That's why they call it the PRACTICE of medicine

It's been some time since I posted. I thought I would try dividing things up into smaller posts rather than doing one huge looming one with cut-tags and ending up with a strange interlarding of comments on twelve different pieces of news and six different issues.

A close family member (not a partner or a member of my household) has been having a cancer scare. She does not in fact have cancer, but it was a very stressful month, in which a cascade of different kinds of scans and blood tests and visits to various oncologists was rendered much worse than it should have been by a slow-moving iatrogenic trainwreck. This began with a severe allergic reaction to the contast medium for the CAT scan and continued on through gigantic hallucination-causing doses of Benedryl to end in several other nasty drugs and an extended period as a couch potato, a role very ill-suited to the person in question and disquieting to everybody. Only this week has ordinary life seemed to be re-establishing itself. The patient, who was incorrectly diagnosed with a different flavor of cancer in 1996, has had frequent occasion to make use of my subject line.

I preferred to have solid information, whether good or bad, before posting; and it seemed difficult, mostly because of my habit of flinging everything into a single post, to write anything without mentioning it.

Pamela

That's why they call it the PRACTICE of medicine

It's been some time since I posted. I thought I would try dividing things up into smaller posts rather than doing one huge looming one with cut-tags and ending up with a strange interlarding of comments on twelve different pieces of news and six different issues.

A close family member (not a partner or a member of my household) has been having a cancer scare. She does not in fact have cancer, but it was a very stressful month, in which a cascade of different kinds of scans and blood tests and visits to various oncologists was rendered much worse than it should have been by a slow-moving iatrogenic trainwreck. This began with a severe allergic reaction to the contast medium for the CAT scan and continued on through gigantic hallucination-causing doses of Benedryl to end in several other nasty drugs and an extended period as a couch potato, a role very ill-suited to the person in question and disquieting to everybody. Only this week has ordinary life seemed to be re-establishing itself. The patient, who was incorrectly diagnosed with a different flavor of cancer in 1996, has had frequent occasion to make use of my subject line.

I preferred to have solid information, whether good or bad, before posting; and it seemed difficult, mostly because of my habit of flinging everything into a single post, to write anything without mentioning it.

Pamela

Very local phenology

ETA: The hermit thrush is back this evening!

Last year we had white-throated sparrows kicking up the litter under the bird feeder and carrying on about Canada and Sam Peabody late into the night. This year I have heard a single one calling just before dawn, just on the one day, with a common yellowthroat, also not heard again, keeping it company.

But yesterday afternoon a hermit thrush was singing in the front yard, or perhaps a few yards away. I didn't try to find it, because they are seldom to be found and don't seem to like it much. But the song was wonderful. You can listen to it here.

I am also pretty sure that we have cardinal fledglings, since I've heard a lot of warning "chip chip chip" from cardinals when I am out with the cat, and also the high keening sound of baby birds demanding their noms, NOW.

The flora is confused but enthusiastic.

It is in general a very good year for roses and irises. My Bengal Tiger irises raised two blooms for the first time in years. lblanchard's blue and yellow thugs outdid themselves. The white ones edged with blue that I put in back in the rose bed also bloomed, although the torrential rains over Wiscon weekend knocked them over. My burgundy ones haven't bloomed yet and should probably be moved to a sunnier location.

Daylilies and hairy bellflower are just thinking about blooming, though they came up and formed buds quite early. The peonies are a little sparse; one plant has not bloomed at all, though the pale pink one on the boulevard, which I keep meaning to move to a sunnier location as well, has three flowers. The tradescantia has pretty much abandoned the garden beds, probably kicked out by bellflower, and is rioting all over the yard in two colors, one a vivid violet and the other a pale bluish purple. Shasta daisies are also in the yard, along with white Dutch clover. The Henry Kelsey rose, almost extinct three years ago, has tripled in size since last fall, but its flowers also got hammered by the rain. The White Rose of York is doing very well and fragrantly. It has a nice sunny spot. Around and over it, however, actually making use of the rose arch as the white rose has never deigned to do, are huge drooping canes covered with red roses -- Dr. Huey, loose from its role as rootstock and rioting with the spiderwort. I'll have to tame it down a bit, since I don't want to lose the white rose, but it's really ravishingly pretty.

