Addendum: Those bad roots!

At the end of my last post, I described this root system that destroys plants. It seems to exist independently of actual plants that are attached to roots and is simply an entity of its own--just roots. It is very pervasive, determined, and very destructive.

Here's what it does:
1. Wraps its roots around the root system of another plant.
2. Exudes this product that looks like tiny styrofoam balls found in some potting soils.
3. Totally takes over like in the corporate world.
4. Poisons big chunks of the soil, making it resemble sawdust.
5. Has a root system that grows acros the top couple of inches of soil.
Here's what it looks like (my photos are not very clear)

See the little clumps at the ends of the little tendrils (although that word is too sweet for this hateful root!).
Here is an example of the top couple of inches being turned over, showing how the soil has merged into this amorphous blob.

 This is, believe it or not, a lantana. It's just short and squatty. Normally, lantanas grow prolifically and bloom all summer in those tiny trumpet flowers grouped together to form a cluster. Not this one. This is its third year and never does it bloom. Why? That nasty root system keeps wrapping around the lantana's roots. Now that I've removed them, it will try, but will show flower buds that won't bloom!

I've tried to tell a story here: one of vicious, pernicious behavior, one of destruction and murder. I've tried to build empathy for the plants in its path and a vivid picture of the root's own suffocating path, but at long last--and probably only temporarily, I have uprooted (at least in places!) and removed this fiend!

Why do I need to work all time?

Summer, ah, summer, that time of rest and relaxation, renewal, refreshment--OK, well, maybe for other people. I seem to have lost the ability to relax and renew. I am stuck in the workaholic mode.

I spent a total of 40 years as a teacher or librarian and lots and lots of school children. Ah, I remember--in my youth--hearing that such and such had taught for 40 years before retiring. I thought--again, at the time--that anyone who spent that long teaching, that, well, something was wrong with them. I mean, come on, 40 years?!!

Now that I am now that teacher, I just want to know where the years went. Where? And why didn't I do something else. Was it destiny? Lethargy? Fear of the unknown? Love of the job? I don't know. I did look and found a couple of things, but at the last moment, returned to the classroom. Once I was offered a job as a flight attendant with a major airline and turned it down at the last minute and returned to the lesser paying job of English teacher. Another time I could have taken a pay cut as a publicist for a national motel chain. Chickened out on that one. Lesser pay? You've got to be kidding!

In August I will return for my 41st year as a teacher, this time my seventh year as a librarian. For the first time ever, I kind of look forward to it. Maybe cooler weather will return.

But to the point at hand: This is the sixth week of summer and I have spent the entire time painting my house. I've owned it (with the bank) for nearly seven years and this is its first new coat of paint. Actually, my house has vinyl siding. I know it is silly and anti-productive to paint vinyl siding, but I tell you the siding is pale yellow, maybe you will understand. Frankly, I don't like yellow, especially pale yellow. Additionally, it is paired with chocolate. Yep, my house was pale yellow and chocolate, the color combination I most dislike in  house color. Plus, dark green doors and grill work in front and peach shutters (my doing). Ug, I am so tired at looking at those colors and --

Since I plan to live here until the end, I want to live in a house with pleasing colors (to my eyes), even on vinyl. Sooooo, I picked a nice lavender for the siding, a deep grayish purple for the gutters, and a pleasant, cool, low-key chartreuse for the door and shutters. I love how everything looks now! Here are some before and after shots:

Before

After

 

 

 

 

Not only have I been painting, but I am digging out this horrid root system in ALL my flower beds and vegetable garden. The thing has these hairy roots with little balls which wrap around any other "invading" root system (you know, flowers, vegetables, even new trees) and tries to suffocate it by poisoning the soil. This root system sucks out all the nutrients in the soil, hoping to kill the invader. Any flower, if it doesn't die, just sits there and does not grow. It just exists. Weird--

An affair of the heart and mind--

I have so many books in my house--more books than any one else I know. I mean, I have a huge personal library with bookcases in every room. Take that literally! Actually, multiple bookcases in most rooms.

