I know prayer works, because I've seen it many times, and experienced it a couple of times myself.
But it seems to me, like when I think I really need prayer, and a miracle, it's like it never happens.
And I shouldn't say that after a few miracles that happened in my life, with no other explanation than prayers.
Dr. Rosemary Cannastrero(sp) is who I was sent to when I was diagnosed with small cell lung cancer.
She said, she would do everything possible to save my life, then dropped the ball and did nothing.
Said it is useless, based on the tests, I have less than 6 months to live.
I mentioned this to one of the prayer warriors at church, and a whole team of them came over and prayed with me, anointed with oil, and the whole nine yards.
Then I went to another doctor for some clean up treatments to get out the bad gunk.
That was 21 years ago and I'm still here.
Meeting Debi the way I did I could also say was a miracle. But the bigger miracle was all the funding that appeared for us to get together and have a very nice wedding and reception at a 5-star restaurant. Everything was perfect.
Which now begs the question. Have I run out of miracles for me? I'm going downhill really fast now Yogi.
But I've had remarkable and fulfilling life, so no complaints.
I will keep your frau, and you, in my daily prayers! I do believe they work!
Pencil Sharpener
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Re: Pencil Sharpener
I learned a lot about miracles in grammar school from those Franciscan nuns who educated me for 9 years. Somewhere before the end of that education I intuitively learned about the theory of Occam's Razor, which to put it in simple terms is opposite to miracles. Prayers and the miracles they are associated with are real for certain people, and that is as it should be. Personally I find truth in the claim "reality bites." All of us are headed to the same conclusion which makes how we get there the important part. I think your life experiences gave you the meaning, purpose, and direction most people look for all their lives but never actually achieve.
It doesn't take much self-awareness to know when your time is up. It's not an easy realization to accept. It is in fact when all that you came to believe in your life is put to the test. The end game is not the right time to be tested, but that is the biting reality. All I can add is that I am grateful to be in the prayers of a man with such inner strength and conviction.
My wife is doing better today, and I can't help thinking you had something to do with it.
It doesn't take much self-awareness to know when your time is up. It's not an easy realization to accept. It is in fact when all that you came to believe in your life is put to the test. The end game is not the right time to be tested, but that is the biting reality. All I can add is that I am grateful to be in the prayers of a man with such inner strength and conviction.
My wife is doing better today, and I can't help thinking you had something to do with it.
Re: Pencil Sharpener
If enough people believe strong enough about something, things do happen, mind over matter, nothing divine there.
Too many Christians believe miracles happen when they didn't, just coincidence in many cases.
One thing I always remember to think about is, look how close the Apostles were to Christ.
Yet each of them suffered greatly and died the most horrible of deaths.
My take on that is, the Lord may help us over a hurdle or two during our lifetimes, but when the end is near, He does nothing to change how the end takes place. Sometimes He may take us quickly to avoid undue pain, but then too, perhaps we need to burn off some of our sins before we die.
All that said, I firmly believe in miracles taking place, and most often in a way that you know it had to be a miracle, not just a coincidence or a natural remission of some ailment.
On the other side of the coin, all of us earthlings may be an experiment by aliens.
Sometimes I wonder if all of us pink skinned people (called whites) actually came from Mars in ancient days.
Where we are in our stage of technology, could be 500,000 thousand years behind other planets, and 500,000 years ahead of some other planets that are still red hot, hi hi.
When you compare earth to the cosmos, our planet is nothing more than an insignificant speck of dust.
There have been thousands of religions on planet earth, but what if one of them happen to be true.
What if this Yahushua, the bible calls Jesus, really did rise from the grave to sit beside His father we call God?
If so, I want to be on that winning team! So I have to believe the scriptures are true.
And this is also one of the reasons I believe prayer works wonders!
Our bodies own natural healing abilities are a remarkable feature of the human body.
Sometimes when things seem impossible to get better, and then they do against all odds.
Was it mind over matter or some type of divine intervention? I prefer to think it was the latter!
Glad to hear the frau is improving!
Too many Christians believe miracles happen when they didn't, just coincidence in many cases.
One thing I always remember to think about is, look how close the Apostles were to Christ.
Yet each of them suffered greatly and died the most horrible of deaths.
My take on that is, the Lord may help us over a hurdle or two during our lifetimes, but when the end is near, He does nothing to change how the end takes place. Sometimes He may take us quickly to avoid undue pain, but then too, perhaps we need to burn off some of our sins before we die.
All that said, I firmly believe in miracles taking place, and most often in a way that you know it had to be a miracle, not just a coincidence or a natural remission of some ailment.
On the other side of the coin, all of us earthlings may be an experiment by aliens.
Sometimes I wonder if all of us pink skinned people (called whites) actually came from Mars in ancient days.
Where we are in our stage of technology, could be 500,000 thousand years behind other planets, and 500,000 years ahead of some other planets that are still red hot, hi hi.
When you compare earth to the cosmos, our planet is nothing more than an insignificant speck of dust.
There have been thousands of religions on planet earth, but what if one of them happen to be true.
What if this Yahushua, the bible calls Jesus, really did rise from the grave to sit beside His father we call God?
If so, I want to be on that winning team! So I have to believe the scriptures are true.
And this is also one of the reasons I believe prayer works wonders!
Our bodies own natural healing abilities are a remarkable feature of the human body.
Sometimes when things seem impossible to get better, and then they do against all odds.
Was it mind over matter or some type of divine intervention? I prefer to think it was the latter!
Glad to hear the frau is improving!
Re: Pencil Sharpener
It's all integrated; mind, body, feelings, and spirit are all bound together in a single package of which individual human beings are composed. We also experience something that allows us to be self-aware. It's speculated in some circles that only humans have that ability, but there is reason to suspect it also extends into any organized system, such as a Solar System. Thus, being alive takes on a whole new meaning.
Trying to figure it all out is an obsession with our breed of life forms. But, unfortunately, that equates to the same problem a fruit fly would have if it were to try and figure out how that banana came into existence. The fly has limited capacity to comprehend anything beyond it's own tiny world, and that is how I see us on planet earth. There is so much more to the universe beyond what we are even capable of imagining, much less understanding. That is how beliefs came into being.
We could be remnants of an ancient martian population. We might be that experiment everyone likes to imagine some alien life form is conducting. We might be left over bacteria from an intergalactic space ship that visited earth when it was desolate. Perhaps we just popped into existence because that is how quantum mechanics works. And, of course, we could have been created by a God. This is the point at which the philosophy behind Occam's Razor steps in to clarify things. The right answer is the simplest one. It allows for no other explanation to supersede it. Obviously none of the above meet that requirement. Thus, we resort to believing in things that cannot be proven, such as miracles.
