“y see y got to pick a pocket or two me boy, or its the orphanage with
you. You see, you av to pay yer way in ere, just like me other scally-wags.
We be a family see?” …
“Now stop asking for anymore gruel, and get your pegs to that east-side-patch and steal those jewels for me…Now! you hear me?
The Dodger will show you the way”


My “treasure”…and this is really the tip of the glass shard bounty, if I really wanted, I could have doubled this amount of “loot” – unbelievable. I did find a rather attractive marble though, probably originating from the same period as Oliver Twist.



“Look he has found me marble,
of all the places for it to
turn up.”

And what about that rusty shoe artifact.



“look, over there, back central, do you see it?
Is that my long lost prosthetic foot Gigolo Joe?



“I believe it is, he also has dug up my old
recharge station”.



“Now, if he will only find the rest of me.”



So here is the area all my bullion came from, pretty much all dug down apart from under the beanstalk, yes, I still have not felled it yet. I took the grade down by about a foot and a half with my half shovel, which should give me plenty of room to work with, considering the height of the boulders. My plan is to loosen the “lunar floor” before I go in and start rebuilding the soil. I am thinking a good layer of gravel followed by a concoction of decomposed granite and thunderdirt, with the very top layer mounded to receive the lavender mass planting. Right now I am leaning toward the “Provence” cultivar, but suggestions welcome for soil amendment and plant variety. The dumping ground for all the dead soil I removed is not too attractive right now, but I will deal with that later!



I now have a new mountain to plant on, perhaps an Alpine forest?
“What a simply marvelous idea, but children, I really do worry about the soil quality”!

“The hills they are dead, with a mound of dirt-ick.
With glass I have dug, it is up to my ears”…etc. etc.


Staying with the Alpine forests for one moment…

This group of conifers I planted 15 years ago! I created a really acidic soil and they took off! these are now 10 inches tall!



Ok, okay, but my Asparagus ferns do perform
a great live show on stage.



“Now look here, I have got my eye on you!”
Keep clicking on the right image to zoom in, the wings are amazing. The eye on this dragon actually moved just as I was about to take its picture, looked straight into the lens.



Same dragon, this time on the end of an agave spike, gazing ball in the background.



All this gulf toad needs is a violin in his “hands” for a Beatrix Potter moment.



I am happy to report that my pond is once again thriving after my recent scare. The fish are back to full health with no more casualties. I have a new respect for how delicate the balance is, in this environment.

Other strange anomalies right now:


Perhaps the doomsday theorists have something after all? “Err dad, w,w,w,when did you say that new partical accelerator was going to be switched on?”

The big circle marks the location of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the European particle physics laboratory in CERN. The tunnel where the particles are accelerated is located 320 ft underground and is 16.7 mi in circumference. The LHC went online last Wednesday.



After years of construction, $8 Billion, dozens of set backs and an effort that has included some of the smartest minds in particle physics from across the globe, the rather large “START” button has been pressed.



The ultimate goal of the LHC is much bigger than just observing new particles, namely finding a single formula to unify the four known forces of matter (the strong and weak nuclear forces as well as electromagnetism and gravitation via something called the Grand Unifying Theory, or GUT), but you already knew that.

The GUT would ultimately allow physicsts to relate all four fundamental forces of nature. This knowledge will provide mankind with the real potential of harnessing otherwise unattainable sources of clean, renewable energy, as well as the manufacturing of materials which are light, strong and custom tweaked into a variety of uses for applications across the spectrum, making even more advances possible for mankind.  It is literally the Holy Grail of science endeavors.

The project is not without controversy, however, including some who say that the LHC is a Doomsday device that might destroy the planet by creating Earth consuming mini-black holes or generate strangelets and other strange time related oddities.



What?

The metallic colors on this deceased Scarab beetle were staggering, it looks like it has been spray painted by the “Trick my Truck” team.



Holey rocks in the succulent bed.


My Pampas grasses have bloomed this week, perhaps I will forgive them for breaking my shovel.



I almost missed this Pink Canna bloom, hiding behind it’s tropical leaves and some wispy Papyrus. It really had an “organ” feel to it, in part to it’s coloration, but also because it was nestled between large “lung” like leaves – something straight out of a medical journal.



“Its the yellow bells Esperanza, Its the yellow Bells!”


Like a tropical scene from a lost world, the decaying agave landscape is inspiring.


Middle bed scraping through the long summer.

The trunk of this giant elephant ear reminds me of a Tikki mask. here is a picture looking down into one of its emerging leaves…a giant green cave…Ahhhhh!

On that refreshing note..


Stay Tuned for:

“No More Iced Turbans for me?”

