anthropometaphors

Francoa ramosa (bridal wreath)

Category: Perennial

Family: Saxifragaceae (Saxifrages)

Origin: Chile (South America)

Evergreen: Yes

Flower Color: White or pink

Bloom time: Summer

Height: 2-3 feet

Width: 1-2 feet

Exposure: Cool Sun/Light Shade

Irrigation: Medium Water Needs

Winter Hardiness: 20-25° F

Notes: This is an evergreen, herbaceous, clumping (1-2 feet across), spreading perennial which produces large basal leaves and multi-branched flowering stalks (3-5 feet tall) of white or pink flowers in summer. The one foot long leaves are fiddle-shaped with deep lobes and slightly sticky to the touch. Plant in part day sun (takes full coastal) to light shade in warm location in well-draining soil and give average watering.

Blushing bloom of unknown species

I’ll ping Julie Gordon and see if she can name the second plant.  There are a few of them in the yard and I’d love to know more about the massive blooms it creates.

The hubs pulled out the new power drill yesterday, and installed a new mailbox and numbers for the house.  All went well;  the decaying wooden box that was serving as a mail box is now off duty, and our house is numbered for the first time since the front gate went down in July.  Luckily, our postal carrier is not easily fooled.  We can take down our home numbers, move our mailbox across the yard, and then buy a different mailbox and mount it on the side of the house…and we’ll still get our mail.

The front yard renovation and landscaping is complete!  To jog the memory, here is a picture of the front yard before:

Before

And here are two images of the yard, after:

After (1 of 2)

After (2 of 2)

The front yard renovation and landscaping was done between June and July 2009; designed and performed by Julie Gordon and her crew.  In short, the following was done to the yard:

• Removal of existing front gate, concrete pathway and brush on sidewalk strip
• Design and installation of redwood fence and porch (with porch expansion)
• Landscaping using colorful plants with low water requirements (i.e. drought-tolerant)
• Installation of drip irrigation with automatic control system and timer

It’s taken some time for me to find the correct circumstances for decent pictures.  The weather has been overcast and gray, which translates into dreary pictures.  When the sun happens to be out, I’ve been at work during the day and can only catch long shadows in the yard when I return home.  So at last, a few pictures of the yard, with decent lighting and “feel”.

The space is still rather open, as the plantlets are babies and need about 1 year to fill out.  In the few weeks since the work has been completed, all of the plants have noticeably grown, with many producing stalks with flowers and all of them sprouting new foliage.  Of the entire garden, there have only been two casualties.  One (of many) great things about working with Julie is that she has followed up with us and checks in about the plants.  She guarantees the plants for 1 year after installation, and is getting replacement plants for the two that didn’t make it.

Our pup Winslow loves the yard…a little too much!  When left unsupervised, she will dig little holes in the gravel path.  Instead, I let her into the yard in the evening when I check the mailbox.  She zips around the yard, zigging and zagging between the bushes.  It’s a sight to behold.

In no particular order I’ve accomplished the following:

• Napped.
• Designated a bucket for “gray water” collection. Any water that would normally run down the drain is now being collected in a special bucket. For example: the water run down the drain as temperature heats up for showers or washing dishes, pre-soap. At the end of each day, I take the bucket outside and water my (non-edible) plants.
• Read a book: The Pharmacist’s Mate by Amy Fusselman. A most satisfying McSweeney’s selection from 2001, TPM is a memoir written in the time following the death of Fusselman’s father.
• Created a workshop en plein air. Within the confines of a somewhat enclosed patio I’ve placed a pair of benches. The current configuration allows one surface to be used for repotting and other gardening tasks, while the second is set up for painting and finishing furniture.
• Transplanted the dozen (or so) ferns from the side yard into containers in the back yard. The containers have been topped off with river rocks to keep Winslow “Dirtmouth” Gray from digging up the fragrant earth.
• Napped.
• Painted a holder for the gardening hose that’s been relegated to a pile on the ground for the past year. Next up: installation!
• Spent some QT in the great outdoors that is my backyard, which included multiple bird sightings and hearing the racket that is a pair of crows mating in the redwood overhead.
• Hopped around the internet a bit. Found Dutch photographer Peter Funch’s work (via BoingBoing); screamed with appreciation for his thematically composited photos. For example:

Following Followers, Peter Funch

Before

My front yard could be described as a feature that “needs some TLC” (see above). It just so happens that I have a lot of care to give!