OK, what's my point? I picked up a book the other day and sat down with it. I haven't looked at this book in several years. It's  William Faulkner: The Cofield Collection. After reading the caption(s) on each page and studying every picture over a couple of days, I wrote a review on Amazon, which follows:

"I bought "William Faulkner: The Cofield Collection" in that little bookstore in the town square in Oxford, Mississippi some 20 years ago. It's been one of my treasures, a book that I've looked through time and time again and used to show photographs of Faulkner to my high school English classes when we read something by him. In re-organizing my house this summer, I found this treasure and finally sat down and read the captions and studied the photographs page by page as they reflect his life year by year. What I wish is that every devotee of Faulkner had a copy of their own. It has certainly revived my interest in Faulkner's fiction yet again.
What does a writer look like? Where does he come from? What are his influences? What was Faulkner the man like? His interests? His loves? What made Faulkner, well, Faulkner? Cofield, another Oxford resident, actually touches on the answers through this pictorial essay, but note: There is not one whit of gossipy information.
Starting with the preface by the one responsible for this particular photographic volume (there are other volumes) and ending with a wonderful, full-page, half-smile close-up of Faulkner, a succinct but revealing eulogy, and a genealogy chart, this book swept me through Faulkner's life, almost as if I was there.
Quick now: What did you learn about Faulkner by studying the photographs and reading each accompanying brief caption? In no particular order:

1. Faulkner was a horseman. Jack Cofield, fourth-generation photographer and curator of this book, states that Faulkner would have been a fine veterinarian.
2. Faulkner was a very private man (I knew that but not the extent). Example: He would not have gone to Sweden to accept his Nobel Prize. His wife Estelle convinced him to take their college-age daughter Jill and make it an European tour. He agreed to that. There's a photo of him as he works on his acceptance speech during the flight over.
3. He and his animal groomer had a mutual admiration and respect for each other. In fact, Andrew had his own horse for his own personal use. Faulkner had many spills during his riding days. The last one led indirectly to his death when he was 65 years old.
4. Faulkner considered himself a moderate in race relations. It annoyed him to no end to be called a racist.
5. Although I loved all the photographs, one really stood out: that of the swollen river most likely the river in "As I Lay Dying." The very idea of Anse trying to cross that river was sheer madness. But no, he really had his own hidden agenda and it was not to fulfill his dead wife's last vengeful request.
6. The photos of Faulkner and Estelle have always bothered me. Their poses show them as having a restrained relationship, but now I see them as witness to his demand for privacy. She does give him a goodbye hug before he and Jill leave for Sweden.
7. The family asked for privacy--and got it--for his funeral.

Taking this photographic journey through a favorite writer's life was a pleasure. I have stood in that town square, walked the path up to Rowan Oak, oogled the wall where he wrote notes for the time line in one of his novels, viewed his old shoes under his bed. The photos in the book reflect those images. One cannot always stand in a special place, taking in surroundings, wondering this, that, and the other. However, a book of photographs is the next best thing to being there.
"The Cofield Collection" is a true treasure that I can re-visit any time I want."

That ends the review. But more happened. I kept thinking about Faulkner and felt a strong desire to dig out all my Faulkner books and read the ones I haven't read and reread the ones I have. So now I'm beginning my own Faulkner marathon, beginning with his third book, "Sartoris," or the book which piqued his own interest in serious writing. He loved how his characters stood up on their own legs and looked around (that's a paraphrase). He had created a livng being he could control. How he controlled them and what they had to say and do and live and act are things he loved.

When someone (ignorantly--my own word) accuses Faulkner of racism, I know that person has not carefully read Faulkner's works, if at all. In "Sartoris" he infuses his black characteris with humanity and realness.

I will say more after I finish reading "Sartoris." The point I want to make in this blog is how careful a reader should be.

