Grow a plant from a leaf: Jade Clones

Angela's celebrating a birthday today- first with a couple of online classes to teach, then who knows? Along with some chic pieces for a full outfit, she only asked for some Osmacote feed for her tiny trees. Believe it or not, she only has a few dollars put into her entire jade collection. There are two very cool ways Jade plants can propagate: plant a cutting, or simply put a leaf onto some soil where it can root. (In fact, when left in the dark with a small container of water, the leaves will spring 'air roots' to try to reach the water they sense- in about four weeks! ! Angela points out, the grower wasn't sure the water mattered, though; are Jade plant roots hydro-trophic?))

So, let's take you from the first leaves she tried in spring, to Her Majesty and Your Highness, who reside together in the tin tea box.


Angela: So, leaves…
She flips open her plant diary, complete with diagrams of pots with earlier configurations of leaves, over the summer. She flips through the July entries to find the first time she had one take root.

“There were some that kept going missing- in my Artemesia bonsai- I’m thinking the lizards who play on our front porch took those. Then there were some others I threw in random pots, in May- no attention to them, of any kind, and I didn’t spritz them, so they burned.”

“But, onto, like July 19th:
I filled up some plastic pots with the soil mixture. I put three in one pot, then eight in the biggest pot.
C: What was that soil mixture like?

A: “My succulent soil mixture- it’s universal. One-part sand, one-part good-drainage soil, and one part, Perlite.”
“So, some of those leaves died, and some of those, rooted. But the first time I saw roots, I believe, was after vacation- around August twenty-second or so. I think one of them is the leaf we’re calling Her Majesty. They had to have been growing already, for me to see them.”


C: Your Highness is a cutting; I believe I cured the tip, I guess you’d say, with cinnamon and honey. It took very well, until a mishap with fertilizer. That’s when we learned you must wet the soil before you apply any properly-mixed plant food. Even in its correct dilution, the food can burn up the roots, unless the intake point is moist. That plant’s had a rougher time, in the three or four weeks since.

Angela hopes to bring over a thriving leaf, so its roots might graft with those of the cutting. The leaves can, themselves, support the growth of a new plant! With a patient eye and, best, a magnifying glass, you can see its embryonic form, sprouting from the same node as the root!


Seeing the first leaves came in September, she says,
“On the eleventh, I put the leaf into a new pot, but I hadn’t noted the red tips. The red tips foretell new leaves- I didn’t know that, yet.”
“There we go: on the seventeenth! ‘The one in the fairy pot has leaves unfolding.’
So, basically, two months. “It took about a month to notice roots, and another month, to notice leaves.”
Here on October second, we’ve uncovered a leaf that did not want to turn loose, readily. She respectfully dug around the soil with her chopstick, keeping the roots intact. I offered a plastic cap to cradle it. Look at this fragile wonder.


Angela carefully dug out the adjacent area for her grafting. She prepared a space for the long root, which was virtually a root ball. It was more than four centimeters, "pretty decent- it had gone onto the side of the pot, then gone down," she says.
She spritzed the soil again, afterwards, "just to settle it into its new home." This one will definitely stay inside for now, as the heat's still blistering enough to raise watermelons, here in North Georgia. We keep it by the window, where it receives ambient light, and a little booster UV from the phlorescent bulb.

Rookie Gardening : Grow together or wither apart

Since, in the business of those days, I missed labeling everything I planted in June, some of my Student Reward Seeds cups, over the next two weeks, became 'mystery plants.' What's growing here? What survived? I had a list of seeds my students had chosen - they looked at the packets I'd put on screen that day and tell me which one they liked. I became uncertain, however, which seedlings were which type!
I kept it all living, and most of them made it into other pots.
I'd had two plant I thought were Cantaloupe, and a couple of flowers, all growing in this one pot. I transplanted the cantaloupes onto little mounds- the higher one gives the best foliage yield. Anyway, this is about the three plants that remained.
There was one tiny sprout in there, and two big survivors. I realized, in July, I had one flower, for sure. What I didn't realize is how a common weed in my yard looks in its early form. I would get a chance to appreciate the stubborn roots, when given the same potting conditions and care as, say, a 4 o'clock.
When I did realize I had a piece of grass, I began to think of transplanting the 4 o'clock, to represent the student flowers in a long tray I'd bought for that purpose.

