Loy Krathong at the Park

Tonight we celebrated Loy Krathong at the park with way more people than we imagined on 24 hrs notice. Best holiday ever, though we did miss the drunks slinging bottle rockets on the banks of the Mae Ping just a little.

In Silsbee and on the Beach

Compostin' Rat Killin' Party Time Vacation

Over the break we did some garden prep, including a much need revamping of the compost pile. It was a productive day. Between the two of us Tien and I killed three rats. He killed and ate one, with his bare teeth, I killed and did not eat two, with a shovel and the flat of a machete.

Davis Mountains

The Lake

In all likelihood it's been ten years since I last went to Lake Texhoma. My former boss took me out on her boat a few weeks ago, while everyone else was in Utah. I spent most of my time looking for arrowheads, and of course found none. I did however catch two tiny striped bass, and got to watch Hercules-the-Dog try and scratch his many itches. Also, you can see below how high the water was during the floods last year from the mark in the junipers.

Cape

I need a new cape.

Playing Megafauna

For the past few months since moving back from Chiang Mai I have been working on a 27 acre estate in north Dallas. Usually I take care of the greenhouse and several perennial and rose gardens, but occasionally I get called upon to do a bit of turf maintenance, either using the line trimmer, or mowing with one of the big mowers. The mower, as you might imagine, is a big noisy machine, and when we mow el pasto grande (the big lawn, with the helicopter landing pad, where Bush or McCain might land if they were to visit, not that I'm saying they have), I spend several hours on the machine, driving back and forth, listening to podcasts. It's rather meditative (unless of course I'm listening to You Look Nice Today, in which case I'm probably laughing so hard I can barely drive straight), and since it's such a big property, with a pond, and screens of trees and understory growth on the margins, I have a good opportunity to observe the wildlife. Granted, there is significantly less wildlife on 27 acres of manicured parkland than one might find on 27 acres of undisturbed blackland prairie, but it is 27 acres. In addition to the birds, squirrels, bunnies, rats and 'possums, there is also a bobcat. But this isn't about the bobcat. This is about the wee creatures that populate the lawn that I drive across atop of four steel blades, spinning away, giving it their whole 29 horses worth. What's interesting is how things like squirrels and birds behave around the mower. If I walk up to a squirrel, it runs up the nearest tree, of course. But when I'm on the mower, it just sort of scoots out of the way. It doesn't run, it just moves over and goes about its business. The birds love the thing. Mockingbirds, bluejays, starlings and grackles will hop around places that have just been mowed, eating the insects that have been flushed out, while the swallows will swoop right in front of the mower, catching up the insects that flee as it approaches. Yesterday it was too windy for the birds, with gusts up 40 mph, so as I drove up the drive I noticed three swallows and a juvenile grackle sitting on the blacktop. They eyed the mower, and hopped out of the way as I passed. They looked disappointed. It has occurred to me that they seem remarkably well suited to taking advantage of the chaos generated in the wake of a large object as it moves through a grassland. This makes sense, since all of the native birds evolved in tandem with Cenozoic megafauna, like bison, camels, horses, and mastadons, and probably followed the herds around, nipping up any insects that were flushed from cover as they traveled through the landscape. So every week or two, I steer my Anthropocene mount over an artificial savanna of live oaks and African grasses, running on fuels first laid down during the Carboniferous, in a weird conjunction of age and place.

Spring Rain

Flooding at NW Highway and East Lawther. I love springtime in Texas.

My Neighbor

I drove through east Texas today, from Dallas, and saw this on 69 somewhere south of Tyler. Let's hope these neighbors can work things out before the cannibalism begins.

Back in the USSA

We never feel more like criminals than when we reenter the US. I have the stupidest reaction when I see immigration. I actually get excited. I think to myself, "Hooray, won't my country be so happy to have me back." Of course that's never the case. Suddenly no one will help my pregnant wife get overweight luggage off the conveyor belt while I am in the bowels of the Seattle airport, seeing our cat through his inspection by TSA, and aren't I an idiot for not immediately understanding that TSA approval is the same as clearing him with Customs. Everyone who's been awake for 22 hours knows that sort of thing.

This flight across the pacific was by far the most interesting I ever hope to have. Since J is pregnant it meant I was pretty much in charge of everything: bags, cat, customs, and making sure she had eaten and was comfortable. But despite unforeseeable things like a shin jarring landing in Taipei and 23 hours spent in what seemed like jail in a Taoyuan City hotel ("those transfer passengers attempting to escape will be escorted back to the airport by the border police and placed on the list of undesirable persons"), and a missing bag (the one we paid an extra ฿ 3,900 for) we made it back, and have been here in south-east Texas for a whole week now. In another week we'll be up in Dallas.

