Intensive Creation Unit Refilled with Rainwater - Barrels Full. Trumpet Vines Arrive Dry. Newlywed Admires Roses

My rainbarrels were empty so I filled the second one with city water, to evaporate out the chlorine. Both barrels overflowed last night, and the backyard had standing water before the rain began today. We had morning rain and will enjoy evening rain most of the night.

Our newlywed friend came over to see the roses after their college graduation. She loved Falling in Love Rose, so I offered to send it home with her. Instead, she took a vase of roses. I distributed three vases today before I ran out of red roses from the only one KnockOut Rose bush. Rain kept me from doing much more today in cutting roses.

While we were talking, the trumpet vines arrived. To be more precise, three sticks came in an empty box large enough for a small Christmas tree. I found loose dirt inside. The nursery suggested soaking two hours first before planting. Given the vitality of trumpet vines, that was worth a try, so I floated all three in a rain barrel.

Falling in Love Rose is fragrant
but was rather petite the first year of growth.

Long ago I read that vines sent up trees fail because they are planted too close to the tree, in rooty shallow soil,  too far from a good bed of soil. For two trees, I did exactly that, planted in a pocket of good soil,  Earthworms rose up and wiggled away. I made the newspaper section with the hole in the middle to serve as a bib to protect against weeds. The newspaper draping the vine also distinguishes the forlorn stick from everything else in the yard.

Readers are wondering what happened to the third vine. I have Passion Flowers (two vines) going up one tiny tree, and honeysuckle vine already flowering and going up the dead tree.

I took the failsafe option and put the third trumpet vine along the fence on Mrs. Wright's side. The soil is rich with earthworms and the fellowship of other plants. The sunlight is close to perfect, and the Jackson Aerial Aqueduct showers water and bird dung on the plants below.

On Mrs. Wright's side and mine, the trumpet vine volunteers can be mowed away or exploited - depending.

Rototilling is a good way to work the abs
while destroying the soil and slaughtering the earthworms.
Mulching will accomplish far more at a lower cost.

Unsolicited Endorsement
I spoke to a butcher yesterday who asked about my gardens. I buy five pounds of suet at a time from him. He has great roses and a beautiful lawn. He said, "I don't do anything. I just let the Good Lord do it for me. My neighbors have lawn services and terrible lawns. God does a better job, don't you think?"

Meanwhile, our newspaper suggested that flowers near trees should get extra doses of fertilizer, because the tree roots will seek out the water and fertilizer put on the cultivated area.

Needless to say, if the fertilizer makes things worse, more commercial applications will be suggested.

The Professors Butcher Doctrine at the WELS Sausage Factory - But the Grads Come Out the Same. Paul Kuske Agrees about This, and DP Seifert Frowned

The faculty is almost the same size as the graduating class,
so one professor for every three or four students?

Ex District VP Paul Kuske:
"They turned out another class of false teachers!"
Too bad he grew up on Gausewitz' Catechism.

Frosty Bivens bragged about going to Fuller Seminary
in front of the Midland Michigan circuit,
but began denying it and calling that a lie.
His defense of UOJ is hilariously bad.

John Brug is retiring, so someone even worse will replace him.
His Ministry of the Word managed to omit the efficacy of the Word,
so he is at odds with the Old Testament, New Testament,
Luther, and the Book of Concord.

Tiefel's former choir member said they were not groping
each other during choir, not that he saw.
But he did attend a seminary wedding where he found two seminary
students in another room - reliving Sodom.

One Student Was Turned Down for Too Much Debt - Debt from His LCMS College!. Am I Nuts To Laugh, or Should Missouri Cry?

	CTSFW Continues Work to Address Issue of Educational Debt
	For Immediate Release May 8, 2015 FORT WAYNE, IND. (CTSFW)—Concordia Theological Seminary (CTSFW), Fort Wayne, Indiana, continues efforts to address the growing challenge of educational debt among seminary students. In July 2012, CTSFW was awarded a three year grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. to study and promote awareness about this issue. In January 2013, CTSFW began its work under the theme “Improving the Economic Well-being of Future Servants of Jesus Christ.” CTSFW has surveyed students, alumni, donors and congregation leaders to get feedback on the issue. The findings from these surveys, plus suggested action items to encourage increased support for students and teach students how to better handle educational debt, can be found here.  “We offer this report as a means for the church to begin to understand the financial challenges faced by current and future seminary students. The problem of seminary student educational debt has been building for a number of years and it is our hope that this report will begin a process to reverse this troubling trend of increasing student loan debt among our future church workers," commented the Rev. Mark Sheafer, CTSFW Lilly Grant project director. "This, of course, is not an issue that can be addressed by CTSFW alone. To realize successful solutions we propose to work jointly with those at the congregation, district and Synod levels. " In addition to this report, CTSFW has produced and distributed a video to raise awareness throughout The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, provided fundraising ideas for congregations, offered giving opportunities and created informational bulletin inserts and brochures. These resources may be found at www.ctsfw.edu/SupportFutureServants.      Share ### Concordia Theological Seminary (CTSFW), Fort Wayne, Indiana, exists to form servants in Jesus Christ who teach the faithful, reach the lost and care for all.  Founded in 1846, CTSFW is a seminary of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS). Learn more about CTSFW at www.ctsfw.edu and the LCMS at www.lcms.org. *** GJ - Our distinguished researcher,  Bruce Church, published the tuition cost figures a long time ago. The Concordia seminaries cost as much as Yale Divinity School, but their degrees are worthless outside of the system. Besides that, many District Presidents love kicking men out of the ministry, so the guys have enormous debts and no marketable skills. Dr. Robert Preus tried to address this, and they kicked him out. Note -  I thought you would get a kick out of this.  Last time I checked, less than one-percent of the LCMS budget supports the sems.  I’m sure all the pencil pushers at The Purple Palace with six-figure salaries will be more than willing to address the issue.  I have actually heard of one guy being rejected from CTSFW (for immoral living) because of too much debt from his undergrad at another Concordia Institution.  They created their own monster, and now they struggle to fix it.  --- Parish exerience - almost none. MDiv only. Expert on everything, including copying and pasting - Paul McCain. Bruce Kintz - the boss at CPH gets $290,000 a year in salary and benefits. The president and CEO grabs another $267,000 a year. Paul McCain, the poorly educated, plagiarizing VP Corporate Counsel consumes another $195,000 - for doing what? Those figures are for 2012. A little behind?

