Crossing Over in the Valley: the Abridged Edition…

One metaphor often “mixed,” or botched, even, is “that’s all water under the bridge,” meaning the past is past;  you can neither change nor retrieve it.Today I heard the trope misused again: “ That’s all water over the bridge.” Far be it from me to be Professor Metaphor, but it’s “water UNDER the bridge” and “water OVER the dam [not UNDER].”Both those man-made structures are built to address watercourses in some way: bridges to “bridge” water; a dam to hold it back. Water under a dam is not a good thing, nor is water over a bridge. But I guess  it’s better to misuse a metaphor than abuse the purpose of either structure.

Now if  you want to serve up your metaphor with “it’s  water over the bridge,” the Valley will accommodate you courtesy of Bridge 52 on the Lower Loop Road. Gladys and I slipped/slid our way across that silted road surface earlier this year after the flood waters from Riley Slough receded. Flood debris was obvious in both the upstream and downstream bridge rails. Water had indeed flowed… over the bridge.

On our way home the other day Gladys and I noticed an official white van parked just south of Bridge 155 on the Loop Road. Flashing yellow lights winked at us from the rear of the vehicle. We pulled alongside and noted the official tri-tree emblem on the side of the van shading the words “Snohomish County Public Works: for official use only.” Ah, official business, eh? When I see those words I always think: “Just what’s this official business  anyway; how will it affect me; and what’s it going to cost this taxpayer?” These days it seems Government is all too eager to meddle in our business. I decide to find out what this official County business is about, do some meddling of my own. After all, what business could be more “official” than the Ripple’s?Two official business men have their noses stuck in maps when I pull up. “You fellows lost?” I say by way of making my presence known. “No,” the driver replies, “we know where we are and where we want to go but can’t find the road to get there.” “And where might your “go to” place be?” I inquire. At this point my interview stalls; the driver seems reluctant to share this information. “Strange,” I think, “what clandestine shenanigans are these guys up to!” Never before have I met a Government official in the Valley who was reticent in the slightest to talk with me (see posts 12/15/2010 and 2/23/2011). The driver, a fellow about my age and his co-officiant, a younger fellow about the age I used to be twenty years ago, became rather evasive. Sometimes tongues will wag when the press is present—especially if their owners are the newsworthy subjects. “I write a Valley blog,” I share, “just offering up the local news to my readers.” By their response  you’d have thought I was from the National Enquirer. When I asked if I could take their pictures, the passenger official exited the vehicle and put himself behind it. The driver smiled reluctantly and told me: “They don’t like us to have our pictures taken. “Why?” I ask. “You're not in a Krispy Kreme parking lot or at the drive-up window of a bikini espresso stand.” He just shrugged.

The driver at last ‘fesses up. Their official business? To conduct the mandatory two-year inspection of County Bridge 155. Bridge inspection? Where moments before mum was the word, now the information flows freely. I’m talking to a “Bridge Technician,” I learn, and the next thing I know, I’m getting a brief history lesson that takes me back to the administration of Dwight D. Eisenhower (“I Like Ike!”) and the President’s desire to put in place a national transportation infrastructure so Americans could drive with ease throughout this great land and see its wonders up close and personal.

That infrastructure included bridges, of course.  And each bridge became a part of the transportation grid inventory. Thus the National Bridge Registry (NBR) was born. All traffic-bearing bridges in the country, twenty feet or more in length, are listed on the NBR. The Feds require each state to inspect its bridges every two years. This responsibility falls to the governance of each state county and parish in the country. I’m told bridge integrity is based on a scale of 1 to 100. Bridges with ratings of 70 and above require no special attention; less than that may result in minor structural repairs; ratings less than 50 usually mean weight restrictions on the structure (thus weight allowance signs for certain bridges); some bridges should just plain be replaced (I learn the old bridge spanning Broadway in Everett has a scary rating of 6).

The State Department of Transportation requires this bridge technician and his County office to inspect all 200 bridges in the County (including the metal footbridge over Wood’s Creek from Monroe’s City Park to Buck Island) and submit their reports to WSDOT. It’s time for the  two-year mandatory inspection of County Bridge Number 155.

At this point Bridge Technician Sr. and Bridge Technician junior grade don their official orange inspection vests, gather up their probes, hammers and clipboards, and make their way down the bank to inspect the underbelly of Tualco Loop Bridge 155. The Ripple asks, and is granted, permission to stumble along.