All manner of deep thoughts can emerge out of the above line of reeasoning, but it boils down to the question of what is reality. In the final analysis only one paradox explains it, i.e., reality is subjective. In other words we all make our own version of reality. Another paradoxical question might be, "does the universe exist because we think it does, or do we exist as a consequence of events in the universe?" Which came first, the universe or us? If the latter is true, then there are many different universes. You would be that alien running the experiment in that case. And, I would be running my own experiment. The source of our being would then be contained inside that universe we create, which means we are the God that created us. Our lives ran the course we chose for it to run, and our rewards, if any, are built into our belief systems.
The only remaining question is, "Does any of it matter?"
Trying to figure it all out is an obsession with our breed of life forms. But, unfortunately, that equates to the same problem a fruit fly would have if it were to try and figure out how that banana came into existence. The fly has limited capacity to comprehend anything beyond it's own tiny world, and that is how I see us on planet earth. There is so much more to the universe beyond what we are even capable of imagining, much less understanding. That is how beliefs came into being.
We could be remnants of an ancient martian population. We might be that experiment everyone likes to imagine some alien life form is conducting. We might be left over bacteria from an intergalactic space ship that visited earth when it was desolate. Perhaps we just popped into existence because that is how quantum mechanics works. And, of course, we could have been created by a God. This is the point at which the philosophy behind Occam's Razor steps in to clarify things. The right answer is the simplest one. It allows for no other explanation to supersede it. Obviously none of the above meet that requirement. Thus, we resort to believing in things that cannot be proven, such as miracles.
All manner of deep thoughts can emerge out of the above line of reeasoning, but it boils down to the question of what is reality. In the final analysis only one paradox explains it, i.e., reality is subjective. In other words we all make our own version of reality. Another paradoxical question might be, "does the universe exist because we think it does, or do we exist as a consequence of events in the universe?" Which came first, the universe or us? If the latter is true, then there are many different universes. You would be that alien running the experiment in that case. And, I would be running my own experiment. The source of our being would then be contained inside that universe we create, which means we are the God that created us. Our lives ran the course we chose for it to run, and our rewards, if any, are built into our belief systems.
The only remaining question is, "Does any of it matter?"
Re: Pencil Sharpener
Is their really a reality at all? We could be nothing more than a computer program running giving us the feeling of life.
Heck, we might also be that cat in Shroedengers box too, hi hi. Perhaps a speck of bacteria on the cat.
But the thing with me is, planet earth is not old enough for even the eyeball to have happened by evolutionary means.
An eye is a quite complex organism. And then there is the issue that nearly every insect, fish, mammal, bird, and us humanoids have them. And each of those eyes have a specific and unique function to he species they are in.
One thing we do know for certain is that the most ancient civilizations we know about, they could not see the color blue.
But I wonder how we even know that?
We live for a while, and die, just like everything else on this planet.
Heck, we might also be that cat in Shroedengers box too, hi hi. Perhaps a speck of bacteria on the cat.
But the thing with me is, planet earth is not old enough for even the eyeball to have happened by evolutionary means.
An eye is a quite complex organism. And then there is the issue that nearly every insect, fish, mammal, bird, and us humanoids have them. And each of those eyes have a specific and unique function to he species they are in.
One thing we do know for certain is that the most ancient civilizations we know about, they could not see the color blue.
But I wonder how we even know that?
We live for a while, and die, just like everything else on this planet.
Re: Pencil Sharpener
Reality is the kind of thing only philosophers can truly debate. You are right to question it because us mere mortals cannot know what it is. Thus, as I stated earlier, we make our own version of reality. René Descartes (I had to look up his name) claimed "I think, therefore I am." Then there are others who reason that we don't exist at all. My world view is that all of those things are possible when each living person creates their own reality. However, I am totally convinced reality is that which remains after all human elements and influences are removed - thinking is a human element, by the way. Clearly we are not capable of determining exactly what is reality. We would have to remove ourselves from the equation to do so.
Well, I don't want to be a spoiler, not that I believe I actually could be at this stage in your life, but the argument that there was not enough time for the complex human eye to have evolved is a notion originating with Darwin himself. It is an incorrect notion. There was more than enough time for it to happen, and the fact that you can use your eyes to read this is proof.
If you want the details, read this: https://www.nyas.org/magazines/autumn-2 ... e-evolved/
Well, I don't want to be a spoiler, not that I believe I actually could be at this stage in your life, but the argument that there was not enough time for the complex human eye to have evolved is a notion originating with Darwin himself. It is an incorrect notion. There was more than enough time for it to happen, and the fact that you can use your eyes to read this is proof.
If you want the details, read this: https://www.nyas.org/magazines/autumn-2 ... e-evolved/
Re: Pencil Sharpener
Now that was a very interesting read for sure, about the development of the eye.
But also note they are talking about 620 million years ago, and 1/2 billion years ago.
They talk about species branching off from each other, and mutations within that species.
But one thing for certain is they have never found a single species as the ancestor to another different species.
I've never believed we developed from primordial ooze. But that doesn't mean some organisms did develop that way, from a bacteria found in that ooze.
I do believe there were people on this planet long before we knew about people.
Long before what we consider our earliest form of humanoid.
Heck, they may have even been more advanced than we are now, in their own specials ways.
Simply put, we just don't know when or how the first population of man came about, through research.
The bible does tell us that God populated the earth with humans and animals at some time in the distant past, LONG BEFORE He created Adam and Eve, or modern day humans.
Planet earth is over four and half billion years old. So a lot could have happened before we came along.
But you have to remember also, the planet did not have the ability to support life of any kind in the beginning.
But also note they are talking about 620 million years ago, and 1/2 billion years ago.
They talk about species branching off from each other, and mutations within that species.
But one thing for certain is they have never found a single species as the ancestor to another different species.
I've never believed we developed from primordial ooze. But that doesn't mean some organisms did develop that way, from a bacteria found in that ooze.
I do believe there were people on this planet long before we knew about people.
Long before what we consider our earliest form of humanoid.
Heck, they may have even been more advanced than we are now, in their own specials ways.
Simply put, we just don't know when or how the first population of man came about, through research.
The bible does tell us that God populated the earth with humans and animals at some time in the distant past, LONG BEFORE He created Adam and Eve, or modern day humans.
Planet earth is over four and half billion years old. So a lot could have happened before we came along.
But you have to remember also, the planet did not have the ability to support life of any kind in the beginning.
Re: Pencil Sharpener
That is absolutely correct and adds credibility to the theory of evolution. The earth itself has gone through various stages of development along with the solar system of which it is a part. The sun too is not a static astral body, but also evolving into something else. This cycle of birth, evolution, and death appears to be a constant process and the means by which our universe operates. Why would life on earth be any different?But you have to remember also, the planet did not have the ability to support life of any kind in the beginning.
