For those unfamiliar with Dallas, the State Fair of Texas starts today in Fair Park, which means that traffic anywhere near downtown is going to be nearly impossible to traverse. We’re also coming up on the tenth anniversary of our very own Wicker Man demo, so there’s that. If you’re wanting to get outside but don’t want to deal with the impending screams of “I AM THE GOD OF HELLFIRE, AND I BRING YOU FIRE!”, the Triffid Ranch opens this Saturday from noon until 5:00 pm, and without admission or parking fees, too.
Posted onSeptember 30, 2022|Comments Off on August Showers (and July Heatwaves) Bring September Sarracenia Flowers
Under normal conditions, Sarracenia pitcher plants bloom once: in spring. Many carnivorous and protocarnivorous plants can bear flowers at different times through the year, and frail triggerplants are so profligate that the trick is to get them to stop blooming. Sarracenia, though, are very consistent. They bloom before producing traps, presumably because Sarracenia pollinators in spring tend to be top prey insects the rest of the year, and the seed pods mature throughout summer before cracking open and scattering seed at the beginning of winter. Once those blooms drop their petals in late April or early May, that’s it, right?
Well, not always. Every once in a while, you’ll see an anomaly. Toward the end of September, as temperatures cool and the pitcher plants perk up for autumn, you might find a bloom or two. The blooms may be full-sized, but the flower scapes from which they dangle are abnormally short, sometimes just a couple of centimeters tall. Any fragrance on the blooms tends to be diminished as well, from the Kool-Aid scent of S. leucophylla to the “last day of an anime convention” stench of S. flava, and the distinctive cap at the bottom of the bloom also shows anomalous development. (The image below shows the bloom cap on S. leucophylla “Compacta”, with unusual deformities and an incomplete cap, with exposed anthers.)
The hypothesis here is that these September blooms are a response to the abnormally hot and dry summer in North Texas, as well as the subsequent low humidity after our torrential rains in August and early September. These seem to be most common on S. flava and associated hybrids, with a few seen on S. leucophylla and S. minor and their hybrids. With the latter, the flower scapes range from short to normal height, with S. minor being the most likely to produce full-length flower scapes. So far, I have yet to see any on S. rubra, S. oreophylla, or S. purpurea or their variations or hybrids.
An interesting correlation, which requires further research, is that the likelihood of September blooms depends upon when the plant blooms in spring. By far, the most common September blooms come from S. flava, which is famed for blooming as much as a month before other Sarracenia species. In North Texas, S. leucophylla is particularly sensitive to late freezes in spring, sometimes only starting to bloom three weeks after all others have finished for the season.
The hypothesis: this trait expresses itself after especially stressful summers, where the plant survives but the seed pods may be damaged from extended heat. The blooms themselves appear to be viable based on the enthusiastic efforts by local bees and wasps to gather nectar and pollen, but gathering and attempting to germinate any seeds from these blooms is the only way to confirm whether the seeds are viable. I am already gathering seed from early-maturing spring seed pods and getting ready to gather ones opening later in the season, and comparing germination and growth of seedlings from each group will be necessary to determine if the September blooms are a useful strategy for a seed do-over after an especially brutal summer. We’ll all find out more for certain next spring.
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Posted onSeptember 29, 2022|Comments Off on Fun With Ultraviolet, the 2022 Edition
Apologies for writing about the weather all of the time, but after this brain-frying summer and subsequent August and September superstorms, merely being able to go outside without burning skin or lungs is taken for granted through most of the world. Here, though, not only do we have the thrill of not risking second-degree burns for walking outside barefoot, but there the sheer joy of stepping outside and realizing “You know, it’s warmer inside than outside.” After four months of looking at digital thermometers with a combination of rage and horror, the real fun comes when talking about the weekend, mentioning “it’s 50 degrees in the shade,” and not having that refer to Celsius.