I can see why only trolls live beneath bridges. The underside of a bridge is not a pleasant place to visit. And that’s not just because of the stench of creosote. It’s dark, dank, and in my observation just a bit spooky, not unlike looking at the underside of your shiny automobile when it’s up on racks for service—less, of course, a slough and weeds. Here’s a short biography of Bridge 155. She’s (don’t know if a bridge is feminine like a ship, but I’ll give the lady her due) a two span bridge, rated at 20-25 ton capacity. “Technicians” don’t determine this rating, I’m very quickly told; “engineers” determine the construction parameters of any given span based on ADT, “average daily traffic.” (You’ve all seen those rubber tubes spanning a section of road from time to time, the ones we’ve all jumped up and down on a few times so we can stomp and be counted—you’ve done it. I know…. That’s how ATD is determined.)  It’s ADT that gave BR 155 different structural specifications than its sister bridge to the west on the Lower Loop Road. That bridge is all wood construction, a wooden deck surface and supports. Bridge 155 has a cement deck and asphalt surfacing. Technician Sr. shows me the imprints the wooden forms left after the cement was poured. He points out other things, too. (“Like bridges? I’d like to show you mine!”) I ask about the hot pink numbers and letters sprayed on the bridge pilings. “They’ve been ‘refreshed,’ he tells me, “painted over the old lettering. Lets other inspectors know the bridge has been checked.” While the Jr. tech climbs through the weeds and cross timbers, his partner shows me the “flood flanges,” metal brackets fastening the bridge decking to the pilings. Both Riley Slough bridges, as Valley folks know, are in flood hazard zones. Flood waters could lift the bridge deck timbers and float them off the piers; without these metal straps, both bridges during flood events could become literal “floating bridges.”

By this time my nose was starting to twitch from the creosote, and I felt I had spent enough time in troll country. I thank Sr. for taking the time to share such “official”bridge information with the Ripple. I extend my hand, introduce myself. The handshake is returned but without an introduction. I believe this is the first time I’ve ever exchanged my name with a fellow without the courtesy of his name in return. There’s that evasiveness again. Strange…. Equally strange that he readily gives me the name of his supervisor and his partner “Mike,”although this could well have been an aka.

I clamber back up the bank into the sunlight and leave the two technicians to tap and probe their way through the underpinnings of the bridge, let them get on with the routine two year physical exam of Bridge 155. Astride Gladys again, I roll onto the bridge, think about that 20-25 ton traffic rating and shout: “Let me know if the bridge sags or sways as we cross!”

No answer other than the occasional heavy thump of hammers on wood. The two County trolls were hard at their work, official work….

It’s a Long Way Down Off that High Horse: A Valley Garden Lament…

I happened upon Jim Werkhoven the other day. The morning was chilly, more spring-on-hold weather, and Jim was warming up his left ear with his Blackberry. Gladys and I slowed our torrid pace and as we passed, I threw a question over my shoulder, a question I smugly knew the answer to. “Got your corn in yet?” Jim switches the Blackberry to his other ear and multi-tasks an answer: “No, not all of it,” Jim replies and shakes his head in frustration.

Days later I ride by the Werkhoven cornfields and lament the neat furrows bristling with newly sprouted green spears, recall my last exchange with Jim and am reminded of my braggadocio in an earlier post (“Bragging Rights in the Valley…,” May 15th). Now it appears this fall’s fritters won’t come from our corn patch; I’ve had my bragging rights revoked.

It’s been my experience here in the Valley that each year’s gardening season presents new challenges. There’s the weather, sure, but then there’s always the weather and it’s predictable for the weather to be unpredictable: late frosts nip the tomato plants you started indoors in woodstove warmth. Rain, wind, and the occasional freak hailstorm wreak havoc on the backyard garden plot. But we’re all used to that here in the Valley. No, it’s Mother Nature’s menagerie I’m talking about now, those animal and insect pests that pass through your plantings and leave fatter than they came. If it weren’t for the traffic noise at night, I’m sure you could hear the slugs and snails grinding away on the leaf vegetables. I’ve had renegade raccoons pull down my corn, strip the ears from the stalks, and hold their own nocturnal golden jubilation. A couple seasons back I mistakenly planted my cucumbers over a major mole run and discovered cucumbers are not epiphytic: the roots dried up; so did the plants, shriveling that year’s pickle production. Last year it was a rabbit, a young cottontail that blazed a well-worn bunny trail from the woodshed to the carrots and mowed down the carrot tops like a vegematic. And when the carrots were topless, bunny moved on to the lettuce and pastured there. Dogs and cats stray through the tilled patch and with unerring aim tramp on the seed beds, plod down the new sown rows like they’re walking a chalkline. And that loosely turned soil? It’s just one big sandbox servicing all the cats in the neighborhood.