All material © 2008 for east_side_patch. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

212
Jack Sparrow’s the name, me wants the treasure map for the East-Side-lavender patch and I’ll be on me ways….savvy?


240
5 paces to the left…old bottle…5 paces forward…
a shard of glass, dig down 2 feet…
a veritable slag heap of city landfill proportions.
X marks the the most irritating, and eco-unfriendly
“spot” for my future planting of a lavender bed
you can possibly imagine
.


240 240
These are me treasures so far, Arrr…and I have only turned the area over once! I am sure more “jewels” will emerge before I am done here. The ground here was so compacted, I had to wait for a substantial rain before I could even attempt to attack it with my pick axe and shovel that I had, in anticipation, sharpened to a knife point. What a bounty! Treasures fit for a captain’s quarters on a galaxy class, federation starship?
what! –  I needed a segue!


240
“Spock, analysis please”?


228
“Captain, the ground here is too compacted to get a
clear reading. I am picking up zero lavender
compatibility combined with a nutrient deficiency
like I have never witnessed before in this east-side
sector. I suggest we form an away team to investigate
this earthworm-less anomaly in more detail”.


240
“Away team, set phasers to maximum stun, and
watch out for the glass anomalies that seem to be
abundant in the soil in this area.
Scotty…Energize”.



Where to put it? where to put it?

I have been trying to figure out where to dump this dead soil that still resides in my future lavender bed, well today I had a breakthrough. I found a secluded spot against my fence line that I think is large enough to accommodate most of the slag heap. The problem?  there is a gangly pampas grass there, and, I need a barrier of some kind to go up against the chain-link fence so that the relocated soil will not “escape” into my neighbor’s yard when it rains…
Mmm, I knew my azure “fake door” would come in useful, it is perfect for the job!
Now to take care of the pampas. This I was not looking forward to, I have taken out a pampas before and I still occasionally wake up in the middle of a recurring night terror frantically rubbing my arms and screaming out “Aloe Vera”! Outside of bamboo pampas grass ranks right up there in the “why are you even trying to dig me up” category. These grasses will flay you within an inch of your life just looking at them. This one was not content with the usual arm and leg lacerations, oh no, it had something else in store for me on this particular extraction…



Here is where the exorcism was to be performed. It was naturally in one of
the most inaccessible spots in the whole of my yard, up against
a fence and neighboring another monster pampas grass, so that
I could get my lacerations in a timely manner.

Undeterred, I blessed the area with some pond water and I pried, I dug, I pried some more, I could here roots splitting, I was getting there. “Here it comes,” I pried some more, then with a molar shattering “crack”, followed by a frantic full body check, the angry pampas demon snapped my prized shovel like it was a toothpick…well that’s just great.

Needless to say I decided to bury it in soil and let it rot,
the pampas that is, not the shovel.



This is to be the “fill” area. I am thinking a whole bunch of silver artemesia here with yet a couple more loquats. The silver looks really good up against the blue of the fence. You can see the demon pampas on the right picture.



Let the digging commence!



I did about 5 wheelbarrow loads, improvising with my “half shovel”
just to secure the fence, then my back decided it needed
a better solution. I was also intently aware of the
possibility of a winning a Darwin Award (in rather a
painful Vladimir manner).
Time for Dinner.

Other noteworthy Genghis Khans right now :

Go on have a guess what this is? Coral in a fish tank perhaps? Ancient mollusks inhabiting a rock-face in the great barrier reef ? or a …



Brocoflower! A cross between broccoIi and cauliflower! I have never seen
one like this before. We picked this one up at Central Market – amazing.
It would look equally at home at the bottom of my pond, but this one is
destined to end up as a dinner. Staying on the subject of ancient creatures, forgotten by time…



I had a strange encounter this afternoon while
I was watering some of my ornamental grasses
and papyrus. At first I heard some
snorting and roaring, and naturally curiosity took
the better of me…I put on my safari outfit for
no apparent reason and ventured deeper
into the grasses, into an area I had not been in before.
Hearing some large twigs breaking, I paused,
squatted down, only to witness…



“A gorilla in the Mist” …King Kong cooling down
in the Texas heat.


what?

Staying with the pre-historic, (and thanks to Catsarah for the positive i.d):
The following pictures are of a Green Darner or Common Green Darner (Anax junius) it is a dragonfly of the family Aeshnidae, native to North America. It is one of the biggest and fastest-flying dragonflies, able to reach speeds of 85 km/h (53 mph) This species has several nicknames, including “Darning Needle” for its speed, “Mosquito Hawk” for its predatory habits, and “Lord of June” for its abundance during the summer season. It is also Washington State’s state insect. This is the first one I have ever witnessed around my pond, perhaps the hurricanes are pushing them further west than usual for safety? (thanks trbll if you are reading this for your interesting theory)



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