You are looking for specific missing links in the process of evolution. They are missing because they died off in the process of natural selection. The article about the eye notes that same problem wherein there are stages of eye development that are not on record. However, and this is the point of it all, there certainly was a common ancestor at some point in time. It might have been an ooze monster slithering around in the primordial soup, or something that came along later. Science cannot identify that origin given the information they have, but they do have proof it existed.
Stories about civilizations that predate our own are very popular. The current line of thought is that in our lifetime we have entered a phase of extinction, something that occurred about 65 million years ago. It's going to happen again. The suggestion is that it happened several times during that 620 million years life forms have been evolving on planet earth. Is it possible to document any of those long gone civilizations? You say the Bible has it down pat, but there is nothing in scientific journals that corroborates with God's words. Genetic sequencing tells us a lot about what must have occurred in the past, which is my reason why the quoted article is fascinating. It took 600+ millions of years for mankind to evolve to where it is today, but us naked apes have only been around for no more than 2 million of those years. So, yes, there is a lot of time left over for civilizations to have come and gone. We just can't prove it yet.
Re: Pencil Sharpener
I agree with many civilizations have come and gone over the lifetime of planet earth.
We have discovered many of them too.
But the most interesting thing is they have never found the missing links between any of the defined species.
At one time, planet earth had only one continent that eventually split up to those we know today.
And they have figured out the timeline for the splits and drifting land masses.
Biologists and archaeologists have never been able to figure out why Australia for example, and a few other places have animals unique to their continent or island, considering their ancestors are older than the continental shifts.
The only difference in the DNA of, take us humans for example is only like 2 to 3% difference.
So, with that bit of knowledge, you could be right about our evolving over hundreds of millions of years.
It is not uncommon for a certain species to become extinct, it has happened many times.
But in modern days, we are not having species become extinct, but variations of a particular species.
I also agree that some of what might be missing links have died off and became oblivion.
But then what about those species that have not died off, and show no Links, such as apes to humans.
The more we learn about DNA, the harder it is to find any relation to Darwin's theory of evolution.
We all evolve, but we don't change species!
We have discovered many of them too.
But the most interesting thing is they have never found the missing links between any of the defined species.
At one time, planet earth had only one continent that eventually split up to those we know today.
And they have figured out the timeline for the splits and drifting land masses.
Biologists and archaeologists have never been able to figure out why Australia for example, and a few other places have animals unique to their continent or island, considering their ancestors are older than the continental shifts.
The only difference in the DNA of, take us humans for example is only like 2 to 3% difference.
So, with that bit of knowledge, you could be right about our evolving over hundreds of millions of years.
It is not uncommon for a certain species to become extinct, it has happened many times.
But in modern days, we are not having species become extinct, but variations of a particular species.
I also agree that some of what might be missing links have died off and became oblivion.
But then what about those species that have not died off, and show no Links, such as apes to humans.
The more we learn about DNA, the harder it is to find any relation to Darwin's theory of evolution.
We all evolve, but we don't change species!
Re: Pencil Sharpener
Long ago in these discussions you and I came to the same conclusion about evolution. It's not one linear progression, but many individual origins of the species. Darwin is most popular for his theory of evolution, which is something well accepted in today's science world. It applies to each individual species is all he said. I believe you and I agree with Darin in that each individual species of life forms evolves independently. The difference in our thinking is that you seem to expect one species of organisms to evolve into another. The genetic makeup of the lot has some common threads, but there is not a single thread to explain it all. Evolution is much like a spider's web. A lot of lines intersect but remain autonomous. Only when you step back and look at all the lines in aggregate do you see that there is a web formed by them all. That web has one common origin ... usually an arachnid ... a pool of primordial protein for us humans.
I've often wondered how New Zealand and Australia remained in what seems to be something close to the Age of Dinosaurs. Since all life on earth has gone through several cycles of extinction I can see how it is possible for a small land mass to have evaded it all. Or at leased not been subject to one of them. The whole process of creating life forms could have been started by some extra terrestrial object with it's unique life-building elements crashing into the earth. Perhaps there was more than one crash, each with different elements. That would explain the variations that created different species. The intricacy of it all and how it all integrates perfectly was not a Grand Design from a single intelligence. It all evolved from many random beginnings and meshed together in the form we see today. There might be other explanations, but none that I know of are as sensible.
I've often wondered how New Zealand and Australia remained in what seems to be something close to the Age of Dinosaurs. Since all life on earth has gone through several cycles of extinction I can see how it is possible for a small land mass to have evaded it all. Or at leased not been subject to one of them. The whole process of creating life forms could have been started by some extra terrestrial object with it's unique life-building elements crashing into the earth. Perhaps there was more than one crash, each with different elements. That would explain the variations that created different species. The intricacy of it all and how it all integrates perfectly was not a Grand Design from a single intelligence. It all evolved from many random beginnings and meshed together in the form we see today. There might be other explanations, but none that I know of are as sensible.
Re: Pencil Sharpener
Working with plants for most of my life, I learned a lot about how they work, albeit I've forgotten 95% of it now.
Through manipulation, we have created many many many types of plants and vegetables that are not natural.
Take Cabbage, Cauliflower, Brussels Sprouts, Broccoli, and many other vegetables, none of these are natural, they were all created by selecting Mustard Plants, and breeding them for one particular quality or aspect of the plant. And this was all done without much science behind it either. It wasn't done by crossbreeding either. Just by selecting one plant out of a thousand that had a certain characteristic about it, then they kept doing that, making a thousand cuttings from that one plant, then selecting the one out of those thousand that showed improvement in what they were after.
Doing it this way is a different method than hybridizing or cross breeding.
Even in the short time I was growing plants both in the greenhouse and in the flower boxes in front of the floral shop, I developed some Tree Ivy, that after a while became true to its species.
Ivy is normally vine, sometimes quite invasive too. Can climb trees until it strangles the tree.
But about one out of twenty-thousand ivy plants will have one that tends to grow vertical instead of like a vine.
But it will normally fall over and continue to grow as a vine.
The trick was to find one that stayed vertical a bit longer than most, and which would develop a good size trunk.
But how I managed to get them to turn into self-supporting trees was not easy.
When I would find one that had a good vertical start, I would move it to the greenhouse and use a bamboo stake to keep it vertical, and trim any side shoots it put off. Then it was just a matter of letting it grow larger in diameter. Some didn't and kept reverting to a vine. But if I could get one to reach four feet and grow a thicker trunk, over the course of about four or five years, then I could a remove the stake and trim the top so it would branch out with small vines at the top. In a way it looked like a palm tree for a short time, as I kept cutting them back a certain way so they would bush out.
But once they were bushed out the way I wanted, I then let the ivy grow vines and trail downward like a weeping willow.
I was able to get over 200 of these trees the way I wanted them, and they sold for 100 bucks each. Which more than covered the labor and value of the space I used up in the greenhouse for that project.