And then there are the birds. As soon as the last blueberry is set, robins set up camp in the shade of the bushes and siesta there, awaiting the first blue blush. Little brown birds do the same in the raspberry row, ever vigilant for the first pink to appear. In the years before the Qualco digester added its spark to the Valley, I would back my truck up to the huge pile of manure that collected beneath the separator, shovel the bed full of organic and head back to enrich the garden plot. One of these loads, for some strange reason, contained a considerable amount of corn kernels. Before I had a chance to till in the manure, a flock of pigeons discovered the corn and moved in to feed. When the corn was gone, the pigeons noticed the garden peas, helped themselves, and when I was off the property for a few days, uprooted an entire row of newly sprouted seed. Before the grape arbor collapsed, you always knew when the grapes were ripe. A cloud of starlings would descend on the vines. Then there would be one giant communal belch issuing from the flock as they rose from the stripped the vines, scattering the landscape with grape seed. And the walnut tree’s first crop? A flock of fifteen crows hauled off the nuts before the squirrels even had a chance.

Now this year’s corn fritters have frittered away because of a new avian issue: jays, a pair of ‘em who have nested somewhere in the vicinity. In my May fifteenth post, I mentioned the missing seed from a furrow I had sowed but left uncovered. I told myself then those jays would be problematic. Do I know jays, or what! Sure enough: that corn seed I planted, that very seed I got into the ground before the johnnies-on-the-spot, those kings of silage, the Werkhovens—a first ever for this backyard gardener—was doomed. No sooner had the first corn spiral of garden 2011 surfaced from the soil than the better half of Mr. and Mrs. Jay swooped down and plucked it from ground before the unsuspecting sprout could throw its first leaf. Before long, each corn row looked like a cribbage board, each hole the exact diameter of a bluejay’s beak. This farmer is nothing if not persistent. I took a dowel, pushed it down each beak hole, and dropped in a fresh seed, covered it up.

Wait a week. Up came the corn. Down came the jay. Up came the corn seed. The jay feasted on the green sprouts—corn salad—and then tossed them off with the swollen kernels. “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” How about three times? Four? The farmer’s persistence, time immemorial: I doweled, redoweled, planted and replanted. You know, there comes a time when you’re up against that kernel of truth: your corn patch is the jays’ salad bar and there you have it. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner. A jay’s smorgasbord. And you’re paying the tab.

I try a diversion tactic: insert an ear of field corn on the birdfeeder, but that proves futile. The kernels disappear off the cob row after row…but there’s that maize salad bar, you know. The collective term for a flock of crows is “ a murder of crows,” and murder is on my mind now: a murder of jays. With me the triggerman. But I think of the jays: how much we enjoyed their jaunty presence at the feeding stations this winter…their blue perkiness to liven up a dreary winter’s day. And now that the jays think the garden is one big feeding station, and then treat them to a hefty dose of # six birdshot? The irony of it all was too overwhelming. Out came the tiller—I’ll show ‘em-- and what few sprouts remained I tilled under.

So as I ride past Werkhovens’ newly sprouted corn, it’s with a keen sense of loss. “From braggart to corn pauper in the space of three short weeks,”I think as I ride on home to the first vegetable garden we’ve had in the Valley that won’t have three or four rows of sweet corn swaying in the breeze on a hot summer’s day. But our loss is the Corn King’s gain. Looks like the corn for our fall fritters this season will be courtesy of Kurt’s Vegetable Stand.

And the new, empty garden space? Well, I’ve planted rows of beans in the void. If the jays choose to feast on bean sprouts, at least they’ll be singing a different tune!

