Perspectives

"Rain" means something other
If you're not from Arizona:
"Into every life..."*
(Twist you here the knife)
"A little rain must fall..."*
(Unmitigated gall).

At last God sent us rain
To ease this climate's pain
Elsewhere they have floods--

Nature's twisted torsades.**

I pray You come again,
Far moreso than the rain;
I want to see Your Face:
Lord, Jesus, come with haste.

---c.m.b.  (c), 2020

(a summer of record breaking 110+ days in Phoenix; no rain; high ozone)

*A paraphrase from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem, "The Rainy Day"  (see link below)

**Torsades:  an irregular heart rhythm

"The Rainy Day", by Longfellow

Fall Gardener

These are evidence of my Labor Day (early September) planting.  Here, the growing seasons are different than what most people in the northern hemisphere expect. 

This is a "scatter garden", where there are not organized beds.  In fact, vegetable & flowers grow among "volunteer grasses", which serve as "nursery plants" while the others get going.

This is a bee haven, something our world needs. The bees even like the grass heads.  (We have to let it grow longer because of our other plants.  Then we have to literally whack it off with clippers. We can't mow because there's always some other interesting plant coming up in the midst.)

(For your other November & Thanksgiving Day enjoyment, please select the "autumn" or "seasons" tag in the sidebar.)

Green bean flowers

Carrot plants

Pumpkin & flower

Black-eye Susans or purple coneflowers sprouting

October in Northern Arizona

Natural Wonders of America

The U.S. Flag featured at some of our public lands for the Fourth of July

(uncredited internet photos)

Flag Raising:  Old Faithful

Yellowstone National Park, WY

Ft. Union National Monument, NM

Southern Swamps

USS Arizona Memorial, HI

Grand Teton National Park, WY

Avenue of Flags

Mount Rushmore National Monument, SD

Storms moving in...

Bryce Canyon National Park, UT

Grand Canyon National Park, AZ

Zion National Park, UT

Washington Monument, Washington, D.C.

Niagara Falls, NY

Devil's Tower National Monument, WY

Sagamore Hill Nat'l Historic Site

Long Island, NY

Sierra Nevada Mountains, CA

Half Dome at Yosemite Nat'l Park. CA 

Folding the Flag

at Ft. McHenry National Monument, MD

(where "The Star-Spangled Banner" was written)

The Sierra Nevada Mountains

 

Welcome to 2016, with a look back at our trip in 2015!

 

 



General Sherman, giant sequoia, in Sequoia Nat'l Park
 



Yosemite National Park

 

Bridal Veil Falls, Yosemite

Flowers Are Poetic, Too!

[wildflowers of Central Texas.  April, 2013]

Texas Bluebonnets &
Indian Paintbrush

Indian Blankets, Vervain & Mexican Four o'clock

 

Mexican Four o' Clocks with Vervains (verbena)
 



Evening Primrose

What a Waste!

Our Solid Waste Problem

     Already in the 1980s, National Geographic alerted readers that so-called bio-degradables don't really break down in landfills. They studied lettuce, for instance, that was nearly 20 years old and still not broken down. And there is much more in the way of thrown-out foodstuffs and yard waste. 

     More recently, William L. Rathje of University of Arizona wrote in his book, Rubbish! the Archeology of Garbage,  "They [landfills] are not vast composters; rather, they are vast mummifiers." He went on to write, "Well-designed and well-managed landfills, in particular, seem to be far more apt to preserve their contents for posterity than to transform them into humus or mulch."

     Solutions? Compost at home. If you can't create a compost heap, try mini-composting: place food waste on the ground right near plants & partially hidden by the foliage or between plants & slightly spaded into the soil. Use a mulching lawn mower. So far, the U.S. has been blessed with enough space not to worry about this, but the time will come.
      Coupling people's desire to become more "green" with episodic economic downturns and concerns about creating quality, well-paying jobs could spur creation of jobs & technology in green fields. Maybe we could invent giant "rakes" to go in and occasionally turn over detritus in existing landfills so that the bio-degradables will compost. We Americans with our so-called "Yankee ingenuity" have been falling down on the job, so to speak, for some decades now. And we Christians have not followed our first pre-sin injunction to take care of this earth.

USDA Blog
Bio Waste & Greenhouse Gases