Because of the influx of this strange not-hot weather, the local flora responds the same way we humans do: with a mad rush to make up for lost time. This was a summer so brutal that anything bearing fruit or nuts requiring large amounts of water is just exploding right now, asking for a do-over. Plants that normally bloom in the early spring are going into overdrive at the end of September, and plants that bloom all year long don’t know what to do with themselves. Even better, the rush is on for night-blooming flowers of all sorts because the insects that depend upon them will be dying or going dormant soon, which means one thing. Yes, it’s time to get out into the garden with ultraviolet lights to view the fluorescence.
As brought up elsewhere, most of the commonly available “black light” LED flashlights and lanterns pump out far too much visible light to be effective at viewing plant fluorescence, as the visible light washes out fluorescence in anything but the strongest displays. The best affordable options for backyard naturalists involve violet laser pointers, which tend to throw off large amounts of UV, and beam splitters to turn that laser light into more of a laser flashlight. In a pinch, for financial reasons and for initial experiments, the wonderful crew at American Science & Surplus offer a very cost-effective compromise, the violet kaleidoscopic laser pointer.
(Disclaimer: ALWAYS use eye protection when using a laser. Read the laser’s user guide and all labels before using. Never point a laser at your own face, that of anybody else, that of animals, or at passing aircraft. Do not point a violet laser at any apparatus, such as camera lenses, that could be affected by ultraviolet light. If you decide to ignore this advice, the Texas Triffid Ranch and all entities associated with it are not responsible, either legally or financially, for physical, mental, or financial damages. Let’s have a little common sense here, kids.)
The big advantage with the kaleidoscopic laser pointer is that for basic experiments in plant fluorescence, the pointer already comes with a diffraction grate to spread the beam around and offer endless entertainment for cats and Pink Floyd fans. Setting the pointer’s grate so it diffuses the beam the most may affect the ability to take images or video of the fluorescence effect, and anyone wanting to understand the limits of that fluorescence should consider working with a beam splitter. For quick and dirty observation in a garden environment, though, it can’t be beat.
The photo at the top of this article sums up the situation. The white pitcher plant, Sarracenia leucophylla, not only fluoresces blue along the pitcher lip under UV, but the whole top of the pitcher famously fluoresces under moonlight. The photo doesn’t do the fluorescence justice: laser pointer use not only fluoresces the upper third of the pitcher, but it attracts local moths and other nocturnal insects even more so than usual. The effect on other Sarracenia is muted under moonlight or general light pollution, so the best results come from viewing after moonrise or moonset in an area without streetlights.
Next, it’s time to test flowers already known for attracting nocturnal insects. In this case, the moonflower (Ipomoea alba) also stands out under moonlight, but the real surprise under UV is that its stamens are particularly brilliant. This helps explain why moonflowers are so popular with so many species of hawkmoth, and the plan is to test this theory next year with angel trumpets (Datura spp.) to see if they fluoresce the same way and intensity.
The real surprise in the garden this year? The spring attempt to get luffa squash (Luffaaegyptiaca) established ran right into our early summer, and the vines are only now starting to expand and produce female flowers. The flowers are also going the reverse of previous growing efforts, with the blooms opening in the evening and closing by sunrise.
That works out very well, to be honest, because luffa blooms fluoresce slightly, but the pollen fluoresces much more. On a still night, the pollen all over the bloom makes the bloom under UV look as if it were dusted with glow powder. Get too close with a camera, and the glow off luffa pollen will wash out everything else.
Naturally, this is only the beginning of experimentation. We still have at least a month in Dallas before the standard growing season is complete and all of the carnivores start going into dormancy, with so many carnivores with UV secrets. Even better, the moon is currently new, so the nights are dark even with the moon above the horizon. Expect all sorts of discoveries.
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For newcomers, this is a semi-regular newsletter from the Texas Triffid Ranch, Dallas’s pretty much only carnivorous plant gallery. Feel free to forward early and often, and to subscribe if you haven’t already.
Installment #32: “Me and You and a Hawk Named Ralph” (Originally published August 25, 2022)
The last several months have been for the birds, quite literally. Both at the gallery and the house, it’s all about birds, mostly crows. At the gallery, it’s a combination of crows tapping on the glass at the front door because they want to see what’s inside and juvenile blue herons hunting under the security lights at night. At home, well, I have to tell you about Ralph.
