Luck in the garden

Blame it on the upcoming St. Patrick’s Day on the 17th, but I have all things “lucky” on the brain.  Maybe the lurid green color associated with this holiday roped me in, or maybe it’s the pot of gold/leprechaun thing, I can’t say.  There is, in fact, a cereal devoted to luck (and high fructose corn syrup), called “Lucky Charms” of which I was an ardent devotee in my youth.  I had to give it up…not enough rainbow-colored marshmallows for my taste.  Not even pants (or trousers, for you English folk) are luck-less in branding: "Lucky” brand jeans have “Lucky you” embroidered under the zipper.  Subtle, isn’t it?



For the plant hunters among us, or at least those willing to go on hands and knees in the turf grass, finding a four-leafed clover is considered good luck.  Other talismans of luck: the horse-shoe, rabbits foot, and various items of adornment such as necklaces with charm or medallion.  And smelly socks, but perhaps that is lucky for sports players only.  Horoscopes are filled with such prognostications as lucky days, numbers, years, and signs of all kinds. (I’m a Leo, so this year I’m going to be busy.  In fact I might not be able to post once a week anymore, as I just recently learned, a minute ago in fact from the above link, that Saturn, Lord of the Underworld has sent me on a mission this year.  Hooray!  Time to dig out the blue tarp cape and duct tape goggles of my secret alter ego.)
  
Proverbs and famous quotes about luck abound.  “Find a penny, pick it up, all day long you’ll have good luck.”  There’s Luck o’ the Irish.  Lucky in love.  Luck is the idol of the idle.  Or maybe you prefer Obi Wan Kenobi’s dour observation in Star Wars: “In my experience, there’s no such thing as luck.”  (The Irish have quite a few sayings about it, a fact uncovered in my scandalously brief research on the topic.  Surely some Irish reader will share why….)  And don’t we all send people off on a new adventure, whether it be the start of a sports game, wedding day, or Spelling Bee with the injunction “Good luck” or “Best of luck”?  Just what does it mean for the gardener?

I myself have considered certain gardeners to be lucky: those with a large garden, a fertile garden, a high yielding, or artful garden.  And even, once, in a moment of rage, those with no garden.  (Don’t judge me too harshly, there was blood involved.)  Everyone gardening south of zone 5 is grade-A lucky.  More than 20 inches of precipitation annually: lucky.  If the seasons arrive in your garden when the calendar says they should (for example, March 20 being the first day of spring), you are lucky.  Ditto those living in England, where they are blessed with real garden programming, witty garden commentators galore, magazines, and scads of world-famous gardens to tour.  And there is always that gardener that seems to be able to grow anything, especially that one plant you’ve tried and tried and killed and killed.  It gives me comfort to call that luck.

Oddly, a recent scan of garden blogs revealed but one entry on luck.  Check out Whole Life Gardening (written by C.L.): “Gardening & the School of Dumb Luck”.  I found many blogs briefly mentioned luck (as in “good luck in growing/finding/getting rid of…”) but few had devoted a post to the subject.  But let’s examine the other side of the gold coin, shall we?

Gleaned from my meticulous research on luck proverbs, the antonym for “luck” is “work.”  My favorite definition of work, taken from bing, might be number 10: “means for energy transfer” but the others (have job, exert effort, function, be successful, work in a specific place, shape something, cultivate land, and attain particular condition) work for gardening as well.  To quote a man that seemed to spout proverbs: “I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.”  So says President Thomas Jefferson.  Is it any coincidence there are a dearth of garden blog posts on luck, when we take into account that gardeners are some of the hardest-working folk around?
  
Do you believe in luck?  Or hard work?  Or some amalgamation of both?

Are you a blog squirrel?

And from that improbable title, I will pose the question to blog writers out there: how many blog posts (or "nuts" in my super clever analogy) do you have in draft form at the moment?  But first, a little squirrel trivia.

My source is the most expensive book I had to buy in college: "The Encyclopedia of Mammals," edited by Dr. David MacDonald and published in North America by Facts on File, Inc.  I paid $62.35 for the heavy tome (about 900 pages), which was a fortune then for a book.  Actually, upon reflection, I don't know that I have purchased a book more expensive since.  Rather than sell it back to the bookstore (a common practice for a destitute student like myself) for a loss, I believe I kept it out of spite.  And now it keeps the other encyclopedias company on the bookshelf.  I see I have peculiar taste in this book breed: flags, rocks, dinosaurs, pond fish, etc....I think the only encyclopedias I am missing are: farm animals with spots, soil organisms smaller than 3 millimeters, and rock bands from the late 1970's. 

