Pelicans on the Mississippi River

American White Pelicans on the Upper Mississippi

American White Pelicans on the Mississippi River © 2012 Bo Mackison

 The soul has illusions as the bird has wings: it is supported by them. ~ Victor Hugo

This is the first year I have ever seen lotus flowers bloom across half the Mississippi River (in early July near Stoddard Wisconsin) and this past weekend I saw hundreds of American white pelicans brood in a protected area of the Mississippi near the Savanna, Illinois/Sabula, Iowa bridge. Amazing.

I have lived within a hundred miles of the Mississippi River most of my life. I have traveled the river roads from Dubuque, Iowa to St. Louis. Missouri hundreds of times. I’ve walked along the banks in dozens of Mississippi River towns, some only a few blocks in width, wedged on the available land between the river’s edge and the vertical bluffs. A  few of the larger cities crept up those limestone bluffs and then sprawled along the prairie lands – Dubuque, Minneapolis, Keokuk, Quincy, St. Louis are just a few I know well, the ones I have visited since childhood.

I’ve explored the Mississippi at its start in Minnesota, the beginnings of the river only a few steps wide. I’ve explored the Mississippi in Louisiana, boating through the bayous, walking along the Gulf Coast. My family and I took a cruise that left from New Orleans, heading to the Caribbean, and we rocked and rolled through the Mississippi Delta in the dark. Occasionally we’d see lighted platforms from the oil rigs, truly out in the middle of nowhere. Sitting at our dinner table on the cruise, we were mesmerized by the controlled sloshing of our drinks in the clear crystal glasses. The ship would tip towards the starboard, then tip towards the port, like a baby’s cradle, as it followed the channel. A bit disconcerting on our first evening on board. Our waiter told us they were trained to fill the glasses to different levels, dependent on how rough the river was running.

The Mississippi River is the longest river that begins and ends in the United States, if you consider the outpouring of her waters into the Mississippi Delta as part of the country. I never quite realized how attached I was to this river until I began exploring more of the river and the roads and towns that are near her shores.

Love this river in her many forms!

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. This summer, she is taking weekend trips up and down the mighty Mississippi and documenting her short road trips with camera and pen.

 

Following the Garden Path

Watering Allen Centennial Gardens

Crooked Gardens © 2012 Bo Mackison

Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence.     ~ Henry David Thoreau

If ever I am in need of some spirit lifting, one of my first remedies is to find the nearest flower garden and follow a path or two. I seem unable to hold onto a bad mood or an angry thought or hurt feelings once I begin to wander from one flower bed to the next.

And for an even more delightful experience, one sure to make me smile and even laugh, I run through sprinklers and cool water drops while looking for the newest blossoms. There is nothing finer than to walk through a garden while being spattered with cool water from the twirling watering hoses – especially when it is 90˚ and there’s not a cloud in the sky.

These lovely gardens were photographed at the Allen Centennial Gardens on the University of Wisconsin’s campus in Madison. This summer the staff has added vertical tubes of color in all the flower bed, each tube’s color coordinates with the flowers and foliage. Fun!

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC.  She spends as much time as possible wandering in flowering gardens, usually with camera in hand.

Dahlia, Solarized

Dahlia, with Solarization © 2012 Bo Mackison

Dahlia, with Solarization © 2012 Bo Mackison

I look upon the pleasure which we take in a garden as one of the most innocent delights in human life… It gives us a great insight into the contrivance and wisdom of Nature, and suggest innumerable subjects for meditation.  ~ Cicero

This is an Esther dahlia after a photo session with s solarizer. Two summers ago I feel in love with Esther dahlia, as I familiarly call her now, seeing as she is one of my favorite flower friends. I captured her beauty in full bloom the first time I saw her, and then returned to the Olbrich Botanical Gardens many time later in the season to see what Esther was up to. I have photos when she is in a tight bud, just blooming, fully in bloom, beginning to lose her vigor, and finally the dahlia as only a few scattered petals on the brick walkway.

Solarization is a process in photography which the image on a print is reversed in tone. Dark is light or light is dark. I used a partial solarizing technique. The whites were once yellows and oranges, the dark areas were once sunny highlights shining through the open areas between the petals and the garden’s green background.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. Today as she spends time indoors processing photos, Bo will look out the window and appreciate the cloudy skies and the rain soaked land.