Gesundheit! in the Valley…

If you have allergy problems, you might want to skip this post. A few weekends ago I visited my youngest brother Keith in Eastern Washington. Keith is a staunch believer in health food drinks. His morning fare is a vegetable smoothie, a mash of kale, spinach, chard (dandelion greens?)—and, Brother told me, a heaping spoonful of bee pollen. Now between you and me, I’d much rather down a tall glass of orange juice with my Fred Meyer bran flakes than salad greens and pollen pulverized in an Osterizer. There’s something about “green”for breakfast that is sooo not “green.” Green eggs and ham…? Ughhhh!

Healthy lifestyles folk maintain that just about everything associated with the honeybee is beneficial to humans: “Whatever’s good for the bee, is also good for me.” There’s the honey and honeycomb, for sure. Propolis, the sticky substance bees gather from tree and plant sap (cottonwoods in the Valley) to chink cracks, seal hive lids, and gorilla glue together the internal parts of their hive, purportedly has anti-bacterial properties. Russian folk medicine advises a propolis plaster to remove corns. One of my honey customers, an immigrant from Khazakhstan, told me that balls of propolis are readily available in street markets throughout the country.

Royal jelly is a high protein (nearly 50% protein) “sauce” fed to specially chosen worker bee larvae and is thus called because it is the essential diet they need to become queen bee adults. Young worker bees between the ages of five—to fifteen days old produce this milky substance with their hypopharyngeal glands by synthesizing pollen and honey. Researchers maintain that royal jelly contains all known amino acids, is high in vitamin and hormones. Studies of royal jelly have shown the pudding-like gel, like propolis, possesses bactericidal properties. Because of royal jelly’s high hormonal content and its ability to transform the lowly worker bee into a super bee, the queen of the hive, some believe this elixir can work miracles for them in their own personal arena of “the birds and the bees,” if you know what I mean.

And let’s not forget that potent venom sack each bee’s sting is primed with. Even this nasty juice reputedly has medicinal properties. I’ve heard it said there’s a very small incidence of arthritis among beekeepers but can cite no specific studies to validate this as fact (I’m sure such studies exist…). Bee sting therapy or “apitherapy” has been used on sufferers of rheumatoid arthritis and with some claims of success, too. I don’t know about that…seems to me bee stings might work as a distraction: the substitution of one species of pain for another. Some years back at my wife’s request I strategically applied a sting on the large knuckle of her  troublesome left thumb. The effect? Pain, swelling, and an itchy thumb for days after. But, she told me, she has OSTEO arthritis. So there went one wasted bee sting (and bee).

Now back to my brother and his pollen-laced smoothie. Keith spoons the pollen into his breakfast tonic because of its high nutritional value and protein content. Pollen, like royal jelly, is nearly fifty % protein. You might say it’s the bread of life for the honeybee colony. You can purchase containers of pollen at health food stores. Keith does. He told me he pays nearly seventeen dollars for a jar of the stuff. His pollen is not local pollen, which many folks seek because they maintain local pollens ameliorate their allergies. Most of the pollen sold in naturopathic stores is foreign; some is international; a goodly amount comes from our own southwest desert regions. Unprocessed honey such as my bees produce, honey extracted straight from the comb—unstrained and unheated—contains pollen grains, another reason why local honey is a sought after commodity. I always kept a few small jars of bee pollen in my inventory along with the honey I sold roadside here in the Valley because every season a handful of customers would ask for it. For those curious about the product, I would emphasize pollen’s nutritional value over its repute as an anti-allergen.

Field bees collect pollen on their large hind legs using their first and second pair of legs to work the sticky substance into the pollen baskets on the tibia portion of the hind legs until a plump pollen pellet is formed on each. Back to the hive they go, two pellets at a time. Both are removed and packed tightly into the comb cells for later use. The bees store the pollen in designated pollen combs, usually on the outer edges of the cluster of brood frames.

I thought I’d throw some of the Valley pollen into my brother’s smoothie and installed a pollen trap on one of my hives. This form of entrapment actually is wire mesh thievery. The pollen-laden bee is forced to climb through layers of a certain gauge wire mesh one leg at a time. On the way to deliver her goods, she crawls through the layer of screen which deftly scrapes the pellet from each hind leg. The pollen then falls through a straining screen into a collection basket which is little more than a removable tray one slides out to retrieve the collected pollen.Pollen pellets come in a variety of colors depending upon their floral source. Hazelnut pollen, collected in late January and February is a pale yellow color as is willow. Dandelion pollen is a lovely orange. Some pellets are nearly white. In the collection tray one is likely to see green pellets, purples, and some nearly black creating a veritable pallet of pollen pellets. 

