Loser

Did you ever notice how some of the best loser-dogs come from animal rescue and become total winner-dogs?

In August 2009, long after all the best garden center transplanting flowers had been overly over-picked, I spotted this sad, wilted, bedraggled Zinnia loser-plant still for sale. For sale. HA! It was marked down to 10 cents. How degrading. No one wanted it even for 10 cents.

It was a hopeless, pathetic Zinnia loser-plant.

It was also an orphan. Like me. All alone in a black plastic tray that once held 6 dozen mini boxes of its brothers and sisters and cousins, by now growing proudly elsewhere in the town's best flower boxes.

Two nickles later and a quick trip home to the watering can, and it was MINE. I know what you are thinking. You are thinking, hmmmm 10 cents, was that the best use of a dime?

Valid question.
Stay tuned.
Hold on.
I transplanted it.
Tore some of the deranged and tangled roots apart.
Oh my.
That must have hurt. What next?

September 2009. Whoaaa. It's still alive.
October 2009. It's perking up, going a nice orange.
Nov 2009, arghhh it's done. " Quick take my seeds"
Two seeds. Not 30 seeds. Two seeds. Sheeez. Loser.

May 2010. I plant the two seeds.
One comes up.
Nice. Zinnia plant, looking good.
October, "it's been a blast, take my seeds".
November I strip off 30 seeds from the one flower. THIRTY. Jackpot.

May 2011. I planted 30 Zinnia seeds in different places and up comes.... 30 Zinnia plants! Look at the picture attached. You can see several of the Zinnia plants with 6 flowers and 7 buds on the way.

OMG keep looking. Now they are giving more than one flower per plant!

Oct 2011. By then they will offer 30 plants X 50 flowers X 30 seeds per flower = 45,000 Zinnia seeds

Oct 2012. 45,000 flowers X 30 seeds = 1,350,000 seeds

Oct 2013. 1,350,000 flowers X 30 seeds = 40,500,000 flowers

Oct 2014. 40,500,000 flowers x 30 = 1.2 billion seeds

Oct 2015. 1.2 billion flowers X 30 seeds = 36 billion flowers.

In May 2016. I will rent 500 acres of dormant farmland and plant 36 X 30 billion = 1.080 trillion Zinnia seeds. 1,080,000,000,000

I will post a sign on the land.
"Welcome, please pick all the Zinnias you want. Then go home and plant the seeds, OK?"

Mars is the red planet. Earth will be the orange planet.

How's that for a 10 cent loser?

johann

FABULOUS!

Fabulous

Simply, absolutley, just....just... so Fabulous!

johann

The Last Tomato Worm

Today: This is a picture of the world's very last tomato worm. Yup. All you have to do is reach out and....gardeners of the world rejoice....SQUISH him. Hurrrry, and the species is eradicated forever!!!!!!

Yeahhhhhh, gone, done, fugly buggers, some even have opps, had, what look like horns. Nice shade of green though. All he ever wanted of you was to share a few leaves.. And if his cousins operpopulated, the birds would thin them down. Nahhhhhhhh, SQUISH. What a perfect day!

Next Summer: You are with your honey on the back yard deck. Warm summer night. Full moon. Midnight. Romamtic garden candles in full flicker. Heady wine. Soooooo perfect.

"Honey do do you remember a night like this last year?. How that beautiful Luna moth with the 5 inch light green spotted wingspan magically came in from a silent nowhere and landed on your tanned and beautiful arm. And it made us breathless as he sat there and slowly
pumped his amazing wings as if to the beating of your heart".

"How perfect if one like that came back tonight"

Well they won't be back because you squished the last one !

johann

PIG!

This Pig! story comes from either Readers Digest or something similar, and it carries a lesson.

A guy was driving down a winding gravel road, way out in country. This lady comes around the corner from the other direction, somewhat out of control and encroaching a bit on his side.

She sees him and in the flash of an eye, waving a sudden hand out her window, yells at him "PIG! PIG!"

He gives it to her, yelling back "COW! silly COW". Zoom, shes gone.

And feeling very satisfied and smug, not slowing down, knowing she heard him, he enters the corner and runs smack into the pig.

Such a good lesson, right?. Day to day we never know when even the smallest act of human kindness might reveal itself; either to give or receive.

We have to be ready, alert, spontaneous, true. Don't think, don't judge, just do it. And such acts of kindness are time sensitive as we saw in the pig story.

Miss them and they never come back.

BUZZ MATTERS

johann

Where Do Potatoes Come From?

Did you ever wonder how little kids know so much?

Geeez they even know where babies come from nowadays.

But whoaaaa potatoes can be a whole new deal.

And if you are lucky, really lucky, you'll be right there to see it when it happens.

Buzz Wonders.

johann

A Dandelion Moment

My neighbour is the best ever. He spends hours every month on his knees with all these tools from the shopping network that never work, ripping and sweating and cussing his mortal enemy...dandelions. Every good citizen does it.

Then I was thinking how lucky we are we don't have the neighbour from Hell across town who never even cuts his lawn. He just sowed a 25 pound bag of wildflower seeds. So irresponsible, right?

When his wildflowers hit 3 feet, 500 complaints rolled in to town hall...and the town said you cut or the town will cut and add the cost to your taxes. Wildflower/weeds/dandelions, all the same.

HA! We got him!

That's when it hit me like a 250,000 volt shock! Like if you took the back off your old broken TV set and electrocuted yourself. BAMM. (NEVER do that by the way)

BAMM again, My pea brain brain went into spin cycle, wildflowers/bees/honey/pollination/sustainability/dandelion wine from the flower/new dandelion leaves for salads/dandelion roots for tea and herbs"

Dandelions are not the enemy! The whole plant is a treasure...even the bees know that.

A Dandelion Moment.

johann