Transplant trauma happens during many attempts. I wasn't worried about the grass, but I did take it to the spot where I'd once been growing a single watermelon plant. That was my first pH-tested choice for the patch, by the way, before I took the advice to keep the remaining plants together in their tub, and found a spot even slightly better, with the most hours of direct sun.
I buried the prodigious roots, to see how hearty this grass might be.
The flower, however, of such a fast-growing breed, did not fair so well as its siblings. The ones I'd taken from a root ball, together, and placed in the sunrise-facing garden, shot up, over three feet high! So many flower stems, too, from the stalks- and the other two 4 O'Clocks were also thriving. One had required a stone to buffet its early trunk, when first transplanted; now that was a bit tree-like, sturdy still beside its stone companion.
So, those flowers were all transplanted first from a cup, then to a pot, before going into the ground. This time, however, the work of taking loose the grass root, to free the flower, may have just been too much, from the looks of things.

The lesson on my reflection, of this naive sort of quiet cruelty, is, in the pot, I still had the grass and the flower. Maybe only one was desirable, but taking them apart did neither of them any favors. They grew together. Plants value their lives together. To keep the flower, sometimes you leave the weed.

It reminds me of kinfolk. Ha!

Next: The resourcefully-recycled Jade Brigade. You can start several plants for one price, as you'll see!

Gardening: the Hobby Begins!

In April, we started a few plants, and gave the lawn a cut with the new mower.They say nothing beats going outdoors. You really want to feel better, consistently, then allergies be danged! The heat hadn't arrived yet, so who knew how many things we'd later realize made good April seedlings?
We figured out where were the holes. We filled in many, especially on the path to the swimming pool.
>

Letter on a friend's birthday

So, it's September 13th again, and that's when I always think: "Happy Birthday, T.J., brother!" When we re-united over the 'Net in '09, I told him I'd start this blog, to spin him stories and keep a window into what we found, made and experienced, you know, in San Diego. That was a fun idea. I never grilled him about reading it, but T.J. gave encouragement like no one else could. We had a lot of people sending support in those days; you find them in these posts, too.

This spring, we not only did yardwork- we started new jades, and a little garden! We began to realize, we could use this yard and an array of pots to put the life and beauty we feel out there to the world.
My sister was here a lot, and fortunately, I think we built the best rapport we've had since we grew up.

This letter's a re-convening of the Stump Meetings, there in the trees on the hills beside the old GA-53. I didn't want to spend too much of the summer online. I don't mind telling of it, afterwards. To me, it's mostly a story of plants and flowers.
I wanted to do some new things. I didn't want to feel obliged to write about plants. Truth to tell, I do have a concept for a Kid's storybook, which is about right, as our peers will be looking for things to give their grandchildren.

This summer, I first officially graduated Univeristy of Alabama. That, to me, is a funny story, and it's rather easy to recollect your laughter-but it did assemble more Paynters- and my sister and her squeeze Lenny- than this yard's ever before survived!

You know, right? You were there in spirit! It was a day for spirits, drank and spilled alike. I invited a friend of our own ane Everthing! It was a good Sunday over at Mom's- as memorable a Cinco de Mayo as the day Anj and I hopped off the Greyhound in Escondido and flipped a coin in the sprinkling evening mist- I never saw more people have a good time here!

You always loved coming over. Imagine if we'd had the nurturing temperment to hang out in my yard and grow things! Mom, Anj and I started modestly- a few tomato plants, and Angela's Jades, for bonsai. The inspiration for more veggies came a bit late for the proper growing season; I had to do another round, leading to many little cups. I started cantaloupes, though, and even watermelons. Why? i picked out rewards one week from the packets of seeds at hand. It was late for some flowers, but here in September, the ones who were in time give radiance to the sunrise side of my family's yard.