 

Pollen is an essential ingredient in the nutritional health and development of colony strength; therefore, pollen traps should be removed after a few days’ use to allow this vital substance to flow freely into the hive again.

So good health from the Valley to you, Brother Keith. Enjoy your breakfast smoothie on us. 

 

 

 

 

 

What about bee poop, you ask? No claims of medicinal qualities I know of for that bee “by-product” yet. But certainly there are on-going studies  somewhere….

Regarding bee droppings: the litigious neighbor of a self-respecting, innocuous beekeeper, frustrated at the incessant speckling of his cars (his driveway was beneath the bees’ flight pattern) by his neighbor’s busy bees, sued for property damage. The case came to court, the claimant presented his argument, and a judgment was handed down in favor of the beekeeper and his employees. The court ruled, “You can’t diaper a bee.” Case closed.

Trifling with Truffles or There’s Fungus Among Us in the Valley…

Two or three months ago I noticed a flutter of pink along the lower Loop Road and sent the Ripple to investigate this new Valley pretty. In a stretch of field behind Kelly Bolles’ Organic Farms the ground was plowed and staked. (Kelly’s house? You can’t miss this edifice—the old Baylor place: it’s the elevated house that’s in the stage of becoming…and becoming…and becoming… but that’s a whole other post.) Every five or six feet there was a stake flagged with hot pink surveyor’s tape, row after row of them. Some sort of woody twig sprouted alongside each. Whatever the new planting was, I’m familiar enough with the Valley berry industry to know the leafless stalks were not berry plants. “Now what’s all this about?” I wondered and made a mental note to interrogate Kelly when next our paths crossed. 

But before Kelly, I encountered Paul Bischoff. He was transplanting garlic on the lower Loop Road the other day. I was sure he would know the story behind the fluttering pink flags. “Looks like more posting material for the Ripple,” I say. When Paul heard I was there on behalf of the press, he hemmed and hawed, turned rather evasive, as if a team from “60 Minutes” had suddenly shown up with their camera crew and were about to shove a microphone into his face. All Paul would disclose was the staked field was Kelly’s leap of faith into exotic agriculture and that the newly set twigs were hazelnut trees. Paul would rather I talk to Kelly about the particulars. So that evening I dial up Bolles’ Organic Farm and after listening to a pitch for “raw honey and assorted jams,” I was told to leave a message. “This is the Ripple calling,” I tell the voice. “What’s up with your flagged field? Might make an interesting post. Give me a call,” and left it at that.

Nearly a month passed. No call from Kelly. The Ripple is nothing if not persistent. A secret in the Valley? I’ll have it out or bust. And the other day as Gladys and I glide by the lofty old renovation, there’s Kelly Bolles himself puttering about. We cruise into his driveway and rattle to a stop. “So you don’t want to talk about your latest agricultural venture, what you have at stake?” I ask, trying to sound more diplomatic than accusatory. I mention the unanswered phone message. Kelly informs me I most likely had dialed a number and left a message on a machine he doesn’t check for sometimes two weeks at a time when it’s not marketing season. He had not heard my message.

Kelly at first appeared reluctant to talk about his innovative enterprise—a fear about crop plundering, I gather—but I reassure him, “Hey, it’s not like you’re planting the field in watermelons, now is it?”He shakes his head and laughs. Once he starts talking, Kelly rides the wave of his enthusiasm and the information pours forth. Some time ago he learned the Pacific Northwest has its own truffle industry. Truffles? Yes, truffles, exotic fungi, the mushroom equivalent of caviar. Fancy French fare. “Truffles?” Kelly’s dad remarked when he heard of his son’s latest brainchild. “I thought those things grew only in France!”Yes, the gold standard of mycology has come to the Valley. Kelly did some research on truffle production in Oregon, our southern neighbor that apparently is in the vanguard of the industry on the west coast. “Truffle growers even have their own annual conventions,” Kelly exclaims. I asked him if he had attended any or had plans to. “No,” he says. “I think they’d be pretty pricey to attend.” His research has included videos on truffle production and harvesting, and he has been in contact with one of the Oregon growers, from whom he’s gleaned not only advice, but also the capital outlay for a truffle crop right here along the Lower Loop Road.

