Tuesday, September 08, 2009, 21:09
A Rose is a Rose. . .
If I did not know it by anything else, my little rose bush planted in a pot would tell me that summer is nearly gone.
I bought the rose bush at the grocery store last year, of all places. It is a miniature rose with beautiful deep pink flowers. After I brought it home, I set it on the back step, and it bloomed and bloomed and bloomed.
When the rose bush finished blooming, it died back. I snipped off the rest of the dead flowers, and when the weather threatened to turn cold, I brought it in the house. The rose bush spent the winter under the aquarium in my office with a Christmas cactus, a spot where they were both safe from sharp kitty teeth and even sharper kitty claws. The rose leaves started to grow back by Christmas, and all together, the plant looked pretty good.
At which point I almost killed it.
The rose needed more water than I thought, and the next thing I knew, it was dying back again. I saturated the pot with water, and slowly, slowly, the leaves returned.
This spring, I set the rose bush outside underneath the bird feeder north of the house. I gave it a little fertilizer when I watered it at one point, and in not too long, the rose bush was covered with buds, and then it it was covered with beautiful deep pink flowers. I *should* have taken a picture of it then, but I didn't. The little rose bush was glorious. As if it were shouting to world, "Look at me! Look at all of my lovely flowers! Look what I have made! Look what I have become!"
After I snipped off the last of the dead blooms a few weeks ago, the rose bush again died back. All that was left in the pot was some sticks poking up.
Do you know how disconcerting it is to look at your little miniature rose bush that was recently so glorious and see nothing but sticks poking up?
But now, after the rose has had time to recover for a bit, it is starting to grow leaves again. I am keeping my fingers crossed that it will once again survive the winter after I bring it in the house.
The last couple of weeks have been absolutely lovely late summer/early fall weather, by the way. The sky has been clear and sunny, and the days have been warm and breezy.
After a relatively cool summer, now that summer is nearly past, the weather has decided to warm up too. For the last week or so, the temperature has been in the 80s.
We've got a good crop of ragweed pollen this year, too. My itchy ears and nose and throat and eyes tell me so. Not to mention my itchy skin and the sneezing and the wheezing. I keep hoping it will rain and wash some of the pollen out of the air, but the weather has turned dry once again.
LeAnn R. Ralph
Saturday, September 05, 2009, 04:19
A Difference of Opinion
We have had lovely weather all week -- sunny, warm, dry air, low humidity.
Monday evening, Randy used the tractor and the haybine to cut what little growth there was in the hayfield. We wanted to cut off the alyssum and the ragweed before it had a chance to go to seed. This is the third time he has clipped the hayfield this year in attempt to cut off the weeds and keep them from seeding themselves back.
Since the evenings are much shorter now, I was hoping that there would still be enough light by the time he finished so he would have time to cut Isabelle's pasture, too. He has been working on her pasture all summer to cut down the weeds. He has been out there chopping at them by hand with the weed whip. He has had the lawn mower out there. And once before, earlier in the summer, he used the tractor and haybine to cut down the pigweed and the ragweed.
In anticipation of there being enough time to cut Isabelle's pasture, I moved my little black mare into the paddock by the barn.
When Randy finally finished the hayfield there was, indeed, enough daylight left to clip her pasture.
I had let Kajun down in the L pasture when Randy went out in the hayfield, and when he was ready to come through with the tractor, I closed the gate across the lane to keep my old Morgan-Arab in the L pasture.
And that's when the trouble began.
As Randy drove through Kajun's side of the pasture, he passed within just a few feet of Isabelle. She stood there calmly on the other side of the fence in the paddock, watching the tractor with interest. I could tell what she was thinking: "Oh, look! Randy is going out into my pasture to cut those nasty weeds again. It sure is nice of him to take such good care of my pasture. Now I don't have to try to wade through all of those disgusting weeds. And once they're gone, maybe some grass will grow!"
Kajun, on the other hand, who was quite a bit farther away from the tractor and the haybine, had a completely different reaction: "OH MY GOD. RANDY IS COMING WITH THE TRACTOR. WHAT AM I GOING TO DO? HELP! IT'S GOING TO GET ME! HELP! HELP! SOMEONE CALL 911! OH JEEPERS, WHAT AM I GOING TO DO?"
Now, anyone with any common sense could see that Kajun did not have to stand close to the pasture where the noisy tractor and haybine were working their way back and forth. He could go down into the L pasture where he would be quite far away from the tractor and haybine.
But did he do that? No.
Instead he tore back and forth in the lane, panicked, sliding to a stop up against the gate, acting like he was going to try jumping over the gate, and then tearing back down the lane again, only to come back and slam into the gate with his chest and then stand there and prance and act like he was going to try to go over the gate.
In the meantime, Isabelle stood there calmly, wondering what all the ruckus was about.
When Randy came around with the tractor again and got to where he could see me, I waved my arms. He immediately shut off the haybine and then shut down the tractor.
"I'm going to have to move Kajun," I said. "He's terrified and acting like he's going to try to go over the gate."
I opened the lane gate -- which wasn't all that easy with a panicked horse prancing and shuffling and bouncing and banging against the gate -- and let him back in his own pasture, where he proceeded to tear around some more.
I really wish he wouldn't act like that. He's an old horse, with a severe heart condition, a bad heart murmur that you can hear with your ear against his rib cage, no stethoscope needed.
I put out some hay for Kajun, hoping that would calm him down. I put some hay out for Isabelle, too, so she could stand near him and eat as well.
The hay and Isabelle being close to him helped a little bit, enough so that Randy could get the rest of the Isabelle's pasture clipped.
Then we had to move Kajun back into the lane again so Randy could bring the tractor out of Isabelle's pasture. I had to stand there by the gate to make sure Kajun did not go over it. When the tractor and haybine were finally through the next set of gates, Randy closed those gates while I opened the lane gate to let Kajun back into his pasture again. The horse was still a nervous wreck, prancing and shuffling and snorting and blowing.
It's interesting to see how two different individuals can have completely opposite reactions to the same event, because throughout the whole ordeal, Isabelle remained calm and quiet.
I could have remained calm and quiet, too, if a certain someone had not insisted on having a conniption fit. . .
Sigh.
LeAnn R. Ralph