Shortly after moving into the new house, I discovered that the front sidewalk was part of the scavenging turf for a flock of crows. During the serious cold snaps last winter and into spring, the crows took advantage of a stoop out front as a hammer for cracking open acorns, and this rapidly became a site to leave a handful of shelled peanuts every morning. It’s not just for the entertainment value, either. Crows tend to chase and harangue squirrels, and the plan was to hire them out as bounty hunters before the squirrels got out in back and decided to dig up and uproot every plant in the time zone. Last year at the old house, a lone treerat got into the old greenhouse and overturned about 30 Venus flytraps all at once, probably with the justification of “Just lookin’,” so they need discouragement.
So far, it’s working. In fact, befriending crows is much like keeping cats. The flock has learned which window is my bedroom window, and if I’m not up sufficiently early to put out the daily peanut ration, they all gather around that window and let me know their concern that tribute is not forthcoming. After that, they gather around the back yard, watching me pick up junk weathering out of the lawn (a previous owner left significant archaeological traces in the form of a seemingly infinite number of Olympia beer bottle tops scattered through the yard, and I joke about collecting enough from which to forge a sword) and letting each other know “Yeah, the ginger guy is out here again, doing whatever weirdness he’s into. Doesn’t he know we’d give him a sword if he asked?”
At tribute time, everything is overseen by the presumed patriarch, a large crow with one big white feather on the top of his head that I named “Cadfael” after the Ellis Peters novels. Cadfael is very careful with his charges: he trusts that the food isn’t being tampered with, but he still doesn’t trust me personally, and nobody goes for the peanuts until Cadfael is assured that I’ve gone back inside and locked the door. He doesn’t care if I’m watching through a window, but filthy humans are expected to feed and not be seen, and nothing happens so long as he has a say in the matter. I go in, Cadfael caws three times, and the whole flock rushes in to get a bite and chase the squirrels coming from across the street to get their adrenaline fix.
And then there’s Ralph. Ralph is a young red-tailed hawk (Buteo jamaecensis) who lives in the vicinity, his hunting territory abutted by those of two absolutely monstrous-sized female red-tails, and he does very nicely on a diet of suburban cicadas, rodents, snakes and lizards, and the occasional baby rabbit. Ralph has no interest in the peanuts, although he’s swooped down once or twice to check them out and see what the big deal is about. His thing is about coming out when the crows are happily hammering peanuts for the treats inside and trying to play.
Ralph’s antics shouldn’t be a surprise to anybody who knows anything about red-tails and other hawks: they seemingly live to play. I once watched a big red-tail joyously tear apart a mylar balloon caught in a cottonwood tree, hanging upside down until its talons ripped through the mylar and it dropped, that kept going until the balloon was fragments. Along a bicycle commute route in the Aughts, another monstrous female red-tail would wait for me to pass underneath her favorite street light, swoop down, and try to touch my bike helmet with her talons without my seeing her. The surprise is that Ralph keeps trying to play with the crows even after Cadfael chases him off. Cadfael attends to affairs of state, and Ralph rushes in to the younger crows, looking to wrestle. He means absolutely no harm to the crows, and the others know it and reciprocate, and that lasts until Cadfael returns and decides that intermingling of the species is completely unacceptable.
That’s when things get funny, because Ralph cannot understand why his playing with the younger crows is verboten, and he says so. Every day after being rebuffed by Cadfael, Ralph stands in the middle of the street and just SCREAMS. Ever watch a puppy desperately trying to play with an older cat, where his need to play balances out with his fear of death and he just howls in happy frustration? That’s Ralph’s life, especially since he knows he has done nothing wrong. It’s the avian equivalent of yelling “C’mon, man! I’m not doing anything!”
All the way around, this makes the morning routine for the Day Job worthwhile. The big question is what happens if either Cadfael acquiesces to Ralph’s entreaties, or something happens to Cadfael and the other crows let Ralph join the party. Either way, if this is a start of a new crow/hawk alliance, I’m glad that I’m here to see it before they walk feather-in-feather into their Neolithic period and plan their takeover of Earth. Ralph won’t be king, but I could see him as our first avian prime minister.
