See What You Don't See

One of the fun aspects of blogging is coming into contact with individuals that use their talents, skills and interests in ways that benefit others.  Not everyone has discovered the hidden poet within themselves.  In the following reflection I am offering you some images that I have compiled from my grandma's garden. They are not the most beautiful or noticed things, but I have found poems for each one to emphasize their inner beauty.  For those who overlook things and are stuck on observations that seem meaningless,  hopefully I can help you draw forth the poet in you.

Taken by me 10/25/14

Perspective

Imagine a plane, endless, and open
Every point named, as hopeless, or broken
Now picture the world in which we exist
Just as easily dammed to cut at its wrists
This body is nothing but an image
This life not but a matrix;
A single possibility causing contention
By Conor Oberst
         
          When I look at my Grandma's garden at night I see a whole new world. Her solar garden lights mark the perimeter, giving light to all her beauties. If I could see her garden from up in the sky I would picture the signal lanes for a landing plane down at the airport. That is what I see.

Taken by me 10/01/14

CACTUS

Thorns are my language.
I announce my existence
with a bleeding touch.

Once these thorns were flowers.
I loathe lovers who betray.
Poets have abandoned the deserts
to go back to the gardens.
Only camels remain here, and merchants,
who trample my blooms to dust.

One thorn for each rare drop of water.
I don’t tempt butterflies,
no bird sings my praise.
I don’t yield to droughts.

I create another beauty
beyond the moonlight,
this side of dreams,
                                               a sharp, piercing,
                                               parallel language.

                                               By: K. Satchidanandan
  
         Cactus are always thought of as ugly and dangerous just because they are covered in thorns. This is unfair, it is like criticizing a young teenage girl because she is covered in pimples. Your appearance has a great effect on what others think of you but it does not mean you are useless. Cactus are a great reservoir of water which is beneficial in a dessert area. My grandma sees beyond appearance, and throughout her garden you can find many casual plants.


Taken by me 10/15/14 



The Wind Chimes

   Two wind chimes,

   one brass and prone to anger,

   one with the throat of an angel,

   swing from my porch eave,

   sing with the storm.

   Last year I lived five months

   under that shrill choir,

   boxing your house, crowding books

   into crates, from some pages

   your own voice crying.

  Some days the chimes raged.

  Some days they hung still.

  They fretted when I dug up

   the lily I gave you in April,

blooming, strangely, in fall.

Together, they scolded me

when I counted pennies you left

in each can, cup, and drawer,

when I rechecked the closets

for remnants of you.

The last day, the house empty,

resonant with space, the two chimes

had nothing to toll for.

I walked out, took them down,

carried our mute spirits home.

By Shirley Buettner  

          A lot of times you tend to hear noises you never hear before when you are in an unusual mood. When I hear the wind chimes that are hung off a Sycamore tree in front of the porch, it is either because I am tired and silent or eating. I hear the dings (just another language of the wind) outside and I wonder, why do the chimes not sound harmonic? It is not a melody or tune it is just noise scattered and unorganized. Wind chimes represent emotions.

Flowers In A Vase

A bunch of flowers
Sat in a vase
Colourful and lonely
A mind looks at them
Wondering
What is it they have to say
Are they a thank you
Or a gift of love
Are they an apology
Or given in remorse
Perhaps they are for nothing
Given to bring a smile
The mind looks on
Wondering for a while
The flowers sit in their vase
Unmoved by thought
Or the reason given to them
                                                A little water at their base
                                                To keep them fresh for a while
                                               They are the end of the day
                                               Just flowers in a vase 

                                               by: Matthew Holloway
         
         Do you ever receive flowers and just stare at the vase and tell you admirer "What a pretty vase!" ? Why is it that the flower is the gift and not the vase? The vase was probably more valuable than the flower in the first place and it will never vanish. The flowers will dry up and be forgotten but the vase can be kept, and why not, used to hold other flowers. My grandma has an infinite amount of vases, none of which match in color nor size. There is no theme or structure they just pile up in different areas. Some vases are decorated, others are plain, some have been spray painted and others say 'to the best grandma in the world'. Vases are the beholders of the plants, they will hold their soil and water. If these plant were all on the native Nevada grounds they would parish. These grounds are too dry and harsh, so give thanks to the vases.  

