at all, as opposed to Afghanistan where I think we should pull up the stakes and get the bleep out of there. I just wonder if they think all of the ramifications through to possible endings. I'm sure those things are brought up, at the very least, in these negotiations for a joint military task to invade another country - even if only from the air.

Well enough of that. I have been following it closely since it started and will continue to watch. They certainly are making a big deal out of the fact that his compound has been destroyed.

Productive weekend - yes. Did I get everything done? Of course not. But I was busy outside. The pond in the front is up and running. It needs more fish in it, I have to buy a much larger net to catch the fish in the other pond. That or just find more free goldfish, lol.

I was out there much of the day yesterday - listening to that neighbor's dog barking incessantly. He stands at the fence and barks, and barks and barks. They won't do anything about it unless........call it juvenile if you like, but my peace is more important to me than however my actions might come off to the rest of the world. I make my dogs shut up, I do not allow them to stand there barking back.

After the line was crossed - no specific thing, just have had enough of listening to a dog that can not and will not shut up - I went to the fence and shouted very loudly: SHUT YOUR DOG UP OR I AM GOING TO TURN ON THE MUSIC!!!

It was 30 seconds later that the noise stopped and the dog was behind the secondary fence they put up. They followed my lead - I put up a secondary fence shortly after my new house was finished and I was living on the property. JUST because of my dogs getting into fence fights with their dogs. They didn't care, of course until I had had enough of it and started taking whatever actions I could that aren't just out and out breaking the law. Calling the police, animal control, the city, none of that did any good.

I mean, what are you supposed to do, live in misery because of someone else's BS? I think not. My boombox answer to this scenario has worked out quite well and I have only had to do it 2 or 3 times now. The last time I did it, I left that thing on for a couple of hours at full blast. That was - a couple of months ago?

Well, it's Monday, there is nothing to do in the truck routing system - which is never a good start to a work week. Gag. Oh well.

G'day.

ben

Fijufic said...

Way to go on the Irises!

We have been in Libya well before we were supposed to be there. The boogie man lives in my vicinity. The boogie man is very smart and very capable.

"We solve problems"...

Not the kind of problems either of us could solve Ben...

Cheers,
Bobby

BenB said...

Yes, today there are 2 more of them on the same stalk, gorgeous!
I think I get what you are saying, those are not the kinds of problems I have any kind of training, whatsoever, to deal with - but I am glad there are people out there who do. I imagine there must be a great rush to be had in getting a bad guy out of a position of power.........

 Thursday morning It’s almost 9:00 am and they are just starting on finding parts after calling them to see where they’re at with this. They...