ramblings from an arkansas farm girl
Dear Sunday Letter friends,
This time of year I spend time looking for the first blooms in our flower beds. Our daffodils are taking their sweet time which is probably a good thing since an arctic blast brought bone-chilling cold on Thursday with icy snow flurries that lasted all day. Those of a certain age will probably remember the Chiffon margarine commercial that ended with the reminder—it’s not nice to fool Mother Nature.
Remember?
Well, you can’t rush her either.
Heavenly Bamboo is on the city of Fayetteville’s invasive species list of undesirable plants. One might say it’s misnamed. As in not so heavenly.
What’s the opposite of heavenly?
Earthly?
I’ll call it Earthly Bamboo.
We have a grove of it.
We didn’t plant it. It was planted years ago, a few small stalks that now provide fantastic privacy along the fence. It also grows into the neighbors’ yards and until recently was tangled in our electrical wires. Rumor has it that when our neighbor to the west bought her house, she found a Volkswagen swallowed alive inside the bamboo growing in her back yard.
Maybe Otherworldly Bamboo would be a better name for it.
Sunday afternoon a whole swarm of ladybugs came to call. It was the coolest thing and apparently not an uncommon phenomenon for a warm fall day. But I’d never seen anything like it. According to the Farmers’ Almanac, knower of all nature, garden, and moon trivia, a ladybug swarm is not a predictor of oncoming crazy winter weather or good luck (boo), but merely beetles looking for a warm place to hibernate. Apparently they chose us.
They crawled all over our front porch, up the side of the house toward the attic opening in the eaves.
