For those who haven't noticed, you've stepped into the Texas Triffid Ranch LiveJournal, the augmentation to The Texas Triffid Ranch, a carnivorous and unusual plant nursery located in Dallas. The LJ is open to comments from all over, but anonymous or non-LJ user postings will be screened. (This is stop spam postings more than anything else, so don't be offended if your brilliant comment doesn't show up right away.)

The Inhabitants: At this time, the regular cast of characters involve myself, my wife the Czarina, two cats named Tramplemaine and Leiber, and Stella, "The World's Meanest Box Turtle". We may have additional cast members show up, and they will be disposed of listed as appropriate.

The Situation: At this time, this LJ discusses and sticks with the particulars of horticulture, including news, general observations, and upcoming events. If you don't have an interest in carnivorous plants and Wollemi pines, and if you particularly want to cultivate an interest in passionflowers or bromeliads, you might want to move on. I'm just sayin'.

The Rules: I'm remarkably liberal in discussion subjects, but anyone who thinks that this is a democracy will be disappointed. Harrassment or abuse of anyone else, for whatever reason, is grounds for immediate blocking. Start a flame war here, and all parties get blocked. If you want to share a link, feel free to do so if it's appropriate to the forum: if you're trying to pitch your latest MLM scam, it's a blocking. I generally give everyone a second chance after six months or so, but any E-mail sent to me arguing about or debating the blocking will make it permanent. I know most people weren't raised Catholic, but just picture that a nine-foot-tall cannibalistic nun with a metal drafting ruler the size of a Scottish claymore is standing behind you with designs on your pineal gland if you get out of line, and we'll all be happy.

Contact: For various reasons, individuals may have reason to send Snail Mail, and all mail missives are gratefully appreciated. Yes, I do reviews. I also do children's parties, and no, I'm not joking. The address is:

Paul Riddell
The Texas Triffid Ranch
5930-E Royal Lane
#140
Dallas, Texas 75230

Well, that's it. Welcome to the party.

And for the record, I would like to inform one and all that the Czarina will be showing her jewelry at Artfest 2008 in Dallas Fair Park next weekend. So far as I know, this will be her last big show before Convergence 14 in August, so come out and cause some trouble. (Also for the record, I'll be out there solely to assist her, so I won't be bringing out any plants or plant byproducts. However, I'm working on shows of my own.)

foxxina and I had a discussion a little while back on how bitching about a lack of a local arts scene was easier than getting off one's butt and discovering that one's previous assessment was completely wrong. He's currently in Plymouth, England, but Plymouth has the same perception as Dallas: since a group of people pining for the night life in London have decided that There Is No Scene, there's no reason to find one or (horrors) make one. He and I have the same attitude about that perception: go kvetch somewhere else, because we're too busy trying to get involved with the same arts scene you claim doesn't exist.

I say this as prologue to mentioning that the Etsy Dallas crew, comprised of creators selling their items through Etsy.com, is hosting its first annual Beer-B-Q this Sunday from 11 to 5. The Czarina and I are definitely going to be out there if I have to dress her in her sleep and schlep her out to the car while she's unconscious: we've been discussing the need for a craft circle of some sort for quite a long time, and discovering that Etsy Dallas beat us to the punch is, well, a relief.

(Slightly related, Etsy Dallas passed on the link to Funky News, the regular newsletter for Funky Finds, and I may have to steal this concept for the Hell's Half-Acre Herald. I mean, I love doing a print newsletter, but I'd also love to be able to make it profitable, and print newsletters can't get enough advertising any more to be profitable. I'm also hoping that this will give the Czarina ideas, too.)

The last weekend and subsequent beginning of the week have been as insane as one can expect, what with a greenhouse full of Datura seedlings that need to be potted, a Web site that won't make its own content, and a lot of interludes. With luck, I might be able to hit the highlights.

