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.