I did something similar to a tree by my mailbox back in Creve Coeur, and am working on a Maple Tree here by continually cutting it back to its first new branching. I can only do this cut back after it goes dormant for the winter, so my Maple Tree here is not as far along as the Elm I did by my mailbox back home.
Through manipulation, we have created many many many types of plants and vegetables that are not natural.
Take Cabbage, Cauliflower, Brussels Sprouts, Broccoli, and many other vegetables, none of these are natural, they were all created by selecting Mustard Plants, and breeding them for one particular quality or aspect of the plant. And this was all done without much science behind it either. It wasn't done by crossbreeding either. Just by selecting one plant out of a thousand that had a certain characteristic about it, then they kept doing that, making a thousand cuttings from that one plant, then selecting the one out of those thousand that showed improvement in what they were after.
Doing it this way is a different method than hybridizing or cross breeding.
Even in the short time I was growing plants both in the greenhouse and in the flower boxes in front of the floral shop, I developed some Tree Ivy, that after a while became true to its species.
Ivy is normally vine, sometimes quite invasive too. Can climb trees until it strangles the tree.
But about one out of twenty-thousand ivy plants will have one that tends to grow vertical instead of like a vine.
But it will normally fall over and continue to grow as a vine.
The trick was to find one that stayed vertical a bit longer than most, and which would develop a good size trunk.
But how I managed to get them to turn into self-supporting trees was not easy.
When I would find one that had a good vertical start, I would move it to the greenhouse and use a bamboo stake to keep it vertical, and trim any side shoots it put off. Then it was just a matter of letting it grow larger in diameter. Some didn't and kept reverting to a vine. But if I could get one to reach four feet and grow a thicker trunk, over the course of about four or five years, then I could a remove the stake and trim the top so it would branch out with small vines at the top. In a way it looked like a palm tree for a short time, as I kept cutting them back a certain way so they would bush out.
But once they were bushed out the way I wanted, I then let the ivy grow vines and trail downward like a weeping willow.
I was able to get over 200 of these trees the way I wanted them, and they sold for 100 bucks each. Which more than covered the labor and value of the space I used up in the greenhouse for that project.
I did something similar to a tree by my mailbox back in Creve Coeur, and am working on a Maple Tree here by continually cutting it back to its first new branching. I can only do this cut back after it goes dormant for the winter, so my Maple Tree here is not as far along as the Elm I did by my mailbox back home.
Re: Pencil Sharpener
What you described in your last response is natural selection. In your case it was not natural because you helped it along but the idea of the strongest mutation surviving to go onto the next stage is classic Darwinism. I don't know if I would survive working full time in a greenhouse, albeit you were very generous with your employees. However, I love the way you went about creating new plants. I would have loved to be part of that. Hybridizing and cross breeding are something else and employed for different purposes. Those processes just go to show how versatile the genetic material in plants really is. I am certain the genes which produced humans have the same biodiversity built into them. What ultimately grows out of the soup depends on the influences from the environment, either natural factors or your trimming shears. While you did not cross any species lines, I'm sure the variety of living organism we see today could have all come from a single source that mutated into something else.
I think what you did at Creve Coeur was akin to the art of Bonsai. You were doing it on a larger scale is the only difference.
I also know about ivy that can kill off a tree. We had a cottonwood that was a monster. It's main trunk had to be approaching 36" in diameter, maybe more. Part of it was rooted in the drainage ditch that ran across my back property. If it wasn't for that stream I am sure the tree would have died off long before I got there. It had to be thirty feet tall and would have destroyed the roof of the house if it fell in that direction. In fact a few people told me it would eventually, but it sure looked healthy to me. Except for a few vines that were growing out of the surroundings and up the tree trunk. I didn't find out for several years that the vines were poison ivy. I never was affected by that tree in spite of me cleaning up around it on occasion. When I found out it was poison ivy, I decided it was time to do something. But what? I don't know what it was, but it was made by Ortho and guaranteed to kill off anything and everything it touched. The only question in my mind was would it kill off the tree if I sprayed the ivy with it. I went so far as to get an estimate of what it would cost to cut down the tree, $2500, just in case. Well, I sprayed the leaves of the ivy but none of the anti-vegetate touched the tree's leaves. Just it's bark which was very thick. I watched the ivy die off over the next couple months, but no signs of destruction were seen on the cottonwood tree. All I can say is that I'm glad I no longer have to be concerned about it falling on my house.
I think what you did at Creve Coeur was akin to the art of Bonsai. You were doing it on a larger scale is the only difference.
I also know about ivy that can kill off a tree. We had a cottonwood that was a monster. It's main trunk had to be approaching 36" in diameter, maybe more. Part of it was rooted in the drainage ditch that ran across my back property. If it wasn't for that stream I am sure the tree would have died off long before I got there. It had to be thirty feet tall and would have destroyed the roof of the house if it fell in that direction. In fact a few people told me it would eventually, but it sure looked healthy to me. Except for a few vines that were growing out of the surroundings and up the tree trunk. I didn't find out for several years that the vines were poison ivy. I never was affected by that tree in spite of me cleaning up around it on occasion. When I found out it was poison ivy, I decided it was time to do something. But what? I don't know what it was, but it was made by Ortho and guaranteed to kill off anything and everything it touched. The only question in my mind was would it kill off the tree if I sprayed the ivy with it. I went so far as to get an estimate of what it would cost to cut down the tree, $2500, just in case. Well, I sprayed the leaves of the ivy but none of the anti-vegetate touched the tree's leaves. Just it's bark which was very thick. I watched the ivy die off over the next couple months, but no signs of destruction were seen on the cottonwood tree. All I can say is that I'm glad I no longer have to be concerned about it falling on my house.
Re: Pencil Sharpener
In the history of horticulture, there is only ONE cross-species plant that ever worked.
It is called a Fatshedera. The cross between a Fatsia plant, and Hedera Helix.
Unfortunately, since the advances in DNA, they are now claiming a Fatsia and an Hedera Helix are of the same family, so technically were the same species.
With Bonsai, you also had to trim the roots, which I didn't do of course.
And if I didn't cut it back to the first new node each season, it would continue to grow normally, only much more dense is all.
In my backyard, I had a tree that had 4 types of apples, and 2 types of pears. I bought it pre-grafted and growing by a company who made them with 7 different branches on them, but they had a problem with the cherry branches on a few and sold them for cheaper, which was fine with me. The one I got was only like four feet tall, so all the fruit producing branches were down low enough to pick without a ladder, hi hi. I never did cut back the center that grew taller, just to see what it was. Whatever it was, it never did anything except get leaves like on two of the apple branches.
We really liked two of the apple varieties on it, so I grafted one each of those back into the main trunk above the existing branches on the part that grew skyward. They did very well also.
