Plants That Do Tricks

I love plants that can do tricks. I prefer those that come by their talent naturally & willingly to those tormented, grafted & twisted according to the will of people. (Exception:  espalier. Love me a great flat, wall hugger of a tree, but I detest topiary. I see green 'poodle-puff cuts' on a shrub & I want to scream 'Let my foliage FREE!')
Instead, I admire any one plant that produces several different colored flowers. Nasturtiums, for one. I also like Lantana's concentric ombré effect.
But my favorite 'cirque de foliage' trick is any GREEN flower. So refreshing & unexpected. In Annapolis I lived in the postage-stamp sized guest cottage of a narcissistic plastic surgeon who thought he was Georgio Armani, but more closely resembled Spaulding Gray. From the sleeping loft (up a ladder, 2 twin mattresses in a hirsute railed adult 'crib' arrangement), you could peer through the rail to see what was directly beneath you, cooking on the stovetop. Did I mention it was small?

This one really does tricks--from innocuous green bud to spectacular pink orchid!

It had 3 'pro's:' 1.  A huge skylight directly over the bed, through which was a wonderful view of treetops.  Raccoon families would regularly take time out from garbage can raids to look in on my slumbers. 2. My first experience with Jalousie windows which acted as a funnel for sound. I always

The mostly finished porch!

 

left the windows cranked mostly open, & since I was situated uphill from the little neighborhood dockside beach bar, I was lulled to sleep by the soft metallic clang of sailboat riggings & strains of my first experience with reggae--UB40.
But the third & most wonderful thing about this unassuming, glorified garden shed was the 2 disproportionately long window boxes that, when combined spanned the whole exterior wall by the door. Mind you, there was no window above them, only rough dark brown wood siding, but in my eyes the empty boxes had such potential.
Maryland had wonderful nurseries full of lush plants & I had spent many weekends wandering their gravel  paths, dreaming of gorgeous massed plantings for which I would never have space or landlord permission. Now I had a place for a bit of what I'd been longing for, so I went to 6 different nurseries, drew various schematics, priced plants...became completely overwhelmed with choices, & went home & planted seeds. I planted bells of Ireland.
Within a remarkably short time, their gorgeously healthy green  spires were tall enough to touch the eaves & the flower boxes were so full it looked like the cottage was off-balance & in danger of rolling over.
So I added trailing purple lobelia to the front edge.
I loved the wave of cool colors that hit me when I came home after I commuted through the infuriating sea of duh traffic, having spent my day doing a type-A job For which I was completely unequipped. I'd unlatch the pixie-height wooden gate & step down into my tiny Eden. I'd grab an iced tea & my book & flop into the single, basic outdoor chair to read until it was too dark to make out the words on the page. It was only my second adult home, & those ethereal green spires made it mine.
Fast forward a couple of decades & the same things affect me the same way, but I 'go much bigger' (& stay home) now. I'm just completing (for now--I have a deeply held belief that when we cease to tweak, we die) my second total redo of my front porch since I bought my little house in May, 2008. Unexpected furniture paint & upholstery colors, a freshly painted tiffany blue beamed ceiling & dusky, dark aubergine fascia & trim against the sandy, buttery wall color make a happy backdrop for all the orchids, whether blooming or not.
But the big joy this morning was this green Dendrobium beauty, blooming over the blue rail & greeting my across the street neighbors. Lucky them.  LUCKY me.

Happy

So I had an appointment that I expected to be quite somber this afternoon.  Instead I left the spot with a snappy tune in & a ridiculous grin on my oh so round head.
A friend was recently diagnosed with a serious medical problem, one that caused her to lose her voice (temporarily) & those who knew her to gain some worry furrows. After several postponements of our regular standing monthly appointment (while she was off-island for treatment), fear & anxiety were building their walls on the foundation of the unknown.
  Earlier this week I finally received the call setting firm the appointment & by the time I arrived at the designated spot today I was twitchy with uncertainty. After I've known her for 2 decades would she look/sound/feel in some sense different or diminished?
When she opened the door the music fairly bounced out the door. My friend is a diminutive person, even so I've always marveled at how unfailingly perfectly put together she is, with the final detail always a spiky pair of beautiful heels (despite the fact she works on her feet for hours at a stretch.) When the door opened this afternoon I expected flats & probably an outfit more suited to comfort than style.
She wore a perfectly cut red dress, her black apron & a gorgeous pair of strappy leather high heels.  Her voice is back, as is her smile. The only visible change is a narrow clear strip of bandage at the hollow of her neck. After the initial relief, I relaxed & only after 20 or so minutes had passed did I become aware of the song, the soundtrack to this surprise. It was Pharrell Williams' 'Happy,' from 'Despicable Me 2.'
My appointment was at 4:30 this afternoon.
She had been playing 'Happy' on continuous repeat since 9 this morning.
No one complained.