Butterfly Weed - For Monarch Butterflies, Butterflies in General. What I Learned in Crafts - Jackson Mulch Style

The Butterfly Weed is not related to the Butterfly Bush, except for the first name of the plants.

Instead, Butterfly Weed is related to milkweed, the mother's milk of Monarchs. As a relative, it is also food source for the Monarch larvae when they hatch,

I like most weeds, because each one has good, useful qualities, but this one is badly named. It does not have tiny flowers and is not an obnoxious pest (unlike Giant Hogweed).

It is really a perennial wildflower that many grow in their butterfly gardens.

I obtained three plants and some seed. The plants arrived yesterday, fairly dried out.

The previous night's rain provided two barrels of rainwater, so I first soaked the plants in rainwater for an hour. Immersed, not sprinkled.

I found a prominent spot where they would get water and sunlight and attention - near the Bee Balm.

The row was already mulched, so it only took a stab into the wet soil to open a place for all three.

Planting them was no chore, but I wanted them distinguished from the rest of the growing things, weeds included.

I have been doing something I learned from crafts class in school, long ago. I take a section of the newspaper, already soaked in rain, and tear a hole in the crease.

This gives me a circular area to fit around the tiny plant, a bib to let in water easily and yet smother the rambunctious weeds surrounding it.

The weeds think I am lazy and do not want to bend over and pull them out. That may be  true, but I also consider fresh, green, vibrant weeds to be future compost. The newspaper bib puts weeds in the dark and unleashes the forces of Creation on them. They wilt in the dark and fungi,bacteria, and earthworms turn them into the best soil amendment around.

Once the three bibs were installed and a few damp newspapers added for stray weeds, I opened a bag of shredded cyprus mulch on them and spread that around.

The next step is important. Although rain was hours away, I gently poured stored rainwater all over the mulch around each plant, using more rainwater to settle the soil around the fragile roots.

A wet plant in dry mulch is going to have the water wicked away by the dry wood, and that is wicked for the plant. But once soaked, the mulch will hold water for the newborn plant.

Gardening gurus will say wood throttles the nitrogen, so only use old, composted, wood. Wood will absorb nitrogen while rotting, but it will also give it up slowly later, a better bargain than the fear-mongers imagine. Pouring rainwater on the mulch provides an extra measure of nitrogen. When the roots become established they will insist on nitrogen from the fungi which are hungry for carbon.

The fungi are only too happy to absorb creatures rich in nitrogen.

At the center of any viable soil food web are plants. Plants control the food web for their own benefit, an amazing fact that is too little understood and surely not appreciated by gardeners who are constantly interfering with Nature’s system [Creation]. Studies indicate that individual plants can control the numbers and the different kinds of fungi and bacteria attracted to the rhizosphere by the exudates they produce...  

Soil bacteria and fungi are like small bags of fertilizer, retaining in their bodies nitrogen and other nutrients they gain from root exudates and other organic matter (such as those sloughed-off root-tip cells). Carrying on the analogy, soil protozoa and nematodes act as “fertilizer spreaders” by releasing the nutrients locked up in the bacteria and fungi “fertilizer bags.” The nematodes and protozoa in the soil come along and eat the bacteria and fungi in the rhizosphere. They digest what they need to survive and excrete excess carbon and other nutrients as waste. Left to their own devices, then, plants produce exudates that attract fungi and bacteria (and, ultimately, nematodes and protozoa); their survival depends on the interplay between these microbes. It is a completely natural system, the very same one that has fueled plants since they evolved [GJ - sic]. Soil life provides the nutrients needed for plant life, and plants initiate and fuel the cycle by producing exudates.

Lewis, Wayne;  Lowenfels, Jeff;  (2010-09-10). Teaming with Microbes: The Organic Gardener's Guide to the Soil Food Web, Revised Edition (Kindle Locations 199-206). Timber Press. Kindle Edition. 

Roses More Glorious
This morning I went out to do my paper route, putting the newspaper on the front porch of the Gardeners. I also placed a surprise near each Queen Elizabeth rose, one plaque for Bethany Joan Marie, and another for Erin Joy.

The KnockOut Roses are begging for cutting and pruning. The roses finish fast and start to fade, and they are not "self-pruning." Today the neighborhood mothers will each get a vase of roses - magenta, pink, white, and whatever the hybrid teas offer.

The result will be a new blooming, especially with so much rain and so many earthworms under the mulch.

Butterfly - by Norma Boeckler,
our artist who loves gardening, butterflies, and birds.