Botany By Amanda

I am not a knowledgeable horticulturist. When I come across a new discovery in my yard, of which there are many, I do not suddenly spout technical wisdom about the plant's genus and species. I simply say what it looks like to me.

A recent case and point has to do with a large tulip blooming in my yard. Here is the dry, boring, scientific description of a tulip: the tulip is a perennial, bulbous plant with showy flowers in the genus Tulipa, of which up to 109 species have been described and belongs to the family Liliaceae . . . Yawn.

In contrast to that dose of jargon, here is my description: large, bold and beautiful, multicolors of red, yellow and orange, and with brushy edges I referred to as "bugs' feet".

These are them, and as I'm sure you would agree, something this awesome defies scientific description



And on a side note, a centipede, being the bug in question, has feet very similar to the edges of my tulips


See. . . the same!

I Love You to Death

The story is short, but far from sweet. Last weekend I was sitting with friends, watching swallows swoop to and fro through the west-side mist, happily catching bugs in their beaks. Suddenly, a smallish bird swoops down on top of one of the swallows and the two go flying into some dense trees.

Dennis: "Whoa! Did you see that?!"
Me: (with an optimistic sense of the happiness of spring and the goodwill of all creatures toward one another) "Awww, they are mating!"
Dennis: "No, Amanda. . . That bird just attacked and killed the other one."
Cherelyn: snicker snicker

The End