Numero uno, spiderfarmer regularly asks about the merits of container gardening, partly because of the insane restrictions of her home owner's association and partly because her son is already turning into a gardening junkie. In fact, I'm using him as an example of how it's possible to get kids into gardening if they're actively participating in the whole process and not just used as cheap labor. To this end, I refer De to Container-Gardens.com, which is a site that I wish I'd written.

In return, she kindly shared pictures of her rose KARED (short for Killer Attack Rose of Evil Doom), which we had to move last year from a clay-filled planting bed in the side of the house to the side of her fence. Seeing as how the Dallas area caught a nasty frost the day after we replanted it, I was afraid that it was going to die, but KARED survived and continues to feed on the blood of small yappy dogs and neighborhood kids. Now to take scions from it and see if I can graft them onto the big rose bush off the back yard, if only to complement the mailman-eaing daylilies I already have.

Numero two-o, the Czarina and I crashed the Urban Street Bazaar/Bishop Street Art Fair in Oak Cliff last Saturday, and then we spent the rest of the day assisting lolotehe in her attack on the local Lowe's home improvement store. While bouncing through the nursery section, I discovered that she, like most people who spent their childhoods in Texas, has a healthy respect for prickly pear cactus. For those who read the words "prickly pear" and don't grab the nearest roll of duct tape, Texas Gardener is willing to oblige with a thumbnail guide to the genus Opuntia. (If you don't want to read the article, the reason why the handyman's secret weapon is so important is that most prickly pear cacti produce both long spines and short irritating hairs, and the only easy way to get the hairs out of a bare arm or leg without breaking off the tips in the skin is with the help of duct tape. The other way involves long flames, and you really don't want to go there.)

Numero three-o, I regret that I wasn't ready with plenty of plants for the Urban Street Bazaar this year, but I plan to make up for it with this November's Bazaar. Oh, I'm going to be busy between now and Halloween.

Numero four-o, the only reason why I haven't gone on further about the recent Live Green Expo in Plano was that I was literally too swamped with work to bring it up, but it's an event I'm definitely crashing next year. I was a little surprised by a couple of vendors (D magazine had a very large presence, suggesting either that it's desperately trying to reach an audience other than its usual "Nouveau riche, Drunk, and Stupid" demographic, or that its editors are suddenly concerned about the environment as in how it affects the steady flow of pesticide-free nosecandy into North Texas), but the general attitude among attendees and vendors was relaxingly ego-free. Being able to discuss the merits of hunting wasps with Howard Garrett was worth the trip all in itself, and I think I'm going to have to drag the carnivores out for next year's event.

Oh, and a tip for any single males in the Dallas area: if you're going to be at Live Green Expo, bring a bicycle. I'm serious: any guy riding a bike without a Spandex riding outfit was practically mobbed. I was particularly surprised at the woman who thanked me for my sense of responsibility in riding a bike to the Expo, saw my wedding band as I was putting on my gloves, and then still asked "Need a ride home?" (If you're reading this, my rejection of your very generous offer was just an observation that the Czarina is a jealous goddess. Now, my youngest brother Martin is single, and he's a hell of a lot more entertaining than I am. After all, I'm the quiet one in the family.)

Numero five-o, besides the latest Garden & Greenhouse, I also came across the latest issue of Countryside & Small Stock Journal while poking through the evermore-anaemic magazine section at the local Barnes & Noble. While it's obviously aimed toward homesteaders of all sorts, a lot of the current issue would also come in handy for urban gardeners. At the very least, if anyone wanted to set up mason bee colonies in my neighborhood, I certainly wouldn't complain. And so it goes.

I just got the latest online newsletter from Texas Gardener, complete with this little gem of an event hosted by the Texas AgriLife Extension Service. Anyone want to spot the obvious problem before you read the end of the post?