Looking for Rain in My Crystal Ball

Crystal Ball - Through the Screen Porch

Looking through the Screen Porch © 2012 Bo Mackison

I never saw a discontented tree.  They grip the ground as though they liked it, and though fast rooted they travel about as far as we do.  They go wandering forth in all directions with every wind, going and coming like ourselves, traveling with us around the sun two million miles a day, and through space heaven knows how fast and far!  ~John Muir

Perhaps John Muir never saw a discontented tree, and he certainly had a long-term love affair with them, but I’m seeing many sad, very dry trees in southern Wisconsin.

While I was experimenting with a crystal ball and my camera, I took this photo of my one of my favorite trees, the red maple that we planted in our back yard in 2001. This maple is doing well since we are watering it weekly. The rest of the yard doesn’t look too perky. In fact, it looks downright parched, except for an area of green around our perennial/vegetable garden.

The weatherman I listened to this morning somehow knows — looking through HIS crystal ball — that we will get rain tomorrow evening, perhaps a quarter of an inch or so. I do hope he has some special connections and his forecast proves true. My green Midwest is no longer lush and green. It is brown and crispy.

In yesterday’s post, I mentioned that we were not watering the grass, only the trees. A reader informs me that most grass will survive without any moisture for about 60 days. Our last significant rainfall was in early June, so I am watching the calendar. Another two weeks of this, and we may have to add the grass to our watering schedule.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She is experimenting with crystal ball photography while assessing the crispness of the grass.

Crystal Ball Photography – Trees in a Drought

Crystal Ball Photography - Red Maple

Crystal Ball Photography – Red Maple © 2012 Bo Mackison

It is difficult to realize how great a part of all that is cheerful and delightful in the recollections of our own life is associated with trees.  ~Wilson Flagg

The drought in the Midwest – the one I know the most about  – just may turn into a ravaging killer. Farmers I’ve talked to say they have maybe a week or ten days to save their crops, but only IF they get a few inches of soil soaking rain. In my area, Madison Wisconsin, nearly every one has allowed their grass to go dormant. A good thing. Grass will recover and happily green when the rains come.

Advice, straight from the website of the County Extension Service is “forget the grass, but please water your trees.”

In my neighborhood I’ve already seen four trees, all 10 to 15-year-olds, succumb to heat stress. Their leaves browned several weeks ago and now the leaves have dropped, giving several yards an eerie look of autumn.

Other trees in the neighborhood show other signs of stress –  leaf curling, especially in the highest branches, and a scattering of yellowing leaves. These trees need water. Now. If you use a watering schedule and water at night, your water bills will certainly reflect the watering of your trees, but I guarantee it is more cost-effective to water now rather than remove and replace a dead tree next spring. Just saying.

A few gardening basics will give our trees and plants the best chance to survive these difficult conditions:

1. Water your trees. Don’t wait until your trees show signs of stress. Make sure each tree receives a long soaking – duration of at least several hours – at least once a week. The most effective and easiest way to water is to use a hose on trickle. We’ll set one up at the base of a tree in the late evening, and then turn it off in the early morning. This gives adequate water and time for the roots to fully benefit from the watering. We have eight trees in our yard that we have identified as needing a weekly watering. I set up a schedule, and water a tree every night. Eight trees, seven days. It’s close enough.

2. Mulch your trees. If your trees don’t have at least a 12 inch circle of mulch around them – more if the tree is large – you are missing an opportunity to use less when watering. A heavy layer of mulch not only helps protect the roots of young trees, it also holds on to the moisture from watering for all ages of trees. This makes watering more cost-effective.

3. Grass doesn’t need watering,  unless you are establishing a new lawn. You can save your money and not feel badly. Once it begins to rain again, the grass will return to its summer green in a few weeks or months.

4. Do water the plants most important to you. I water my small perennial garden using an irrigation trickler for an hour each night. These flowers give me great pleasure and I do not want to take a chance on their health. Plus, I have several tomato and pepper plants interspersed in the flowers, and I do love to pick and eat fresh veggies from the garden.

So, think about your yard’s and garden’s priorities, and then water where needed.

Meanwhile, I’ll return to my rain dance!

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She is experimenting with crystal ball photography. More on that tomorrow. Today she is more concerned about the trees in her neighborhood!