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Post by Tucson Grower on Nov 1, 2021 13:32:18 GMT -6
Hello everyone, I look forward to interacting with you, in the future. This is an intro to a mini-bio focusing on my experiences with plants
I began in very rural, mid-eastern Ohio. Almost in sight of the Ohio River. When I was first able to walk, until I was just a little older than 5, my mother would take me with her into our yard, where, on one side there was an acre of assorted fruits and vegetables planted and the opposite side of the house was an acre, all of potatoes. There was a spring, behind the house, with a strawberry patch nearby. Behind the spring was a rather steep and forested hill. In front of the house, and between the road and house, ran a creek. There was a bridge over the creek, made of logs that connected our driveway to the road. We had a Beagle, ducks, and cats. I remember being concerned when watching a mother-cat bring chipmunks from the woods across the road to feed her young. I remember my father placing me on the back of a visiting neighbors horse, against my verbal protests. Of course the horse promptly threw me off. As I lay there, trying to catch my breath, I remember thinking that I wish my father would have taken my protests to heart. That was on the potato patch side of the house, near my swing set and sandbox. Our large front yard, between the creek and house was a lawn, dad had a riding mower for that, and all the trees in the front yard had their trunks whitewashed. During my early tenure in Ohio, I remember the invasion of our property by scores of Eastern Indigo (black) snakes, which I'm afraid my father would kill, also by carpets of crawling gypsy moth larva, which mother would rake/sweep into piles, and then burn. Dad also raised rabbits for meat, I remember being fascinated by the newborn rabbits in nests lined with their mother's fur. Once while I was with my dad, out back by the rabbit hutches, I remember seeing a small brightly colored snake, which my dad thought was a baby coral snake - though coral snakes aren't usually found, there in Ohio.
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Post by macmex on Nov 1, 2021 14:45:07 GMT -6
Welcome! I take it you are now in Tuscon? What do you grow now? I think I saw a post where you mentioned okra. We're glad to have you aboard!
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Post by hmoosek on Nov 1, 2021 15:12:40 GMT -6
Welcome aboard!
As a 5 year old, I wanted a horse so bad, so after nagging for quite awhile, My Mom bought me a nice buckskin horse. It looked similar to what Marshal Dillion rode. The first time I rode it without someone leading me, I fell off. It wasn’t the horse’s fault though, I simply slid off. My Uncle was standing near and I remember him hollering, “get back on it and try it again! This time hold on!”
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Nov 1, 2021 19:14:46 GMT -6
Tucson Grower, nice to meet you.
The first time I rode a horse, I fell off too. There were three of us kids playing out in the pasture at a friend's house while our parents watched us from the porch. One of the girls caught an old grey mare and led her to a fence so we could all climb on and ride bareback. She was an old horse, so she tolerated kids well and let all three of us climb on. Once we were all on her back, she plodded leisurely around the edge of the pasture, along the muddy fenceline trail until she came to a tree limb large enough to sweep all three of us off her back. (It probably wasn't her first time around the block). Since I was the last one to climb aboard, I was on the bottom of the pile of kids when we all landed in the muddy horse trail behind her. Our folks got a pretty good laugh out of that!
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Post by Tucson Grower on Nov 1, 2021 19:22:25 GMT -6
macmex, Yes, I am in Tucson now, been here longer than anywhere else. A little more than 25 years, now.
I am presently growing several species of bamboo, mostly of the genus Bambusa about a dozen species of Asclepias (milkweeds), and a few milkweeds of other Genera, several different squash - Butternut, Delicata, Kabocha, Kuri, Scallop, Sphagetti, Yellow and Zucchini. Yellow and orange fleshed watermelon. Honeydew melon, Roma and Beefsteak tomato's. Two 15 gallon pots, one with 4 Jambalaya okra, and the other with 2 Star of David okra and 1 Alabama Red. Two dwarf Castor Bean plants, several varieties of Sunflower, local native Datura, several varieties of Basil, and various other wildflowers. Also the Mediterranean giant reed (Arundo donax), a Black Mission fig tree and a half-dozed gallon-sized, growing fig tree cuttings.
In the past I've also grown many different orchids and various carnivorous plants. Hopefully I'll be able to expand my collection in that direction, again.
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Post by Tucson Grower on Nov 1, 2021 19:39:55 GMT -6
The story behind my avatar:
My wife and I live in a double-wide mobile home (MH) on an acre. There is about a 2 foot high plastic skirting surrounding it. One day as I was walking past the Northwest corner of the MH I heard what sounded like a hard spray of water. There had been water leaks in that vicinity before, I thought this was just another, so I proceeded to try to track it down. I located the spot where a loud spraying sound was originating. It was just behind the skirting, so I carefully pried it loose and gently pulled it away from the building. What I discovered was the Western Diamondback rattle snake, as seen in my avatar. It seems it was alarmed by the vibrations my presence was creating, and it was rattling its rattle against the plastic skirting which was amplifying its efforts to warn me away. I quickly grabbed my camera, took a few pics, then closed the skirting up and let the snake continue on its way.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Nov 1, 2021 21:57:56 GMT -6
I've let a lot of snakes get away with living near my house, but no poisonous ones that I find get to stay here very long. A couple of decades ago, a friend of ours stepped on a Copperhead while taking out the trash after dark. He nearly lost a leg due to that mistake. I've had a Cotton Mouth strike my hoe handle in a corn row so hard once that it nearly made me drop my hoe. if that had been my leg as I walked by, rather than a hoe handle, who knows if I'd still have a foot to walk on today?
