Vines Vining Away - Plus Fresh Rain on the Pines

Our backyard - heavily Photoshopped.

Vines are so much fun - and trouble. The ones we want do not grow overnight. The ones we hate will lie in wait and make their way across the places they are not wanted.

The Ivy League is called that because a Harvard bigshot liked Japanese ivy and began growing it on the old buildings, so it is called Boston ivy. Yale copied it. No one thought the vines could be tree-like and destructive of buildings. The other schools united with the ivy fad and called their football league of eggheads the Ivy League.

I have English ivy - not the kind grown at Harvard in Boston - growing on the front of the house. We like it and let the vine grow over the picture window. Those are our organic drapes, always changing a bit, and perfect for male birds to land on and see the reflection of imagined rivals in the spring.

The best and worst about vines is their seeking for sunlight. The English ivy tried to grow into the house through the window and under the door. The ivy spread across the patio and entered the rose garden. We found it easy to cut away from unwanted areas, but that is only an armistice, not a peace treaty.

I planted three Trumpet vines, one by the maple tree in the front, one on the fence where it would get sunlight and water, one in the shade behind a tree. The most neglected is still growing up a tree and finding sunlight. The most coddled is growing ferociously now and has bloomed. The one in the maple tree rose garden is doing well on the ground and up the tree.

Morning Glory vines reach out for support, just like pumpkins. I enjoy the architecture of those plants, willing to grab a fence spring, a rose branch, anything for support.

 Hostas thrive in shade,
and Hummingbirds love Hosta flowers.

Pine Needles
The pine needles already look good on the Hosta garden, which only lacks another dose of needles and more Hostas.

We got the first application from the neighbors on Saturday, and they promised more would fall. I offered to harvest them too.

The rain got all the fresh cardboard soggy and heavy, and rain will bring down more needles and leaves.

The mulch not only preserves moisture and soil, but keeps the soil warmer for the soil creatures that decompose and re-arrange all the useful chemicals. The soil creatures keep up some activity as it gets cooler, but more is done when the critters are kept warm.

They proposed bubble plastic for swimming pools in the winter, in Phoenix. The sun would beat down and warm up the water, they claimed. I tried that once and got an algae bloom that was second to none, but not the desired warmth in the pool.

Coverings on the soil can promote all kinds of growth, including fungi and algae, but in natural conditions the food is eaten by the vegetarian creatures. The vegans are eaten by the predators, and the predators by other predators - even their own kind.

In this circle of life designed by the Creator and managed expertly by Him, nothing gets out of hand unless man steps in with some wild ideas.

• Landscaper's cloth - that will block weeds for a time, then the weeds break through to make an unholy mess.
• Black plastic partially covered by rocks or wood mulch. Plastic does not last and those coverings do not work very well at all. Soil should not be suffocated with plastic.
• Herbicides kill a lot more than weeds, and many weeds can be covered and converted to compost. Some weeds are easily pulled  - like crabgrass. Other weeds are herbs that should be left alone - like dandelion.
• Pesticides kill spiders, beneficial insects, and lots of other life. If I kill a million skeeters with poison, a billion more will replace them.
• Fungicides are good for killing fungus, which is what we really want in our gardens. I like slime molds that show up to devour other molds. They look like dog vomit and go away fast. Some pranksters used to buy plastic stuff like that - it's free.
• Excess digging, rototilling, double digging, plowing. If God wanted all those delicate fungus strands broken up, all the earthworms killed, and all the balance destroyed, He would have done it by now.

Lack of Curiosity - Lack of Energy - Lack of Will

 Our drugged and alcohol-pacified society is content to copy and paste
creativity while assailing anyone who disturbs their three-day naps.

The video above deals with the lost civilizations of the world whose accomplishments are still carved in stone. My mother was fascinated with the Mexican and South American cultures. People still scratch their heads and wonder how this massive engineering feats were imagined, designed, and created.

That is also true for the pyramids of Egypt, which exist in various formations and sizes throughout the world.

I used to laugh at the ultimate answer to all these questions - "Aliens from outer space did this." That is how I answer similar questions on Facebook.

There are no alien records to dispute, no aliens to interview, no ships to board for inspection. That is the perfect answer for all questions.

My rudest shock in teaching undergraduates again, whether they were smart or not, from public schools or homeschooling, was this - their utter lack of curiosity.

Almost every question in the world can be answered (often badly) by putting the issue in Google for a search. I had some electrical problems with the Ichaboat, which were not solved by replacing the alternator. I was able to search the Net for a discussion page about my 94 Lincoln Town Car, Executive Series. That gave me a lot of clues, but the AAA repairman had the final answer - a $4500 testing device - revealing a bad, new replacement alternator.

The Net gave me a chance to think through the answers and consider what each one meant for repair or future troubles.

Why was the Chaste Tree doing so badly on the rainwater I gave it? Answer - never water the Chaste Tree and give it plenty of sun. I was wrong on two counts and moved it. The plant responds to pruning so I pruned all of it and new life came out of that drooping shrub.

What was the weird growth on two roses? I checked articles and photos - the dreaded rosette disease. Cure? Dig it up with the roots and remove all traces. That ended the problem and made me far more aware of the issue. I also found false statements about causes, which can be compared against well established research.

History of Civilizations
Few people know the history of Rome. We studied that history as a normal part of Latin 1 and 2. We had to know how and when it began, who Julius Caesar was, and read his self-promoting diaries. No one takes Latin now - a statistically insignificant number can claim that distinction.

 Martin Luther College, WELS

The Roman Republic - which required marriage for citizens - turned into the Roman Empire, where the first 15 emperors were either bi or homosexual. That includes Julius, who was called "the wife of every man and the husband of every woman," as well as the "Queen of Bithynia."

Rome absorbed every engineering achievement from the cultures it conquered and implemented them, building upon the foundation of Greek and Egyptian math and engineering. "The Romans had the drains, but the Greeks had the brains."

Once Rome settled into the excesses of wealth and power, the culture began to decline. I grew up hearing, "We are just like Rome, going the same direction," and that was during Good Old Days, when men had spines instead of management techniques.

Biblical studies are a good example. We have centuries of scholarship, good and bad, but plenty to use. We have the texts available on the computer. And yet a business can add and subtract from the Bible - as the New NIV has done - and the simpletons of WELS say, "Love it. Buy it. Use it." The others are no better.

I read that giant celebrity churches like Willow Creek demanded and feminist Bible and got it in the New NIV, which will change more often than cloud formations in the years to come.

Thousands of Lutherans will graduate from colleges and seminaries and never ask the important questions, because they have no curiosity. They only want to subjugate their minds so they can graduate and progress in the synod.

As my professor at Notre Dame (now at Harvard) said, "Those who never leave school fail to develop independent thinking." She was supporting me in disagreeing with her in class, while other students thought that meant expulsion from the program.

America may turn things around again, but not without repentance. Too many want the rivers of drugs and vice that cross the borders. Too many want easy jobs with total security, as long as they behave and cause no waves.

I am sure that those Lutherans who watch the Moody video to the end with cringe at the Decision Theology at the end. But why? All your leaders look to the Decision Theology Evangelicals to teach them evangelism. They go to those schools and let themselves and Luther be pistol-whipped by the professors of Fuller, Willow Creek, and Trinity Divinity.  And those subjugated leaders, who are no better or wiser than sheep, get out their whips and cattle prods to order the pastors and congregations to follow their example.