6 of 1 in the snow (again)

I shot Patrick Dougherty’s sculpture in the snow once before.  I was hoping that with the heavy wet stuff we got today, they’d be completely enclosed — like two-story igloos.  But by the time I got down there at lunch today, Collegetown had warmed up and the snow was starting to melt.  Still, the coating on the locust branches is pretty impressive, and the snow does give the work a different feel.

six of one in the snow again

six of one in the snow againsix of one in the snow again

six of one in the snow againsix of one in the snow again

six of one in the snow again

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Pollination stamps

pollinator stampsUSPS news release: WASHINGTON — The nation’s capital was abuzz with excitement today when the U.S. Postal Service unveiled four beautiful Pollination stamps at the North American Pollinator Protection Campaign (NAPPC) Symposium. The stamps, which will be released next summer, consist of four images arranged in two alternate and interlocking patterns. The intricate design of these beautiful stamps emphasizes the ecological relationship between pollinators and plants and suggests the biodiversity necessary to ensure the viability of that relationship.

According to Science Daily, crop artist Stan Herd “will take an image from one “Pollinator” stamp — the Southern dogface butterfly — and create a vast facsimile at Pendleton’s Country Market, a family farm between Kansas City and Lawrence. The image will be best viewed aerially from a nearby silo or an aircraft. Herd’s immense stamp reproduction is to incorporate plants that conservationists urge for use in backyard butterfly gardens.”

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April Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day

scan of april blooms
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For more about this technique, see Scanning Flowers.

With the cold weather this week, the garden has been in a state of suspended animation. No daffodils or tulips yet, though the former are budding and the the latter did add some leaf.

Small, low-growing spring ephemerals are about all that’s flowering. Various iris are past their prime, most having been damaged by temps in the teens. (Same goes for crocus.) Snowdrops are also past their prime on the south side, but in their prime on the north side of the house. Hellebores are peaking. Pulmonaria, primula and corydalis are coming on. Cyclamen continue to bloom, as they have most of the winter. Coltsfoot flowers show up here and there. Willows are still putting on a show.

This time of the year, foliage adds to the display. Old and new heuchera leaves. Lamium. Scotch thistle. Emerging sedums.

It was nice to do a little garden clean-up today. The soil is still a little on the wet side. Now I’ll say good-bye to the ground for awhile, what with a foot of snow predicted for Sunday and Monday.

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Kurt Vonnegut, RIP

Edith Vonnegut detailThe excerpt below was posted by atrios this morning. It’s from Slaughterhouse Five, or the Children’s Crusade and is one of my favorites. The image is a detail from Edith Vonnegut’s (Kurt’s daughter) illustration for The Idea Killers. Full image.

Rosewater was on the next bed, reading, and Billy drew him into the conversation, asked him what he was reading this time.

So Rosewater told him. It was The Gospel from Outer Space, by Kilgore Trout. It was about a visitor from outer space, shaped very much like a Tralfamadorian, by the way. The visitor from outer space made a serious study of Christianity, to learn, if he could, why Christians found it so easy to be cruel. He concluded that at least part of the trouble was slipshod storytelling in the New Testament. He supposed that the intent of the Gospels was to teach people, among other things, to be merciful, even to the lowest of the low.

But the Gospels actually taught this:

Before you kill somebody, make absolutely sure he isn’t well connected. So it goes.

The flaw in the Christ stories, said the visitor from outer space, was that Christ, who didn’t look like much, was actually the Son of the Most Powerful Being in the Universe. Readers understood that, so, when they came to the crucifixion, they naturally thought, and Rosewater read out loud again:

Oh boy – they sure picked the wrong guy to lynch that time!

And that thought had a brother: “There are right people to lynch.” Who? People not well connected. So it goes.

The visitor from outer space made a gift to Earth of a new Gospel. In it, Jesus really was a nobody, and a pain in the neck to a lot of people with better connections than he had. He still got to say all the lovely and puzzling things he said in the other Gospels.

So the people amused themselves one day by nailing him to a cross and planting the cross in the ground. There couldn’t possibly be any repercussions, the lynchers thought. The reader would have to think that, too, since the new Gospel hammered home again and again what a nobody Jesus was.

And then, just before the nobody died, the heavens opened up, and there was thunder and lightning. The voice of God came crashing down. He told the people that he was adopting the bum as his son, giving him the full powers and privileges of The Son of the Creator of the Universe throughout all eternity. God said this: From this moment on, He will punish horribly anybody who torments a bum who has no connections!

Billy’s fiancee had finished her Three Musketeers candy bar. Now she was eating a Milky Way.

“Forget books,” said Rosewater, throwing that particular book under his bed. “The hell with ’em.”

“That sounded like an interesting one,” said Valencia.

“Jesus-if Kilgore Trout could only write!” Rosewater exclaimed. He had a point: Kilgore Trout’s unpopularity was deserved. His prose was frightful. Only his ideas were good.

Update: Jon Stewart interviews Vonnegut on The Daily Show via Crooks and Liars.

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