So this is what I learn. Truffles are a fungus symbiotic with oak and hazelnut trees. (I knew our northwest morels had an affinity for cottonwoods.) Kelly purchased 400 seedling trees from his Oregon contact at $12.50 per tree. Although most are hazelnut trees—preferable because the hazelnut grows faster than oak—there were not enough for a 400 count, so the balance was filled by the slower growing oak trees. Because truffles thrive in alkaline soil, Kelly had to add thirty tons of lime to the two acres to adjust the soil’s PH.  (Because of our considerable rainfall, Valley soil tends to be acidic; good for berries, bad for truffles.) And the yearling trees? They have all been truffled with, inoculated with Black Perigord truffle mycelium.

Twelve thousand dollars later Kelly has himself a potential nut and truffle farm, although he’s not quite sure how he’s going to market all the nutty by-product. He has high hopes for the results. In gourmet food circles truffles can command a price of $2,200 a pound. Truffle oil yields an even greater premium. Truffles grow in the soil surrounding the tree’s root system and a soil temperature of at least 85 degrees is necessary for the spores to fruit. Kelly hopes our unpredictable summers will produce enough heat to set his truffle crop. From berries to truffles—quite a leap of faith, it seems to me.

Anyone who knows a thing about French truffle production is familiar with the time honored method of harvest: truffle gatherers tag along through the countryside in the company of pigs. When Porky starts rooting around the base of an oak tree, harvesters quickly intervene to keep their porcine pals from pigging out on the valuable black nuggets. I ask Kelly which harvesting technique he plans to use and am surprised he hasn’t really thought this through yet. I tell him Jason Dean down on Ben Howard has a half dozen pigs. Maybe Kelly the truffle farmer could team with JD the pig farmer, a little symbiosis of their own. Kelly laughs and shares that in a video he watched, the truffle hunter used a dog, a small one, Jack Russell terrier size, to locate the underground prizes. Hogs have an innate sense of smell that allows them to home in on the mushroom morsels. Dogs have to be be trained to seek them out. I share a story about a dog’s keen sense of smell with Kelly, tell him about the time a drug sniffing dog was paraded down the halls of Snohomish High School. Suddenly the dog became frantic in front of a certain locker door. The principal was summoned, a key obtained, and the locker opened where a potted hyacinth in full bloom was discovered. A horticulture student had cultivated it and brought the plant to her locker before carrying it home with her that day after school.

And it’s the training that makes the canine hunter more suitable for the task; you might train a pig to dance, but where a lusty meal is concerned…well, a pig is inclined to be a pig after all.  It takes some creative thought to make a small farm profitable in these modern times. Innovation and diversity are keys to success. I admire Kelly’s courage to try something new in the Valley. I hope his two acre experiment yields him a mycelium miracle and that the whole venture doesn’t end up being just plain nutty.

As far as anyone moonlighting for mushrooms—Kelly has nothing to fear from me. A $2,200 mushroom would be utterly wasted on my stultified epicurean taste buds. My hedonistic tendencies might extend to the rare portobello or a shitake, but a tin of button mushrooms suits this gourmand just fine. Besides I don’t think the cat would be much help rooting out truffle beds. On the other hand, a two acre field of watermelons? A cold slice of melon, juicy and dripping red on a hot summer’s day? Yeah, a watermelon patch…that could pose some real problems for Farmer Bolles.

Memories and Memorials: It’s Lilac Time Again in the Valley…

The house smells of lilacs this morning. Yesterday my daughter and husband came for a visit and stayed for a drizzly BBQ. Son-in-law Avi is a computer engineer and worked his magic on a publishing project I have undertaken. When I went to greet them at the door, I was gifted with a luxurious bouquet of lilacs: soft lavender blossoms surrounded by a heady nimbus of delicate fragrance. By coincidence I had just gathered a bouquet of purple and white lilacs from our own yard to dress up the house a bit for their visit.