I also want to say that maybe, in your senior years, you might want to fall in love with a favorite writer of your youth all over again. I know I have---

Update for blueberry farm

It is just about time for blackberry picking in Louisiana. My favorite place to pick is Shuqualak (sugar-lok) Farms. I'm writing this update because people are looking for places to go. I'm getting several clicks a day about my blog written last year.

I received a post card (I'm on their mailing list) about prices and availability. I am SO disappointed that a notice at the bottom of the card reads: "U-pick closed for 2011." No reason cited. One of the reasons I chose this particular place is the opportunity for self-picking. I love that--it brings back memories of childhood and summers and grandparents.

Anyway, I like this farm, the people who own and run it, the product. I will return, but I will also look for another place to go out into the fields, under the hot, blazing sun, and pick my own blackberries.

Shuqualak Farms: From Shreveport, take I-49 South, then Exit 186 to Highway 175, go North 2 miles. Turn right on Gravel Point Road, then right at the farm. Their phone number is 318-797-8273. The owners are Broox and Judy Harris. Open June 4-July 4.

The trouble with neighbors

"Good fences make good neighbors." Taken from the poem "Fences" by Robert Frost. (As a side note: Is it true that writers, by the very nature of their occupation--and I use the word both economically and metaphorically)--a breed apart, a breed most difficult to live with?) But that's an aside and better treated later.

My point is literal: good neighbors and not-so-good neighbors. Like Scarlett O'Hara, I consider land sacrosanct, If it's mine, ask before coming on it. Of course, if you're going to knock on my door, please do so without permission, but step back and don't present a threatening presence in my face when I open the door (although I always look out before opening). This is simple courtesy and an indicator of safety rules being followed in today's society.

My land juts down to the bayou--my house at the top of a 35 degree slope. My deck has steps that go down to what I call "Down Below." The man, two owners before me, built up this slope, leveled it off, and installed a swimming pool, meaning the top of my hill is flat. Imagine my surprise and deep dismay to open the gate to go "Down Below to work in my garden which is established along that incline only to discover a couple sitting just beyond my garden along the bayou fishing.

All I could think to say was: "I beg your pardon." The young man, maybe early college, turned and said, "Yes, m'am?" (That's how we talk and behave in the South towards people older than we are) No movement to move, no scurrying. Just "Yes, M'am?" as if he had every right to be there.

"Who are you and why are you in my yard?" I still maintained my composure.

"We're fishing. We always fish along the banks and have since we were little kids." He told me he was my neighbor's grandson. He explained that all the kids along the bayou had fished like buddies all these years. I wanted to say, well, not in the eight years I've lived here because I had never seen him up close. I maintain a casual, neighborly relation with the older man who lives next door. He is my mother's age. His wife died not long after I moved in. He and I used to chat the first couple of years, then he began having trouble walking and had to rely on one of that little walking devices. You know, you lean on its handles and its legs walk with you. It's basically a stabilizer. My mother now sometimes uses one.

Even though I saw the grandkids only from a distance, I could hear them every summer, all summer on the other side of the wooden fence, playing. laughing, and splashing in his swimming pool. I used to laugh with them at their antics, so basically I knew this young man. OK, I said, fish ahead.

I don't know who lighted up, but the smell of cigarette smoke disgusted me. Should I say something? I held my tongue, jumped up and went to the nearby nursery to purchase a few more plants. Lo and behold, let me repeat, lo and behold, when I returned, it wasn't just two of them--I bet there were a dozen people sitting in my back yard (Down Below) along the bank, fishing, and one even casting a net for crawfish. I thought, Oh my goodness! What the heck do I do now?

Luckily, the neighbor's son, with whom I have had many little chats, was there. A more even-keeled man you could not find. Someone asked, Do you want us to go? Well, yes, I did. I was about to do more digging and I didn't care for them to hear me grunt and groan as I worked--and yes, talk out loud to myself. I didn't say anything, but the son did, and they all dispersed. He stayed and we talked gardening and possums and raccoons and snakes for a while.