Look beyond the usual and boring structures around you. Don't take what you have for granted, look at it and you will see much more than I. You are a creature of wonder.  You are a poet.  You are a poet not because of what you write but because of how you see.

Vacant

There comes a time in life when you'll have to leave everything behind and start something new. But when that times comes many of you will have your future set. Some will be ready for college others for marriage, but what happens when the person you have decided to spend your life with packs up their bags and says "Honey, let's go." Do you go and leave everything you already had planned behind like if it was a meaningless chapter of your life? Or do you say goodbye and let them go knowing your lives will never cross paths again? Many years, days, hours of hard work all for the purpose of survival are all now a meaningless time of your limited life, all because one very powerful person has pulled the leash on your neck and said "This place is not good enough, lets go."
         
          As I ventured around my grandma's wonderland one evening, I decided to take a closer look at her array of decorations. Her ceramic vases and figures are all of different themes, colors, and sizes. She has frog, snake, bird, gnome and all other kinds of ceramic dolls hanging around in interesting places. None of which have any purpose but to take up space. She likes to hang most of the ornaments off trees if they are small enough and others just sit in the shade of plants. Well anyways, on this particular evening I observed her ornaments and wrote a list down in my field-notes journal. When I was half way around the garden (most of my observations are made as I go counter clockwise around the garden) I was taking note of all the ornaments she has hanging off a particular tree. She has two wind bells, a baby sleeping in a hammock, and a small watering pot. The inside of the watering pot is hollow with a circular entrance in the middle of it. I am pretty sure it is meant to be a bird house or something. Well as curiosity kicked in I peeked inside and saw the silhouette of two spheres. Using the light of my cell phone I realized I was peeking in to an abandoned beehive. The honeycombed spheres rested next to each other unattached from anything(I know this because I moved the watering pot around and they rolled from side to side). The spheres had the familiar hexagonal shapes of honeybee hives and were a light grey color (already sucked dry). I never expected to find something so cool like that. As the excitement passed away I thought to myself why it is that the hives were abandoned? Was it the cold weather? Did the bees run out of interest for the delicious flowers in this little garden? I just had to look this up because I knew my findings would be just as surprising as my grandma's reaction to the hives(my grandma FREAKED and at the same time was happy to know her flowers had their personal pollinators).


Taken by me 10/27/14

          On Wikipedia I found a more accurate description of what a beehive is. The website explains that a beehive is a dense group of hexagonal cells made of beeswax used to store food(honey and pollen) and to house the eggs. The most important purpose for a beehive is to protect the dweller kind of like how a bird's nest protects the bird and its eggs. Another note I found interesting was about artificial beehives(those boxed thingies that hold swarms of angry "domesticated" bees). Artificial beehives are used to pollinate crops in some areas and aside from honey production sometimes they are used to limit the effect of "colony collapse disorder", which pretty much helps manipulate the bee population so it does not collapse. As I continued to read I found out that all beehives have similar blueprints. They consists of layers(like floors in a hotel) that starts with honey at the top, pollen follows under, worker-brood cells next followed by the queen bee's cells in the lower edge. Who would have known that in the bee world upper class gets the bottom floors. Though this was all very interesting it still did not answer my question. Why do bees leave their hives?
          The next website answered my doubts. This website is pretty much another intricate blog by a dedicated blogger. The author of the blog spends time posting all her information on artificial bee hives. After reading her description I came to find she has bees as pets. Weird... The bog name is Honey Bee Suite. In the blog post I read, the author, Rusty Burlew, talks about reason why bees tend to leave hives. It was most definite that the queen bee is at complete fault. Wherever the queen goes the others will follow, no matter what. Her solution to this problem for those who keep bees in artificial hives, was to keep the queen captive for a couple of weeks. The other bees will stay put and begin building a hive which is when it is safe to let the queen out. I found this funny but also very surprising. The rest of the colony has so much dedication towards the queen bee that it is almost insane how "beenapping" the queen prevents all the others from leaving. This is another demonstration of human manipulation. She talks about how if the queen does not like what she sees she will leave even after all the hard work her workers have gone through. They will let everything behind to rot and follow her wherever her wings may take her. She is the boss and manipulator of hundreds of bees. So when it is your time to leave everything behind to start a new life, think about it. Are you the boss or the follower? What is convenient for you?

