The August Garden

The garden has been doing fine this year. Here's a photo of my artsy tree. Seven or eight years ago, I brought home a Blue Star Juniper standard from a customer who wasn't able to keep it looking good. It was half dead. So I planted it- nothing to lose. Even with my care and neglect, it did not survive. So I trimmed it and stripped the bark off. The dead mini-tree sits near the entrance to our back yard.
Over the years I have spray painted it silver, gold, copper. A few people noticed but most just overlooked it. This year I had spray painted the horseshoes red and blue. With the can of red in my hand, I looked at the tree and thought red and blue might be more artistic? I even painted a mock orange branch red and stuck it into the fence. (can be seen in the background.)

Last year a friend gave us some four o'clock seeds (thanks Diane). I have never grown Four o'clocks before. I planted a few here and there once the soil had warmed. They grew easily. They flowered profusely in red, pink, white and yellow. They grow to about 24-30 inches high. Now they are starting to produce seeds. Lots of seeds. Collected a bunch, but most are falling on the ground. We'll see if they will come up next year on their own. And, will they become a weed in the garden by coming up too much.

Another flower I tried this year was Strawflower. I was surprised at how tall they grew. The flowers, as they matured, dried to the texture of straw. I cut some and hung them upside dow to dry. The stems, however are weak. It's probably best to use wire instead of the natural stems. The natural stems flop over and the bouquet looks like it is falling down.

Hibiscus- there are a number of lovely plants in this family. The Southern Belle types have large single flowers. Like all hibiscus, they only last a day, but a mature plant can have many blossoms that give the illusion that they are all flowering at once.

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London Trip

We went to London England this summer for the wedding of Rosemary's uncle. We spent a day in London. While at the gift shop at Westminster Abbey, I say a photo of the London bus in red with a black and white background. Hey, I think my camera can do that. After a couple of trials and errors, here are a few of my attempts at the "color accent" setting.

In London there were several things in addition to the buses that were red. The telephone booths and the Royal Mail boxes. And the Royal Guards in their red uniforms.


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Home Sweet Home

I was working on quote for the Grand River Conservation Authority, so I went to their website www.grandriver.ca. While there I found they had a mapping and aerial photos. I clicked and ended up at GRCA GIS Data Download Tool. I played with it a bit zoomed in this-a-way and that-a-way. Found our house in the aerial view. This photo was apparently taken in early spring 2006. My guess is that our area was taken in mid-May when the dandelions were in bloom. If you find the same area on Google Earth or Google Maps, it is of very poor quality.

A lot of the countryside is available at this resolution. Even Caledonia is of very poor quality on Google. But on this it is very clear.

May 15th Morning Walk

Took a quick walk around the yard this am. Just a few shots of the spring blooms that are showing colour right now.
The first one is the Fragrant snowball. The buds are pinkish, they open to white- but o-o-h how the fragrance fills the air. Not quite at the fragrant stage yet.

Another fragrant bush is the Burkwoodi Daphne. Rosemary's mothers name was Daphne. This daphne has pink flowers and variegated foliage. It is more upright than the regular daphne. Its stems, however, are somewhat brittle and crack easily.

The Carpet Phlox along the driveway is in full colour now. I have white and blue, would like to get a pink variety sometime. Last year I split the blue plant and moved it to another part of the garden. That one gets a little more sun and hits bull bloom a few days earlier.

This yellow Euphorbia plant is one that we used to have at the old "homestead" when I was growing up in Greensville. Here I have to be careful or it will seed itself all over the place. I don't know what my dad did back then, I only remember one specimen in the side yard. Now, I cut the flowers off when they finish to prevent too many seeds.

Forget me nots, while a beautiful blue colour will definitely seed themselves all over the garden if you let them. I keep pulling them out if they get into the wrong part of the garden. I try to keep them in a small area, otherwise they will take over the whole bed/garden. They also seed themselves like crazy. This photo is actually in Rosemary's dad part of the garden.

The redbud is past its peak. (see a photo on Silent Conversation)

Also blooming now are the apple trees- (they really need to be pruned), Primroses, bergenia and spirea prunifolia.

Hand Lotion can be Habit Forming

I generally refuse to regularly use hand lotions and hand cremes. Not only is it habit forming, it is addictive. Google hand lotion and habit forming or addictive. I am not alone in my think and some place like Amazon.com say the lotion is habit forming.

So is the habit formed because-

• the user is addicted to the pleasure felt in rubbing their hands with lotion
• the user's body has shut down its natural oil production since it is now supplied externally
• the user believes that they have poor hands (negative hand image)
• the user is comparing their hands to the stereotypical hands in advertising
  
• the product contains some nicotine or caffeine like addictive ingredients
• the product makes you think your hands are softer, but really they're not so you keep using the product

There you go. You're also going to find 2 homonyms in this article, one with 3 spellings.