So far, the story ends well. If I go back down and find my garden all torn up, that will be another ending. But here's the kicker and the reason I maintained my cool: My older neighbor was the first person to move in a house on the street in this new subdivision way back 40 years ago. He had the developer change the initial property line. Imagine you're standing on the street right between the houses. Wouldn't you think that the line would go right between the two? Well, it does not. The neighbor in what I call a horrible act of selfishness had the developer slant that line to give him more of the bayou. His property line takes in a good third of what should be my back yard and, conversely, one-third of his front yard is "mine." You see what a hideous problem it is?

That owner who put in the swimming pool also built a pool house  as if the reasonable line were there. The entire back quarter of the pool house is on his legal property. And the dividing fence the previous owner of my house put up?--entirely on my neighbor's property!

My neighbor informed me of the property problems early on and has never said another word about any of it since then, but you may understand my reluctance to demand anything yesterday. Besides, pleasantness is always better and he has always been helpful to me!

If anyone reads this and has any suggestion about any legal way I can change the property line, I would be so happy to hear/read them!!

Childhood's End--a classic sci-fi novel, but also apocalyptic

"Childhood's End" by Arthur C. Clarke is one of those unforgettable novels. Nearly sixty years after it was written, the novel remains on student reading lists and sits among the classics, not only of science fiction, but also provocative literature.

For what is better than a novel which demands thought and a resulting discussion? Even though reading is a solitary experience, discussing novels creates a communal experience. "Childhood's End" provides great shared experience of many minds focused on one book.

That's just it: "Childhood's End" is more than science fiction--it is also apocalyptic, but most importantly, and, appropos to this discussion, it is a novel of ideas. The irony is how many of Clarke's ideas, or at least some form of his ideas, have come to fruition.

Case in point: the hit television series "V" features two of his visions: the Overlords ("aliens") and a hidden agenda. In "Childhood's End" Clarke focuses on one family: a mother and a father and two young children, who come to represent the uninitiated, the pure or nearly pure of mind (depending on age), the modeling clay, metaphorically speaking. For gradually, each child learns new skills which develop into powers.

In "V" the aliens have come for dark purposes; in "Childhood's End" for birthing purposes. Each time I taught this novel at the high school level, I always felt so sad at the end, when the children merged to become something else. It is this something else that I am here to review.

Note: Spoilers ahead!

In the last couple of years there has been much talk, much speculation, much re-examination of history and the Bible. Many believe the earth as we know it will end in 2012, according to the Mayan calendar system. Many talk of wars and rumors of wars, natural disasters, the world in chaos, signifying that the Rapture is near and Christians will be taken up to Heaven, leaving nonbelievers on Earth to face what will come. There are second chances.

Clarke proposed some 60 years ago a scenario of the end. The physical world was the Earth with people still in chaos. The Overlords bring peace and prosperity. What they don't know is that this peace allows for the development of ESP and other paranormal activities of the children to heighten, then develop. There are even hints of "Lord of the Flies" with the movement of the children to a central location to become. Finally, their minds cocoon and when they leave their bodies, they join the Overmind "out there." Their leaving the Earth pulls out all energy and the Earth--pow! is obliterated.

Although Clarke is proposing something much grander than death and destruction, or even deconstruction--a figurative and possibly a literal joining with the Overmind as a wonderful thing. The movie version even shows a giant fetus, almost fully developed, floating in space, as if in preparation for the next phase of existence.

Although Clarke eschewed religion, allowing only possibly for a mild form of Buddhism, his final image of a pure mind about to join a super mind does have biblical overtones.

Reading and discussing with others ideas contained in a work of literature is a very communal experience. It brings people together for a sharing and exchange of ideas. It opens minds to new possibilities, or in a contrary manner, tears us further apart.  I offer this review as a gift--my mind to yours and whatever may happen afterward.