My new Cat (and a poem)

Well I'm smack in the middle of a five-day take-home exam for my graduate-level statistics class, but I need a reprieve. So here's a little update on some goings-on here in Davis.

This quarter I've been taking an "internship" at the Botanical Conservatory on campus, though it's more like a volunteer position with an instructional session once a week. But I love it and it's really nice to have some hands-on learning amongst the classes. Plus, I worked in the conservatory at Longwood Gardens last year and it's refreshing to be working in one now that is smaller and more personal. While I was at Longwood I had the opportunity to work with the orchids and my teacher was the fabulous Marie, a volunteer who could run the place if they let her. I learned a lot, and when the director at the Davis conservatory found out that I knew how to divide orchids, he set me to work. So last Wednesday I had the joy of tackling these babies:

If it looks like a disaster, that's because it is. Holy cow. They hadn't been divided in four years (ideally they should be divided once a year)! I had to soak them to loosen the roots, and some of the pots had to be broken so I could get the plants out of there. But after about three hours, here is the finished product:


Three nice specimens for the conservatory (in the clay pots) and two plants for the sale next weekend. And one for me. Of course.

It's a Cattleya skinneri var alba, a genus known by orchid enthusiasts as a "Cat." And I hope I have enough light in that window so she will bloom and I can show her off at a later date.


In other news, I've been re-reading a book of poetry that I first read in college; "Pity the bathtub it's forced embrace of the human form" by Matthea Harvey. Here's a poem that resonated with me for various reasons:

(bottle tower)

Dear nine-thirty: is there any word
for the way the peony blossoms bend over
& rest their soft faces on the petals piled up
in the grass? Tar cools & tires dull you.
The puddles are milky & grey. There are
daughters who die before their mothers, men
mute with mistakes, birds with broken necks
stuck to the sidewalk. The woodpile is full
of the blank faces of owls. Today I want to live
without looking. Give me that & I will give up
the rest. Fat green buds bursting to split into
pink. Trucks piled high with glittering tar.
The way the rain makes the ground give up
its heat so that I feel it at my knees &
the grass starts to smell like the sea.

- Matthea Harvey