I am the Audience

Pawpaws

September 7, 2025

a day in this life, dirt under my nails, grow your own, plants

I went to the NC State Extension Service Pawpaw Field Day yesterday. Since I have had pawpaws growing in my back yard almost as long as I have had Chuck in my life and have never had fruit, I felt the need to touch base with people who know something about them.

I got to taste fresh fruit, ice cream and bread. It does have its own flavor, which is very mild. I really couldn’t tell it was in the ice cream. The bread was delicious and, until I get some actual pawpaws, will be good made with bananas or persimmons.

They have a collection of 30 varieties of pawpaw trees at the Forsyth County Agriculutural Building and collect ripe fruit to freeze the pulp in anticipation of the day. The fruit is only good for about 3 days at room temp, 5 days in the fridge. They do not ripen in a way to allow growers to pick them green for shipping. But, pulp freezes just fine.

The woman who led my group through that collection said she can’t tell the varieties apart by taste. A woman in the group said she definitely could.

Along with getting to taste, I picked up a baggie of seeds. Everybody has told me something different about why I don’t have fruit. My arborist says it’s because of how they open and close their sex-changing flowers and has nothing to do with requiring cross-pollination. One collection of Master Gardeners said I need a different variety of plant that what I already have, like you do with blueberries. Someone else said that as long as you have separate trees near each other, they will pollinate each other just fine; it doesn’t need to be different varieties.

The guy that gave me the baggie of seeds said they just bag up what they have from collecting fruit for the festival. So, I mostly likely have more than one kind in the bag.

Why don’t we have more zebra swallowtails in our yard?

Since our winters have gotten so erratic, I don’t really trust the weather to germinate what is simply outside. Maybe yes, maybe no. So, I plan to put a couple of seeds in a pot by the shed and the rest in the fridge until Spring and then stick those straight in the ground. Maybe put one of them in another pot to see how that does. I think there are 5 in the bag.

I’ve been waiting this long. What’s another 5-8 years for fruit?
Progress

September 4, 2025

a day in this life, dirt under my nails, home, tea

We had 6 yards of mulch delivered on Tuesday. I had them dump it at the end of the roadside bed closest to the road and hustled to get the edgers for that end of that bed out of the way before it arrived.

6 yards of mulch is smaller than I expected

My intention is to let the mulch kill the grass between the bed and the silver maple at the end of the driveway, expanding the bed. I’m also hoping it will cut out some of Chuck’s annoyance with mowing around jutting branches.

But, before that, it’s going in the beds I’m finally shaping up.

This is yesterday’s accomplishment. (You can see where I moved the large pot that kept the unused garden hose out of sight.)

Before

After

I moved an abused “circus” canna down to the end next to another purple-leaved-red-flowered canna I planted there in May. (A share from my brother-in-law.) There are yellow irises down there, too. I’m hoping those 3 will fill that end up with spring and summer color. The bushes are camellias, one ornamental and one tea.

This is what I did, today.

Before

After

The whole end was being swallowed by dayflowers. More cannas are at this end, same colors, and the iris is purple. There’s a patch of ice plant that was being swallowed up and has now been freed.

Both sides have flame callas, blackberry lilies (which are really irises), and tigridia planted in front and between the bushes. And I’ve tried to get some ice plant going on the other/north side. There may be too much shade over there though.

And the stoop is being swallowed by cypress vines.

Swallowed!!

We have a bit of a battle with it because it is happy to cover everything it can reach. I’m getting better at managing it and the camellias aren’t covered with it this year. And the hummingbirds really do love it.

Hummingbird smorgasbord

I planted a mixed package of red, white, and pink seeds several years ago and it reseeds itself very effectively. Now, it mostly blooms red, but we do get occasional pops of the other 2.

I believe that once I get it cleaned up, this time around, again, it will be easier to maintain. It really does feel like trying to save energy for work was my inhibitor. Going out to pull weeds and move mulch, knowing that I don’t have to go do 8 hours of fluorescent lighted labor in a little while just makes it easier.

Oh! The circus canna is a Phasion I got from Plant Delights when I first moved into this house. I have moved it, shared it, killed it and asked for a piece back for over 2 decades. It has dark purple leaves with red and yellow veins and bright orange flowers. I can’t wait for it to get lush again. And I really hope it doesn’t crowd out the gorgeous purple and red canna Mark gave me. I want them to fill up that end with color.
Do you know about my pen obsession?

September 3, 2025

a day in this life, family

I had to use ball point ink at work. No gel. No fountain pens. The ink in ball point pens isn’t in danger of destruction in case of a disaster. (Give me a nudge and I’ll tell you the requirements for bench techs involved in clinical trials.) That has meant that what pens I’ve used have been very functional and very limited. For the most part, running out of ink in a ball point means that what I like about the pen is gone. I have not had good experience with ballpoint refills.

And I really like using a fountain pen. I am casual enough about my possessions that paying for an expensive one would be silly. So, what I have aren’t extravagantly priced.

My dad and I had that preference in common. He gave me my first good fountain pen when I was in my 20s. Before that, I had bought myself some cheap ones that always blew up and leaked everywhere. That one was a red Lamy Safari with a medium nib that I lost in a move.

When I confessed what had happened, he got me a green marbled Waterman. When I dropped it point down and asked if they could fix it, they told me to send it in and they would do so for the price of shipping. They sent me a new pen. A couple of years later, I dropped that one in my driveway and ran over it. Replacing the broken cap for the cost of shipping got me another new pen. The second one was a kind of yellow mosaic and this one is marbled red. I have managed not to damage it.

My dad was pleased that it was replaced and still felt that I had the pen he had given me.

After a few years of using the Waterman, I found a green Pelikan calligraphy pen and loved it until it disappeared from my pocket. They don’t seem to be making those any more. I’m sure I didn’t pay over $100 for it. So, I suspect I got a selling-out-because-they’re-being-discontinued price.

That pen did two good things. It made my handwriting look better just because that slight widening of the nib added a little flare. And, because of that, I slowed down a little and wasn’t as sloppy with my writing.

My handwriting has gotten worse over time and I decided that another calligraphy pen might mitigate my descent into illegibility. I got a red Lamy Joy and I’ve been using it in my attempts at haiku.

I have a third fountain pen. It’s a mint colored Kaweco Skyline Sport. Chuck found it, abandoned, in a pocket park in Lake City when we were down there for ArtFields and passed it along to me. It’s designed to get its length from sticking the cap on the end. If you don’t, it feels short when you actually use it.

Lamy, Waterman and Kaweco
Blue Ridge Mountains

August 26, 2025

a day in this life, Beautiful, home, travel

This was posted on Reddit. I have tried to look up where it came from originally. But, all I can find are reposts over the last year. I have no idea who took the picture. I wish I could give credit for it.

This explains both names, Blue Ridge and Smokies.
After the wheat

August 22, 2025

a day in this life, dirt under my nails, home, plants

After we “harvested” the wheat, some wildflowers decided to show up. I’m curious to see how this continues. There were supposed to be 17 types of wildflowers in this collection of seeds. They aren’t full and lush. Neither are they dead. Next summer will be interesting.

A sprinkling of wildflowers

Indian blanket and, I think, clasping coneflowers

Scarlet sage, Salvia coccinea

There was some butterfly sex going on out there, too. But, I decided to allow them some privacy.