On vining weeds, weed killers usually only kill the tips and leave the rest unharmed.
I take a box cutter and cut the stems off as best as I can and then the rest up in the tree will die.
I have two large Poplar trees, one on my property and two on the neighbors property. They drop lots of heavy branches all year round and really need to be taken down, but there is no way I can afford to do that.
I had a company come out once to let me know how much they would charge just to fell the trees into my upper backyard, no clean-up and no disposal. He looked at the largest one, the one on my property and simply said, it is too front heavy to get it to fall back onto the open land, even if he got the other two out of the way first. Not a risk he was willing to take.
Now, if we go up and remove all the branches first then it would be doable, but it would still cost me over 2 grand, and that's only if they don't have to do any clean-up at all, other than tossing the branches back in my mulch piles.
Way more than I could afford so they still stand. If it falls frontward, it will take out part of the garage and both of our cars in the process.
It is called a Fatshedera. The cross between a Fatsia plant, and Hedera Helix.
Unfortunately, since the advances in DNA, they are now claiming a Fatsia and an Hedera Helix are of the same family, so technically were the same species.
With Bonsai, you also had to trim the roots, which I didn't do of course.
And if I didn't cut it back to the first new node each season, it would continue to grow normally, only much more dense is all.
In my backyard, I had a tree that had 4 types of apples, and 2 types of pears. I bought it pre-grafted and growing by a company who made them with 7 different branches on them, but they had a problem with the cherry branches on a few and sold them for cheaper, which was fine with me. The one I got was only like four feet tall, so all the fruit producing branches were down low enough to pick without a ladder, hi hi. I never did cut back the center that grew taller, just to see what it was. Whatever it was, it never did anything except get leaves like on two of the apple branches.
We really liked two of the apple varieties on it, so I grafted one each of those back into the main trunk above the existing branches on the part that grew skyward. They did very well also.
On vining weeds, weed killers usually only kill the tips and leave the rest unharmed.
I take a box cutter and cut the stems off as best as I can and then the rest up in the tree will die.
I have two large Poplar trees, one on my property and two on the neighbors property. They drop lots of heavy branches all year round and really need to be taken down, but there is no way I can afford to do that.
I had a company come out once to let me know how much they would charge just to fell the trees into my upper backyard, no clean-up and no disposal. He looked at the largest one, the one on my property and simply said, it is too front heavy to get it to fall back onto the open land, even if he got the other two out of the way first. Not a risk he was willing to take.
Now, if we go up and remove all the branches first then it would be doable, but it would still cost me over 2 grand, and that's only if they don't have to do any clean-up at all, other than tossing the branches back in my mulch piles.
Way more than I could afford so they still stand. If it falls frontward, it will take out part of the garage and both of our cars in the process.
Re: Pencil Sharpener
I don't know enough about biology to understand why two different species cannot mate successfully. I would guess it has something to do with the immune system rejecting anything that has foreign DNA. How exactly it knows what is foreign or not is the mystery. In any case the number of species we have today is way more than we could ever need. I suppose it would be nice to be able to combine the best traits of two dissimilar organisms to produce one super organ, but then it would also be nice if we could turn lead into gold. I doubt either one will happen in my lifetime.
The poison ivy vine on my cottonwood tree was embedded into the bark. It was well integrated and I probably would have to damage the tree bark in order to remove the vine manually. Normal weed killer barely has any effect on poison ivy. I had some growing on the ground and they seemed to think it was fertilizer, or something. They had some specific weed killer just for ivy at the local WalMart, but I had my suspicions about it. Defoliants attack the leaves, as you point out, but there was something like military grade anti vegetation spray, I think it was called Spectracide, that guaranteed to kill off anything growing in the ground. It did in fact kill of the poison ivy and a lot of what was growing around it. The tree survived and after about five years things started to grow again in place of the collateral damaged undergrowth.
My neighbor had exactly the same problem, but the ivy there was consuming his deck posts. He too didn't know what it was until it was too late. His dad was infected all over his hands and face before they came over and asked if I knew what that vine was. I told him it looked like the poison ivy I killed off and they had an Ahah moment. Don't know what his dad did for a living but the next day they two of them had hazmat suits on and were hacking away at the ivy. The stems had to be two or three inches thick and not so easy to detach from the posts. But they got it done. I liked my method better because it was less trouble. Besides, I didn't happen to have any hazmat suits stored in my basement.
The poison ivy vine on my cottonwood tree was embedded into the bark. It was well integrated and I probably would have to damage the tree bark in order to remove the vine manually. Normal weed killer barely has any effect on poison ivy. I had some growing on the ground and they seemed to think it was fertilizer, or something. They had some specific weed killer just for ivy at the local WalMart, but I had my suspicions about it. Defoliants attack the leaves, as you point out, but there was something like military grade anti vegetation spray, I think it was called Spectracide, that guaranteed to kill off anything growing in the ground. It did in fact kill of the poison ivy and a lot of what was growing around it. The tree survived and after about five years things started to grow again in place of the collateral damaged undergrowth.
My neighbor had exactly the same problem, but the ivy there was consuming his deck posts. He too didn't know what it was until it was too late. His dad was infected all over his hands and face before they came over and asked if I knew what that vine was. I told him it looked like the poison ivy I killed off and they had an Ahah moment. Don't know what his dad did for a living but the next day they two of them had hazmat suits on and were hacking away at the ivy. The stems had to be two or three inches thick and not so easy to detach from the posts. But they got it done. I liked my method better because it was less trouble. Besides, I didn't happen to have any hazmat suits stored in my basement.
Re: Pencil Sharpener
You have no idea of how many times in our greenhouse labs, they tried to graft one plant with another of another species.
Now normally a graft would produce one branch of the one grafted in. But the way they were doing it was by embedding several tiny grafts inside of an existing branch. The few they though actually took and grew, it turned out not to be the case. The strange new shoots merely grew roots down behind the bark skin, which became obvious after about a year, as those roots grew larger.
There were some plants we propagated by cutting a leaf into very tiny 1/16th inch square flakes and started them in agar. It was a fast way to get thousands of plants from a few leaves, and this method worked really great with some types of plants.
I had a honeysuckle bush behind my house that I trained to look sorta like menorah. I had to keep cutting it back to keep it from spreading over the sidewalk. I saw a new branch coming up behind it, where I really couldn't get to it, but let it grow and twine on a few of the honeysuckle branches. Turns out, that was poison oak, and I got it bad the year I cut it out. Eyes swelled shut and my hands puffed up like the Pillsbury doughboy, hi hi. Itching and blister galore. I think I lived on Dipenhydramine for several months. Took like four times the normal dosage, just so I could get some much needed sleep.
