Peepers Pondering

Tomato tripods

2009-06-27T21:01:00.006-04:00

One post per year is either pathetic, or an interesting way to see a garden change. Let's go with interesting. Like last summer the house is on the market, and like last summer, there are not enough fully employed in the state to sustain a housing market.In the past year we have added several hundred square feet of garden. The neighbors are allowing a silver maple (i.e., giant woody weed) to grow

Invert-ed

2008-07-29T21:01:00.003-04:00

I recently read that most of the biodiversity of a given area is in its invertebrates, and yet we always do conservation for plants or cute animals. That's it. I'm converted. Or "Invert"-ed. Now to try to identify these things.My native plant garden was planted primarily to make me learn to identify rare (or not so rare) native prairie and savanna plants. Then I decided I liked how it looks. Now

Peak Bloom in the Wildflower Garden

2008-07-27T14:06:00.010-04:00

Now is the beginning of peak bloom time in the garden. A few of the early flowers are still ingering on, such as the lance-leaf coreopsis (Coreopsis lanceolata). A few of the late bloomers, such as the gray goldenrod (Solidago nemoralis), are just starting. While I did a pretty good job this year moving tall plants to the back of beds and promoting some short plants forward, I was not ruthless

Insects go native

2008-07-17T21:21:00.004-04:00

I burned the lawn again three days ago, and then again this evening. That grass just keeps growing back! Soon tho it will be exhausted. Soon.Maybe.A monarch butterfly has been frequenting our garden as of late. So far this year we have been visited by the abundant Cabbage White, a sulfur, a European skipper, a Common checkered skipper, and an Eastern tailed blue. Tally: six species of butterflies

Bed of Fire

2008-07-10T21:38:00.003-04:00

Whoa. Three month break and then two posts in two days. I do not do any hobby but by fits and starts. After a 6 year hiatus I am contemplating setting up the hammer dulcimer too.This evening I smell. Of smoke. Yes, I set fire to my yard. Well, not really. I have a propane torch, purchased by my in-laws, from amazon.com, as a Christmas present. And it is just to tool I need to kill sod and create

Lush

2008-07-09T20:54:00.005-04:00

After a few years of drier than average weather, the tide has turned. And when it rains, it pours. Here in Barry County, Michigan we have had two storms with over 4 inches of rain per storm. That is more than we get on average in a month. And the prairie plants are responding in a big way.Weeds were far less a problem this year than in years past. These plants are now established and shading out

Bursting all over the place

2008-04-13T13:33:00.012-04:00

Some of the perennials are waking up and a few flowers are blooming. Garden season has begun again. I spent some time pulling grass from around the flowers today, in the cold. The temperature here did not venture far above 40F today, and snow was falling this morning when we left for church.Try as I might, I have not been able to remove the violets from my plantings. I admit, I have not tried

Signs of Spring

2008-04-04T20:32:00.003-04:00

Finally.Signs of spring.While walking through a remnant prairie is Branch County on Tuesday I was buffeted by cold winds and pelted with sleet. But the sound in a nearby wetland was unmistakable. Frogs. Amidst the western chorus frogs, Pseudacris triseriata, which sound like many fingers run along many combs, I heard my namesake - the spring peeper, Pseudacris crucifer (or "Pcrucifer" for short).

Goats and Permaculture

2008-03-14T20:44:00.004-04:00

I suppose I really should split those two topics into two blog posts, especially given the reputation that goats have for eating all things garden related, but both are on mind, and so here they are today, on my blog.First the goats. Why goats? Well, it starts with turkeys. Turkeys?! Stay with me here. For Christmas I purchased for my wife a book that I wanted to read, I mean, that I thought she

Budburst a Blast

2008-02-01T09:59:00.000-05:00

For a year or two now I have thought that someone should put together a website where people all over the country could record when certain plants start blooming. The website could then map all these records, and we could watch the wave of blooms move north. The information could help scientists document the effects of climate change on different plants in different places.Now someone has done it

Yard Redemption - Hope

2008-02-01T09:32:00.000-05:00

Can a yard, a city lot in small town America no less, be redeemed? Is it right to speak of saving, delivering, restoring land? I'd like to continue to explore those questions.We cannot turn back the clock. What has been lost, at a landscape scale, can only be restored at a landscape scale. But what about the scale of a yard?Inch for inch, a native wildflower garden can contain greater plant

Yard Redemption - Maybe Not

2008-01-21T21:42:00.000-05:00

Can a yard, a city lot in small town America no less, be redeemed? Is it right to speak of saving, delivering, restoring land? I'd like to continue to explore those questions.Something special has been lost. That much is clear from the accounts of early Euro-American settlers of Michigan in the previous two posts. The landscape today is picturesque, pastoral. But it is tamed, simplified, and less