Toxicity of Coffee versus common Lawn weed killers(2,4-D)

How do 2,4-D mixtures used to kill weeds on lawns compare in toxicity to coffee?

2,4-D is a common weed killer used in lawn care programs to keep dandelions and other weeds out of lawns. How toxic is this commonly used pesticide? Do you still want to drink coffee?

According to kidshealth.org . . . “Although the United States hasn't yet developed guidelines for caffeine intake and kids, Canadian guidelines recommend that preschool children get no more than 45 milligrams of caffeine a day. That's equivalent to the average amount of caffeine found in a 12-ounce (355-milliliter) can of soda or four 1.5-ounce (43-gram) milk chocolate bars.” Or also the amount found in a cup of coffee.

From Wikipedia, we find that “The median lethal dose (LD₅₀) of caffeine is 192 milligrams per kilogram in rats.” The wikipedia article also state that “In general, one serving of coffee ranges from 40 milligrams, for a single shot (30 milliliters) of arabica-variety espresso, to about 100 milligrams for a cup (120 milliliters) of drip coffee.^”

On the toxicity of 2,4-d, Wikipedia says “The LD₅₀ . . . according to US EPA 2,4-D Reregistration Eligiblity Decision, 2006, is 639 mg/kg.” This means that the main herbicidal ingredient used in common lawn weed killer mixtures is 3 time LESS toxic than caffeine.

2,4-D is usually found in a mixture. If one were to use the LD50 of Killex a common retail product – the LD50 is listed as 375 mg/kg- which would make it only HALF as toxic as caffeine.

But what about the toxicity in its common form. For coffee- LD50 192 milligrams per kilogram with 40 milligrams per 120 milliliter cup. This calculates that a 1 kg rat would have to drink 192/40 = 4.8 cups of coffee to get the 192 milligrams of caffeine to provide a Lethal Dose to 50% of the population. At 120 ml per cup that would mean 576 millilitres of coffee.

According to about.com, an average female weighs 162 pounds (=162/2.24= 72 kg). This means this average female would have to drink 4.8 cups times 72 kg or 561 cups of coffee to receive a lethal dose of caffeine.

How about 2,4-D is in a spray mixture? According to terralink-horticulture.com , the LD50 for the Killex mixture is >5000 mg/kg.

If Killex weighs similar to water, then 1 ml weighs 1 mg. Which means the poor rat would have to drink/ingest 5000 ml or 5 litres of Killex concentrate to receive a lethal dose.

Therefore compared to coffee, Killex concentrate is 5000/576 is 8 times less toxic than coffee.

Since Killex ( a common weed control mixture) is normally used in a mix the same rate would need a large volume of Killex mixture. The suggested rate is 5.5 Litres per hectare in 300-1,500 Litres. Using the most concentrated rate would mean 5.5 L/300 Litres or 5500 ml/300 litres or which equals 55ml/3 litres or 19 ml/litre Therefore to get 500 mg of Killex into that poor rat, he would need to ingest 5000/19 = 263 litres of Killex mixture.

In comparison, therefore the weed killer sprayed on lawns is 263 litres/.576 litres or 456 times LESS toxic than coffee. Weed killer spray is 456 times LESS toxic than Coffee.

Or Coffee is 456 time MORE TOXIC than weed killer.

Cardinals Galore

The other day, before going to church, I looked out of the kitchen window a the bird feeders. I told Rosemary, "there are about a dozen cardinals at the feeder."
"What kind?" she asked. "Are they male, female or other?"
I assumed she asked because the male Northern Cardinal has red plumage in contrast to the female with her duller, drabber feathers. I just wasn't sure what category the 'other' was about.
However, when I went back to the kitchen, there were now a dozen males and a dozen females. Don't know why. Maybe the recent snow or the coolish weather. I went out and threw some handfuls of black sunflower seed on top of the snow. Cardinals rarely land on the feeders- they seem to prefer to pick the seeds from off the ground or snow. In that way they are dependent on the goldfinches, sparrows and chickadees to scatter some seed from out of the feeder. The mourning doves are similar in that they also seem to prefer to feed from the ground.

On Sunday, however, the squirrels moved in. Now that our dog has gone, the squirrels come around to the feeder with impunity. There had to be 7-8 squirrels gobbling up the seeds as fast as they could. Some grey, some black.

I'm going to have to rethink some strategies to cope with the squirrel invasion.