Return to Gruene Hall

Last night we went to Gruene Hall to spend an "intimate evening" with Brandi Carlile. At least that's how the concert was advertised. Maybe the Gruene Hall administration doesn't know how popular Brandi Carlile is and thought only a few people would show up for the performance--hence, an "intimate" evening. Let me tell you, the place was packed, and at least half the audience had to stand for the performance. And what a performance!

We first heard Brandi while watching the Olympics last summer on television. General Motors (remember them?) used one of her songs in a commercial that ran several times during the games, and we tracked the commercial down on Google and found out who the artist was. And promptly bought her album, "The Story." Just think, if the Olympics were this coming summer instead of last summer, there would not be multiple ads by a General Motors in bankruptcy, and we might not have heard this talented singer! While standing in line waiting for the doors to open, we asked others how they had heard of Brandi. A number of people had heard one of her songs on an episode of "Grey's Anatomy." I guess there are all kinds of ways to get your songs before the public.

Brandi has a great website (http://www.brandicarlile.com/) that plays her music while you are reading about her tours. A new album will appear in the fall, and I will be on the lookout for it.

Casita

I have attached a picture of the casita just outside our kitchen. As you might imagine, we spend a lot of time in the casita, which functions in many ways as another room in the house. Now Spanish language purists have informed me that a true casita (i.e., "little house") has to have walls, and since this structure does not have walls, it cannot be a true casita. All I know is that the real estate listing for the house mentioned that it had a casita, and the structure was a definite added attraction to the house. The placement of trees in the back yard guarantees that even on a hot afternoon, this is a cool place to sit and read.

Managing Water During a Drought

One of my favorite magazines is Taunton's Fine Gardening; I literally read it completely each time it arrives in my mailbox (even the ads). The current issue (August 2009) is devoted to "100 Tips to Make You a Better Gardener." Tip number 6 is "Manage Water During a Drought"--an apt item indeed for those of us needing rain. The four points of the item are short and to the point, and worth repeating:

1. Minimize or stop fertilization. Heavily fertilized plants produce more leaves, which use more water.
2. Aerate your beds in spring. Aerating creates a looser soil, which allows water to soak deeper into the ground and promote root growth.
3. Water longer but less frequently. This lets water soak deep into the soil, encouraging plants to push their roots deeper to reach the water.
4. Water from 4:00 am to 9:00 am. Daytime irrigation evaporates in the heat.

That's it. Good advice! Thanks, Taunton's Fine Gardening.

Drought

This morning the New York Times had a national map showing drought areas. There are now only two regions considered to be experiencing drought--South Florida and Central to South Texas. Unfortunately, that includes us. Though we had 1 1/2 inches of rain on Saturday, the chart indicated that it would take about 12 inches of rain to take us out of the drought.

Meanwhile, the local water utility has imposed stage two watering restrictions. We are allowed to water lawns only once per week now, and then only in the mornings and evenings. Luckily, there are no restrictions on using watering cans for the flowers!

A Busy Weekend

Whoever said that “retirement” was going to be slow and dull? This past weekend was anything but.

We started off on Friday with a “Family Fun Day” at the school of our granddaughter in Austin. A “warm” day, so I enjoyed the shade of the school grounds while the children went from one activity to another. That evening we attended a birthday party for a friend from church at Lake McQueeney, east of town. The club is known as “Lake Breeze,” and now I know why!

Saturday morning was the first church-wide rummage sale at out church, with all proceeds going to our Habitat for Humanity fund. We are planning to construct a Habitat House in NB next year, so our first task is to raise the required $50,000 for the project. Saturday evening our good friends the Martins came through town on their way to the gulf, and we enjoyed catching up on all that had happened since we moved away from Kansas City in 1992.

Sunday was our interim vicar’s last day at St. John’s, so we had a big celebration to wish him and his wife Godspeed as they go into retirement a third time. Our new vicar will arrive in two weeks. There was special music in the service (with the children signing the anthem) and an elegant brunch following the service.

In the afternoon we went to “Gruene Market Days” in Gruene and picked up a few more plants for the garden. I have had trouble finding both mint and tarragon as we recreate an herb garden here, and was glad to spot a booth that featured more kinds of mint than I have ever grown before (whoever heard of basil mint?) This time the mint will be planted in a section of the garden where it can spread and not threaten every other plant! (I learned the hard way in Connecticut.)

In the evening it was great to relax with the New York Times and watch the selection of this year’s “Survivor” on television.

Philip Roth, The Plot Against America

Science fiction writers begin with “what if…” and then spin a tale of life in a future age or a distant place. What if a writer starts with “what if” and then rewrites history? That is exactly what Philip Roth has done in The Plot Against America.

What if American isolationism of the 1930s produced a candidate to oppose Roosevelt and argue against the United States entering the “European War”? What if the noted aviator, Charles Lindbergh, was elected president in 1940? What if the incipient anti Semitism became national policy? And what if the United States became an ally of Nazi Germany instead of its antagonist?

