Common Ground

Vatican Museum Painting

There are beautiful places in the world of all sorts, even in nooks and cracks. In the landscape there are hidden gems hard to imagine for one unknowing of their existence.

In just a short hike over a hill there is wildly captivating grandness, incomprehensible contrasts in form, infinite degrees of darkness and light, colors unseen in depths of endless fields,

created by a God or by a man whose great love made available this exclusive design_ one's uniquely personal call/gift to the other. This is the only art,

it is the knowledge that was absent in beginnings apart, appreciated mostly by the architect himself,
but only because he endured to know,

Half Dome, Yosemite

suffered to see past the vast dark emptiness where the beauty now lives.


We must learn to connect to the unfamiliar, though one is so unknowing of, or far from the other. Learn to associate, assemble those parts/people that allow freedom to understand indifference. This requires a high regard for continued education throughout one's life. It is the destiny of good men to promote the peace that resides in knowledge. It is the truth that wins_ that lives.  

Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, AZ

Not so important, is the ability to cross a desert_  but far better one learns to live in it.                  

This is the most beautiful desert I have ever seen. Yes, Deserts can be absolutely easy to look at. After a March to May rain in the Desert Southwestern U. S. they become gardens. No, men are not wise, but a rainy spring desert is.


Organ Pipe Cactus, Saguaro Cactus, Palo Verde, Teddy Bear Cholla, Ocotillo, Sage

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_Pipe_Cactus_National_Monument

Going to the Sun Road

A man should become more as he gets older, and not less, after having had such great freedom to create in himself, what he believes_ one independent being with the last say. He should see far past what hateful little men do, not to outlive his usefulness, but know what is grand, and find within, words worthy of the wonderful chance.


Image of Montana Rocky Mountains, taken from Going to The sun Road, Glacier Nat. Park

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Going-to-the-Sun_Road

Basilica Of Saint Mark

A freedom that is pure must surely require the most humble of questions every one, an earnest need to be whole above everything else.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Mark's_Basilica





Venice, Italy

Circuma Roscoeana

Very little information can be found on this beautiful orange flowering Circuma, just pictures on the web and lots of questions. It's hard to find in the trade in this country and I suspect it may be more cold sensative than most, although it has behaved very well since last fall when I recieved the dormant bulbs from Thialand Plant Nursery. It's also available at times from a nursery in Oahu, HI selling on ebay.

I'm pretty sure I kept it too wet all winter in a 54 degree greenhouse hoping it would break dormancy in early spring like the other circumas I grow, but it didn't wake up until early summer much to my surprise. It then very quickly grew to 24 inches tall with 18 inch flower spikes for mid September, which is an impressive growth rate for any ginger or plant for that matter.

It is doing just fine under 50 percent shade cloth with no special treatment and I'm thrilled with it up until now. Next winter I will put a division in the ground and let you know how it fares here in zone 8b South Louisiana.

Taro Fields at Hanalei

What is good in a man life on a high place, and sees afar, into another time. A spirit being he is, endowed with abilities to create beauty where there was darkness.  His dominion be the colors of light, where the call of a voice so true permeates a scattering of all things_ longing for oneness. 

But, upon this hill he is met by relentless temptation to allow himself vanity and material possession, which he cannot own_ not even the slightest little thing. Still, he struggles, and in his weakness all he knows is what he wants, Glory. His great power is weakened by the number of the days he is compromised, his understanding lost to this exact degree, and in these days the meaning of all words in his and his children's world is forever changed as they believe they are, what they are not.

Moses
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moses

Mount Nebo 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Nebo

Image of Taro Fields at Hanalei, Kauai, HI

Butia Capitata, Pindo Palm

The Pindo or Jelly Palm (15 degrees F), has a silver gray colored, feather like frond with an arching habit, one of the more cold hardy palms grown here in South Louisiana zone 8b, and very worthy plant of having on your place. This specimen is ten or fifteen years old, only just beginning to bare mature fruit. As the fibrous fruit ripens, it falls from the tree and emits a very pleasantly fragrant apple peach smell.  Jelly can be made from its mature ripened fruit, but I haven't tried it yet.