I’ve been saving my pennies, and feel I’m ready to turn the copper into some TLC. After all is said and done, the aim is to create a thriving, low-maintenance garden that welcomes us when we come home, encourages visitors when they drop by and allows for puppy romping.

While not completely visible in the “before” picture above, there is a side entrance to my house on the right in the form of a semi-concealed gate (aka the front gate). Behind the front gate is a side yard, also suffering from a TLC-deficit. There is a second gate on the left leading to the backyard. The presence of a high wooden fence on either side of the house and the absence of a clear front entrance has been good for deterring solicitors and burglers, but bad for visiting friends. I’ve often heard people say they didn’t know how to get to the front door!

Had a meeting with Julie Gordon this morning to talk about a front yard garden re-do. I’m pretty flexible about plant specifics; Julie’s knowledge about suitable plants for the location in terms of light, water and soil requirements trump any need I have for a particular plant.

Detail from a Julie Gordon-scape

Talking visuals and arrangement ideas with her affirmed my comfort with entrusting her to design details. After spending some time up in the clouds of wishful thinking, we returned to the real world by concluding the appointment with a discussion of measurements, budgets and timing. Julie is going to draft a budget for the project we discussed: plantlets, fencing, high-tech/timed drip system, and perhaps a porch enbiggening. I’m curious to see how much my dreams cost.

Researchers at MIT are creating robot gardeners.  Is this the pinnacle of achievement?  Or one step closer to creating artificial intelligence and the cylon/cyborg entities instilled with it?

Woo! Organic computing is still on the map!

Computer processors may soon have one fundamental aspect in common with their owners – a structure composed largely of carbon, rather than silicon.

Graphene, carbon arranged in atom-thick sheets, is already known to be an excellent conductor, but electronics requires the ability to insulate too, as well as electrical properties in between those two extremes.

Now research has shown that the material can be easily modified to act as an insulator, paving the way for efficient all-carbon electronics.

I hope to one day have a computer that is essentially a plant.  Or a lamp post that is also a tree.

The long and science-y version here.

A survey of alternatives to silicon-based computer components here.

The future is moving toward me so quickly! In July, I was daydreaming of server gardens. Today, about 3 months later, Science released a report detailing a molecular computer that functions within living cells. Within a few clicks, I’d found evidence of other biological computers, including a DNA computer that is unbeatable at tic-tac-toe. The ability to control processes within living cells would offer the potential of a revolutionary approach to studying and healing biological systems. For example, a molecular computer could be used to detect cancer cells and enable the targeted release an anti-cancer drug.

The molecular world is a fascinating place. Our ability to probe, understand and manipulate objects invisible to the naked eye is phenomenal. Researchers have developed ways to visualize the complexity of life at a microscopic level, and Nikon’s Small World website is a showcase of life science, chemistry and materials science photomicrographs. The image I find the most striking – in part because it is also somewhat disturbing – is Chick Embryo , an image captured using stereomicroscopy by Tomas Pais de Azevedo:

Chick Embryo

Several years ago I considered purchasing a digital microscope for personal use, and bid for one on Ebay. I lost. Since then, my microscopic needs have advanced, and I think I’d require unlimited use of a scanning electron microscope (SEM) to be completely satisfied. Hopefully advances in technology will pave the way for a consumer grade SEM. Either that, or a biotech lab closure will flood the market with cut rate deals on high-end microscopes. I may have to wait to strike it rich, or receive one as a gift. So if the first year wedding anniversary is paper, the 41st anniversary is land, which anniversary is laboratory equipment?

Update: I just found a how-to wiki with instructions for how to take microphotographs with a standard digital camera and a decent lab ’scope.  Good to know!

I enjoy being around children because they are so unabashedly curious.  Their world is still full of possibility and “Why?!” is an entirely appropriate response to everything.

For the past few weeks, I’ve had an idea that seems completely sci-fi and outlandish.  I’m increasingly intrigued by the possibility of creating cybernetic plants capable of being programmed using a genetic language, possibly using synthetic genetic components to bridge the current divide between living and non-living components.  I envision server gardens.  As an “adult”, I’ve been quashing my inner child and trying my best to put the idea out of my head.