Ardent Love

Faith Is A Fine Invention
          By: Emily Dickinson

"Faith" is a fine invention

For gentlemen who see,

But Microscopes are prudent

In an emergency!

          Sometimes I sit outside and just follow my grandma around with my eyes. I see her going about so entertained in her garden chores, and I ask myself, how does she do it? How does she find the time to put so much passion and effort into something? How does she not give up, after seeing a flower die--or a root cut off by the vigorous wind. She complains about being tired and having to work for a living. She whines about her swollen ankles, and dismantled fingers due to arthritis. She says to me at times "All your life you have to work just to pay bills and be able to live." And it all makes sense, in her slurred Spanish I see her point. We all end up working, educated or not, to pay bills. Some have it easier then others based on wealthiness, but still life itself is not free. After all these complains she still goes and spends hours  outside taking care of her plants....but she never complains about that.
          I wanted to find a poem that could described my grandma's love for her garden in a different perspective. The poem above, "Faith Is A Fine Invention", by Emily Dickinson really hit the spot. This poem explains the faith of those who can see further past something they love. And though they have hope at all times, sometimes it is just a matter of looking closer that gets them through. In my grandma's perspective she adores her flowers with an ardent love, but sometimes she is let down when a plant does not come back up the next spring. When she goes to plant the seeds in autumn she puts down all her prayers and hopes into that piece of Earth so they can grow and sprout in the spring. But when this does not go as planned she looks down at that empty spot and finds a solution. She digs down and finds the seed already emerging with roots but not able to make it to the surface. Then she is determined to fix it, she replants it farther up or simply moves it to a location with more sunlight. And before you know it the flower sprouts and her heart is filled with joy and she brags on saying, "tengo buena mano"( I have a good hand-in terms of planting).
          In this short video that I recorded while following her around the garden I ask her, you really love your flowers don't you? And this was her response.

Video By Brenda Mena Oct 26, 2014

 

          This is the translation from Spanish to English of our conversation(read it fast):

"You love your flowers a lot don't you?"

"yes, wait who?"

"You."

"Oh me? Yeah. Wouldn't you love something that you like a lot?"

"Yea."

"Like for example you have a dress that you like a lot, a lot and you take care of it, and take care of it, and take care of it, and then you put it on, and take care of it again and then-- am I right? And then you say I'm not going to put it on that often so I won't ruin it."



          After that little adventure we went inside and she wanted me to look up 'how to prepare your garden for the winter' on line. On an article I found on ivillage.com there were several helpful tips on how to get your garden ready. The first was to pull up dying plants with any sign of infestation. You do not want insects spreading to nearby plants so bagging and getting rid of those dirty plants is the best solution. Second tip was to pare your perennials, which is just cutting back the plant to 4-6 inches tall. But this must be done after the first frost so you can assure that the energy in the upper plant has already dropped down to the roots to be stored for the winter. Third tip is to remove slimy leaves, this will help get rid of any bugs that need a winter home. But you must keep the dry leaves that have fallen off so they serve as food to enrich the soil. Fourth tip is to cover your soil with a layer of compost to enrich the soil and prevent it from depleting. Fifth, plant your spring bulbs in a depth that is 3 times their height. These are just 5 of the tips that my grandma felt useful for her as I read them out in Spanish. There were many more that can be found on the webpage.
          I hope this blog gave a better picture of my grandma's crazy personality and at the same time gave a lot of informational gardening tips. She seems great already doesn't she? But there is still so much more of her you haven't seen.

Winter Coat

As I was sitting outside on the porch swing one evening taking field notes, I began to get the chills. The wind was picking up and I had to run inside to get a jacket. As I thought about the changes that winter would bring to the garden I recalled a prompt in my AP Biology class my sophomore year of high school . I do not remember the exact words but the question pretty much went like this: "A farmer is aware that a storm is coming his way. He sprays down all his crops the night before the storm in order to protect them. Explain how the properties of water help protect the crops from the cold storm."
Being unexperienced in this topic I sat there and did not know what to answer. And yes, I did not get a very good score on it, but the teacher reviewed the prompt and explained. So what I remember her saying is that the water acted as an insulator for the crops. So pretty much the water on the crops froze and was cold on the outside but inside it was warm as can be, and that is why the crop survived.
I wanted to know what to expect from all these plants my grandma has scattered over her yard. How is it that these flowers, that read to be annual on their tags, come back up next spring and survive the harsh winter temperatures. I cannot understand how this can be possible, when I nearly die just getting up from my bed to the bathroom in the winter mornings.