Streamlining Your Stuff

I'm reminded daily of George Carlin's old routine on 'stuff.'  He talked about how we're never comfortable unless we have our stuff with us--whether it is placed all around our home or workspace, or packed in smaller versions in our luggage when we travel. The smart phone & tablet were both created in response to this need, & I'm just as codependent on them as most people.
But here I'm talking about a more tangible version.
The best version of stuff is a ziplock sandwich bag with my driver's license, a pack of gum & a ten dollar bill inside. Paired with towel, snorkel, mask & mesh collection bag, it comprises my most streamlined stuff, & is all I take with me to snorkel. I don't take stuff to change into, or swim fins (HATE confined feet, on land or in the sea). I don't take my phone. If you're really my friend, you know I'm in the sea between the hours of 4:45 & 6:30, but that I can be reached in person there or you may leave a voicemail.  Since I don't 'do' my hair or wear makeup other than lipstick, I can be showered, shampooed, dressed & ready for dining out by 6:45.
Stateside stuff involved coats/gloves/umbrellas/hats/shoes/boots/scarves/briefcases/travel mugs/book bags & backpacks.
I love my little Baggie!

Chicken Foot* (*-note)

So somehow I managed to leave the discussion of St. Croix Agrifest 2014 without mentioning my absolute obsession from that event. I am completely fascinated by and totally enamored with...wait for it...the chicken tractor. Yes, I said the chicken tractor.
Perhaps you, like me had never heard of such a thing.  Or even better, perhaps your brain is conjuring up a picture of a rooster driving a John Deere.  But no! A chicken tractor is in fact a system rather than a vehicle.  Every evening as I was leaving the fairgrounds I had to pass the chicken tractor. It was actually an open work mesh pen or enclosure with no floor and roosts built for the chickens.  I would pass this apparatus every evening as darkness was setting in on my way off the fairgrounds. It was home to several of the best looking, fittest, chunkiest chickens I have ever seen.  I marveled at
how plump and soft feathered they appeared when all our local chickens look a little tougher and
more sinewy.
And on the final evening when I slowed down to read the educational sign attached to the chicken tractor, I discovered the reason for their fitness was the design of the gizmo.  It was in fact designed to give them a better life. The fact that it has no floor allows the chicken farmer to move the enclosure from place to place so that the chickens will have fresh green grass, grubs etc. to scratch around in.
Oh, and it was called the chicken tractor because the group of chickens within the coop performed many of the functions of the tractor – aerating the soil, keeping the grass down, and obviously fertilizing the area.

So here's to the chicken tractor, and to the many innovations and ideas that changed hands and heads during this year's Agrifest!

Chicken foot*(*note):  if I wanted to get crazy with the metaphors as I am wont to do, I might say something here about what the chicken tractor means in the big picture. I have two theories about why this thing fascinated me:

1.   Perhaps despite being able to see the larger realm, we're each given our own parcel of life, with boundaries real or imagined. The trick is to make the very best of what we've been allotted, & improve it if we can.  Or conversely…
2.  Perhaps some of us are just waiting for the moment when the coop is lifted and we can make a break for it!

Darwin & Do-Overs, by Lea Ann Robson

Twenty years ago I hit St. Croix like a trop storm, all full of random energy going every which way.  I had just turned thirty & was coming from a type A job (Claims Rep) in the type A capital of the free world—Maryland/D.C.  I had adapted to that life fairly well despite being, in actuality, about a type G minus. 

 

So when our pipe-dream became (against all odds) a reality & we moved to St. Croix in the US Virgin Islands, I made that landing complete with a shiny resume’ chock full of declarative statements & action verbs, a suitcase full of power suits, & several pairs of very controlling control-top pantyhose.

 

Despite a Liberal Arts degree & multiple, seemingly unrelated majors & minors, I had only worked at one profession since I graduated & so my paper pedigree appeared much more focused & driven than the actual me.  So I hit sort of a paradise catch 22.  I needed a paycheck, so I sought jobs my resume’ said I was suited to (pun intended) & papered all the local insurance agencies with my applications.    

 

I tried to ignore the long, gaping looks & sniggering reactions to my forthright self, my linen-textured resume’ & the aforementioned control-tops.  In twenty-odd offices I was variously ignored, tolerated, placated, blown off, or met with ringing silence comparable to what a kangaroo might encounter upon trying to hail a taxi or order a latte. 