Did you know there are 267 species in 49 genera in the big old squirrel family (Sciuridae)?  That's a lot of squirrels, from about 3 inches in the African pygmy squirrel to more than 25 inches in the Alpine marmot.  And most people (and bloggers) out there have experience with squirrels as they are found worldwide with the exception of Australia (and thereabouts), the southern part of South America, desert regions like the Sahara, Polynesia, and Madagascar.  So to be more succinct about it: they are almost everywhere.

Alaska has more than our share, from my readings of the University of Alaska Anchorage's mammal list, with 17 different species and subspecies from all three groups of squirrel: flying, tree, and ground.  Marmots to woodchucks, we've got 'em here.  The Red squirrel, Tamiasciurus hudsonicus (and two subspecies), is the tree squirrel we "enjoy" here in the 49th state.  I put enjoy in quote marks because frankly, there are plenty of folks out there that don't care for them at all.  When they are raiding the bird feeder and spilling an entire bag's worth of seed onto the gravel, even the tolerant Last Frontier Gardener can get testy.  I also put it in quote marks because some people enjoy them served on dinner plates.  Yes, it's true: squirrels rate their own entry in the Alaska Department of Fish and Game's list, where they are rated as "good eating" and their fur is sold in our great state and Canada.  I'm afraid I can't attest to their tastiness due to lack of personal experience.  I'm not real broken up about it either.

I feel bad for those poor saps that have to deal with the Gray squirrel.  Apparently in England (it was introduced there in 1876 from North America, a big "sorry" for that) it regularly strips the bark from sycamore, oak, and beech trees whereas in N.A. it favors the sugar maple.  Most squirrels love nuts and seeds, a few bugs here and there, fruits, and other plant bits.  They have also been known to take (skip ahead squeamish ones) baby birds and reptiles.  A plus for squirrel aficianados, Gray squirrels can have as many as nine or more in a litter.  Another bonus, they can have two breeding seasons a year if conditions are favorable.  Squirrels, squirrels, everywhere!

Some characteristics of most tree squirrels are: good eyesight, chisel-shaped incisor teeth, well-developed sense of touch (those whiskers help), and nests in trees called "dreys."  I also discovered Red squirrels can locate pine cones buried 12 inches below the surface.  That goes a long way to explain some of the
disruptive behavior in the garden, such as that time I planted hundreds of crocuses and they mysteriously unplanted themselves and got nibbled and moved around.  I won't describe my thoughts at the moment when I discovered my work undone.  After all, this is a family friendly blog.  Just imagine some steam coming out my ears and you'll about have it.

So now that I have captured your attention with this fascinating bit of squirrel lore, I will shift gears and get back to my blogging analogy.  Thank you for your patience, as the automated customer service voice intones when I am put on hold....

I suppose I am a bit of a squirrel hoarding my posts, as I seem to feel safe with a minimum of three in draft form, but then I've always been the highly-strung, nervous type.  Right now I must be feeling particularly creative because I have four (a lot for me) in various phases, from two lines to two hundred.  That's a bit of an exaggeration, but "two lines to twenty" just doesn't have the same weighty feel.

High strung might be one excuse, but I also think I have more quality control if I have a week or two lead-time.  I don't seem to be the type that can churn out literary gems with short notice.  Only on rare occasions am I am struck with inspiration and a post seems to write itself to my satisfaction in one sitting.  Apparently, I need a good deal of time to work out logic, flow, and wit (If I can summon any: I do notice this post is sadly lacking in that respect). 

Also, time is needed to come up with pictures to adorn said post.  For example, for this post, I felt like I needed a squirrel picture, or at the very least a nut picture.  Normally I'd start combing through my pictures stored on the computer, but I just happen to know for a fact that I have A. no squirrel pictures, and B. no nut pictures.  Drat.  I think the squirrels are all still asleep, as I haven't heard any chattering in, say, four months.  So that's not happening.  Perhaps I'll root out all the different kinds of nuts I have around the house and photograph them (did it, see below).  Remember, I did put an "if" in association with witty content.

Roll call: pine nut, peanut, almond, walnut, pecan and pistachio.  Apparantly blog drafts aren't the only kind of "nut" I am hoarding...

So to recap, my reasons for hoarding posts are:
1. personality
2. development/editing
3. finding appropriate pictures

So time to 'fess up: how many draft posts do you have right now?

And what squirrels call your garden/country home?

You Can Find the Fur Rendezvous Here

My hometown of Anchorage, Alaska, is the place to be to enjoy the one and only Fur Rendezvous.  Actually, I'm not entirely sure that it's the ONLY gathering of this type, but I'm guessing, due to lawyers and all, it's the only one officially called "Fur Rendezvous."  