Butia Capitata Infloresence

It's growing in a place I don't get around to much. It gets no attention at all, nearly abandoned since I planted it from seed in a three gallon container and transferred to the ground here in highly compacted, acidic, guyton (poorly drained) soil. Nothing is supposed to grow here but Black Tupelo Gum, Bald Cypress, Button Bush, Water Oak, Sweet Gum, but it doesn't seem to know or care. It 's a nice tree,  my girl friend's favorite kind of palm. 

Butia Capitata Green Fruit

I've known of Butia with 8 to 15 foot of trunk height growing near here since I was a young boy, 50 years ago, along with a few Phoenix Canariensis (18 degrees F), and Florida Sabal Palms (15 degrees F). This is about as far north as these trees can be grown, except along the east and west coasts near the warmth of the ocean.

Chances are if one plants a palm tree with a cold tolerance of less than 15 to 18 degrees F here, he will be replanting every 10 years. Two winters ago we had two 15 degree nights back to back each about 10 hours long, and every palm here lost its fronds.

Butia Capitata Ripened Fruit

Some Butia Capitata are more cold hardy than others from the same batch of seeds, as some were affected by the cold more than others. Most trees recovered fully in two summers while some are still recovering. I have fifteen or so Washingtonia Robusta (20 degrees F) fully recovered that are supposed to be toast, duh!

Palms are the hard drugs of the zone 8b garden. Since they're all so sensitive to the cold, a gardener tends to associate and compare the growing habits, form, and requirements of one species with another a little more so than other trees. It's difficult to have just one species, nor speak of one without comparing it to another of similar tolerance.

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butia_capitata

 

For the Man who believes in nothing, there is no psalm 23

The reason you don't believe is, because you do not accept the basic truths which would allow you to cross the first of many rivers, which you still understand to be only the one you see.

Yellowstone River, American Bison, and trout fisherman, Wyoming

Canna Lily Flowers

Maui Punch

Cleopatra

I

Picaso

Lucifer

President

Orange Crush

Pink Circuma

The pink circuma is very easily grown. It likes full, even harsh sun, ample moisture, and mulch around its base, an environment similar to that of bananas. It has no pests here in South Louisiana zone 8b, not even a lawnmower once or twice. It has a weakness for cheap fertilizer and lizards.

It freezes to the ground here every winter, and returns every spring just like this. A mature clump would stand 6 to 7 feet tall (foilage) and 5 feet wide, the flowers are 20 inches tall.

It looks pretty good in front of Washingtonia Robusta.   (Mexican Fan Palm)

Nymphaea Almost Black

Acquired this one last late summer, and with big hopes, put it in a 100 gallon tub all by itself. Puny little thing clung to life no matter how I babied it.

Fertilized it, kept the worms off, prayed, no matter, it wanted to stay puny. So I figured to hell with it, I'll replace it in the spring.

It must have heard me and grew rhizome all winter, because starting late February it came on like a freight train. Prettiest thing.
I want you to tell me how, in fine detail_ and slowly.

Louisiana Iris

Professor Claude

Sea Wisp

Delta Dawn

unknown

Yellow Flag Iris

Louisiana Iris

Ann Chowning

Louisiana Iris begin blooming late march for about 30 - 40 days if you have several colors, as each color blooms at a slightly different time.

Colors range from many hundreds of imaginative combinations and shades of each - a violet red, purple, violet, blue, white, yellow, a very dark almost black purple. They look especially, mysteriously beautiful in the low light levels of early morning or late evenings and rainy days.

They grow well in pots, especially big ones and tubs as some varieties multiply quickly. Plant them in humus rich, well composted well drained soil of the shrub border garden, or in 1 to 6 inches of fresh water along ponds, ditches, and marshes.

It will come to me

 Make sure the "roots only" are in the soil, and the rhizome is at ground level, where it can breath. This probably will require staking the plant cut back to about half. As the spring becomes summer, plants go dormant, become a little shabby at times in the heat, so don't worry it's not dying, it will get green again in fall and winter, here in the south.

Eolian

Her Highness

Louisiana Iris perform their best in natural lowlands where a slowing of water velocity causes nutrient rich silts to settle along with the winters shed leaves, the organic matter from fields and pastures in upper regions.

This is the native environment of one of the last of the fresh water plants before the water flow meets the salt of the  Ocean.