Just over a year ago I posted about lilacs (“The Valley in Lilac Time…”), how they evoked for me a special fondness for redheaded girls and my youth. It is a backward spring again this year, and the lilacs are just starting to bloom. Memorial Day is fast approaching, and I will be able to gather a bouquet from the place to take to Packwood Memorial Cemetery in Eastern Washington, the old pioneer cemetery where my dad now lies. I’ll add to my own lilacs additional white blossoms from an ancient bush at the old homestead not far from Dad’s grave: a gift from here and there to dress the spot where he rests among the spring wildflowers.But these lilacs I take from my daughter and arrange carefully in a vase take me beyond beauty and fragrance to a bittersweet memory not long past, for these lilacs are a memorial bouquet from the yard of Dr. Kathreen Gimbrere. For many years  Dr. Gimbrere was my daughter’s caregiver and friend, and even though I met Kathreen only once—she was a guest at Marika’s wedding—I felt as if she were a member of our family, a close friend if only through our daughter’s sharing of their experiences together. At our first and only meeting I found Dr. Gimbrere to be a remarkable woman, one who loved to laugh, who savored life, the world, her patients, her calling…. We talked so comfortably, Kathreen and I, about our families, our interests…my daughter. I found her to be a vivacious, energetic lady, so engaged in life and living.

Dr. Kathreen Gimbrere left this earth last September, less than six months after being diagnosed with a virulent, aggressive form of pancreatic cancer. But as I pass that vase laden with soft beauty, pass through its lilac fragrance, it’s not lilac things that come to mind. I think of the blessing Kathreen’s care and love was to our family, our daughter, to so many lives, and to this world. Hers is indeed a legacy of love.

But the lilacs bloom eternal and Kathreen’s spirit blooms with them now, and in them, and their fragrance enfolds us in her memory.

Kathreen Gimbrere 

February 4, 1959--September 30, 2010

in loving memory

 “…come back and bring a sprig of lilac.”
Raintree County,

Ross Lockridge, Jr.

Bragging Rights in the Valley…

He that observeth the wind shall not sow; and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap.”

Ecclesiastes 11:4

I came across a paraphrase of the Ecclesiastes quote in Elizabeth Allston Pringle’s book A Woman Rice Planter, a remarkable woman’s account of the rice growing industry in the Carolina Low Country before, during and after the Civil War. Ms. Pringle who inherited Chicora Wood, one of her father’s six ante-bellum plantations, plunged herself after his death into the patriarchal role of the Southern male rice planter. A woman of indomitable spirit and native commonsense, Elizabeth not only ran the plantation at a profit and was able to pay off debt against the property, but also found time during the trials of the day (and they were legion) to journal a wonderfully written account of post Civil War South Carolina rice production. Pringle’s interest in agricultural pursuits on her plantation—and relying on the foundations of the rice industry established by her talented father—led her to diversify her crops; Elizabeth was at the forefront of alfalfa production in the late 1800’s. Not one to sit idly by waiting for favorable weather and planting conditions, Elizabeth flaunted Mother Nature and saw to it the planting took place on time. After all, she had a payroll and mortgage to meet.

As Gladys and I roll down the Valley this morning, I think about the Biblical quote Pringle shared. The clouds are thickening, skitter at will across the sun. They are the kind of clouds that will herd together soon and are sure to gang up on the Valley later. I ride by the Werkhoven cornfields. Looks like they have done an initial turning of the stubble but that is it. It is almost mid-May and brackish water yet lies between the furrows, puddles in the dual wheel marks left by the farm equipment. I imagine Andy, Jim, Steve and crew are beside themselves with this weather. I imagine rain on the roof keeps them awake and anxious at night. I imagine the ponds in the cornfields have them wringing their hands as if they could wring the moisture from the soil and begin sowing their corn.

So perhaps it is a bit mean-spirited of me to gloat about my first time ever farmin’ accomplishment: getting a jump on the Werkhovens’ and their annual corn crop. I ignored the winds of late; I ignored the inundation from the clouds the past several weeks and took advantage of two days of dry weather. Yesterday I tilled; I furrowed; I planted; and I replanted a half row after I returned from a half hour lunch break only to find a pesky jay had stripped half the uncovered seed from a furrow.The heavenly downspouts have loosed again this morning. But my corn is in (not hundreds of acres, of course), all three rows of it. I know a lot can happen between now and fall’s corn fritters, but the seed is in the ground.This year at last the bragging rights are mine.

The Naming of Parts….

Remember that feather I found the other day? Well, a feather’s a feather, right? But it’s not quite that simple. You could have knocked me over with one when I discovered a feather has an anatomy of its own. I learned each bird’s feather is like a little machine, comprised of separate parts all working together in a bird’s avionics, making each fowl of the air a feathered Dreamliner.