I fondly remember having friends over to spend the night, and no one came over more, or first, for that matter! I felt a bit of nostalgia for those times, when we tried to help out a fellow I'd worked with, who hit a rough patch. It's a long story, but this guy, sad to say, didn't have the fight in him you did, and he didn't turn out to be ready to use anyone's help to get estalished. But he did come out to join me in yard work, which must've made me look so much like Dad, you'd laugh again.

See, as kids, Deb and I took in what Grandpa knew, but we weren't really taught, so much as obeyed the family activity or played in the yard. Even if we had taken notes, only watching could begin to tell you of the labor involved in a garden, large enough to sustain a household. Our pal Nena has been at this in her own yard a few years, now, if not longer, I'm not sure, but I'll bet having a yard was a big draw to establshing the life she has with her family- and many organic experiments!

I think I learned a lot along the way, but I didn't try writing much at all about my new hobby, all summer. I let the plants speak for themselves. I'm under no illusion of their prize-winning qualities, but hey, I lost like ten, twelve pounds. Around this house we push mow!

I still think up songs as I do yard work, or if I'm alone, errands. Pieces, really. It's more amusing than depression, right? I remember, after you lit out for Oklahoma, basically for good, you'd write about summers there, and band camp, and the farm. I wouldn't be shocked if some of those letters have remained, even after I helped Mom with the Herculean Labor of unpacking the Disharoon residence.

Well, in this present day and age, even we two hicks would've had more pictures together. Those are few and far between, and I may dig one out when I finally open that huge photograph cart with Mom. My memories will have to stand in, but for every picture I want to describe, there's at least the proverbial thousand words.

I know your family misses you sometimes, but you envisioned a life for us all that would outlast yours. I'll spend your birthday, writing about kid friendships, and this Drawn Into Adventure will be every bit as fun- and easier!- than the Seeds story. I will even see how much I can draw, but I already find myself hoping for gifted illustration collaborators!

The year you died, TJ, we spent your birthday, days later, on the beautiful, unique top of Screamer Mountain. When I used to first think of a time I'd be no more, I would vaguely see my ashes belonging to such sky-reaching wilderness and mossy basins. I was happy to be invited. Geez, then we were in our only car accident on the way home! Whew!

I'm a bit sorry I never sent that painting to your aunt Marty while I still had it, but ...it wasn't technically great. But, I know she felt differently, because it was you and Steely. I'd love to make her a new one. I'm just happy that playing guitar and writing are taking the time my gardening did.

Angela and I, great, of course. Her plant work informed a lot of my own, and I'll share her pictures and process, too. It was a quiet summer...even if we did finally take our first Just Us Two vacation after all this time.

Thanks always for being a good friend. You inspire me still, like, often!

Be chill, Cease ill

Great Job! You Get A Star! Our book of ESL online / EFL experiences

Our prototype is ready!


We're working on one more cover idea. It would be nice to upload all that, tonight. The 116 page manuscript, written by Angela and myself, is ready.

We start two months ago, February 22nd. First day at the third company I added (who has still not paid me). I begin to interlace our first experiences, then wind parallel paths
of the two of us, growing into teachers. We depict many of our actual classes, and present other teachers, too.

I only put these through my phone: at the time, I wanted to meet my personal deadline, so I could have a physical copy available when I graduate, May 4th, in Tuscaloosa.



Soon as I have an approved link, I'll share the prologue, here. I must have some hidden text box still it doesn't like, hiding behind a picture. I was otherwise finished with the online version. Heres the first four pages. I plan to revise and add at least three chapters by this fall, too.
Here's our updated Patreon link, if you want to help us move across the coutnry next month, lol

PROLOGUE


“Here, I am, first day on the job.”

February 21st, my journal reads:

I didn’t start the narration of “Here, I am,
first day on the job.” OK< now I have!