 

So, having been a lifelong fan of Darwin, I took a step back, sized up the preposterousness of my approach, & calculated how best to adapt & survive in this new environment.  At last seeing it through the eyes of those I had approached, I finally laughed at what they found funny—this typing-paper-white woman dressed in ridiculously inappropriate-to-the-heat garb, presenting a piece of paper that might just as well have stated “I have no idea where I am & I won’t last 6 months here, so please give me a job!”  Once I saw it as they did, I lost my nerve & knew I had to have an alternate plan.

 

So I went home & built my loom.

 

Not kidding, that is really what I did. 

 

My loom today, displaying another product of ADD (Artistic Deficit Disorder), My painted Cigar Boxes



How do you get a floor loom in the tropics, you might ask.  You persuade your then-husband a weaving business on a beautiful island can be viable, convincing him that shipping all your belongings through the USPS packed in yarn would keep them safe & secure (which it did—only one broken bowl in 33 boxes).  You cajole him into believing the financial & logistical commitment to shipping 5 huge boxes of unfinished loom parts from Maryland to St. Croix will be a stellar proposition. 

 

Facing the pile of adult-sized tinker toys that would become my loom, I was reminded that I had NO mechanical ability, construction experience, or other aptitude for such a task.  And so, remembering the bemused faces as they read my resume’, I built it anyway. 

 

I sanded all the pieces of hardwood carefully, then applied & wiped off a coat of ½ linseed oil & ½ paint thinner.  With the first coat the wood had the tone of light clover honey, & by the second it glowed a warm amber.  The process made the wood irresistible to my fingers, & twenty years later I still absently drag my hand along the front beam when I pass it in my living room, delighting to the satiny cool feel (& knocking off some of the dust of disuse, without accepting liability for it).

 

Not being a husband, I felt no compulsion to discard instruction sheets & instead poured over them as if they contained the secrets of DNA.  I lined up wooden & metal pieces as they appeared on the written sheet, as if that would cause it to magically self-assemble.  When that failed, I rose above my inabilities like a dyslexic swan-diving into Tolstoy, and after a week of uber-concentration mixed with trial & error, I had a functioning floor loom that would weave cloth 48” (or doubled, with a fold on one side—96”) wide. 

 

Or at least it would have if I hadn’t warped it upside down.  Yup.  I got so excited at my new building skills I forgot all others, namely the steps to dress the loom in preparation for weaving.  I had been repeating these steps hundreds of times since I learned to weave at 12 years old, but this was the first time that the threads ended up bypassing the back beam entirely.  I had painstakingly accomplished all the other steps, including gridding the pattern on graph paper, winding yards of fine yarn so that the threads weren’t tangled together, cranking the length on the back beam, threading each yarn end through each metal eye & the metal reed in the appropriate order, & finally tying the yarn to the rod under the front beam in groups, adjusting & re-adjusting so each thread was held in equal tension to all the others. 

 

But somehow I had threaded under instead of over the back beam.  This meant the tension would be impossible to maintain & therefore all that work would be pointless & I’d have to slice off & discard my beautiful silk threads. 

 

I couldn’t bring myself to do it.  So, I stepped back, studied the problem & tried to adapt. 

 

There was a pile of scrap wood on the porch of our little cottage.  It was the remains of a tiki bar some oil refinery workers (the previous tenants) had built on the back deck.  I found a 2 x 4 the appropriate length, but it had seen better days & was too rough & catchy to get anywhere near the fine silk, even after sanding. 

 

So I got a roll of Cutrite Waxed paper & covered the 2 x 4 as a  faux beam, inserted it under the warp near the beam that should have been under the warp, & happily started stomping pedals & wham-whamming the reed against the rapidly forming new cloth.  It wasn’t perfect or easy, but it worked & that fabric means more to me than any other I’ve made. 

 

These were only my FIRST adaptations to life here in this strange paradise.  I can’t remember or even count most of the rest. 

 

And now, two decades later that same loom stands covered not in threads, but in carved & painted cigar boxes, one of my other projects.  Beautiful lining fabrics are folded & stacked nearby & the finished pieces will be a feature at my Agriculture Fair booth on President’s Day weekend.  I’ve adapted them into purses, jewelry & treasure boxes, & while I make sure they are still recognizable in their origins, I like to think I’ve added charm & function with what I’ve done. 

 



AgriFest 2013 From the C Booth

Ag Fair may be different this year, because we’ve lost so many residents due to our refinery closing, July of 2012.  St. Croix is facing challenges of epic scale, & the joy on our tourists’ faces is sometimes met with lines of concern on those of the residents.  Fortunately, every visitor’s smile is a reminder of what we have here, what we can offer others, and how important it will be for us to choose carefully how we will adapt.  As a part of this community, I hope & believe we will do so by maintaining our numerous treasures, adding charm & improving function.