In general terms Webster’s 9th Collegiate defines a feather as “one of the light, horny epidermal outgrowths that form the external covering of the body of birds….” The central stem of a feather has two names: first, the quill, the thick tip of a feather that attaches to the flesh of the bird. A sharpened quill was the predecessor of metal pen nibs, thus the quill pen (interestingly the Latin word for “feather” is penna ; and nom de plume: “pen name” from the French).The second is the rachis, the part of the central stem that supports the vane or web. “Web” is an apt term for the feather part of the feather because that’s just what it is, a woven structure consisting of thousands of barbs, smaller structures attached to the rachis and “feathering” it. Each barb is “webbed” to its fellow by barbules which in turn end in barbicels tipped by hook-like hamuli. So the entire horny contraption is woofed and warped together, a natural Velcroing, of sorts. And that’s why when you gently run your thumb and forefinger up and down the vane, it doesn’t separate. (Feel free to take notes from the above for your Ornithology 101 class.)

But is all this information necessary? Isn’t it enough to know “the horny epidermal outgrowth”on a bird is called a “feather?” What is it about the nature of some folks that they feel the need to name a thing to death? And who thinks up all these terms anyway? I wonder if you’d invite to a party the fellow who assigned the names “rachis” and “barbule” to the parts of a feather? Want him as a neighbor? A colleague, even? Assigning a name to something gives us power in some way over that thing, a means to a greater understanding of it. Naming a thing validates it—the name’s a symbol of its existence. That’s why we are so sensitive about our own names: their spellings, their pronunciations, how other folks use them.

This serious naming of things, of parts, began with the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus in the 18th century. (I’ve seen a portrait of the botanist and old Carl hardly looks like he’d be the life of the party. In spite of the twinkle in his eye, he looks as stiff as his wig.) Dissatisfied with laymen’s common terms for the animate stuff of Nature, Linnaeus devised binomial nomenclature, the system for naming flora and fauna and assigned plants and animals with a “generic” name and a second “specific” name: genus and species. Thus our modern system of classification. And wanting this method to be a universal system, Carl chose Latin for the naming of things. No longer can one go around willy nilly slapping names on things and have these monikers accepted by the scientific community. International commissions on zoological and botanical nomenclature strictly regulate the names of new plant and animal species. And then there are those name fanciers who believe anything important enough to name should be named in trinomials: genus, species, and subspecies. And who said Latin is a dead language?

The other day I stopped to talk to Denise and Matt Beebe who were tidying up the corner at Tualco and 203. Matt had just finished his lunch--a personal hotdog eating contest--downing four “dawgs” (loaded with the works, too, I imagine), giving a big boost to the daily receipts of the little hotdog cart that has sprouted alongside the latte stand. I asked the Beebes what they had growing in the greenhouse behind the stand. Matt told me to go take a look.

It was a rare sunny day. The greenhouse was pleasantly warm and smelled of contented plants and vigorous root systems. We chatted a while about some of the unfamiliar varieties sunning themselves on the ground. Then Deb Kyle stopped by to check on the status of things. It was about a year ago I met Deb. That day I gave her a four-leaf clover for good luck. We also talked about books, and I discovered our literary tastes overlapped. Almost as rare as a sunny day is it to find someone who shares your taste in books. And here she is again one year later.

As I exit the greenhouse, I notice a patch of familiar vegetation growing by the entrance. Familiar, yes, because the plant has pretty much invaded our place this spring, cropping up around the blueberries and raspberries, festooning the fence lines, and choking out the garden plot. I turn to Matt, point to the flowering clump and the very first words out of my mouth? “What’s the NAME of that stuff, anyway!” “Common self-heal,” Matt replies. And Deb comes at me with a mouthful of binomial Latin: “That’s Prunella vulgaris,” she boasts. As usual those Beebes are a wealth of information. “I have some drying at home,” says Matt. “It makes a nice tea. Belongs to the mint family. See? It has a square stem.” I know the bees are fond of the blossoms, and this is the only reason I have tolerated the weed on the property. But I have overstayed my welcome, and Matt looks anxious to work off all those dogs, so away I go.As I leave, Denise is doing battle with the dandelions in the gravel behind the greenhouse, and I think, “Ah, the dandelions.” They are in full bloom now, and the fickle bees have turned their backs on Prunella vulgaris, forsaken its lavender blossoms for the sunny pollen-smeared faces of this more cheerful weed. So come teatime the Beebes can have their vulgar plant. But for you and all your invasive vulgarity, P. vulgaris, I have another name for you: Round-Up!