I had five-foot tall dames' rocket plants in the raised beds, but I pulled them out and put in tomatoes, zucchini, and kale. There's a lot of other dames' rocket in the yard. The mint has come back and so, I think, has some sage.

I succumbed to the Lake Country School Plant Sale this year. They used to send around six-year-olds with order forms, and you never knew what you'd get. But now they have an order form online. That's where I got the vegetables, and I also ended up with three tiny clumps of little bluestem, some physostegia -- mine having been driven out by, guess what, hairy bellflower -- some blue asters, a rather unhappy liatris that may not make it, and, um, something else that I forget.

My Starfire phlox, like the Henry Kelsey, tripled its size over the winter and early spring, and should make a fine show when it blooms late in July. The other phlox has fled its garden bed pursued by hordes of daylilies, hairy bellflower, mulberry seedlings,
Canada violets, and invading lawn grass. I had to take some of it out of the raised bed too, and plunked it down with a couple of peonies and a bleeding heart in a bed I hope is not too shady for it. We'll see.

Pamela

Very local phenology

ETA: The hermit thrush is back this evening!

Last year we had white-throated sparrows kicking up the litter under the bird feeder and carrying on about Canada and Sam Peabody late into the night. This year I have heard a single one calling just before dawn, just on the one day, with a common yellowthroat, also not heard again, keeping it company.

But yesterday afternoon a hermit thrush was singing in the front yard, or perhaps a few yards away. I didn't try to find it, because they are seldom to be found and don't seem to like it much. But the song was wonderful. You can listen to it here.

I am also pretty sure that we have cardinal fledglings, since I've heard a lot of warning "chip chip chip" from cardinals when I am out with the cat, and also the high keening sound of baby birds demanding their noms, NOW.

The flora is confused but enthusiastic.

It is in general a very good year for roses and irises. My Bengal Tiger irises raised two blooms for the first time in years. lblanchard's blue and yellow thugs outdid themselves. The white ones edged with blue that I put in back in the rose bed also bloomed, although the torrential rains over Wiscon weekend knocked them over. My burgundy ones haven't bloomed yet and should probably be moved to a sunnier location.

Daylilies and hairy bellflower are just thinking about blooming, though they came up and formed buds quite early. The peonies are a little sparse; one plant has not bloomed at all, though the pale pink one on the boulevard, which I keep meaning to move to a sunnier location as well, has three flowers. The tradescantia has pretty much abandoned the garden beds, probably kicked out by bellflower, and is rioting all over the yard in two colors, one a vivid violet and the other a pale bluish purple. Shasta daisies are also in the yard, along with white Dutch clover. The Henry Kelsey rose, almost extinct three years ago, has tripled in size since last fall, but its flowers also got hammered by the rain. The White Rose of York is doing very well and fragrantly. It has a nice sunny spot. Around and over it, however, actually making use of the rose arch as the white rose has never deigned to do, are huge drooping canes covered with red roses -- Dr. Huey, loose from its role as rootstock and rioting with the spiderwort. I'll have to tame it down a bit, since I don't want to lose the white rose, but it's really ravishingly pretty.

I had five-foot tall dames' rocket plants in the raised beds, but I pulled them out and put in tomatoes, zucchini, and kale. There's a lot of other dames' rocket in the yard. The mint has come back and so, I think, has some sage.

I succumbed to the Lake Country School Plant Sale this year. They used to send around six-year-olds with order forms, and you never knew what you'd get. But now they have an order form online. That's where I got the vegetables, and I also ended up with three tiny clumps of little bluestem, some physostegia -- mine having been driven out by, guess what, hairy bellflower -- some blue asters, a rather unhappy liatris that may not make it, and, um, something else that I forget.

My Starfire phlox, like the Henry Kelsey, tripled its size over the winter and early spring, and should make a fine show when it blooms late in July. The other phlox has fled its garden bed pursued by hordes of daylilies, hairy bellflower, mulberry seedlings,
Canada violets, and invading lawn grass. I had to take some of it out of the raised bed too, and plunked it down with a couple of peonies and a bleeding heart in a bed I hope is not too shady for it. We'll see.

Pamela