Now normally a graft would produce one branch of the one grafted in. But the way they were doing it was by embedding several tiny grafts inside of an existing branch. The few they though actually took and grew, it turned out not to be the case. The strange new shoots merely grew roots down behind the bark skin, which became obvious after about a year, as those roots grew larger.
There were some plants we propagated by cutting a leaf into very tiny 1/16th inch square flakes and started them in agar. It was a fast way to get thousands of plants from a few leaves, and this method worked really great with some types of plants.
I had a honeysuckle bush behind my house that I trained to look sorta like menorah. I had to keep cutting it back to keep it from spreading over the sidewalk. I saw a new branch coming up behind it, where I really couldn't get to it, but let it grow and twine on a few of the honeysuckle branches. Turns out, that was poison oak, and I got it bad the year I cut it out. Eyes swelled shut and my hands puffed up like the Pillsbury doughboy, hi hi. Itching and blister galore. I think I lived on Dipenhydramine for several months. Took like four times the normal dosage, just so I could get some much needed sleep.
Re: Pencil Sharpener
Apparently by the time a species of an organism is fully developed, it's too late to modify it by combining it with something else. Now and days they can operate directly on the genes inside the chromosomes of a given cell and generate variations of that organism. It seems possible to take a step back and modify whatever it is that creates the chromosomes. Doing that would create a new species, not just a variation of an existing one. That is harder than gene splicing and I don't know if they actually found a way to do it yet. What you did in the greenhouse with grafts was simply using a host to grow something foreign to it. That would be akin to a surrogate mother's role when she carries a fetus conceived elsewhere.
I had a few honeysuckle bushes in and about my forest up by Chicago. I moved a few up to the house and used them as a fence to shield the bedroom window. That worked great while there was foliage on the bushes but didn't provide a lot of screening in the winter. Honeysuckle was easy to prune and create the shape you wanted, but they grew pretty fast where I had them. They required constant maintenance if a specific shape was the goal. I ended up trimming them with a chain saw every other year just to keep the height of them under control. For about a week each year the aroma was delightful. I used to like lilac bushes for the same reason. The problem there is that they would not flower until the second year after trimming them.
I had a few honeysuckle bushes in and about my forest up by Chicago. I moved a few up to the house and used them as a fence to shield the bedroom window. That worked great while there was foliage on the bushes but didn't provide a lot of screening in the winter. Honeysuckle was easy to prune and create the shape you wanted, but they grew pretty fast where I had them. They required constant maintenance if a specific shape was the goal. I ended up trimming them with a chain saw every other year just to keep the height of them under control. For about a week each year the aroma was delightful. I used to like lilac bushes for the same reason. The problem there is that they would not flower until the second year after trimming them.
Re: Pencil Sharpener
The more they learn about DNA and how to manipulate it, the closer we are getting to manufactured and designed humans.
Scary thought when you think about it. A superior race, in da Furhers face!
Yes, grafting is just sticking an existing branch into a stronger tree.
But what I meant with their embedding multiple slips inside of a stock plant, was that they were basically dividing up the skin of the stock plant into slits equal to the amount of slips they were placing inside and under the existing plant.
Basically causing them to share with each other and producing a new type of plant, but not a new species.
This is basically how I managed to get a normal yellow Marigold to have white blooms, but in the process it ended up with Dusty Miller leaves. It was cute, and reproducible, but not what I needed to win the contest for a White Marigold.
With all we know about plants now, it is amazing the things they can do that we never could do in the old days.
FWIW: A baby shares its blood with the mother. And this is why some babies borne to surrogate mothers using donated sperm, have not all come out just right. Especially those which were eggs fertilized outside the womb and then placed in there.
My neighbor has lets some honeysuckle bushes continue to grow until when they do bloom the smell is overpowering.
I didn't have a lot of problems keeping my honeysuckle cut back to the way I wanted it, and in the shape I wanted, and all it took was keeping it trimmed with the hedge trimmer.
I had a lot of bushes in my yard there and here that I cut way back, and then would trim them only about 3 inches larger each year until they became solid bushes.
I have two Crepe Myrtles in the front yard that were always here, and I cut those way back to only 3 feet off the ground my first year down here, then a 3'6" the next year, 3'9" the following year, so they got really dense.
I have two in the back yard I started from seeds. It didn't take them long to grow, and each year up until my heart attack I trimmed them leaving the center alone and never cutting it. Now when I have it cut back, when I can afford it, I tell the guy to leave the center trunk alone. The last guy I had cut them back for me, cut a foot below where I told him too, so they lost some of their density, and it killed a couple of branches also.
They are all in bloom right now, coming to the end on some of them though. Beautiful splash of color in the yard.
I had a few multi-trunk Red Bud trees back home that were gorgeous. The Red Bud trees down here are different, they are all only single trunk, but have the same type of leaves and blooms. So when I was back home in St. Loo, I swung by my old house and asked the guy if I could cut a couple of small branches off the back of my old trees there. I needed young first year branches. Packed them in wet sand in a baggie and brought them home. Even though they started out as a single trunk, by the third year they had sprouted at least four more trunks on each and were starting to look just like I wanted. Now they are fairly big trees in my back yard and look great too.
Scary thought when you think about it. A superior race, in da Furhers face!
Yes, grafting is just sticking an existing branch into a stronger tree.
But what I meant with their embedding multiple slips inside of a stock plant, was that they were basically dividing up the skin of the stock plant into slits equal to the amount of slips they were placing inside and under the existing plant.
Basically causing them to share with each other and producing a new type of plant, but not a new species.
This is basically how I managed to get a normal yellow Marigold to have white blooms, but in the process it ended up with Dusty Miller leaves. It was cute, and reproducible, but not what I needed to win the contest for a White Marigold.
With all we know about plants now, it is amazing the things they can do that we never could do in the old days.
FWIW: A baby shares its blood with the mother. And this is why some babies borne to surrogate mothers using donated sperm, have not all come out just right. Especially those which were eggs fertilized outside the womb and then placed in there.
My neighbor has lets some honeysuckle bushes continue to grow until when they do bloom the smell is overpowering.
I didn't have a lot of problems keeping my honeysuckle cut back to the way I wanted it, and in the shape I wanted, and all it took was keeping it trimmed with the hedge trimmer.
I had a lot of bushes in my yard there and here that I cut way back, and then would trim them only about 3 inches larger each year until they became solid bushes.
I have two Crepe Myrtles in the front yard that were always here, and I cut those way back to only 3 feet off the ground my first year down here, then a 3'6" the next year, 3'9" the following year, so they got really dense.
I have two in the back yard I started from seeds. It didn't take them long to grow, and each year up until my heart attack I trimmed them leaving the center alone and never cutting it. Now when I have it cut back, when I can afford it, I tell the guy to leave the center trunk alone. The last guy I had cut them back for me, cut a foot below where I told him too, so they lost some of their density, and it killed a couple of branches also.