Dallas, Austin, Houston: "Surviving Difficult Times will be the theme for nursery and greenhouse grower workshops to be held in three Texas cities this month. The workshops will help growers "transform the businesses into leaner, stronger and more profitable enterprises, said Dr. Charlie Hall, a workshop instructor who holds the Ellison Chair in International Floriculture in the horticultural sciences department at Texas A&M University. The workshops pertain to managing risk and uncertainty in the marketplace. They will be held from 9 a.m. until 2 p.m. May 14 in Dallas, May 15 in Austin and May 16 in Houston. All sessions will be held at the county offices of Texas AgriLife Extension Service in Dallas, Austin and Houston. In addition to Hall, the workshop will be taught by Dr. John J. Haydu and Dr. Alan W. Hodges, both of the University of Florida, and Dr. Laurence M. Crane, National Crop Insurance Services. The first session is on identifying the risks that gnaw on profits and learning strategies on how to overcome them. The other sessions at each event pertain to managing ones financial toolbox, marketing strategies beyond selling, and a look at risk-management tools that are often misunderstood or overlooked, Hall said. Registration is required prior to the event. A $20 fee covers meeting materials, lunch and breaks. Call Marco Palma at (979) 845-5284 to reserve a spot and for more information. The AgriLife Extension office in Dallas is at 10056 Marsh Lane, Suite B-101; Austin is 1600 B Smith Road; and Houston is at 3033 Bear Creek Drive.

Not to sound overly cynical, but I'd have been glad to have attended and paid the $20 admission fee, had I received that newsletter sooner than two hours after the Dallas meeting was over. Well, there's always the next one.

So everyone knows that I'm doing my best to get at least part of the Web site live this weekend, and I'd like to ask some advice. The ultimate plan is for the site to become self-sufficient from retail sales, but I also know that selling plants locally is completely different from selling plants via online ordering. Just within the US, I'm probably within three years of having enough inventory to sell carnivores in the States, and I can't justify paying for shipping permits until then. (Besides, Sarracenia Northwest already does a marvelous job with exemplary plants, so give them some business.) However, I don't need phytosan permits to sell T-shirts and the like.

Here's part of the idea. I've already been composing a series of guides on interesting urban gardening projects, available either as PDFs or in print, to be sold at shows or online. I've also been having a ridiculous amount of fun with handmade T-shirts, and I've even considered making up a couple of extremely unorthodox garden vests inspired by the usual source. (The long-threatened garden gnome that screams "Rick's killed a hippie!", alas, will have to wait for a while.) However, it's a matter of priorities, and I'd like to make the greatest number of people happy before moving on to more specialized items.

So now it's up to you. What do you want, and when?

Poll #1185478 Site extras
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

If they were available, would you buy Texas Triffid Ranch clothes and other items from the site?

If you were interested, what would most interest you?

If you want something else, what is it?

Now let's talk price. For any of the items above, what is your absolute upper price limit?

How about other items?

And what would that item be?

Finally, I know most regulars are going to be outside of Texas. What would be the likelihood of your coming by at the next show?

To coincide with the official launch of the Texas Triffid Ranch site this weekend, I'm also preparing a new issue of the Hell's Half-Acre Herald newsletter, and I'm looking for willing victims for a free copy. Anyone interested in snagging a copy who hasn't already signed up for a previous copy is invited to leave their Snail Mail addresses: all comments are screened and will remain so in order to protect your privacy. (Those of you who already sent in a mailing address are already on the mailing list unless you specifically ask to be removed.) With luck, they'll be going out before Memorial Day, and yes, I'm glad to mail copies outside the US.

lord_whimsy was kind enough to share pictures of Cypripedium acaule, the pink lady's slipper orchid, growing in his vicinity. Sadly, the only orchids in my vicinity were ones brought in from elsewhere, but I remember the small stand of C. acaule growing in the forest next to my house when I lived in upstate New York. One of these days, I'm going to have to get back up that way, and preferably right around the beginning of June.

