Stabbing flowers
Jul. 24th, 2009 12:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marinessThanks, everyone, for the many comments and emails on my last post. I feel a bit overwhelmed. For new readers, I want to emphasize that I really don't spend that much time talking about disability and disability related issues here, so if that's what you're looking for, you might be disappointed.
And now to other critical matters, like stabbing flowers.
In the temporary absence oftgregoryt the responsibility for fertilizing the plants on the balcony has fallen to me and the cats. Technically speaking, the cats weren't mentioned, but if the balcony door is open and it is not raining, they are out in it. (If it is raining they are standing on the edge of the balcony requesting me, in generally unpleasant tones, to turn the rain off now, please. One reason I like cats is they seem convinced that I have divine powers, which is always good for the ego.) And since three plants were covered in blossoms, the time had come to start stabbing.
Now, yes. I know that a number of you are about to object that neither the citrus plants nor the tomato plants should be in blossom at the moment, and I'd agree with you, except that our balcony plants, with the odd exception of the ivy that remains out there because I like it and it's pretty, are, in general, deranged and not growing the way they grow in the little pictures anyway. In fact in many cases I am not at all sure what we are actually growing and in at least two cases I think we are growing mutant plants. So it's not entirely surprising that our confused little citrus tree decided to blossom again even though it already has hard little green fruits on it and that the tomatoes, which are already not growing in the direction the picture says they are supposed to be growing, have tiny little blooms.
What is surprising is just how difficult it is to stab flowers, especially when stabbing the flowers apparently involves denying two cats their constitutional rights to explore catnip and curl up on the balcony stool and help the human in flower stabbing. It works kinda like this: I grab the stabber (actually a small toothpick; we're kinda low key in our fertilization techniques), move towards the flower again and push, get banged by a cat. Cat is removed. I move towards the flower again. More soft fur hits me in a very hard kinda way.
"We'd be able to use insects for this if you weren't the sort of cat that would leap from the balcony so you could go and try to sit on an alligator."
Head thump.
(We have an abundant local alligator population that the Little One thinks of as friendly and perfect for sitting on, and I think of as hungry for cats. It's a difference of opinion we have not been able to reconcile.)
Quite apart from this, it turns out that I'm lousy at this sort of thing since I keep breaking off the flowers during the stabbing process. I'm trying to gain a rather Darwinian outlook here and telling myself that flowers that drift off during the fertilization process probably didn't deserve to live and make little tomatoes and various citrus fruits anyway, but I have a feeling that this is less Darwin, and more my inability to stab flowers in a gentle, kindly, non murderous manner, leaving me with a balcony covered with little petals and little hopes for plentiful tomatoes.
And now to other critical matters, like stabbing flowers.
In the temporary absence of
tgregoryt the responsibility for fertilizing the plants on the balcony has fallen to me and the cats. Technically speaking, the cats weren't mentioned, but if the balcony door is open and it is not raining, they are out in it. (If it is raining they are standing on the edge of the balcony requesting me, in generally unpleasant tones, to turn the rain off now, please. One reason I like cats is they seem convinced that I have divine powers, which is always good for the ego.) And since three plants were covered in blossoms, the time had come to start stabbing.Now, yes. I know that a number of you are about to object that neither the citrus plants nor the tomato plants should be in blossom at the moment, and I'd agree with you, except that our balcony plants, with the odd exception of the ivy that remains out there because I like it and it's pretty, are, in general, deranged and not growing the way they grow in the little pictures anyway. In fact in many cases I am not at all sure what we are actually growing and in at least two cases I think we are growing mutant plants. So it's not entirely surprising that our confused little citrus tree decided to blossom again even though it already has hard little green fruits on it and that the tomatoes, which are already not growing in the direction the picture says they are supposed to be growing, have tiny little blooms.
What is surprising is just how difficult it is to stab flowers, especially when stabbing the flowers apparently involves denying two cats their constitutional rights to explore catnip and curl up on the balcony stool and help the human in flower stabbing. It works kinda like this: I grab the stabber (actually a small toothpick; we're kinda low key in our fertilization techniques), move towards the flower again and push, get banged by a cat. Cat is removed. I move towards the flower again. More soft fur hits me in a very hard kinda way.
"We'd be able to use insects for this if you weren't the sort of cat that would leap from the balcony so you could go and try to sit on an alligator."
Head thump.
(We have an abundant local alligator population that the Little One thinks of as friendly and perfect for sitting on, and I think of as hungry for cats. It's a difference of opinion we have not been able to reconcile.)
Quite apart from this, it turns out that I'm lousy at this sort of thing since I keep breaking off the flowers during the stabbing process. I'm trying to gain a rather Darwinian outlook here and telling myself that flowers that drift off during the fertilization process probably didn't deserve to live and make little tomatoes and various citrus fruits anyway, but I have a feeling that this is less Darwin, and more my inability to stab flowers in a gentle, kindly, non murderous manner, leaving me with a balcony covered with little petals and little hopes for plentiful tomatoes.