Shameless Plugs Austin friends and cohorts bragged to me for years about Jerry’s Artorama for painting supplies and other serious art tools, and I finally got the chance to visit one after Dallas’s first Artorama opened up next door to the Maple Leaf Diner. Oh, dear. The combination of Canadian cuisine and art gear, especially Jerry’s extensive collection of spraypaints, promise to lead to a whole new level of Triffid Ranch expression, if they don’t kill us all first.
Recommended Reading A lot has come through the mailbox in the last few weeks (my To Be Read pile by the side of the bed is threatening to rise up and go on a rampage like a Jack Kirby monster), but the most compelling came just yesterday. Retail Gangster: The Insane, Real-Life Story of Crazy Eddie by Gary Weiss is a kick-you-in-the-junk look not just at a New York icon (or at least the publicly created persona, as Eddie Antor was famously publicity-averse) but at the weirdness involving the chains of discount electronics stores that rose and fell through the 1980s. It’s also an object lesson to businesses small and large as to rendering unto Caesar, because underreporting sales taxes and total revenues while overemphasizing tax deductions may not get you for a while, but they WILL get you, and far too many shady characters figure that Death will get them before the IRS will.
Music One of the highlights of the recently released Hulu movie Prey, besides the all-Comanche version, was the soundtrack by famed video game composer Sarah Schachner, currently available for download on most music streaming services. As an enthusiastic fan of Ms. Schachner’s work for the last decade, the Prey soundtrack naturally became a major work soundtrack while working on new enclosures, and here’s hoping that she becomes as influential in the 2020s as Basil Poledouris and Jerry Goldsmith were in the 1980s.
Posted onSeptember 28, 2022|Comments Off on The Porch Sales Continue: September 24, 2022
North Texas may be drier than a Dorothy Parker insult, but that just makes getting out and doing things that much sweeter. Our famously flexible weather makes most of us meteorological experts, if only so we don’t have to discuss politics, and most of that is in a desperate need to know “If I go out today, will I die?” Well, the heat finally broke, with the odds being pretty good that we won’t have any more of our typical summer weather until next May, with stunningly blue skies during the day and unusually clear and crisp skies all night. In other words, we can go outside without bursting into flame, and that’s what happened at the Triffid Ranch last weekend.
For those who haven’t been to Dallas, or who haven’t been here long, it’s time for caveats. Generally, the rainier things get in October and November, the less likely we’ll get severe cold weather December through February. That’s not an absolute, as February 2021 proved, but it’s true more often than not. Right now, the immediate Triffid Ranch area hasn’t received a drop of rain since the big Labor Day Weekend storm on September 4, and the last fall this dry was back in 2012, leading to the famed Christmas Day 2012 blizzard. Now, five minutes after I type this, we could get another 20 centimeters of rain, but right now, it’s dry and crisp, and autumn in Texas doesn’t get better than this.
This coming weekend, partly because of vague chances of downpours and the opportunity to show off new developments, the party moves inside, with a traditional Triffid Ranch open house running on October 1 from noon until 5:00 pm. Don’t worry: the Porch Sales are coming back, and they’ll be running again on October 8 and 22. It’s just that the Triffid Ranch hits the road in October, with a Crow’s Alley Flea Market event at Outfit Brewing in Dallas on October 15, running from 5:00 to 10:00 pm, and the big Dallas Arboretum Halloween lecture and sale running from October 28 to 30. Please come out to buy lots of plants: I don’t have the time to develop my own safe and effective vaccine for sleep, so I need to hire someone to do the work for me.
Comments Off on The Porch Sales Continue: September 24, 2022
Well, the Triffid Ranch didn’t win a Best of Dallas Award this year, so it’s back to the linen mines. (Again, absolutely honestly, it was a privilege to be nominated, as it wasn’t anything I was expecting in the first place.) If you’re not local, keep an eye open for the latest newsletter. If you are local, the Saturday Porch Sales continue on September 24 from 10 am to 3 pm, and expect updates on a big indoor open house on October 1. We need to start the Halloween season on the right note, don’t we?