http://blackwalnutdispatch.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/winterdiscontent-014.jpg
Web image. Found on 10/19/14

I began my research and I was not let down. On this website http://www.howplantswork.com/2010/01/07/how-plants-survive-the-cold-or-not/ I found the answer to all my questions. I found 4 methods that plants use. The first would be the accumulation of solutes. This depresses the freezing point of water and stabilizes membranes. Second is the use of proteins that may be called "anti-freeze proteins". These proteins help stop ice crystals from forming outside the cell walls. Third is synthesizing dehydrins, which pretty much keeps water molecules inside the cells to keep "watering" the plant. And finally, fourth, is to alter lipid compositions in order to help the plant keep is fluidity in cold temperatures.
So pretty much these outstanding mechanisms of life adjust themselves to live. If we could do that I would probably sleep outside on a hammock all year long. I know that all these actions it took to keep the plants alive sounded all geeky and hard to understand, but well I understood it so hopefully you did too.
So now I look at all these plants in even more amazement, and I can say, you will survive.

Creepy Crawlers

          Mostly all  my discoveries in my grandma's garden take place after sunset, I love to walk around and look at all the flowers in the dark with my phone's flashlight on. I never know what I might find but I know that something will show up. 
The other night I decided to dig a little further so I began to lift up random bricks that form a pathway around my grandma's peach trees. And I wasn't disappointed. 
The first critters I saw moving around were little black ants. There were many though I couldn't seem to find any ant holes. 




common pill bug
web image found on 10/11/04

          Then I found the most fun insects of my childhood--pill bugs(aka rollie pollies). I used to entertain myself for hours with these bugs, I would collect as many as I could in a plastic cup then sort them by gender. I was only 6 and my philosophy was that the dark ones were males and the lighter ones were females and the tiny ones were babies. So with this assortment I was able to replace barbies with bugs and I could play house with my live insects.

          As I remembered part of my childhood I decided I wanted to look further into these bugs that brought me so much fun years ago. 

          On an online article called, "Pill Bug (Rollie Pollie)", I found the most surprising facts about these bugs-wait let me rephrase that these 'crustaceans'. It turns out pill bugs are not bugs at all(bugfacts.net). They are not insects nor are they related to any family of bugs(bugfacts.net). In fact these critters are related to shrimp and crayfish(bugfacts.net). They breathe through gills and need humidity to survive(bugfacts.net). They hatch out of eggs stored in the female pill bug's pouch( like a kangaroo)(bugfacts.net). They have 7 pairs of legs (because the seventh pair eight the night, ha just kidding)(bugfacts.net). Well another of my doubts was answered, the color of the pill bug does not determine its gender. Here is a video I found on YouTube of a female pill bug letting its babies out of her pouch.

              Rolypoly having babies: YouTube-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaE6XEiqYG4

Baby worm
camera picture taken 10/05/14

          At first I did not notice these tiny worms that were slithering around. They were about half an inch long and tan in color. I thought they were small roots from some plant nearby but then I saw one move. As my girly instinct kicked in and I ferociously jumped back I realized it had no legs and was not moving fast at all so the idea of it being a centipede was discarded. They looked like worms but a miniature version and not pink at all. So I just had to do some research on these critters to find out more. 
I started with the life cycle of worms that I found on, "How do Worms Reproduce and What Is Their Life Cycle?", I found out that worms are he-shes( or as the website calls them 'hermaphrodites'), which means they have both female and male reproductive organs(wormfarming.com). Then I found that worms are adults at 4 to 6 weeks old(wormfarming.com). The worms in my grandma's garden are probably only a couple days old, which means worms have been getting busy around here. The website explains how the band that forms around the worms upper body is where it holds both the male and female body parts(wormfarming.com). And even though each worm carries these organs they still need another worm to be able to reproduce(wormfarming.com). After the worms mate the baby worms are growing in little cocoons(wormfarming.com). Isn't that crazy? Then they come out of the cocoon and the cycle starts all over again. Probably the most fascinating fact to me was that under proper conditions worms can live for several years. 
          This article also helped me understand the purpose to these little critters. They may not know it but their lives are dedicated to helping the Earth. Through their dropping(compost) and  even there dead corpses they help nurture the land that they live on. So through life and death no matter where they are these little organisms are the reason soils are able to give life to other vegetation, which gives life to other animals, which give life to us. Worms are just a little part of the circle of life. 