For those coming in late, accompanying the two cats in the Czarina's and my domicile is Stella, who's getting the copyrighted nickname "The World's Meanest Box Turtle". She's a three-toed box turtle I rescued in 1999 as she was trying to trot across one of Dallas's busiest intersections, and she's the real head of the household. You know that old trope about how pets and owners start to look and act alike? Well, considering that Stella does little but eat, hiss, sleep, bite anyone who gets too close, and trash her enclosure, it's no surprise that this turtle belonged to my ex-wife. Equally unsurprisingly, I look forward to the day where I can set up a real greenhouse, because I plan to put her to work in eating greenhouse pests.

For the most part, Stella is such a cranky animal that I expect to come out onto the back porch one day and see her shell slathered with Zimmerit, but she has a soft spot for cats. Specifically, she has an unrequited love affair with our cat Leiber (yes, the teabagger), and will follow him around for hours. He sniffs her, she obligingly extends her head and bares her throat in the classic and classy box turtle expression of "Come and get it like a big funky sex machine," causing the cat to bound away and hide, so she galumphs along behind him. This process repeats itself over and over, and not once does Leiber give her any indication that he's interested in her. The turtle is a typical fangirl and the cat is John Barrowman, and all of her insistence that "I could change him" is for naught.

This morning, though, I discovered that the turtle has another love, and this one might be for keeps. I've noticed for the last couple of days that food left out in her enclosure has been disappearing faster than expected, but I finally figured out what was going on when I stepped out onto the back porch this morning to check the greenhouse readings and discovered a new cat in the pen. He's just a little thing, probably a few months old at most, and he was so bedraggled and obviously malnourished that it was obvious that he lost his people a while back. I didn't yell and I didn't throw anything, but he still scurried out of the enclosure and ran into my daylilies.

Because of this, I'm putting up signs in the neighborhood to see if anyone needs their lost kitty, and I'm adopting him if I get no calls. Sure, he's obviously not housebroken and he's kinda stringy and matted, but what's not to love about such a cute little beast?



(And yes, my tongue is so far in cheek that it's coming out my left ear.)

Apparently Portland, Oregon has decided that 2008 is the year that Dinosaurs Invade Portland, and that includes plenty of traveling exhibitions and special events that involve dinosaurs in one way or another. While the Hoyt Arboretum is hosting a "Plants of the Pre-Historic World" exhibition that runs from June to September and the Portland Japanese Garden has a matinee screening of Godzilla scheduled for November 1, the World Forestry Discovery Garden plans to display a Wollemi pine starting May 17. It'd be really tempting to head out to Portland to see that Wollemi...if I didn't pass by my own Wollemi on my back porch every morning as I check on my greenhouse. (This isn't snark: my little tree has doubled in size in the last two months, and the new foliage is a shade of light green that never fails to cheer me up. If it keeps going at the rate that it's currently growing, the Czarina and I are going to have to get that new house next year just so I have something else on the back porch besides W. nobilis trunk. Elvis help us all if it grows from cuttings as well as I've heard, and I start raising Wollemia bonsai.)

Taylor Clark at Slate presents an essay for omnivores on how to act around vegetarians that, thanks to being smacked around for being a doofus enlightened by both kali921 and brindle, is going into the kitchen in preparation for the Czarina's next big party. It's particularly telling as to how effective it is in that it makes me hungry. kali921, would you be interested in joining me for a monster salad?

By the way, I'd like to ask this of any vegetarians or vegans reading this: how do all of you feel about Gardenburgers? I'm asking specifically because I actually quite enjoy them, but since I regularly hear of them being disparaged as "a half-assed food", I'm curious about alternatives that fill the same niche as a standard burger. I'm not wanting to start anything: I legitimately want to know, because I'm in a new food mood today.