Posted onSeptember 21, 2022|Comments Off on The Aftermath: Dallas Vampire Court Angel Stakes 2022
In the last nearly 15 years of Triffid Ranch shows and events, I’ve been honored to show off plants at a lot of singularly interesting venues and locales. The Angel Stakes charity benefit held by the Vampire Court of Dallas definitely qualified: a charity casino and raffle? At the Haltom Theater in Haltom City? On a Sunday, in the middle of a Texas heat wave? Why, don’t mind if I do!
Firstly, high kudos to the Vampire Court: they managed to pull off their first non-Dallas event with no noticeable hiccups from the outside, and with a lot of very happy patrons. More kudos to the Haltom Theater: it’s a very well-done live music venue (with a bar & grille on the side) that could very easily become a regular venue for oddball events like this that don’t really fit into Fort Worth. Most of all, kudos to everyone who came out, because between meeting a slew of folks new to the Dallas/Fort Worth area and getting back in touch with some much-missed old friends, getting home at 2 am on a Sunday was completely worth the trip.
As for further adventures with the Vampire Court? That’s completely up to them: we’ve already talked about bringing plants to other events hosted by the Court, and now it’s a matter of confirming dates and times. One thing is certain, though: this is just the beginning.
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Posted onSeptember 21, 2022|Comments Off on The September Porch Sales Continue
You know that old trope in war and horror movies, involving the red-shirt who stands up when everyone else is worried about snipers and/or monsters, exclaims “Everything’s fine! Come on out!”, and gets pranged in the head in front of compatriots and audience? That’s what planning for outdoor events in Texas is like. Plan for weeks to take advantage of National Weather Service predictions of spectacular weather, and we get thunderstorms, hail, tornadoes, and the occasional autumn heat wave. There’s a reason why armadillos, with all their armor, dig burrows.
That’s what’s happening in North Texas right now: most years, the third full week of September is when the summer heat finally breaks with a massive thunderstorm and then things come out the other side clean and cool. This may or may not happen, and if we follow what happened during the 2012 drought, we may not see a drop of rain until Christmas Day. I look at it very prosaically: one big storm around Labor Day to spook everyone, and then weekend after weekend of fabulous conditions to encourage people to take a risk and get out…in October.
It’s not October yet, but the Porch Sales continue, with the last September Porch Sale running Saturday, September 24 from 10 am to 3 pm. After that, things move inside on October 1 for an open house to show off new enclosures, and then back outside until Halloween weekend. As for Halloween…oh, the plans to be shared very, very soon.
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Posted onSeptember 19, 2022|Comments Off on The Triffid Ranch in the News
Well, word of the Triffid Ranch’s renovation is getting out, starting with this very nice writeup in the Dallas Observer from writer Kendall Morgan. Now to complete said renovation and validate others’ trust in making the Triffid Ranch a Dallas-area destination. (The current plan is to open the gallery for a major open house on October 1 from noon until 5:00 pm to debut new enclosures and the renovation work so far, with a Porch Sale on September 24 to give everyone their carnivorous plant fixes in the interim, and then another major open house on Halloween weekend. I hope this works to everyone’s satisfaction.)
Have pity, because this weekend is going to be busy. Things start up on Saturday, when the September Porch Sales continue, running from 10 am to 3 pm. After that’s done, it’s time to catch a disco nap and get everything packed for the Vampire Court of Dallas Angel Stakes casino night fundraiser in Haltom City on Sunday night. For the latter, expect a lot of white pitcher plants: I have no idea why Sarracenia leucophylla isn’t more popular among the goth community, and it’s time to rectify this.
(And for those in the Dallas art community, a little extra: the Cedars Union is hosting a lecture on writing effective press releases on Tuesday, September 20, and I’ll be out there to see what more I need to learn, which is probably quite a lot. For those who can’t be there in person, it’s streaming, so feel free to jump in.)
(For those coming in late, the following is a regular feature highlighting developments involving the Texas Triffid Ranch, including new features, events, and general strangeness. For more of this delivered directly to your mailbox, please consider the newsletter.)
