![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Truth is trite
Jun. 1st, 2023 11:00 amToday we made a list of which plants had been preferentially eaten by rabbits, which the rabbits had left alone, which were somewhat eaten, and which we had no data on because they were protected. It's a long list, I won't bore you with it. I told my spouse that I had seen two rabbits playing in the neighbor's yard, so perhaps ours are (please please please) beginning to move out.
Rabbits do not eat any mint plants, fyi. If you want to be so foolhardy or desperate as to plant mint in the GROUND. Which we have done. The mint can fight it out with the Creeping Charlie.
We moved back to the Prairie Nook and did some work. I weeded around the existing native prairie grasses (all of which had rabbit damage and yet are still alive) and we planted some native forbes. (A type of fowering plants that are not grasses, such as coneflower.) We left the Virginia Creeper going up the trellises and the side of the garage, as the garage is in terrible shape already. While weeding next to the bench I discovered some stinging nettles. Yes, I discovered them with my limbs. My spouse hacked them out with a trowel.
After a break we took turns cutting the elderberries off of the paths. I also dragged some Virginia Creeper out of the trees and shrubs and hacked it off.
We also rearranged the patio furniture so as to be farther from the snag with the nesting woodpeckers. This seems to have been effective, as the female Downy Woodpecker went in and out of the nest twice while we were sitting there. She has been rather skittish. We felt bad, and we do NOT want to disturb their nesting, but we also want to use our patio. Hence, moving the chairs.
Last year neither of us could have done this much work. I won't detail my spouse's health stuff, but my ability to breathe was still incredibly compromised at this point a year ago. I try very hard to compare how much I can do now to last year, and to be grateful. It is difficult to not compare today with ten years ago. When I inevitably do that, I cannot help crying. I think there is a lot of grief and loss in there somewhere, in the feelings oubliette, and sometimes it leaks out the holes in my face.
But we have a thriving community of Jack in the Pulpit plants, and that makes me feel better about how my health and my body have changed. Jack in the Pulpit, or Jill in the Pulpit, are trans plants. Not transplants, but trans plants. They start out male and then transition to female. Moreover, the fungus gnats they rely on for pollination can escape the pitcher of the Jacks, but are trapped in the Jills and die after pollination.
I try to not make too much sexual metaphor of this, but I do think it is funny.
Anyway, none of that is why they make me feel better. Jacks grow in woodland areas. They do so in part because they rely on the decaying tree matter to create the soil conditions they need. Also, because they need fungus gnats, and fungus gnats need soil filled with decaying woody plants.
Jack in the Pulpits live in our yard because we have allowed the dead and undesired trees and branches and shrubs to decay in place.
From death comes life.
See, I told you truth is trite.
Rabbits do not eat any mint plants, fyi. If you want to be so foolhardy or desperate as to plant mint in the GROUND. Which we have done. The mint can fight it out with the Creeping Charlie.
We moved back to the Prairie Nook and did some work. I weeded around the existing native prairie grasses (all of which had rabbit damage and yet are still alive) and we planted some native forbes. (A type of fowering plants that are not grasses, such as coneflower.) We left the Virginia Creeper going up the trellises and the side of the garage, as the garage is in terrible shape already. While weeding next to the bench I discovered some stinging nettles. Yes, I discovered them with my limbs. My spouse hacked them out with a trowel.
After a break we took turns cutting the elderberries off of the paths. I also dragged some Virginia Creeper out of the trees and shrubs and hacked it off.
We also rearranged the patio furniture so as to be farther from the snag with the nesting woodpeckers. This seems to have been effective, as the female Downy Woodpecker went in and out of the nest twice while we were sitting there. She has been rather skittish. We felt bad, and we do NOT want to disturb their nesting, but we also want to use our patio. Hence, moving the chairs.
Last year neither of us could have done this much work. I won't detail my spouse's health stuff, but my ability to breathe was still incredibly compromised at this point a year ago. I try very hard to compare how much I can do now to last year, and to be grateful. It is difficult to not compare today with ten years ago. When I inevitably do that, I cannot help crying. I think there is a lot of grief and loss in there somewhere, in the feelings oubliette, and sometimes it leaks out the holes in my face.
But we have a thriving community of Jack in the Pulpit plants, and that makes me feel better about how my health and my body have changed. Jack in the Pulpit, or Jill in the Pulpit, are trans plants. Not transplants, but trans plants. They start out male and then transition to female. Moreover, the fungus gnats they rely on for pollination can escape the pitcher of the Jacks, but are trapped in the Jills and die after pollination.
I try to not make too much sexual metaphor of this, but I do think it is funny.
Anyway, none of that is why they make me feel better. Jacks grow in woodland areas. They do so in part because they rely on the decaying tree matter to create the soil conditions they need. Also, because they need fungus gnats, and fungus gnats need soil filled with decaying woody plants.
Jack in the Pulpits live in our yard because we have allowed the dead and undesired trees and branches and shrubs to decay in place.
From death comes life.
See, I told you truth is trite.