Works Cited



 "Pill Bug (Rollie Pollie)." bugfacts.net. N.p. 2008-2014. Web. 16 Nov. 2014.

"How do Worms Reproduce and What Is Their Life Cycle?" worm-farming.com. Learn About Nature. 2013/2014. Web. 16 Nov. 2014.

The Flower Bomb

         

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dahlia_x_hybrida.jpg
Web Picture viewed on 10/05/14

         
          When my grandma first picked out the bulb(seed) of these Dahlia flowers, in the clearance section at WalMart of course, she chose it based off the pretty image on the bag of the bulb. After she got home she planted it, many weeks later she had forgotten all about planting that seed. Well days passed and this flower grew and it was ugly. First it grew a thick, wood-like stem. The stem was brown and covered in spikes, twisted and bent into about a 3 foot length. At the very end of the stem was many ordinary green leaves and at the very tip the flower bomb. By now the stem was so long and so heavy that it nearly touched the floor, looking like a hunched back granny. The bomb of the flower was a thick green layer of leaves holding a dense consistency of pink petals inside. I did not know what would be of this flower, but my grandma and I awaited anxiously.
          This is what the flower looked like in its ugly stage.

Camera Video 09/19/14

          The following stage was literally an explosion. A mystically beautiful bomb of wonder.
          The flower sprouted into a Pom-Pom. It was a massive and overwhelmingly beautiful Dahlia. The petals were a blush pink shade and there was many of them, almost too many to play 'he loves me, he loves me not'. Each petal overlapping the other until a partial sphere was formed.

Mobile Phone Picture 09/25/14

          I couldn't believe how such a crooked, unstable stem could hold up something so massive and pretty. After seeing this transformation I had many questions about  Dahlias . So I began to research and this is what I found on Wikipedia. http://en.m.wikipedia.orgwiki/Dahlia
First off I found out there are 42 species of Dahlias not including hybrids. These flowers can range from 2 inches to 1 foot in diameter . WOW! My grandma's Dahlia is only about 4 inches wide that's really nothing. I also read that each stem has only one head (flower) which is why the Dahlia in my grandma's garden has a huge stem all to itself. Another crazy thing is these flowers were originally small and had only one set of petals(no overlaps). But what happened then was humans. Through selective breeding and hybridization these huge flowers arose and I found out the kind of Dahlia my grandma has is called a Double Dahlia(but really its more like quadruple dahlia) .
         I also found two cool facts about the flower. First one, the Dahlia was the national flower of Mexico in 1963. Second the Dahlia's tubers were a crop plant for the Aztecs before the Spanish Conquest .
          I guess these flowers are not just amazingly attractive, they also have a lot of history behind them. Just like many other things or people, ugly or pretty, have a lot behind them. So all I have to say is, you can't knock it till you try it, and that is not cliché.

Ribbit Ribbit

Mobile phone picture taken by me 09/20/14

          I hear them at night croaking through the cracks of my window. They holler and crawl, jump and gurgle. They are small in size but loud at sound.

          Frogs.

          When I got home from work one day, unaware of my surroundings, I walked up the porch steps and was startled by a sharp scream. I jumped and looked down at a small frog that I had almost stepped on. It just stood there unhurt, just motionless. Then all of a sudden it takes a far leap ahead and is gone.

          I find these little amphibians all over my grandma's garden. they hide along every crack in the bricks that surround the garden. They take advantage of all the vegetation to hide in and do their business in the invisibility of their predators, I do not know if these frogs are native to Nevada or what type of frog they are but they all vary in color. I have seen autumn-leaf colored ones and also dark-grey stone colored ones, They are all small, 1-3 inches in length. I sometimes find one and just follow it around till the pupil in my eye has lost it. They leave tadpoles in puddles of water, or any stream of water really. 

          Where do these frogs stay all winter? Do they reproduce quickly? Do they all mix among the different breeds found here? What purpose do they have in life? Do they feel fear? These questions I ask myself ask I follow them around the garden.