The end of summer 2022 isn’t confirmed yet, and based on previous Dallas weather trends, we can’t confirm it until the end of November. It sure feels like it, though. The convection oven heat faced by the Dallas area all November finally broke on August 22, when we got a full summer of rain in the space of about two hours. The hits kept coming, too, including a surprise storm on September 4 that hit the area with hurricane-force winds. If we can trust standard Texas weather trends, this means that the next couple of months will be comprised of cool and very dry days, with spectacular night skies and a relaxed need for air conditioning, and that’s what the National Weather Service is predicting as of this writing. However, as anyone who has lived in Texas for more than three weeks already knows, we could go to an autumn where we won’t see a drop of rain until Christmas Day, and we could also go to an autumn with torrential rains and even subfreezing temperatures around Halloween. It’s happened before.
Based on the current forecast, though, we’re looking at mild temperatures with gentle nights and no appreciable precipitation until the end of the month, so that means one thing. This means that it’s time to get to work on the gallery. Weather like this is perfect for painting, and there’s a LOT of painting to be done over the rest of the season.
Firstly, because the brain-frying heat of summer is gone, the regular Triffid Ranch events are now outdoors, with lots of opportunities between now and Halloween. For September, the Porch Sales return on Saturdays, running on September 17 and 24 from 10:00 am to 3:00 pm on both days. Since the current weather means that the Sarracenia and flytraps are making up for lost time, it’s a perfect time to come out, look around, and figure out which plants you really need to take home.
While the Porch Sales are going on, the gallery interior continues its renovation, with work starting on the main area toward the back of the space. That’s another reason why I continue to focus on the weather, because autumns in Texas produce the right weather for bulk painting, where it’s not so hot that the paint starts drying as it leaves the sprayer and not so cold that it takes forever to dry. If anything, painting in the evening means a particularly strong and durable paint, as the paint dries slowly under cooler temps overnight and then bakes on in the afternoon. This means that a whole load of enclosures forced to wait because of summer heat are finishing up right now, and the plan is to have an evening open house to show them off on October 1.
(In that vein, because of the gallery’s expansion, it’s actually possible to create multiple enclosure series, which can be shown both collectively and individually. I’m finishing working on the concept for one such series that should be available for viewing at the October 1 open house, that should be as odd as anything else that’s ever come out of the Triffid Ranch before. Keep checking back.)
In ongoing developments, I also want to thank everyone who voted for the Triffid Ranch in both the Dallas Morning News Best of DFW Awards and the Dallas Observer Best of Dallas Awards nominations. The Best of DFW results won’t be available until November, but the Best of Dallas awards will be announced on September 22, with a video discussion of both critics’ choice and readers’ choice winners that evening. The real fun will be watching friends and cohorts win their own awards: there’s a lot going on in this town, and every little boost helps out.
Seeing as how just having weekly Porch Sales and obsessively painting and cutting foam all week isn’t stimulating enough, there’s always more. To start out, the Triffid Ranch is a proud vendor at the Angel Stakes charity benefit from the Vampire Court of Dallas on Sunday, September 18 from 6:00 am to midnight. This is just the start of non-gallery events over the rest of the year, including a Halloween weekend lecture at the Dallas Arboretum, so keep checking back for details as I get them.
And along that line, a prompt for the near future. This Halloween, since the day itself falls on a Monday this year, promises an extra-long weekend, and since I no longer have any family obligations for Halloween, either by blood or marriage, it’s time to try a blowout for the end of the season. Again, details will follow, but it just might include the black-light carnivorous plant show I’ve been promising at the gallery since its Valley View Center days, as well as a celebration of my grandmother’s 99th birthday. The gallery has the room now, and testing commences.
And in long-term plans, there’s always the risk of making major plans and having extenuating circumstances interfere, but expect a lot of news about 2023 events in the next month. The move by Texas Frightmare Weekend to run at the end of May instead of the usual first weekend frees up that first weekend, and it’s time to get more involved in local art events. Even more importantly, the official announcement for the Oddities & Curiosities Expo 2023 schedule comes out on Halloween Day, and this may – MAY – involve new cities on the schedule. I don’t know about anybody else, but I can’t wait.