Back in the earliest days of the Interweb, one of the most annoying and yet strangely addictive fads was the Webcam taking random pictures of just about anything. Zug.com featured a rotting Halloween pumpkin, several sites had auto-refreshed cat cams, and there was even the fake "Toilet Cam", where the perp displayed one picture of a toilet to see if anyone noticed that it wasn't actually being updated. (True to form, while some people appreciated the humor, the perp's E-mail was also full of complaints from Cat Piss Men who whined "I've been checking for weeks, and it's the same photo! You're running a scam!") Then there were the ongoing Stupid Human Tricks cams, starting with the long-defunct Jennicam and going from there. By about 2000, Webcams were about as exhausted as blogs are becoming, and they're pretty much a minor subspecies in the Internet biosphere.

That said, and I need to thank the person who sent me the link if I can find out who it was, the Sugar Creek Orchard Bee Hive Camera is an interesting example of what could still be done with webcams. Front views, brood chamber views, and views of the immediate area, all from the safety of a Web browser. Suddenly, I feel the need for a beehive of my own, and not necessarily to install cameras inside. However, that's a possibility.

You know how you get a good idea for a serious course of study, invest a lot of time and effort to see if this idea might actually work, and prepare to have to do the legwork to make it happen, only to discover that someone else beat you to it and has a better idea than anything you'd have had? If you're smart, you sigh contentedly, smile at how you were on the right path after all, and volunteer your services to assist. If you're not, you spend the rest of your life grumbling into your Ovaltine about how that other person "stole my opportunity." Can you guess what decision I made when sunfell shared Tracie McMillan's article in the New York Times on the current efforts in urban farming?

That's not to say that I won't have to do more legwork to make this happen in Dallas. Dallas soil still has a lot of lead in it, both from leaded gasoline and from a now-defunct lead smelter in South Dallas, and some of the best possible areas with affordable land are ones that were contaminated with dangerous levels of lead back after World War II. However, if anyone asks me if a project like this is plausible or sane in Dallas, I can just point to these others and say "Well, if Detroit urban farmers can do it, considering the brutal winter weather, I could definitely do it here."

I know that Haagen-Dazs has its corporate heart in the right place when it started financing research into the decline of commercial beehive populations in the US, but "up to $250,000"? Geez, Warner Brothers spent more than that on research to save the Tasmanian devil, and that's not even research that affects Warner Brothers's bottom line. (Besides, and I know this is going to be horribly heretical, but has anyone thought about possibly, you know, leaving beehives on orchard grounds for the season instead of shipping them all over the country? After all, what if the mystery disorder is being spread by these same commercial hives into areas where it previously wouldn't have been a problem?)

In spite of, or probably because of, being old enough to have been straight edge before the attitude really had a name (hell, I'm old enough to remember when the word "goth" was used to describe Germanic tribes in the latter days of the Roman Empire), I have a bullshit meter with a hair trigger when it comes to baseless drug stories in mainstream news sources. Jack Shafer at Slate also has one of those hair triggers, and he noted many of the same issues that I had concerning the sudden flood of news stories on the "dangers" of Salvia divinorum.

Being old enough to remember the media onslaught on "the menace of PCP" and "the menace of Ecstasy", both of which only acted as advertising for drugs that otherwise would have faded into obscurity had they not been great "sweeps week" material, I'm seeing the same trend: a drug that wasn't even on the radar five years ago is suddenly a threat to life and limb, mostly on the authority of fussbudget helicopter mothers and backwoods police officers, both of whom will say and do anything so they can call up the neighbors and tell them "I'm on the tee-vee!" Even better, as with previous Hillbilly Hollow panics about the dangers of rock music, Dungeons & Dragons, and teenagers wearing black to school, these same "authorities" will start citing each other in a feedback loop, as will subsequent reporters, suddenly giving rise to a problem that didn't exist.

Meanwhile, considering the people I know who've tried S. divinorum and related that it's about as far away from a party drug as one can get short of mainlining cucumber soup, the hype makes it that much harder for me to get legitimate supplies for my carnivorous plants. Seeing as how the best sources in Dallas for coarse-grade perlite and coconut husk chunks intended for hydroponic applications are also sources frequented by people who might be using S. divinorum for their own personal use, I can now expect to have a surveillance record on my purchases every time I need to put up a batch of pitcher plants. Gee, thanks, CNN!