To enumerate a list of “what if” scenarios like this strains credibility, especially since the history and chronology of the development of World War II is so well known today. On the other hand, perhaps the new “millennials” really do not know much about how the European War began and about the vacillation of the United States regarding the role this nation should play in that war. After all, in the current age we hear increasingly from Holocaust deniers, as if there is anything conjectural about the nature of the Holocaust. Perhaps in fact time has erased the national debates about keeping the United States out of foreign conflicts and there is little understanding of the dialogue that raged before the bombing of Pearl Harbor left no doubt that the United States was at war.

Roth does in The Plot Against America what he has done so well before—to show events through the eyes of a young boy, in this case, young Philip Roth. The novel follows the plight of the Roth family in Newark, New Jersey as well as the lives of the large Jewish community of Newark as they are harassed and humiliated by the Lindbergh administration. Philip’s father knows what is happening, but young Philip is much more concerned with his stamp collection than with national events.

Roth makes many of the “facts” of his what if history believable, and the novel is compelling even when the reader knows it is fantasy. Roth adds a factual chronology at the end of the novel to bring the reader back to reality. He adds factual details about the many historical personages who figure so prominently in the book—Franklin Roosevelt, Charles Lindbergh, Walter Winchell, Fiorello La Guardia. He also adds the text of a speech actually given by Lindbergh at an America First rally in Des Moines in 1941. There Lindbergh stated that the three agitators for the United States to enter the European War were Roosevelt, the British, and the Jews, [whose] “greatest danger to this country lies in their huge ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio, and our government.” Perhaps the novel is not so fantastic after all.

Chiggers

Excuse my absence. I’ve been away—scratching. After almost two decades of living in northern climes, I confess that I had forgotten those tiny microscopic red devils known as chiggers. Now, I remember.

The occasion for contracting chigger bites—a reminder of sleepless nights as a five-year old—was venturing into the “back forty.” Our property is very deep, and up to now we have concentrated our landscaping on the more prominent (and visible) front side of the property. I wanted, however, to get started on a vegetable garden so that I could be ready to plant a fall garden once the heat of summer has passed. So I ventured out to the back and began work on one of the raised beds that will make up the garden. That night in bed I realized I had made a terrible mistake in wandering around the tall grass and weeds in the back. Chigger bites are miserable.

The best article I ever found describing the ravage of chiggers (and dispelling some of the myths) was in the Missouri Conservationist magazine (the source of the delightful image) many years ago while we were living in Kansas City. Since this article appeared long before the internet was established, I had no hope of finding it again, but when I googled “chiggers,” the MDC piece was one of the first “hits.” Obviously, others have found that article useful as well, for it has re-appeared not only in the magazine but now in digital form.

One of the best aspects of that article (with this simple address):
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://mdc.mo.gov/nathis/arthopo/chiggers/images/chig2.jpg&imgrefurl=http://mdc.mo.gov/nathis/arthopo/chiggers/&usg=__8IL0NI5OM4J8H3sNOiyDcIytRUU=&h=284&w=300&sz=32&hl=en&start=5&tbnid=EGkfXsEwU7qcvM:&tbnh=110&tbnw=116&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dchiggers%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG
is that it dispels myths about chiggers that people in 2009 still cite with total confidence—such as the way to “kill” the chigger attacking you is to paint over the spot with clear nail polish to smother the insect. In fact, chiggers are not insects but the larval stage of a mite—hence an arachnid. They do not suck blood even though they are red. What they do, however, is ingenious—if it didn’t cause such discomfort. In fact the bite itself is not the cause of the itch. The chigger attaches itself and injects its saliva into the host. This saliva has a powerful digestive enzyme that destroys the skin cells in the vicinity and turns them liquid. These dead cells are the diet of the chigger. And how does the little bugger get the dead cells out? It seems that the human body reacts to the enzyme by hardening the cells on all sides of the saliva path, creating a straw (scientific name stylostome). The chigger proceeds to suck up the dead cells through his little straw. It is this stylostome that irritates the surrounding tissue and causes the intense itch.

When I was young, the preferred chigger deterrent was sulfur—plain old sulfur, the element. I despaired in our age of advanced chemistry to find something as simple as the element sulfur for sale, but, lo and behold! I found a bag of sulfur at a feed and seed store. For my next visit to the back forty, I liberally dusted my feet and legs against chiggers, and, much to my relief, returned—a little smelly, but with no new bites.

You Know You're in a New Place when

You walk into Lowe's and ask directions to find furnace filters and the salesperson replies, "do you mean air conditioning filters?"

You spot a tarantula crossing the street in front of your house.

The first morning glory blossoms open up in the month of May.

All of these events happened within a 24 hour period and served as a reminder that this is not Connecticut! We grew the morning glories from seeds (as we did in Connecticut) and we were trying to remember when we got our first brilliant blue blossoms last year. As I remember, it was mid summer--sometime in July.

It had been a while since I had seen a tarantula--an impressive, if somewhat daunting spider. I well remember that Buddy Grant (the class naturalist) brought a tarantula to school when we were in about the 4th grade. He proceeded to let the big, hairy spider crawl up and down his arms and invited all of us to handle the playful spider as well. As I remember, he had no takers. Tarantulas are, in fact, gentle and non poisonous. But definitely intimidating!