I’ve had deja vu, these past seven-and-a-half months.
It’s been my first day- three times. I haven’t quit working anywhere.

I write freelance Back Issue Magazine articles, and my novel, Chrysalis and the Butterfly.

You could say this is a story: how ESL Online won my heart.

But already, I had it to give, as soon as I discovered this work existed.

I do best, that way: Go all-in!


So, this is the story of what I found, along the way, that’s kept my heart.


You could begin this story with the first time I logged in to teach Dada classes online, in July. Go further back: my friend Ed, asking me in spring, if I’d looked for a creative writing instructor position. You could start with my Aunt Linda, teacher and sub teacher and tutor, much of her adult life.

But here: my first day, working for Lime English.

I hope what I’ve decided to do on my otherwise-off morning this Wednesday is : explore meeting new students, teaching new strategies- a progressive spiral.

I examine the basics of how we use English. I face with them, the choices we learned as children. My challenge? Be clear. Simple, elegant. Loop back into words they’re using well that day, and recently, migrate my demonstrations in those ongoing grammar structures. Genuinely appreciate spontaneous offerings to the conversation. Treat each lesson as a conversation.

A favorite sign we’re in The Zone? The kid uses English in a deliberately humorous way!

Enjoy the flow of ideas. For this book, I’ll be revisiting my lessons, through the prism of we two (or three, Jerry and Rosson and your family and friends!), interactive, interviewing. I attain insights as to ongoing projects of my own or chances to begin new forms, how these might inspire a
student. Or, simply find a video of her favorite animal, teach a unique word, offer English to help her bond, empathize.

You’ll hear from other experienced teachers, too! Teacher Willow’s tip:

“I always do my best to ask the students their names and pronounce them as closely as I can. This stems from a book that I read to my students at my b&m (Brick and Mortar)
job called Name Jar. “

I love to help them learn words of things they find interesting. I like to teach the name of the thing in your hand, some description, and model a good use of your present grammar.

As for results: some you think you see, immediately; others, you may never. How am I to say what time will reveal the student’s learned, from me, practice, life, school, and someone who cares and knows English? I remember a successful recipe, then season each lesson with little care. I trust the seasonings, and know when to let up the heat and let the lesson simmer to completion.

I experiment, I don’t measure carefully over an open page. For example, today: An attempt to make a gourmet meal, some chicken tikka masala maybe just a bit more like the Crown made at Horton Plaza before they shuttered.

Trial? Edible, disappointing. Half a lemon too much, don’t do the whole lemon on that much sauce and 10 -13 oz of chicken breasts, again. When not following exact instructions, one should simplify the factors that can confuse the result.

Needless to say, I don’t claim to do these things PERfectly, lol

First day always has this experience: correctly logging in. Then, find your classroom. You’ll find an array of buttons there which will either confuse or delight you and your students. A child you never met before waits on the other side of the world. Teach English. Go!

It's only the Universe

Back in 2006, the Marc Kane created drawings for her own tarot cards. I loved the stunning originality of her approach. EAch figure has a secret: it's made from the letters for the word it symbolizes. So in 2009, I remember her laminating these cards, which became a fun Tarot deck for us. I was the one who wanted them as characters, also: I found them in one of my visionarily dream like stories, unleashed from a pyramid crypt, with some relationship with Thoth. I didn't draw very well at the time, for I barely understood the process at all.

I love how the Marc Kane marries a true carefree spirit and Love with a private manner. It shows in the art she chooses to make: it's intended at a diversionary level for herself, without worry what status might rise and fall on its popular acclaim. In those days, you would make your own crafts and rarely share photographs. But you would make something special, to you. These are the relics of your authentic life. Perhaps not as immediately heart warming as Dagger, the dog, who teeaches abstract painting to children. (100% of Dagger's profits are : look him up!). But I mean, rather, it is precious to you, to make something you value, free of demaind for its meaning to anyone else.

