hey ho

Here are some pics of my new office, it is in the Chicasaw Wildlife Management Area in Chicasaw County, Mississippi. I tell you, I am the luckiest man alive. The close up is of Ratibida pinnata, drooping coneflower. Life on the prairie is good.

Pumpkin

I don't have much to say tonight, so I just decided to put up some pictures of our dog Pumpkin. The kids are out of school now. We are looking at trampolines. It has been hot and dry, with a lot of smoky haze from the fires in south Georgia. In the heat of the day, we watch the spiderman movies featuring Toby Macguire and Kirsten Dunst. These movies exhaust me about as much as working in the heat would.

new grass

This is where I worked all last week, the Morgan Hill Overlook at the Noxubee Wildlife Refuge. This was like my office. Before you get too jealous, be aware that I spend most of my time on my hands and knees, or crouched down, calling out the various species to my patron. Here to the right I have found some lobelia spicata. Morgan Hill is not technically a prairie, the soil is not alkaline enough, and hosts mostly "generalists," plants that will come up just about anywhere. Other blooming plants that are easily spotted here right now are black-eyed susan, daisy flea-bane, verbena simplex, and heal-all, a prunella. I visisted Morgan Hill last January with my mother and it had just been burned; at that time, the entire field was black. Next week we will be working in more of a true prairie habitat.

more sweet home mississippi

our freshly painted entrance foyer, before we took out the carpet.


And now with the carpet gone.


The heater in the middle of the floor. Man, this thing is going to look great in the garden!

Home sweet home

Fuse boxes. Can you find the main fuse?
No worries, here is a schematic that splains everything!

making some progress painting the back porch.
Here is the facade. Hey, we have two front doors!

Poison Ivy

We were beautiful and venomous. We looked good while traveling in packs and we knew it. We discovered and procured the vinyl of all the cool bands you had never heard of: The Viceroys, Pall Malls, Lucky Strikes… We were an assortment of discreet varieties: the chemist who built designer drugs and drove a rusting, floorless BMW, the voluptuous polyglot who created art out of paint chips and old pianos, the aspiring arsonist who lost his life savings investing in a puppy mill, the bespectacled Buddhist who lived under the stairs with only a bass guitar and a pack of Tarot cards…It was like being in an old war movie where you had to get to know the whole platoon real fast: the professor, the cowboy, baby-face, and you wonder who is going to be the first to go. At times we breathlessly contemplated the possibility that we might at last be the generation to utterly destroy all that had come before and offer nothing to take its place. We did not like birds, and we detested children. We believed that the most pathetic and contemptuous act a person could commit was to publicly express a desire to be one of us. You wanted to be seen with us, but you did not want to be with us. When we were bored, we set about the task of tearing each other apart. We were always bored.

And then to bed

Another morning of driving in the state truck, this time to the Natchez Trace National Park headquarters in Tupelo, to meet a park ranger and scout out some research beds at a prairie remnant at the Chickasaw village on the trace just north of Tupelo. A nice spot. Larger than the other prairie remnants I have seen. The ranger station had a big library and a decent gift store and displays. Back home to open two windows that had been painted shut, and came damn close to extracting an ancient 500 pound air conditioner window unit. Must now shower off the dust and commence to fixin' tacos for the little monsters.

Hoary mountian mint

Was out at Osbourne today. Very dry. Identified Pycnanthemum incanum, Hoary Mountian Mint, Specularia perfoliata, Venus' Looking Glass, and Delphinium ajacis, Rocket Larkspur, an escapee. At Noxubee I saw some Lyre-leafed sage, Salvia lyrata, done blooming, and Hyssop Skullcap, Scutellaria integrifolia. An unknown ragwort about, green milkweed, bull thistle, moth mullein (another alien) and showy evening primrose in the ditches all along the country roads. Driving to and fro, talking ecology. A fine day. They guy I am working with knows butterflies. We saw one called "Dog face" and also a swallowtail. Done by one, and back to work on prepping the back porch. We are almost ready to paint the master bedroom.

Happy Birthday, Old Man

I don't know if you still celebrate birthdays out in the Milky Way. I think about you every day. I am fine, so are S and the boys. We miss you. I hope you get to meet George Harrison. Thanks for being a great Dad. I have to go scrape paint now. Bye.

Alabama hotpockets

Check out the wallpaper in the bathroom of the new house. It rocks. The windows in this house are bigger than most doors. I spent this morning mowing the back yard and cutting out honeysuckle and trumpet vine along the back fence. Yesterday I cleaned up the office/guest room back here where we live. Day before that I finished the final project for my final class. I think it went well. To tell the truth, my history paper was not about hanky codes, it was about the history of garden grottoes. Maybe I will post some of it here. It is pretty darned interesting, I'll tell you. The grotto of Tiberius at Sperlonga is particularly compelling. Next time you are in Sperlonga, you gotta check it out.