(And as far as drug stories this week are concerned, you lose some, and you win some. Start busts on college coke dealing in the Dallas area, and you'll find plenty of parking in Victory Park for months.)

Due to previous commitments, neither the Czarina nor I were able to register for this year's Urban Street Bazaar, but we're probably heading out to the Bishop Arts District in Oak Cliff on Saturday evening to see what's there. Considering that last November's Bazaar at Market Hall was a blast, though, I'm definitely getting plants and accessories ready for the Christmas season.

Since previous events tonight have been cancelled, I'm now free to finish extensive work on both the Web site and the next issue of the Hell's Half-Acre Herald. Those who requested the previous issue will receive a copy of the new issue when it's ready to go, and I'll be putting out the call for Snail Mail addresses as soon as it's done. (Oh, and for those who want to save on the wait, this time, I'll have PDF copies as well. After all, there's no reason to wait for Snail Mail when you can just download it directly from the site, right?)

This has been an official test of the Texas Triffid Ranch information release system. Have a good day.

I just discovered that National Bike-to-Work Week is next week, and I'm enthusiastically behind the whole week, because this way I get to share my daily commute with everyone else. (What: you thought I was going to make reference to the greatest road movie Australia's ever made?)

I had a lot of wonderful stories from last weekend's show, but the best ones had to be about kids. I had a lot of kids coming by who related that they'd just read about carnivorous plants, but they'd never seen one up close and personal before. I had others who started asking about Venus flytraps and then became transfixed by the big Sarracenia leucophylla I had on display. However, the best ones were the really little kids, who were trying their absolute best to get out what they had to say before the big folk cut them off or finished their sentences for them.

One of my favorites was one little boy of about three or four. You can always spot the ones who are going to be interesting when they're in their twenties because they're so intense when they're preteens, and I hear stories of how intense I was when I was this kid's age. He looked at the plants, looked at me, and proceeded to tell me that he had a flytrap at home, but "it doesn't like me much."

Now that made my ears perk up. "It doesn't like you much? Is it wilting or flopping?"

"Yeah." It was obvious that he caught on that I wasn't patronizing him, but that I was legitimately curious.

"I think I know what's happened. Do you water it every day?"

"Yeah." He was still waiting for the big guy to start laughing at him, and I was looking forward to disappointing him.

"Where do you get that water? Are you getting it from your faucet, or are you using rainwater."

"Well, um, we get the water from a hose..."

"Okay..."

"...and the hose is connected to the faucet." Not bad in the slightest: during my old job, I'd had a much harder time trying to get basic information like this from adults, because adults would rather lie than give information that might mean they were incorrect.

"There's your problem. Your flytrap probably likes you fine: it's just you can't use local water from the faucet to water them. The poor plant's roots are dying from all the salt in the water. I'll tell you what: try watering it with rainwater, and it'll probably come back."

This is one of the reasons why I love doing what I'm doing these days. I fully expect to do one of these shows when I'm sixty, and have a college student tell me "You don't remember me, but you told me how to take care of my Venus flytrap..."

The good news: even with last-minute contingency plans that had to be modified at the last second, Saturday's CAPE event turned out incredibly well. Lots of longtime friends, a lot of new faces, and a ridiculous amount of fun was had by all. Or, to put it another way, I'm going to be spending the next year getting ready for CAPE 2009, because I've never come across such a crowd of enthusiastic people. You know how I tell people that I could talk about carnivorous plants all day? I did just that, and I now sound as if I'm gargling with raw hamburger as a result. I think it's a fair trade.

The bad news: because of scheduling issues, the new Web site won't be going live this week. I'm going to do my best to have it functional by May 10, but if I'm able to get it live before then, so much the better. In the meantime, I'll have plenty of interesting stories from CAPE, as well as photos, over the next week. And so it goes.