De rerum rubrarum (about red things)

OK, I know you guys don't care about the Latin, but I do. So indulge me. I once read that Queen Victoria gave herself a little Latin exercise every morning to stay in shape. A good model as far as I'm concerned.

The theme is red because I am very conscious of my tomatoes these days. I tell you, gardening in Oklahoma is a real challenge, and I am absolutely thrilled that I am promised a bumper crop of tomatoes this year! Last year, like any good Seattleite, I planted my tomatoes in full sun. Wrong, wrong wrong! They grew to about 7 feet tall, but nary a fruit. It didn't help that last summer was a blazer and our triple digit days started in May, but still...This year I planted them in partial shade, and that has proven a good choice. However, there are still hazards that I have no control over. The weather, for example. One plants tomatoes in May, smack dab in the prime storm season. How many aspiring plants have had their lives shredded by golf-ball size hail or by 70 mph winds? Not to mention the tornadoes. Tomatoes, tornadoes...should be a song. Anyway, I dodged those bullets this year (although some of colleagues had their car windows smashed by hail in OKC), so--so far, I am lucky. Read more about weather in the next paragraph. I am counting on Macella Hazan's fantastic recipe for Tomato Sauce I (page 93 of the Classic Italian Cookbook) that I have used for years to keep me in tomato sauce all through the winter. It freezes marvelously, and as long as I have that and homemade chicken stock in my freezer, I'm set. Have you ever been seduced by the heirloom tomato Mortgage Lifter? I am always, because I love the name so, and I always regret it, because the damn things grow so large that they have difficulty ripening evenly. But they are large! Like Atlas, they ought to be able to lift anything, and we all know how heavy mortgages are...below, two shots of the tomato plants. You can see that they are trying to marry with the wisteria vine. I'll keep you posted on that development.

Weather, a brief note between the red themes. Did I mention that hail is described--by the NOAA weather guys--by its size in gradations as follows: nickels, golfballs, softballs, and grapefruit. I kid you not. Someday I think I'll write novels based on weather mantras like this one, "Some storms may be severe..." My weather radio is prominently positioned in my dining room, and it has a blinking light that is either green or red. I probably listen to more weather than news. Jeez, that's scary!

So back to red. The next red issue is related to cardinals.

Cardinals are among my favorite birds here. This warm morning (it was shaping up to a 105 degree day) I was delighted to see a female in the bird bath. Just like a child, she was reluctant to get completely wet at first. She perched at the edge and sipped for a while, but I could tell that she was itching to let it all go. Next she hopped in and proceeded by delicate hops into deeper and deeper water. Scary! Finally all hell broke loose, and she started flapping and flinging water all over the place. By the time I got my camera she was gone, but she came back this evening, and I snapped her. That's her partner in the bird feeder, and in third photo you can see the great view I have from my dining room with the floor to ceiling windows. When I moved in there was a miserable little pond (lined with carpet) out there, and an odd assortment of ground covers, none of which were doing well. I took the pond out knowing it would be too much maintenance, and have been gradually dividing a very useful Oklahoma ground cover (Liriope muscari or Monkey grass) and moving it into this area. OK, what's that all about? Well, liriope was a "mythical nymph," and I don't know from what culture...I bet you can Wiki it and find out the answer. Confession: I'm using a 1948 edition of The Home Garden Self-Pronouncing Dictionary of Plant Names by Ralph Bailey published by the American Garden Guild in New York. And muscari? Egads, my little book doesn't have it! Yet, muscari is one of my favorite bulbs for the intense blue color of the flower, and the blooms of this monkey grass are very similar to the shape of that flower. Muscari literally carpeted my Seattle garden, as they ought to yours, Seattleites. But don't fall for the pitiful cry of the one named "neglectum." It's faint of heart. Darwin was right. The strong and plain are the survivors.

Next installment: The Regulating Line.