Book Review: Pilgrim Wheels

Posted on February 24, 2020 by John Kevin Hickey

I’m a sucker for books about bicycle touring. Especially ones about riding the United States from coast-to-coast. I’ve day-dreamed about doing such a trek myself, but that is about as far as I’ve gotten. I read these type of books as a way for me to ride vicariously through the eyes of those who have done the deed.

Neil Hanson is a fellow Colorado resident and a man who was pushing 60 years of age at the time he set out to ride from California to New England (he turns 57 during part of his ride in the book). Pilgrim Wheels is part one of a two-part travelogue. Part one starts in San Francisco and finishes in Kansas. Mr. Hanson approaches the ride with both trepidation and a positive outlook.

He goes on at some length about the sense of spirituality he derives from his “pilgrimage”. He feels this most acutely in the quiet and remote parts of the desert Southwest. While his musing are in no way profound, they do make for some enjoyable insights as to why he is making the journey. Plus, Mr. Hanson is obviously a genial and upbeat individual, and his ability to enjoy the moment makes for fun reading.

Mr. Hanson tries to, often unsuccessfully, avoid developing a sense of superiority over his chosen means of transportation. He’ll make note of how he is able to observe the natural world around him in closer detail than someone who whizzes by in an air-conditioned automobile. He becomes aware of how judgemental his view is, and attempts to be more humble, but it comes off more as a humble-brag. It’s not a good look.

(As an aside, this attitude is a big part of why bicyclists are despised by many. There is nothing virtuous about riding a bicycle. If a rider wants to save gas by riding, or get some exercise, or even “save the environment” have at it. Just be aware that the act of bicycle riding doesn’t make the rider special).

I mentioned at the beginning that I am enchanted by these coast-to-coast riding adventures, but I find that the more of them I read the less enchanted I get. That’s because I’ve come to realize that most of these authors never go or see anything on their riding adventures. Mostly they just wake up, wolf down breakfast and head onto the road for another day of riding until they find somewhere to stop for the night. They do this day after day until they reach their final destination. Whee?

For all Mr. Hanson’s rhapsodizing about becoming one with the surrounding natural world, he never actually explores any of it. He just cranks out miles on the way to a pre-determined destination. While he avoids major interstates in favor of the backroads, his view of the passing countryside is still limited to what he can see from the road.

By my reckoning, here are just a few places he could taken a detour and spent a few days exploring: Monterey, Paso Robles, Napa Valley, Sedona, Mesa Verde, Great Sand Dunes National Park and more. Nope, it’s just nose to the handlebars for 1500 miles for Mr. Hanson. It’s his ride, and he has at least done it unlike myself. But it seems like there should be more to this type of adventure than just racking up miles in the saddle.

Still, Pilgrim Wheels is a fast and overall enjoyable read and I do intend to read the sequel (Pilgrim Spokes) soon. If you enjoy books about bicycle touring tales this is a good addition into the genre. If you are not into such books, this is not a book for you.

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Unexpected garden disasters

Posted on February 17, 2020 by John Kevin Hickey

Gardening can be such a enriching and rewarding activity. It provides the gardener an opportunity to work the soil in the ways of his or her forbearers. It can be an awesome form of physical activity; try digging a tree stump out for a few hours; you’ll get both aerobic exercise and a strength training workout in, along with copious amounts of sweat, cursing and bloody blisters.

Gardening also provides the practitioner a chance for quiet contemplation and peaceful introspection.

But gardening also has a darker side; for it can be humbling and heartbreaking activity chock full of failure and frustrations. Experienced gardeners become acutly aware of just how small and helpless they are in the face of nature and the elements.

Late season snowstorms can rip large branches off of trees, or even snap them in half. High winds can blow mature trees down. Droughts may leave nothing in the garden but dessicated sticks and twigs. Torrential rains can cause flooding and mass destruction. Insects and diseases can turn the landscape into a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

A gardener really only has two courses of action in the face of these calamities: accept that this is a part of gardening and move on, or rail at the clouds about the injustice of it all and then accept it and move on. I myself lean more toward the latter.

And then there are unexpected man-made disasters. Such as when the power company whacks back tree branches that are getting close too the power lines, but leave behind a tree that looks like something out of a Salvador Dali painting. Or a neighbor who indiscriminately sprays week-killer chemicals on a windy day and some of that spray lands on a prized plant in your yard.

Or when the cable company, of which you are not even a subscriber, comes in and tears up a portion of your landscape and causing untold damage. Such a thing happened to me recently.

Last week Comcast invaded my little slice of Eden in order to install an “emergency” conduit. Most residents who live in housing developments are usually aware that the six feet of your property, going from the sidewalk into the yard, is an easement. The city or utitilties can access this section for various reasons, including widening the street! I suspect a lot of homeowners aren’t aware that this six foot easement extends around your entire property line. You never read that little tidbit of information when gardening magazines or online articles talk about installing a garden bed on your landscape perimeter.

I found out about this fact the hard way about ten years ago when one-third of my driveway border was dug up to access powerlines. I lost several plants that year, and it took a long time for the new plants that replaced them to mature and fill in the blank spots.

So, when paint markings and utility flags mysteriously appeared in my yard, I immediately knew something was in the works. The markings started in the street, worked their way up the border next to the driveway and into the backyard.

Thus I was not terribly surprised when a slew of trucks, towing various trailers of large equipment, showed up on my driveway and disgorged work crews to stomp on my garden beds.

I wandered out to talk to the foreman for an update. He was a very nice man, about my age, who was very apologetic about the havoc he was about to wreck upon my landscape. He explained why they had to go through my yard to install the conduit. I thanked him for his time and went on about my business. These are the vagaries of gardening life.