For those that don't speak Athabascan (or is it French?), it's a yearly tradition started in 1935, where Alaskans gather to swap furs, race dogs, and play hockey.  Apparently the name is just too intimidating to pronounce and so it is affectionately referred to as "Fur Rondy" or just "Rondy."  I remember attending Rondy during my childhood and it was always a much anticipated time of year, especially the parade.  Is there a kid in this world who doesn't love a parade? 

Apparently the answer is "yes."  This little guy was even in the parade and couldn't deal with it.

The only thing I saw more of than fur on Saturday, was portable toilets.  This homemade specimen was delightful.

Built-in air conditioning.

Iceworm, and on the lower left, in black, a rondy" keystone kop".  I used to be terrified they would put me in the jail-on-wheels when I was a kid.  If you are not wearing a rondy pin, you get tossed in jail.  This year, I told them to throw me in jail, I wasn't able to buy a pin. Unfortunately, the jail had gone around the corner by then and the rondy kops said I missed my chance.  Drat!

I remember the jail being bigger and full of surly old folks.  Perhaps too many children had fits and they had to fill the jail with cheerful teenaged attendants, seen above.  Keystone kop pictured at lower right.  Menacing, aren't they?

We've modernized a bit, judging from this year's schedule, (which can be found at the Anchorage Daily News website) and now have outhouse races, bingo, and snowshoe softball.  And lest I forget a new and popular event, "Running with the Reindeer": the cold north's version of the bull running in Pamplona.  No one, so far as I've heard, has been gored or stomped, but I think people have slid in the poo and fallen.

 Nowhere else on earth will you see fur displayed in such quantity outside of a zoo.  Davy Crockett's raccoon tail hat has nothing on the fur hats you'll see here.  I saw a gentleman wearing a wolfskin hat complete with a wolf head on the front.  Very eye-catching.  (A brand new sighting for me this year: seal skin gloves.)  And the annual hide and horn auction brings out all types of folks to bid on animal hides seized by the Alaska Fish and Game department, often from illegal hunts or animals killed in defense of life or property.  I stopped by last year and it was a kaleidoscope of almost every fur bearing animal I have ever seen in Alaska.  I don't think I saw any squirrels, but I could be wrong.  Lynx, bears of multiple colors, rabbits, wolves, foxes, etc.  That's just one auction.  The downtown merchants were out in force with fur hats, coats, and in one shop that's hard to miss: a fur bikini (I wonder just how one would launder a fur bathing suit?).

I guess no one has figured out how to clean this bikini.  It's still for sale....

One event I always try to attend is the Rondy World Championship Sled Dog Races.  A part of downtown is blocked off to vehicles and the streets are covered in snow for the race.  (Also, the weather usually cooperates by being bitterly cold, say under 20 degrees F, and windy.)  I have never seen happier dogs in my life than the dogs in harness waiting to start their run.  The teams I saw on Saturday were bursting with energy and found it hard to wait for their musher to give them the "go" signal.  Second in happiness to the dogs were the kids wandering around pointing out every dog team, dog, and fur hat to their parents.  Nothing quite says "Alaska" like a sled dog race.  At least I'm pretty sure it doesn't say "California" or "Florida."  I remember getting to ride in a dogsled one year as a child (dogsled rides are offered, but not usually by racers) and wondering why the musher brought his rifle.  I imagined wolves tearing us apart or some such scenario.  "Moose," he said, "I bring the gun for moose.  Sometimes they get tangled up in the harness and can stomp or kill the dogs."  It's a moose eat dog world up here.

Is it time to go yet?

Ground zero for the race.  The starting line.  Teams start at staggered times and race through part of downtown Anchorage, thrilling children and adults alike.

Rondy events I would like to try before I die: the blanket toss, in which a person gets tossed around but mostly up in the air by people holding the giant blanket (which looks pretty fun and kind of scary), the outhouse races, where you drag your own outhouse creation down the street as fast as you can, and ice bowling, which I hope is self explanatory....

A city moose.  More colorful than its rural cousin.

Other places and climates have such things as watermelon, chile pepper, or cheese festivals.  We have a festival of fur.  So what if I lost the feeling in my right foot, fingertips and left big toe?  At least I was dressed for the weather.  I just felt bad for those out-of-towners like the CNN crew, who were under-dressed in wool belted dress jackets and flannel.  Brrr.  All this hoopla because Alaskans are itching for spring and it's just not here yet.

Mush on!

Miniature hot rods on parade.

What festivals do you enjoy in your neck of the woods?