Yard Redemption - Oak Savanna Lost

2008-01-12T08:34:00.000-05:00

Can a yard, a city lot in small town America no less, be redeemed? Is it right to speak of saving, delivering, restoring land? I'd like to continue to explore those questions.This account of Hubbard is by no means unique, although it is perhaps the most elegant. My out-of-state readers probably envision rusting and shuttered factories as the current landscape of Michigan. There are shuttered

Yard Redemption - What was Lost

2008-01-09T20:31:00.000-05:00

Can a yard, a city lot in small town America no less, be redeemed? Is it right to speak of saving, delivering, restoring land? I'd like to explore those questions over the next few posts.We could start with the sorry state of the modern American lawn, and my lawn in particular. This is perhaps as much a shortcoming of religion and lawn care. Instead, let's begin with what was lost. What was this

Fire in the Garden

2008-01-06T18:38:00.000-05:00

A savanna is a mutt of forest and prairie parentage. Acre for acre savannas have more species than their parents, the forests or the prairies, because they have such a mix of species living together. If one compares how much has been lost to how much is currently protected, savannas are the worlds most endangered ecosystem. More so than wetlands. More so than old growth forest. More so even than

Native Plant Profile: Bergamot

2008-01-03T20:52:00.001-05:00

.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }.flickr-yourcomment { }.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; }.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } Moptop, originally uploaded by pawpaw67. I heard on my Wiggly Wigglers podcast that the crew did not know what bergamot is. It is a wildflower native to eastern North America in the genus Monarda.In the fall of 2004 I

Gardening as Spiritual Discipline

2008-01-01T15:39:00.000-05:00

For several hundred years Christians have argued about carts and horses. Catholics have argued that faith without action is not faith. Protestants have argued that works divorced from belief is barren. We argue which is the horse and which is the cart, and who has what before which. The fact is that faith and action are related, and separable only in theory. Every action arises from a belief;

The Obligatory Dec 31 Year in Review

2007-12-31T10:33:00.001-05:00

I have always been a slave to fashion and tradition, which is why I am obligated on New Year's Eve to do a one year retrospective.Or not... instead, let's do a short history of my garden: a three year retrospective.2004My wife and I moved to our current residence in August 2004. The dried remains of one lily amid the grass in the front of the house was the sum total of the garden. The grass lawn

Starting Seeds Already

2007-12-29T20:00:00.000-05:00

The new year has begun early!With the help of my two assistants, I planted the first seeds for the 2008 garden. All three of us had thoroughly dirty hands. Like all things in my garden, this project was done on the cheap - I mean "frugally." All seeds were collected from the garden or from natural areas (with permission, of course.) The starting pots are the bottoms of 1 gallon milk jugs, cut

Native Plants in Your Face

2007-12-20T09:51:00.001-05:00

.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }.flickr-yourcomment { }.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; }.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }Over the weekend we had an excellent snowstorm. An excellent snowstorm? I admit I love snow. Snowmen, snow sculpture, snow angels, shoveling, even the excitement of slipping and sliding on the road.The kids insisted that I build

Blog Basics

2007-12-15T08:15:00.000-05:00

Until a few weeks ago I had only a vague idea of what a blog was, and no idea how to read, much less write, a blog. Like many things computer, it is easier than it first appears, especially if you realize that you cannot break anything by clicking on links. So here is a quick spin of blogs and blogdom.A blog is simply words and pictures on a website. Anyone with a computer can create a blog, and

A Link to the RCA Statement

2007-12-12T21:55:00.000-05:00

In the theology class this evening Pastor Mark mentioned an obscure and well hidden document on "Reports on Women's Ordination to the 1957 and 1958 General Synod reformatted text." If you click on the underline, the link should take you there directly. Mark was not kidding tho; it took some looking on a page full of neat historical documents.

Biblical Equality Resources

2007-12-11T06:50:00.000-05:00

I am a little disappointed that I have only been able to give a response to Grudem's chapter on men and women. However, I'll save that for another day, or days. I promised in a post a week ago to offer resources. Some of the best books on the subject are listed to the right. They include Discovering Biblical Equality, Beyond Sex Roles, and Good News for Women. Much of what I have learned about

Subordination in Genesis?

2007-12-08T08:20:00.000-05:00

Here I continue why I disagree with Grudem's Systematic Theology with regard to Chapter 22, Man as Male and Female.Part C. 2. Indications of Distinct Roles Before the FallI agree that there are indications of distinct roles before the Fall. Adam was created first, and woman from man. Woman was created as a help to man. The biology of man and woman does give each a special role in making a child.

Head as Source or Authority?

2007-12-07T05:14:00.001-05:00

I want to pick up here the thread I started on November 29, 2007. I was discussing Chapter 22 "Man as Male and Female" of Wayne Grudem's Systematic Theology. In November I discussed points of agreement, parts A and B of the chapter. Here I will concentrate on part C, which presents only the "complementarian" point of view.It should be noted that throughout Systematic Theology, the main text