Interloper in the Garden

Yesterday morning I went out to check the garden.  What had happened during the night?  Any new tomatoes?  Peppers?  Damage from armadillos (looking for grub worms)?  Any more nibbling of the vines growing up the trellis from deer on the outside?

What I was not expecting to find was an intruder in the compost.  As I took a pitchfork to turn the pile, I spotted movement behind the volunteer vine growing out of the compost (can't tell yet if it is going to be a zucchini, a pumpkin, or something else.)  So I carefully lifted a hairy leaf (which I swear was a foot wide) and found a little brown body nestled in the compost.  A brown body with white spots on the back.  A rabbit, I thought!  But what kind of rabbit has white spots?  So I looked again, and the little fawn stared me right in the face and started crying!  A fawn the size of a rabbit!  He (or she) was struggling mightily to get back through the mesh of the fence whence he had entered.  I made a dash for the house to grab the camera.  When I returned the fawn was gone.  Don't know if I was disappointed or relieved.  Who ever knew a new-born fawn was that tiny?

Garden Visitors

One of the realities of not using pesticides in the garden is unexpected visitors.  Given the abundant rains over the winter, we have had an explosion of flora (as witnessed in the wildflower entries) and the juicy, tempting blossoms have attracted an army of caterpillars.  I love caterpillars among the wildflowers, but I hold my breath when I spot them on a plant I have nurtured from seed to seedling.  These little critters are the ones who have found their way into the garden.

I am finding that identifying the little critters is harder than I thought, but the one just above I think is a Queen caterpillar.  I know it looks like a Monarch, but the yellow spots lead me to believe it is a Queen.

So far I have not spotted this homely fellow, which ventured into the herb garden last year:

Here is the modest guy in another pose:

Judging by the fact that this one and two of his siblings were decimating a rue plant (ah, bitter rue)--a favorite food of the Giant Swallowtail, I tagged this one as, in fact, the Giant Swallowtail.  The Audubon Guide's description of this caterpillar is telling: "mature caterpillar...resembling a large bird dropping."  Indeed!

Jasmine

I spent the morning planting the last of the evovulus seedlings along the front walk.  Evovulus (commonly called "Blue Daze") is a lovely little plant in the same family as morning glories that rewards the gardener with tiny blue flowers all season long.  Not only are the plants prolific bloomers, but, like other members of the morning glory family, they seem to be unappetizing to deer.

The best aspect of the morning's planting was the close proximity to our arch, where the jasmine are in full flower at present.

I wish there were some way to send the fragrance of the tiny jasmine flowers over the internet.  The delightful aroma hangs in the air and is reminiscent of an evening in a tropical garden.

I first became aware of jasmine in a tiny French village along the Dordogne River--a village that was built right into the steep hillside along the picturesque river.  The latitude was unusual for jasmine--which prefer a warmer environment--but the reflected light and heat from the steep cliffs created a microclimate that was perfect for this lovely plant.  I decided then and there we had to have jasmine at some time, so that a few weeks during the year we could enjoy that fragrance.  And now we do!

Enjoy the beauty--and imagine the aroma!

Fifty Years Ago

My exams are graded and final grades turned in.  Now I can turn my thoughts to other matters, and I find myself thinking about many non-academic topics, including events that occurred 50 years ago.

On 1 May 1960 the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (that's what it was called then) shot down an American spy plane--the highly secret U2 aircraft--over Soviet airspace.  The pilot, Francis Gary Powers, did not avail himself of the poison dart included in his kit and instead parachuted, where he was captured by Soviet authorities.

This cold war event was neither acknowledged nor reported at first.  After a couple of days of silence, the U.S. government announced that a "weather spotting"  aircraft had been lost.  In one of the few real propaganda victories for the Soviet government during these years of on-again, off-again tensions, Nikita Khrushchev announced that the Soviet air force had shot down the plane--but held off announcing that the pilot was in Soviet hands.  The cagey leader of the Soviet empire had set a trap, which the unwitting American President, stepped into.  It was only after the U.S. told a series of lies about the plane that Khrushchev paraded the pilot before the world.  It was now clear to everyone that the United States was engaged in espionage and that it was not willing to be forthcoming about the extent of its spying.

Pakistan was furious with the United States.  The U2 had taken off from a military base in Pakistan, and Pakistan had no idea that the plane was flying a reconnaissance mission over Soviet airspace.  A multi-party  international conference was already planned for mid May, involving the Soviet Union, France, Britain, and the U.S.  That conference was another casualty of the U2 incident.  Powers was convicted of spying in a Soviet court and was sentenced to several years of hard labor in a Soviet gulag.  Later he was exchanged for a Soviet spy in Potsdam, and he was returned to the U.S.

I, meanwhile, had just learned that I had been chosen as an American Field Service exchange student and was scheduled to leave for Berlin in June.  Berlin was still an occupied city with a French, English, American, and Soviet sector.  Most importantly, it was located in the heart of the German Democratic Republic--East Germany.  Because the U.S. did not recognize East Germany, Americans were not allowed to travel across East Germany to Berlin; the AFS students were to be flown from West Germany over East Germany to Berlin.

My parents were in a dither about letting me go off on this trip at a time of the highest tensions of the cold war--and they had friends who actively lobbied them to not allow me to go.  I don't know how it was that they acquiesced to my pleadings to be allowed to take this trip of a lifetime, but I will always be grateful that, in fact, I did make this trip--at a time of unparalleled international tension.

Derby Day

It might have been raining at Churchill Downs, but it was clear and pleasant in the Hill Country for the Kentucky Derby.  The party began with the "perfect"  mint julep:

 When the guests arrived, it was a hat parade:

Noreen prepared an authentic southern feast, and there were no complaints about the juleps, either.  Who cares if my horse didn't win?