My wife stepped on a Copperhead here in our backyard about 10 years ago. She was walking back from the charcoal grill while wearing flip flops. It bit her on the pinky toe. Her foot swelled up all the way to the back of her knee before we could get back to the house and turned almost a black color before it started going back down. Her ankle got so fat that it looked like it might burst before it got better. I admire that you let the rattler go free, but I think I would have relocated it instead.
I used to relocate snakes to the Nature Center at Sequoyah State Park. There was one Ranger in particular who would light up at the sight of me bringing him another snake. He loved taking care of them! One day, I had one get loose in my car on the way there and it got itself balled up under the front seat. When I got to the Nature center, I opened the doors and was patiently waiting for it to crawl out so I could catch it again. Having done this several times before, I was expecting the same Ranger; only this time there a different Park Ranger on duty there. She approached my vehicle to ask what I was doing. Expecting her to be elated that I was bringing them another snake, I told her that I was waiting on a snake to crawl out, so I could catch it for their collection. She freaked and told me to get out of the park right now! She was terrified of snakes and followed me all the way to the park entrance just to make sure I didn't stop anywhere on the way out. Not everyone has the same philosophy when it comes to things like that.
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Post by Tucson Grower on Nov 1, 2021 22:23:27 GMT -6
We're just a mile from the border of the Saguaro National Park - we have to drive along the park border for almost 10 miles whenever we're on our way into town. I used to have an apiary at the back of our property (about 10 hives). One summer when I had let the grass grow to about a foot tall around the hives, I was working the bees, looked down just in time to stop myself from stepping on another rattler. I would probably have been okay, since I was wearing knee high rubber rain boots at the time. Though it might have been able to get me anyways.
Another time I was hand watering one of my bamboo plants on the side of our dirt driveway, when an 18 inch long Gila Monster came strolling along. I watched it carefully as it ignored me and went about its business. Watching it, I learned what its tracks look like. Now I notice Gila Monster tracks, quite regularly, but haven't yet had another face-to-face.
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Post by Tucson Grower on Nov 2, 2021 20:53:08 GMT -6
macmex and everbody, thanks for the welcome.
macmex, Where were you at in Mexico? My son-in-law is a Mexican national. I also became fond of a group of carnivorous plants native to the mountains of South-central and Southern Mexico. They're in the genus Pinguicula (Butterwort).
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Post by macmex on Nov 3, 2021 6:35:19 GMT -6
We were 5 1/2 years in the Sierra North of Puebla, in a town called Tlatlauquitepec and 8 1/2 years in Ixmiquilpan, Hidalgo, where I taught in a bible institute. I did travel the sierra in the states of Hidalgo, Puebla, San Luis Potosí, Oaxaca, Mexico, and Veracruz.
Growing up in NJ, I was familiar with a number of carnivorous plants.
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Post by Tucson Grower on Nov 4, 2021 0:27:27 GMT -6
macmex, Some of those locations are famous among CP people; San Luis Potosí and Oaxaca are two from your list that I know as type locations for certain tropical butterworts (Pinguicula). Some of my favorite CP. Oaxaca is the type location for the only known red-flowered butterwort, Pinguicula laueana.
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Post by Tucson Grower on Nov 5, 2021 15:56:29 GMT -6
If you're curious, here's a link to our current weather, this station is only about 1 mile North of our place -->> Picture Rocks weather <<--It got down to 55F last night, and at almost 3:00 p.m. it's about 90F.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Nov 5, 2021 20:41:18 GMT -6
Sounds like our weather here about a month ago. I think our warm days are gone now though. It's 36 degrees outside right now at 9:45 pm. We had a campfire going out there in the woods until about 30 minutes ago. It sure did feel good to sit by the fire and roast some marshmallows before we froze out and came back home.
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Post by Tucson Grower on Nov 8, 2021 1:39:43 GMT -6
I must be a plant fanatic: One of my biggest disappointments is not being able to grow everything, always. In other words, I am continuously fascinated by every plant I see or learn about. It makes me want to grow them and learn everything about them. It makes me wish I could cram, at least, 10,000 years of experience with plants into every minute I'm alive. The world of plants is just so vast. I'm sure if my wish were possible, that, even then I wouldn't be making much of a dent into experiencing everything that's fascinating about them.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Nov 9, 2021 23:30:14 GMT -6
Tucson Grower,
That reminds me of myself as a kid. I was nuts about everything plant-related. I loved helping my Mom and my Grandma in their gardens. When I was about 5-years old, my Mom took me driving past John Marshal Elementary and told me I was going to be enrolled in Kindergarten that coming Fall. I understood her to say, I was going to be enrolled in Kinder-'garden.' My head was filled with images of a vast building filled with every kind of plant. I was so looking forward to that! I remember being very disappointed the first day there when I realized it was only school.
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