As you can see by the pictures below, Comcast at least attempted to limit the amount of damage unlike the power company ten years ago. I’m truthfully not too upset by all this, because as I stated at the beginning, gardening has a way of making a gardener humble. And I knew there were risks that things like this might happen when I put my borders in on the property.

By the driveway. They had to pull up a large flagstone to gain more access.
Access hole in the birdbath garden

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Giant hole in the backyard corner.

That doesn’t mean, however, that I’m particularly happy about all this either. There is no way to tell right now just how much damage has incurred, but I suspect a few plants will not be returning this year. I won’t know for sure for several months.

If I had been thinking properly, I should have told them that if they needed to, they could access their lines by digging out the serviceberry in the bird bath garden. The one I intend to remove anyway. Would of saved me a lot of labor later this year. 😉

To add insult to injury, the Comcast folks hit a power line and knocked out power in the neighborhood for several hours. Fortunately, after I informed them they got right on it and the power company came out and returned power in a few hours. Well, some of us anyway. I found out later that parts of the neighborhood didn’t get their power restored until early the next morning.

There is one positive I am taking from this whole situation. Gardeners are always falling in love with a new plant. I myself recently found out about a salvia called “Mojave Sage”, and this plant really intrigues me. Hardy to my zone 5 region, it requires no supplemental watering when established. The only real requirement it needs is dry conditions in the winter. My driveway garden would be perfect for such a plant. So should some of the plants have perished in this setback, I already have a replacement in mind.

Mojave sage. Perfect plant for the hot and dry driveway garden.

What’s the worst catastrophe to ever afflict your garden? Did you just return the garden to its status quo, or did it provide you an opportunity to try something completely new?

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A gardener in winter: dreaming and scheming (part 2)

Posted on February 13, 2020 by John Kevin Hickey

Welcome the A gardener in winter: dreaming and scheming Part Deux. In Part One I discussed my plans for renovating a section of my borders that I call the “birdbath border”. You’ll find that post here: https://www.mrvintageman.com/a-gardener-in-winter-time-for-dreaming-and-scheming-part-1/.

In Part Two I’m going to discuss some of the tweaks I plan to apply to other sections of my yarden.

I mentioned in Part One that most gardeners are never satisfied with their gardens. No matter how awesome it looks to everyone else, to the gardener it’s just not quite right. Just one more plant, container or piece of art is going to make it all finally match the vision in the gardener’s imagination. In the words of Cliff Clavin, there is a fine line between gardening and madness.

Plantwise, I’m only planning on adding a handful of plants to a few areas to “improve” that part of the border. In the section I renovated last year (see below), I’m only going to add a single shrub: Viking Black Chokeberry. This is a three season shrub that sets white blossoms in spring, develops black berries in late summer and then the leaves turn an orange/red color in the fall. It doesn’t get too large, just roughly 3-5 feet tall and 4-6 feet tall.

Last year’s renovation

Elsewhere in the borders, I want to add a few grasses on the back corner to give that section a more “prairie” feel to it. It’s hard to tell from the picture below, but there is a large ornamental Ravenna grass way back in the corner. This plant is supposed to get to 5-6 feet tall with plumes up to 8 feet tall, but mine has never come close to that. Perhaps it is not getting enough sun or water and that is causing it to be stunted. I’m going to give it a few more years to mature in hopes it finally reaches its potential.

Needs more ornamental grasses!

My plan is to thin out some of the other plants to make room for 2 or 3 “Northern Lights” switchgrass. This corner is supposed be the autumn section of the border (I like to cluster plants that bloom around the same time to give the garden more “pop”). Overall this section looks good in late summer and fall, but there is just something missing. I’m hoping the switch grasses will help fill in whatever is missing.

Behind the patio I am going to put in 2 or 3 plants called “chocolate flower”. This plant is a native to the prairies of Colorado and New Mexico. Supposedly, when the flowers open they give off a strong aroma of milk chocolate.

Chocolate flower

Everything I’ve read says chocolate flower is tough and drought tolerant, but when not in bloom the plant itself is not much to look at. Which is why I’m putting it behind the patio, where the desert 4 o’clocks will help disguise the less than ideal foliage. Well, I’m also placing them here because I am looking forward to sitting on my patio and enjoying the smell of chocolate!

Desert 4 o’clocks should help disguise the less-than-ideal foliage of the chocolate flowers.

My next tweak doesn’t involve plants at all. Instead, I need to find some kind of focal point for the back corner. Gardens are in a way very similar to the rooms of your house. The most trafficked rooms usually have some kind of “focal point”. A focal point can be a kitchen island, a T.V., a painting, or perhaps a fireplace. It’s something that allows the eye to come to rest and it helps create a spot where people will want to congregate.

The patio in the back provides a focal point when looking toward the house.

If you were to stand in the far corner of my back yard and look toward the house, my deck and patio would be the focal point. The problem is, this is not where I spend my time relaxing and enjoying my yarden. I’m usually ON the deck or patio and looking OUT into the garden. While looking out at my borders, I just don’t have a focal point. The Ravenna grass in the corner is supposed to provide be such a focal point, but so far it has come up short (pun intended). So this year I’m going to put in something that will provide a focus. I’m not entirely sure yet what that something will be. Perhaps a windmill, or birdhouses or even a large colorful pot. Stay tuned!

But when looking out into the yard, there is just something missing. That missing ingredient is a focal point, something that stops the eye from wandering and allows it to come to a rest.

Have you ever noticed if your garden has a focal point? If so, what is it and why does it work for you? I’m looking for ideas.

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