Full Chartreus Negligees Moon

 Full Chartreus Negligées Moon 

Full moon rises Saturday 4-16-22 right after sunset about 730. Should be a grand event y’all, be there or be square. P and I will pop the cork on a bottle of tart red and raise a glass to you, our friends. 

So, you are thinking, “Why Chartreus Negligees?” Well, my friends, if you remember in past conversations about this very topic, I mentioned that my dad and mom had 10 children, I, being the oldest, was the most responsible one. Dad was always joking about negligees, he seemed impressed by them. “OK, we get that you say”, why chartreus? Dad was a world class horticulturist and a world class arborist/arboricultural consultant. He spent much time working with our spectacular Louisiana Coastal Live Oak  

and… 

This time of the growing season is when the "tardily deciduous" Live Oak shucks off the old dark green leaves, then flowers and grows new leaves, all at the same time, or so it seems, nearly at the same time, anyway. The male flower or catkin and new foliage are a sort of yellow green, kind of chartreusey and with the old dark leaves gone give the whole grand organism a gauzy-over-massive dark tree body look. Hey, “a gorilla in a chartreus negligee, get it? So Ol Jim Sr liked to point this out each spring. 

So that is the story, now why am I bringing it up again? It seems that at this stage of growth each year a confusing characteristic makes itself obvious. Some Live Oak’s new leaves are “redder” than others. This can be explained in a couple of ways. All Live Oak trees are grown from seed, genetically predetermined variability in amounts of red/purple pigments is one explanation. Another might be nutrient deficiencies from varying soil conditions. For example, a plant deficient in Phosphorus may develop a reddish to purple shading and a darker look overall. Bingo! Dad was suspicious of the latter, this being his favorite explanation. This spring I’ve been doing the old guy thing of driving around ‘slow like’ checking spring progress out and noting variable shading in my town. I believe we can throw out the Phosphorus theory for now, for most, in our trees. I’m pretty sure it is genetics. There is a pretty pair at the end of North Street where it hits Jane in the ‘Berry’ and one is a beautiful spring green, the other a rich wine red. Also, the alle’ along La31 going past my driveway has a fine random variability of red and green trees. Genetic variability must be the answer.

OK, with that out of the way, lets get on with it. 

You see, there is nothing that simple in the world of trees. Today leaving campus, I noted a line of trees that have been severely stressed in the last 11 years, stress as a result of root damage from construction, construction disease. These struggling treasures are exhibiting thinness and that redness in the upper canopy. I have observed that in root damaged trees, often it is the upper canopy that thins in response to stress, dad used to say that those branches were less well connected to the entire root system, and as a result are defecient first. Same symptoms with the St John Cathedral Oak, when a new parking lot was placed on the back side, causing massive root damage, the same phosphate deficiency symptoms were evident in parts of the crown. Further complicating that situation is the grand twist in the trunk, this made root damage on one side show up in the canopy on the other side, but it was a direct correlation non-the-less. Go figger, just shows you what I know. Check it out and give me your take on all of this. 

 

How about a bit of David Lee from his book Last Call: 

 

Aftermath Evaluation From A Pickup Window 

 

If that’s posta be art 

I’d like to know what the hell it is 

 

It looks exactly like the ghost  

of a burnt out 

 drilling rig said John Sim 

why you think that? 

 

I been in an oil well fire  

that’s something I know something about 

That and ghosts 

 

Coda 

 

What do you honestly think 

about that pile of stacked up junk? 

 

I honestly think 

it’s probably one of the most beautiful things 

I ever saw in my goddam life 

 

Are you shitting me? 

 

I shit you not 

 

 

Thank you, David! It’s good to have you back. 

 

3-18-22 FMA published 

3-19-22 Full moon at equnox makes the moonbeams run straight through that bedroom window onto my pillow and into my eyes at 1am. 

P has pneumonia, came on fast. 

Freshened the RTHB feeders, been seeing ‘something zipping around the yard. 

Festival of Live Oaks in City Park 

My bud Jon reported a Monarch headed north in his yard today. 

3-20-22 Painted the Oil Barrel BBQ Pit to get ready for the Easter Sunday family BBQ, Easter Egg Hunt and belated Birthday Celebration for you know who.  

3-22-22 Haiku from Margaret Simon’s classroom: 

Hope is the Rainbow 

Sparking in the Sunshine Rain 

Dazzling Air with Joy 

Alvalyn, second grade 

After being taught about simile

-go Alvalyn! 

My very first RTHB of the year on tropical sage. He was a very dark male.   

3-31-22 P much better! Yay P!

Today is my 75th birthday and I am so grateful to have made it so far. 

4-5-22 I walked out to the coop to the threat of a thunderstorm, a fine mist drifting. I have been hearing my neighbor’s Purple Martins but have failed to see any. Now I hear them above me. I looked up, way up, there they are, 20-30 of them, what a sight. I call them Mosquito Hawk Eaters. The Mosquito Eaters, Mosquito Hawks, must be up high in the face of the storm brewing to make those beauties fly so high and scream so loud.  

4-9-22 Full leaf expanding, catkins dropping Gorillas in Chartreus Negligees!  

margaret, what have you been up to?

The Thing Is 

after Ellen Bass 

to become yourself, become you more fully 
even if you don’t like what you see. 
Even as the river dries, revealing cracks 
in the surface, displaying a dump 
of glass bottles as the only thing 
binding you to this place. 
You are who you are. 
You have this one wild life 
to live, no matter the manifest; 
That face in the mirror is yours, 
hold it with affection, 
send it a kiss like the dew 
on the womb of the morning*, 
praising This is Good. 
This self is enough. 
You will love her more 
and more every day.  

* Psalm 110:3 
Margaret Simon, draft 

 

 oh wow Margaret, you go girl!

Get out and enjoy this fine spring 

Peace love possumhugs 

BT