Now that the last US bank holiday for a while is over, it’s time to get back to a regular schedule on Triffid Ranch events, and weather permitting, they’re going to be outdoors for a while. Yes, it’s time to restart the Porch Sales, starting at 10 am and ending at 3:00 every Saturday this month. If you haven’t voted for “Best Garden Center” in the Dallas Observer Best of Dallas Awards yet, now is a perfect time to come out and see why the Triffid Ranch is under consideration, or at least to come out and enjoy a Texas neo-autumn that promises to keep going until the end of the year. (Moving outdoors has two advantages. The first is just getting outside, so long as we don’t get a repeat of last Sunday’s explosive weather. The second is getting the gallery ready for a very important event on the afternoon of September 22, so the place may look as if Hunter S. Thompson was camping in the back while that’s happening. This way, everyone gets their carnivorous plant Recommended Daily Allowance while allowing paint to dry, I appreciate your understanding.)
Posted onSeptember 7, 2022|Comments Off on The Aftermath: Labor Day 2022 Open House
I sure know how to pick an open house date. Labor Day Weekend 2022 started out beautifully: moderate temperatures, sunny skies, and a general feeling of relaxation,. Friday night moved into Saturday, and the weather was just perfect. Sunday can’t be even better than this, could it? Well, the morning was…
…and then the storm hit that afternoon. For those outside of the Dallas area, things went sideways in the space of about ten minutes, as a massive storm roared out of the north. I mean “roar” literally: most of the Dallas area was hit with hurricane-force winds, followed by heavy rain, with downed trees and power lines all over. The gallery was relatively unscathed, although it was touch and go for a while, but the original plan to move everything outside for a Porch Sale would have been a disaster. It wasn’t much better going home, as a whole series of power poles went down in the storm and took out power for about 9 hours, and internet access only came back today. Let’s just say that I’m very glad that Sarracenia are adapted to life in hurricane zones, because they got a little touch of home that Sunday.
With that, I have to thank everyone who came out for the open house, because a lot rushed out to get home before the storm hit and discovered the storm was faster. This definitely qualified as the worst weather the gallery has faced since October 2019, and that involved a literal tornado that hopped over the gallery and took out a subdivision just due east, thereby taking out power for the whole area for nearly a week. It can always be worse.
After this weekend, it’s taking a risk, but the Porch Sales return on September 10 and run from 10 am to 3 pm, and keep going, weather permitting, until after Halloween. For those who couldn’t make it this week, let’s try it again.
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We’re now coming up on two weeks of cloudy and wet weather after months and months of Mad Max: Fury Road cosplay (and never have I been more glad to change hair color to avoid the inevitable Immortan Joe cracks), and it looks as if we might get more water falling from the sky for the foreseeable future. That’s part of the reason why this weekend’s gallery open house is inside, at least for the moment. (Moving it to Sunday afternoon instead of Saturday is just a matter of both being contrary and getting a bit of a break.) After this weekend, the Porch Sales return, running on Saturdays from 10 am to 3 pm through September, and probably continuing into November or for as long as the weather holds. Considering how much the Sarracenia love the current weather, you may see some of the best pitcher plants in Triffid Ranch history in the next few weeks, but the ones going right now are nothing to sneeze at, either.
(Slightly related, the Reader’s Choice ballot for the Dallas Observer Best of Dallas Awards is still open for a week, and you can vote once per day per email address. Naturally, the real thrill of getting nominated for “Best Garden Center” is just in the nomination, but I’m also recommending write-in votes for Panoptikon for “Best Dance Club,” DFW Reptarium for “Best Pet Shop,” and the much-appreciated and totally underrated Toni Youngblood for “Best Realtor.” If you have to vote for anybody, vote for them.)
And by the way, even if you can’t make it to the open house this weekend, keep an eye on the site this weekend. There’s a lot of news coming down the pipe over the next few weeks, and it’s going to be wild.