These are some older favorites I've grown for most of my life, a couple of which I collected from the marshes in South Louisiana while fishing. I can only load four images it seems, so I'll post several times.

Black Gamecock

Salmon Fishing Alaska, Sermon of the Salmon

Alaska is on a scale most people can not comprehend, an unimaginably huge and awesome landscape, where the fragility of life can be plainly seen, and the seriousness of a dangerous beauty, felt into the marrow of one's bones.

Be stupid here cousin, and it will kill you_ like yesterday.

Spend time here, and the knowledge of these uncommonly big vistas will live fresh in your mind all the days of your life, a special appreciation and admiration will be  burned into your heart. Alaska will make you feel alive and understand how thin and raveled is the thread of life.

This friendly stranger taught me how to rig for Silver Salmon, which is the preferred catch by the local people and most fishermen on upper Kenai Peninsula in the fall, and I caught a nice one in no time flat. There are so many, one just has to run in to your hook.

It was a surprising and explosive ten seconds. It almost spooled me. I had no idea a fish so big could swim so fast or pull so hard in water half as deep as the fish itself. I didn't know that snagging was the only legal method to fish some species and others must be caught by mouth. I just thought I was a fisherman.

However, upon seeing Salmon in such great numbers and witnessing their great sacrifice, I lost all interest in catching any more than one. I realized that the wondrous sight of them was what I was there for. It's purely amazing.

Imagine the thousands of Rivers and thousands of miles of Selfless Salmon like these, all on a mission to perpetuate the circle of life, none to cheat, not one to lie. To whom might they preach?.

Most of the salmon in these images are Chinook Salmon in their spawning season (The red and pink fish) which are out of season during this trip, but there are Silver Salmon and really big Rainbow Trout swimming with these Chinook, only their color really blends in well with the color of the rocks, so they're harder to see.

The Alaska Salmon spawn is a sight to behold, a lesson of a lifetime no man should live a day without, lest he be incomplete. From the deck of a ship, 80 feet above the ocean or so, in very clear water, I've seen masses of Salmon, as deep as I could see. Far into the distance there was Salmon thick enough to walk on.
The hair on the back of my neck stood up cousin.

I've looked for God all my days, and believe I will see His face. I study the earth and the hearts of men, read the finest words of so many scholars and Holy Men of history, but they can most definitely not minister the way the Salmon do. They cannot sing it, they cannot act it out in such a beautiful way, and this wonder is accomplished in silence, by the sight of it.

 Only the Mountains, the Stars, and the Salmon can do this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salmon_run

Mission San Xavier Del Bac, Tuscon AZ

 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_San_Xavier_del_Bac

Formosa Azalea

Eden is a bird only there for a second,
to be remembered and anticipated.  

What is time in an eternity ?





A garden where I walked.

7 Angels, 7 Lessons

1. Loneliness is the deadliest disease.















2. Dishonor is forever, too harsh a sentence, in which the accused and Judge are both convicted and put to death.











 3.  There is an evil in every little thing, so long as a man knows of it.











4. Some sit in the front of their church because they believe they are better than others. One who sits in the last pew, searches hearts.









5. He understood the odds were stacked against him, his chances slim, so he disavowed the hurtful ways of his father, and refined himself. He pursued basic truths proven by the finest minds of History, and his heart became true.

6. The greatest comfort in modern medicine is kind encouragement.

7. Paradise must be planted from a seed.





Camellias of my Garden
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camellia

Understand What You See, Care About What You Do

What do you see ?

Art defines the line between the man and the animal. It is evidence of undeniable wonder in a sometimes ordinary task. Once performed, it is timeless.

Wise men stumble to describe what simple souls can shape with the love in their hands. Language, Religion, politics, color of skin have no influence over it.

This is a Holy Lesson as good as any, universally understood, one that most preachers know nothing of.










You must care cousin, in the place you are given. Be good at what you do. Put beautiful things all around you. Paradise is not a time, it's an infinitude, and you have to build it, it's not free.

Life and Love

The unfairness of life needs no reason,
just keep on living and look for love.

Takes long to learn
what's especially pleasing,
is not in the man but in the season,

The breath_ the_ glance_
the sparkle fleeting.

Should no one make the love,
and you not give,
then what becomes it,
so perfect and lonely_
in no heart to live.