Cue the music (Also Sprach Zarathurstra)! Something amazing is happening among the ferns!

Here is the explanatory text, in case you ‘d like to know how the music came to be written. The link above is the shorter part that you might recognize from the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. Or try this, the longer version, where you can watch the whole orchestra.

I have loved Hosta plants for years. I had a nice patch of them at our old house. They’re perennials, and would very reliably lose their leaves in the winter and come back up in the spring, growing and blooming nicely underneath a big, old pecan tree. When we moved, I thought the north side of the house would be perfect. Also growing there were wood ferns, which also lost their leaves with the first frost, but bounced right back again, pushing up their tiny, curled-up fronds when the weather warmed back up.

Here’s Peter, last spring, digging a hole for the new Hosta I had bought. There are two who came back from the previous year, one close to the toe of his boot, and one close to the heel.

So I bought and planted Hostas, with pretty limited success. I keep on trying.

I no longer purchase several Hosta plants each year. I usually get one, maybe two.

This year, I bought one new one, thinking this might be the last time I try (but, alas, I always forget about “one last time” each year when spring rears its delightful head). Then, I had Peter with me at a nursery, and we decided that I might should get another one.

Later that day, we were playing outside and I said, “Oh! Look here! One of the Hostas has come back!”

Several days later, YES!! Another one.

And, then, a third one. We had the coldest winter in several years, with temps of 12 and 13 degrees for a couple of days. And, still, they came back. And, I have two more, all ready to go into the ground. Maybe I shouldn’t try buying a variety of them. Possibly I should just keep adding the ones that seem hardier. Well, too late for that this year. Maybe next.

And not only are they beautifully adorned, they smell and taste pretty good, too!

Peter’s most recent weekend visit to Waco was a bit out-of-ordinary. David was out of town, and Thursday evening is usually Granddad-and-Peter time at the Mayborn Museum, which is open until 9:00 on Thursdays. I, apparently, am not as much fun at the Mayborn as David is, so Peter said he’d just wait until Saturday, when Granddad would be back.

We arrived in Waco last Thursday, late afternoon, and went straight to the library, instead. Peter’s developed an interest in the animated series Paw Patrol, and I had a couple of books and a video on hold. We got those, and well, as long as we’re here, can we get a Bob (the Builder) and, LOOK! A Chuck! Well-armed with entertainment, we stopped at H.E.B for rice and Texas Toast, and headed home.

Fridays are usually zoo days (I’m at least rather fun at the zoo). For breakfast, Peter thought he’d like pancakes. “Do you have a Millennium Falcon cookie cutter, Mimi? You could use it to make Star Wars pancakes.” “No, I don’t have that. But I do have  … ”

HOW NOT TO VISIT THE ZOO

When Peter and I arrived at the zoo, there were about six big yellow school buses, sitting along the curb. Lots of people were sitting at picnic tables outside the zoo. When we went in, there were many teen-agers getting prepared sack lunches.

We had our lunch and then went out to visit one of Peter’s favorite places, The Brazos River Country Fresh Water Aquarium, or, as Peter calls it: “Fish School.”

We like to pretend (or, he likes to pretend) that we are teaching each other about the important body parts and habits of the animals we see there. Most visits, we spend about half our time there. In the summer, it’s particularly nice, because it’s cool and damp and dark in there. In addition to fish, there are also exhibits with reptiles and amphibians.

While we were there, large groups of the out-of-town teens, along with their sponsors, came through. I finally got my phone out and pulled up the “timer” app. When the next group opened the door, I started the timer. Two-and-a-half minutes passed from the time the first kid came through the door until the last kid went out. Two-and-a-half minutes. And that’s not the total time that each individual kid was in that exhibit. That’s how long it took an entire group of thirty or so to completely enter and then exit the space. The first kid was walking out at about the same time the last kid was walking in. Not the way to visit a zoo. Or a museum. Or an exhibit, anywhere.

If you’d told me, years ago, that I would find plant nurseries to be places where I have no self control, I’ve have been skeptical. But you’d have been right.

I am trying to be better about not looking at every cute plant and assuming, “I can grow that!” I’m getting more responsible about paying attention to light needs and water needs. And reality.

A while back, I found some seed packages at Calloway’s Nursery in Fort Worth. “I can do that,” I said to myself, and bought them. Microgreens. The idea is that they sprout and grow right inside your kitchen, and you just snip off the leaf tops and add them to your nice, green salad. And I thought that, yes, that would be a fun, interesting addition to Christmas dinner. One of the packages said, “14-20 days” until ready to harvest. I’d waited too late. The other one said “5-10 days.” Just right.

I planted them over the weekend.

I’m watering the pans with a spray bottle, to try to avoid completely drowning the little plants. The bottoms of the pans (which are cardboard) are slightly damp. I don’t want to get the soil all water-logged. But, I don’t really know how deep these roots go. So I’m keeping the surface damp, too.

The way things look now, there’s going to be a nice crop of MICRO-GREENS for our Christmas Day salad. Surely I can keep these things alive for three more days.

  Then he taught them many things by using stories. He said:

I know that weather forecasting is an imperfect science and those weather folks are doing the best they can. But, because it is an imperfect science and they are sometimes wrong … really wrong, I’m bad about discounting their advice. For example, I’ve killed trees and lawns by trusting that the expected rain will actually fall. Conversely, I’ve sent perfectly good plants to their early demises by not believing that the temperature will drop below freezing. NOT THIS YEAR!!

Many of the plants on my back patio are new this year, having been purchased to replace those that didn’t make it through the first freeze last year. I’ve tried to be a wise and good plant mother to them, and they all look pretty good. So I’ve been following the weather rather closely. And, according to the weather app on my phone, Thursday night the temperature was supposed to drop to 30. Actually, it’s not supposed to get down to 30 until 6:00 a.m. the next morning, but the high temperature for the day was at 9:00 a.m. (low 40’s), so I bundled myself up and dug out my long cuffed gloves and went out.

Everything else has to stay outside. We have a garage, which can keep the plants from freezing, but there’s not enough light, even if I keep the garage door up.

Several years ago, in our previous yard, I had some upright, white bougainvillea (yeah, I really like bougainvillea). Before a freeze, I went to the nursery to ask about how to protect them. “Put plastic over them?” I asked. “First,” the nurserymen said, “cover them with a sheet. That helps heat stay in. Then, cover that with plastic. Plastic alone can damage the plant.” I did that, but those plants aren’t really meant to be in the ground in Central Texas.

But, I remembered the “sheet, then plastic” advice, and went with that.

Sometimes, I can get away with just moving plants close to the house, because it’s a little warmer there, out of the wind, so I started with that.

Everything’s nestled all snug in their beds. The temps are supposed to be in the low to high 50’s for the next two days, but the overnight temps in the mid to low 30’s. And in a week, the high is supposed to be 70 with a low of 51. I think it’s just the beginning of my winter plant dance.