They are all in bloom right now, coming to the end on some of them though. Beautiful splash of color in the yard.
I had a few multi-trunk Red Bud trees back home that were gorgeous. The Red Bud trees down here are different, they are all only single trunk, but have the same type of leaves and blooms. So when I was back home in St. Loo, I swung by my old house and asked the guy if I could cut a couple of small branches off the back of my old trees there. I needed young first year branches. Packed them in wet sand in a baggie and brought them home. Even though they started out as a single trunk, by the third year they had sprouted at least four more trunks on each and were starting to look just like I wanted. Now they are fairly big trees in my back yard and look great too.
Re: Pencil Sharpener
I've read where they can manufacturer human beings in a laboratory, but something about ethics and morals and civil laws stops the scientists from letting the experiments go beyond a few cell divisions. They terminate the growth before it becomes a functional organism. Today in the great state of Texas that would be considered an abortion and the scientists could end up in jail. The experimenters were making things from scratch and in theory they could manipulate the genes to produce any kind of human you could imagine. Maybe even some you could not imagine. In any case, if that type of research is still being done, I think it would be in some other country.
You are correct to say the mother's blood flows through the fetus, but the fetus's blood type is not determined by the surrogate. The same goes for any other genetic traits, which are determined by the donated egg and sperm. The surrogate is acting as a host but great care must be taken so that the immune systems of both the host and the fetus do not reject one another. I think abnormalities occur when the match between the two organisms is not perfect. In the world of plants those aberrations are desirable. I'm not too sure about what happens at the genetic level. I would guess in plants the same thing happens as in humans. Mixing dissimilar organisms doesn't actually create a compatible compound. Mutations and abnormalities might occur, and some of those in plants are viable. Not so much in humans.
Red Bud trees are prolific around here, but their flowers are white. LOL I'm not sure they are Red Bud's but the look a lot like them. I have one in my back yard in fact but they apparently grow wild in many parts of this county. They look totally awesome in spring and are rather average the rest of the time. They kind of resemble an apple tree but are much better groomed. I just can't get into horticulture here in Missouri. It saddens me dearly at times when I reflect back on all the things I had growing in the last place I lived. That forest was magic for my spirit. I've become disheartened with the difficulty of growing things I am familiar with, and thus simply abandoned all efforts. A landscaper was hired when we moved in and some trees and bushes were planted, but they are not mine. I try to keep the rose bushes alive, but those damned beetles from Japan are fierce competition. I had lots of bugs in the forest up north, but none were really destructive. I shared by growing with all the forest's living creatures, and we got along fairly well. The skunks and I kept our distance, and I already mentioned my negative experience with the poison ivy. But even the weeds in the grass up there looked better than the spindly crab grass dominating Missouri's lawns. That's all under control this year, BTW. I paid somebody to fertilize and apply weed killer. That won't happen next near because their prices are outrageous. Now, after the hernia incident, I won't be lifting any heavy bags of chemicals either. So, it's all very disappointing. I can't even turn the lawn into a rock garden without the HOA having a hemorrhage. I'd move back to Chicago, but I don't think I can afford to buy anything there now and days. I think I'll just take up that old man's hobby of painting by numbers.
You are correct to say the mother's blood flows through the fetus, but the fetus's blood type is not determined by the surrogate. The same goes for any other genetic traits, which are determined by the donated egg and sperm. The surrogate is acting as a host but great care must be taken so that the immune systems of both the host and the fetus do not reject one another. I think abnormalities occur when the match between the two organisms is not perfect. In the world of plants those aberrations are desirable. I'm not too sure about what happens at the genetic level. I would guess in plants the same thing happens as in humans. Mixing dissimilar organisms doesn't actually create a compatible compound. Mutations and abnormalities might occur, and some of those in plants are viable. Not so much in humans.
Red Bud trees are prolific around here, but their flowers are white. LOL I'm not sure they are Red Bud's but the look a lot like them. I have one in my back yard in fact but they apparently grow wild in many parts of this county. They look totally awesome in spring and are rather average the rest of the time. They kind of resemble an apple tree but are much better groomed. I just can't get into horticulture here in Missouri. It saddens me dearly at times when I reflect back on all the things I had growing in the last place I lived. That forest was magic for my spirit. I've become disheartened with the difficulty of growing things I am familiar with, and thus simply abandoned all efforts. A landscaper was hired when we moved in and some trees and bushes were planted, but they are not mine. I try to keep the rose bushes alive, but those damned beetles from Japan are fierce competition. I had lots of bugs in the forest up north, but none were really destructive. I shared by growing with all the forest's living creatures, and we got along fairly well. The skunks and I kept our distance, and I already mentioned my negative experience with the poison ivy. But even the weeds in the grass up there looked better than the spindly crab grass dominating Missouri's lawns. That's all under control this year, BTW. I paid somebody to fertilize and apply weed killer. That won't happen next near because their prices are outrageous. Now, after the hernia incident, I won't be lifting any heavy bags of chemicals either. So, it's all very disappointing. I can't even turn the lawn into a rock garden without the HOA having a hemorrhage. I'd move back to Chicago, but I don't think I can afford to buy anything there now and days. I think I'll just take up that old man's hobby of painting by numbers.
Re: Pencil Sharpener
I know in secret a lot of crazy things are being done that would scare the bejesus out of us if we really knew what was going on.
I'm not too up on biology to understand how any of that works, or doesn't work as the case may be.
But here is a twist for you. I've read a few places that folks with rh negative blood types might just be due to humans crossed with aliens thousands of years ago, or heck, maybe even currently. I didn't say I believed what I read though, hi hi.
It is very disheartening not to be able to do the simple things I used to take for granted as needing done all the time. So I know what you mean.
My dad's yard was solid clay, very hard for water to even soak into it. Not like down here where you could leave a hose running all week and never see a puddle of water.
When dad planted a tree or bush, he often dug a 3 to 4 foot diameter hole, about 3 feet deep, dumped in a bag of 3/4 rock in the bottom, then added a few bags of good potting soil up to where the tree would sit, then he filled around it with more potting soil of a slightly cheaper grade. What he dug out to make the hole, he would spread on the other edge of his driveway until he had that up nearly level with the driveway from a slight little hill there. Almost like a ditch really, but had nothing to do with watershed, so it was OK that he filled it up. His neighbor on that side preferred it was filled up also, and once it was full, he would mow right up to dad's driveway that little 4 foot wide strip that really belonged to dad.
When dad moved there, he had two large pin oaks brought from his old house. This meant he had the biggest trees in the entire subdivision for like 20 years. Folks even referred to his house as the one with the big trees, hi hi.