So when I came across io9’s Mad Scientist Contest (in which the participants are tasked with creating a new lifeform) a few days ago I was a bit excited.  Here is a group of people from respected institutions actually encouraging unusual ideas like mine.  And the prize?  The winner will be shipped off – all expenses paid – to the Synthetic Biology Conference in Hong Kong.  Supposedly to meet other folks who may also be professional daydreamers when it comes to biological possibility.  Still, I quashed my idea.

However, this morning I saw Seed’s tear-outable cribsheet on synthetic biology and I’m starting to pay attention to my server garden concept.  There seems to be a field called Synthetic Biology.  In fact, there is a department at good ‘ol Cal called Bioengineering.  I’m imagining K’Nex made of cytoskeletal components; mitotic spindles with nanotube scaffolding reorganized to form structures from simple shapes to complex circuit boards with electrical impulses translated into ion gradients and action potentials.  Why not?

Every weekend I try to plant at least 3 plants. So far I’ve planted:

• 2 tomato plants (in a tomato cage)
• 3 basil plants
• 1 cilantro bunch
• 3 French lavender bushes
• 1 dwarf mandarin tree
• 1 Cara Cara (orange) tree
• 12 strawberry plants (as ground cover for the two citrus trees)
• 6 sugar snap pea vines (in a homemade bamboo tripod)
• 6 Swiss red chard bunches

I enjoy working with the earth, amending clay with compost and soil to prepare nurturing homes for plants.

The tomatoes have thrived since their transplant into the ground; I can see new growth every morning when I sip my cuppa by the kitchen window. The basil and cilantro are coming along, and are regularly plucked to be included in salads and whatever else happens to be for dinner.

The French lavender is planted in a container just outside the front porch, greeting those who come and go with their insistent stalks of purple scent. The two handmade wooden planters sitting nearby are home to the wee citrus trees, with strawberries spreading through the soil beneath them. Tucked alongside the mandarin tree is the chard, already turgid and insistent in green and red. And only days after planting the snap peas, tender vines are quickly inching up, encouraged by the support of bamboo supports I fastened together (from the thicket of black bamboo in the backyard).

My favorite part of the week is Saturday afternoon when I tend to my plantlings, watering, weeding and nurturing in whatever way is needed. This is the type of parenthood I’m intended for; watching for the call of green tendrils needing a support to cling to, or hearing the nutrient requirements of citrus trees in leaf coloring. When it comes to plant life, I seem to intuitively grasp the meaning of patience. I understand time and the needs of youth when seen through the green filter of chlorophyll.

On the way to work this morning I drove by an expanse of iceplant (Carpobrotus edulis) – considered by some to be a barbarian of the botanical world – and had the sudden longing for chlorophyll to reside within my skin.  Much like the growth of invasive C. edulis, my whimsical notion soon grew into a rampant daydream as I began listing the characteristics I’d expect from such a novel modification:

• I’d be green. Literally.
• I’d be The Ultimate Anorexic; never requiring food, I would sustain myself – albeit in a very “vegetative” state – with water, sunlight and multivitamins.  Supplementary nutrients would be required for a more energetic lifestyle, which would require the maintenance of my existing digestive tract.
• If properly maintained, I would continue to grow to an indefinite height.  To maintain a size – and thus retain access to size-limited objects like a home, furniture and a car – I’d require regular grooming.  I’d have my offshoots snipped, tweezed and trimmed alongside those with hair, nail and waxing appointments at the salon.  For only with such routine care would I avoid substantial prunings, the costly and potentially dangerous equivalent of liposuction.
• My carbon footprint would shrink.  No cows farmed in former Amazonia for me, I’d passively create my own fuel in parallel to daily life activities.  Installing new (and larger) windows and skylights would shoot to the top of my home improvements list.
• Sex could get awkward.  Would I be a dicot or a monocot?  And if a dicot, would I be a flowering plant?  Would my ovaries ripen like fruit?  How would fertilization occur, and would an intermediary organism – insect, bird or otherwise – be required?  Would wee chlorophumans sprout in my womb?

Imagining pollen and flowers blooming behind my ears, I blinked and the iceplant was gone.  I’d travelled several miles south along I-880, but my mind rested among thoughts of greenery.