If you're not feeling yourself today

The circumstances- no Snowpocalpse for northwest Georgia, enough rest, a tank of gas, even, to a place i've already paid the fee: everything was there. Even if I stayed home, every element was in place to be productive in a hundred different ways. Everything was there, except in the space I breathe, the sluggishness right there in my sinuses, which seem at times to house a couple of carelessly-stuffed blueberries. So, patiently recuperate, take in ideas.
My friend has a very sociable train of thought but lives a bit isolated with her family. She's a long ways from the vibe of the Arizona desert kids now, physically. She probably feels like she peaked in Coolness all-too-long ago, but what can you do? And right after I enjoyed this video sent by my seventy-three year old cousin, I found her general encouragement to men. By that I mean, some words telling you, if you've not been feeling up to snuff lately, you keep going, so stay strong.
Feeling unwell- if you have the luxury of knowing the worst of it's temporary, you reflect on it in context. What's it like for those who don't anticipate things getting better?
Should they try a three day water fast?

Who has time to be weak?
But if you don't choose, Life will make a time.

I'm lucky it's just a cold..At least, that's the latest reason for whatever I can't get rolling.
I'm considering a fast for three days, Sunday. I'm ready to see if I can take some new ideas ahead while being as decent a person as possible.
Sometimes it feels like the most decent people only have time for others and a bit for their private peace of mind, and pursuing your own personal agenda, a bit selfish. But I guess whatever we're devoted to doing and not doing is our personal agenda, and I tell myself there's something in there that could turn a few hours, days or years of my life into something terrific for anyone. I guess anyone who reaches inside for the reserves to keep going has that feeling in common, a kind of service.

Yet there's been this lingering sense of apathy and detachment hiding in the corners of my enthusiasm, too. A kind of malaise waiting to come to the surface, felt, and, for a time, released. Even though I know, on some level, it's just my desifre for some things in my life dying away because the time's not right. It's a few sad mental adjustments you might call resignation.

One single day, where I could make love once, teach a morning set of classes to my best ability, read stories from a favorite author with evocative, emotionally-involved illustrations, and words from those who enjoyed the stories, while I was a baby. Make my Mom lunch. Pat my cat. Remind my darling how I'm often thinking some gleeful thought about her being alive.

You have to set how you feel into a context. Some of you are surrounded by your demands, and your demands are people, children, even, and you don't turn off a screen after half an hour. I know it's hard sometimes but what you get back is part of some lasting effort.
https://www.facebook.com/buddybrowncountry/videos/10156195384282506/ I am not always serious. CAn you tell when?

Some of you may feel lost in the world made of your choices. Some may just be tempted to see how much money you can make for its own sake, how far you can push that sort of success.

I can only imagine. It might be your birthday. It might be one of your last days before you're sentenced to jail time. It might the most boring day in a string of them, and it might be some of your last on Earth. You may feel undone by all the harm done in the name of progress and all the wrong done in the name of promoting a better idea. You may wonder what it'd be like to just live as far from almost everyone, or everyone, as possible. As for how each of you reading spent the time before reading this, I can only imagine.

But do know there are many people dedicated to encouragement, out there. If you didn't connect with one, can you remember one? You were not really obligated to make the world any better than you left it, however sincerely we may take, some of us, that moral imperative. It's all about choices. Your brain gets a good chemical each time you made a good one. You know your reward when you see it.

If today was a day you rather ran out of whatever it is you have to give, I encourage you. Get some rest. Let restful thoughts and replenishment be your goal. For some it's a prayer, or whatever you call that private set of thoughts where you simply have to ask something, from somewhere, for something. Some may be out of those thoughts, to the tune of great resentment, and little hope- only enough hope to keep living to despair.

And you may 've somehow found your way to this page with no sense of drama ongoing about any of these things.

But as one friend posted, in sentiments for some person on her mind, or anyone in particular, or even, along with countless off-color and quippy memes and some other glances at her opinion,
if you're not feeling yourself today, basically: stay strong. Refuse to quit.

Keep getting up.