He also brought about 4 other trees not quite as big for his front yard. He said it cost something like 400 bucks to move each tree, and that was back in the 1960's, so now it would be more like 1,500 bucks per trees of that size.
Then there was the cost of digging those big deep holes and getting rid of the removed clay and filling with clean dirt around them. But I think all of that was actually included in the price he paid.
I'm not too up on biology to understand how any of that works, or doesn't work as the case may be.
But here is a twist for you. I've read a few places that folks with rh negative blood types might just be due to humans crossed with aliens thousands of years ago, or heck, maybe even currently. I didn't say I believed what I read though, hi hi.
It is very disheartening not to be able to do the simple things I used to take for granted as needing done all the time. So I know what you mean.
My dad's yard was solid clay, very hard for water to even soak into it. Not like down here where you could leave a hose running all week and never see a puddle of water.
When dad planted a tree or bush, he often dug a 3 to 4 foot diameter hole, about 3 feet deep, dumped in a bag of 3/4 rock in the bottom, then added a few bags of good potting soil up to where the tree would sit, then he filled around it with more potting soil of a slightly cheaper grade. What he dug out to make the hole, he would spread on the other edge of his driveway until he had that up nearly level with the driveway from a slight little hill there. Almost like a ditch really, but had nothing to do with watershed, so it was OK that he filled it up. His neighbor on that side preferred it was filled up also, and once it was full, he would mow right up to dad's driveway that little 4 foot wide strip that really belonged to dad.
When dad moved there, he had two large pin oaks brought from his old house. This meant he had the biggest trees in the entire subdivision for like 20 years. Folks even referred to his house as the one with the big trees, hi hi.
He also brought about 4 other trees not quite as big for his front yard. He said it cost something like 400 bucks to move each tree, and that was back in the 1960's, so now it would be more like 1,500 bucks per trees of that size.
Then there was the cost of digging those big deep holes and getting rid of the removed clay and filling with clean dirt around them. But I think all of that was actually included in the price he paid.
Re: Pencil Sharpener
I worked with a guy who lived in an unincorporated part of a Chicago suburb. He had 2-1/2 acres of land shaped like a 750 foot long rectangle. He built his home on the west end of that property and several years afterward he decided to sell the back one acre. I bought it before they had a chance to list it. LOL The land on his end of that two acres was about six feet higher than the land on which I built my house. It was a gradual slope and there is a small stream that crosses through my property, which actually was lower than the plot of land upon which I built the house. In between my house and his house was about an acre of dense growth, mostly trees and bushes left from a tree nursery that once owned a couple dozen acres in that area.
I only lived there a couple years when I discovered something truly amazing was going on with the landscape. I had intentions of cleaning up that forest and making a beautiful park out of it, but after 25 years of moving things around I was only about half done. In the process of moving bushes I discovered that the black dirt was at least 36 inches deep. That's how far down I dug to remove one of those honeysuckle bushes. At that depth it was no longer 100% black dirt, but about 20% sand and clay started to appear. The deep black dirt was apparently washed into place over many years given that the land was sloping from, my neighbor's street down to where I lived. Every time it rained some erosion took place because the water was heading toward that stream which cut across my property. It was indeed black dirt, but not everything would grow in it. I tried grass seed a few times and it barely lasted a couple years. The pH of the soil was a hair over 7 which should have been ideal for grass, but everything else loved whatever was in that soil. So, any time I needed some dirt for the front of the house landscaping, I'd just went back into the forest and dug up a wheelbarrow full. A few weeks later that hole was filled with black dirt again, or wood chips if I was doing some shredding.
There was no black dirt anywhere on this property here in Missouri. The only black soil came with the sod they laid into place. They didn't even put a bedding down first. They just plopped the sod onto the clay, and for reasons I'll never understand the sod is still growing. Well, the sod and all that crabgrass when I don't take care of it. One thing about the dirt here is that it drains fairly quickly. A puddle will form in some spots if it really rains hard, but it only takes a few hours for it to soak in. That might be due to the abundance of rocks mixed in with the clay, but I have no clue about where that water is going. Some of the neighbors have flowers and they did what your dad did. They dug holes and filled it with topsoil or something other than clay. A few of the neighbors tried to grow vegetables over the six years I've lived here. They all gave up. The soil and the heat in summer makes gardening very difficult. I know how to fix all that, but it's a pain. I have grown various vegetables and flowers in bags of potting soil or bales of peat moss. That works amazingly well in fact. I even have some huge pots I can fill with a growing medium, if I wanted to buy that much growing medium. I think I can get things going, but don't know how tomatoes would do in the 100 ℉ we have been getting lately. Then again it's been more than 6 years since I did anything like that, and I am sorely out of shape. I'll just be happy with the memories, I guess.
I only lived there a couple years when I discovered something truly amazing was going on with the landscape. I had intentions of cleaning up that forest and making a beautiful park out of it, but after 25 years of moving things around I was only about half done. In the process of moving bushes I discovered that the black dirt was at least 36 inches deep. That's how far down I dug to remove one of those honeysuckle bushes. At that depth it was no longer 100% black dirt, but about 20% sand and clay started to appear. The deep black dirt was apparently washed into place over many years given that the land was sloping from, my neighbor's street down to where I lived. Every time it rained some erosion took place because the water was heading toward that stream which cut across my property. It was indeed black dirt, but not everything would grow in it. I tried grass seed a few times and it barely lasted a couple years. The pH of the soil was a hair over 7 which should have been ideal for grass, but everything else loved whatever was in that soil. So, any time I needed some dirt for the front of the house landscaping, I'd just went back into the forest and dug up a wheelbarrow full. A few weeks later that hole was filled with black dirt again, or wood chips if I was doing some shredding.
There was no black dirt anywhere on this property here in Missouri. The only black soil came with the sod they laid into place. They didn't even put a bedding down first. They just plopped the sod onto the clay, and for reasons I'll never understand the sod is still growing. Well, the sod and all that crabgrass when I don't take care of it. One thing about the dirt here is that it drains fairly quickly. A puddle will form in some spots if it really rains hard, but it only takes a few hours for it to soak in. That might be due to the abundance of rocks mixed in with the clay, but I have no clue about where that water is going. Some of the neighbors have flowers and they did what your dad did. They dug holes and filled it with topsoil or something other than clay. A few of the neighbors tried to grow vegetables over the six years I've lived here. They all gave up. The soil and the heat in summer makes gardening very difficult. I know how to fix all that, but it's a pain. I have grown various vegetables and flowers in bags of potting soil or bales of peat moss. That works amazingly well in fact. I even have some huge pots I can fill with a growing medium, if I wanted to buy that much growing medium. I think I can get things going, but don't know how tomatoes would do in the 100 ℉ we have been getting lately. Then again it's been more than 6 years since I did anything like that, and I am sorely out of shape. I'll just be happy with the memories, I guess.