Louisiana Iris 2

Jeri

Aunt Shirley

Ticfaw

Red Velvet Elvis

Delta Dawn

Lady Regina

Collected in the wild beside Gibson bridge Creole La.

Her Highness and Yellow Flag

KJ 2000 Bible

Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves; be therefore wise as  serpents, and harmless as doves.

Wood Duck Box

One of the simple pleasures of life is having a pond on your place, and no pond is complete without visits from wild ducks and what ever else wild you fancy to attract. It's a primal thing that becomes sweeter, more valuable with the experience of a lifetime of seasons. After all this time of being a die hard hunter, I have learned to love these birds and their environment through the understanding of a generous number of glorious sunrises in duck paradise. I must learn to put some of both back.

Please do not criticize people who hunt game, because these very people are the only people who care enough about game and the environment enough to buy land for habitat purposes for the very game they hunt. These very hunters are the only human beings who care sufficiently to understand the ways of nature, perpetuate the species.

This is the 4th set of boxes I've made in 38 years of living on this my home place. It is my opinion this is the best method to build them. To be successful you must see hatched shells in the boxes at the end of summer, even though you may never see the hen leave the nest with her brood. Evolution has made her the perfect creator of ducks. What human beings have forgotten is fresh on her mind, how to conceal and protect her young.

A screw in every point is necessary for wind resistance

 You may attract mating pairs of wood ducks with these nesting places, but you must then protect the eggs from amongst others, 2 major predators of nesting sites, namely raccoons and chicken snakes. The location of the boxes is important. Do not place boxes where varmints can jump to or on them from trees or any other objects. The bottom of nest boxes should be at least 5 feet from the ground so that critters including squirrels can't jump to them. It is imperative that a shield be built of sufficient strength to deter minks, racoons, opossums, and most of all chicken snakes, even though you are not around water. If you do not construct a heavy duty shield that will withstand strong winds and hungry critters you are wasting your and the ducks time and season. You will only feed chicken snakes, and never see young ducklings with their mother. It's down to earth gratifying.

I have built boxes of old growth red heart cypress 1 x 12 lumber which will absolutely last longer than any other wood. I know after so many years of watching these nest boxes deteriorate, that a good roof on the box will allow it to withstand the elements far longer. That's why I made the roof on these boxes much bigger. It's a good rainy weather project, and here is good advice free from an old man who has built and still maintains 30 or so give or take a tree falling in the night, in a storm.

Nest at eye level for ease of maintenance

This ultimate box location will be easily maintainable, a grown man's eye level from the ground, close to trees and cover for wood ducks ( a creature that loves clutter ) but not so close as to be easily jumped on from above or below. Do not place boxes where hawks can swoop from above at high rates of velocity, with ease to attack ducks perched attop boxes which they love to do. Hawks love duck meat, live in twos and threes, some times fours in successful years when they rear 2 chicks. This makes 4 big hungry mouths to feed. A family of hawks will decimate a whole neighborhood of peace loving ducks without remorse. The dozing ducks will never know what hit them. Hawks will wipe you out brother, the self defense mechanism of a duck is no match for the speed and skill of the hawk, and don't get caught taking revenge on those hawks... Huh......So here's what you do see,,,

Black Bellied Tree Ducks also nest in these boxes

1.Get to Home Depot.

2. Almost forget about finding old growth cypress, it's almost impossible to find, and will cost you an arm and a leg.

3. Go to the .5 inch thick x 5.5 inch wide cedar board fencing. Cull all but the clear grained boards (boards without knots). It takes about 3 boards ($3.50 each) to make a box, gluing 2 together to make an 11 inch wide board, 3 boards wide for the roof. Make sure to let the boards dry before gluing them. Set them apart leaned vertically in your living room central air or on the porch in sunny weather for 2 or 3 days. Use a pair of clamps and wood glue to glue the boards together, or improvise to keep boards squeezed together over night till glue dries using plywood backing long nails and string contraption. It's not rocket science but do a civilized job.

4. The hole is 3 inches high and 4 inches wide, 18 inches from bottom of box. 1/4 inch mesh hardware cloth may be tacked from nest to hole to aid ducklings out of the box but you can also cut grooves with a skill saw to accomplish the same thing.

5. Make a hinged door with nails as in the photo cutting the door side board on an angle as pictured to keep elements from the nest.

6. What is apparently holding the box up is a 2 inch schedule 40 PVC pipe 7 or 8 feet long painted brown with rustoleum spray paint, $3.50 a can (does about 3.5 pipes/boxes).

7. 2 inch u clamp thingamajigs fit perfectly around PVC pipe bolted though box with 1/4 inch x 1 inch long  bolts with wide washers inside the box to prevent bolt head from pulling through the soft cedar wood. I used 1 inch glue coated nails that were not galvanized because a I could not find any that were. A simple latch.

There are freshly laid eggs  in this box buried in the shavings

8. The shield is 26 gauge galvanized sheet metal cut in a 36 inch circle. You will probably have to go to a sheet metal fabrication shop to find such a heavy gauge metal. Cut straight to center from edge, then a 2.1 inch x in the center of the 36 inch circle, then cut a second x to make this many points of very sharp sheet metal so wear finger protection. Drill through every point of metal and screw to PVC pipe so that shield will be exactly horizontal when set up. This will require a level, and assembling components (box, shield) after PVC pipe is placed over t post on location.

9. My biggest failure for 30 years was a dinky shield. This one is not dinky.

10. Drive a 6.5 inch steel t post where you want the box to temporarily be. Place pipe over t post. As trees grow, move box to prevent ambushes by predators.

11. Use medium pine shavings for nest. Wood duck nesting cavities are in short supply due to human population growth/deforestation. In late February, early March here in the South wood ducks are looking for nesting sites. When I put up a new box, usually in 2 or 3 days, ducks have found it.



In the far North of Canada, the Northwest Territory and Yukon, the Gate of Heaven opens to set free many sky's laden with ducks_  to hunt men.

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