Proposal 1: Proposal for a Central Texas Lawn

I hate lawns. After an adolescence spent cutting the family lawn during the summer in North Texas, and another six years working as a gardener, there's not much I hate worse than mowing. Ideally I'd get rid of lawns all together in favor of small gardens and restoring natural habitat. However, for a few years I've been playing around with the idea of small, jewel-like, species-rich lawns as part of a larger garden, or domestic landscape.

I love the dense, chaotic backgrounds of Gobelin and Flemish tapestries. The plants portrayed there are nearly crystalline in their detail, recognizable by species, and, though densely packed, still isolated enough to be viewed as specimens, running a fine line between natural, overlapping fecundity, and the museum case. Rather like a Wunderkammer or cabinet de curiosités.

In constructing a Wunderkammer an individual culls from the profusion of forms in the natural world, selecting those that are the most curious, the most exotic, the most laden with human meaning, be it scientific or poetic (in a way it is a compounding of Bachelard's categories of intimate space--a shell within a nest, hidden in a drawer, inside a cabinet, tucked away in a corner). It is a collection, but the terms of categorization, and criteria for entry are personal, just as the collection of plants covering the ground of the Unicorn Tapestries are specific and sorted, yet personalized and stylized by the weaver's own hand.

My proposal then is for a new type of lawn, culled from the native (and, if you must, naturalized) species in a given location. Since I am most familiar with the flora of central Texas I will base my selection of species upon that specific set. The intent here is not to recreate native prairie or savanna (which I feel should be done anywhere there is space available, say over half an acre of empty and unused yard), but to create a small, intimate, aesthetic object upon which one may tread. Also, the goals and guidelines used to create the lawn should be adaptable to other areas, guiding the selection of an appropriate species list.

Goals and Guidelines (Patterns):

1) Natives--The species selected must be native to the area, or naturalized and productive citizens, meaning no invasives. A few dandelions are okay, but no Sonchus.

2) Low-growing, but Mowable--The species selected should be naturally low-growing, or amenable to training through mowing. Ranunculus macranthus will shoot up twelve inches if you let it, but it doesn't mind creeping along the ground. And while you shouldn't be afraid to break out the push mower every once in a while (no rotaries, please), you shouldn't feel compelled to either.

3) Complete Coverage--The aesthetic effect desired is that of a green ground dotted with small blooming plants. In a xeric lawn, for example, if one area is too shady for buffalo grass, substitute with cedar sedge, placing blue-eyed grass in the marginal area between the two. The idea here is to achieve complete coverage through a mosaic of species rather than uniform coverage with one species.

4) Wet and Dry Adapted--This is essentially a subset of Complete Coverage when applied to a lawn with both wet and dry areas. It also applies to lawns with uniform conditions, but which might be either too wet or too dry for a particular species. If an area is too soggy or poorly drained for buffalo grass, try a mix of Marsilea and Hydrocotyle.

5) Walkable--You should want to take your shoes off every time you step on this lawn. The plants should be well established and robust enough for daily traffic with shoes on (don't go moving things around in mid summer), yet soft, dense, and finely textured so as to make barefooting preferable.

6) Small--Though this plan could be applied to a rather large area, a whole yard even, it is actually intended to be the floor of what should be thought of as an outdoor room. Plan your space with that in mind, somewhere between 100 and 400 square feet. As for the rest of your yard, why not grow something you can eat, or give some of it back to nature?


Species list for a Central Texas Lawn:

Allium drummondii, Alophia drummondii, Anemone berlandieri, Buchloe dactyloides, Carex planostachys, Commelina erecta, Cooperia drummondii, C. pedunculata, C. smallii, Herbertia lahue, Hydrocotyle bonariensis, H. umbellata, Hypoxis hirsuta, Manfreda maculosa, Marsilea macropoda, M. vestita, Nemastylis geminiflora, Nothoscordum bivalve, Oxalis drummondii, Phyla incisa, Ranunculus macranthus, Schoenocaulon texanum, Sisyrinchium chilense, Tetraneuris linearifolia, T. scaposa, Tinantia anomala, Tradescantia subacaulis, Viola missouriensis.

This list can easily be added to as long as the goals and guidelines above are followed. There are plenty of rugged, low-growing plants with finely textured foliage and attractive blooms, but they may have spines, barbs, woody growth, or spiny fruits and seeds, making them inappropriate. Species for the lawn fall into two basic categories, with some overlap between the two: backdrop and blooms. Buchloe dactyloides, Carex planostachys, Hydrocotyle sp., and Marsilea sp. are all obvious backdrop plants, chosen to provide a green ground for the others to bloom on. Alophia drummondii, Cooperia sp., and Herbertia lahue are intended to be little blooming gems, while Commelina erecta, Sisyrinchium sp., Tinantia anomala, and Viola missouriensis do double duty as backdrop and blooms, as well as providing some green through the winter.

If you plan on embarking on this project, or something similar, please contact me through this blog. I would love to see how it turns out.