The Bulb Maven

The Year of the Dog

Apparently, 2018 is the Chinese Year of the Dog, which is supposed to mean that it will be a good year in all respects, albeit an exhausting one.  Reportedly we will be happy, frustrated, rested, yet tired, cheerful, yet dull.  Well, most years here at Telos are years of the dog, since my three dogs keep me happy, exhuasted, very frustrated at times and usually cheerful, although there were some terrible times during last year.

After the death of my terrier, Willie, I decided I wanted another Wire Fox Terrier and acquired a new puppy.  His name is Jester, and by now he is thirteen months old.  He has been a delight, everything I could want in a new puppy, with a happy personality, loving, affectionate, and very smart.  I had expected many years of care free happiness with my new puppy, but in October he was suddenly taken very ill and was diagnosed with hemolytic anemia, where his red blood cells were being destroyed.  I was given only a 25% chance that he would survive, so I took him to a wonderful specialist in the San Francisco Bay Area, who put him on some rather nasty drugs, but felt he had a good chance of survival.  He is going strong, two months later, still on the drugs, but behaving totally normally, and now she feels he has a better than 80% chance of total recovery.  He gets his daily training session, which he loves, and I hope one day he too will be an agility champion.  Here he is, above, with his best pal, Arlo.

My little mini Aussie, Arlo, competed in the CPE Nationals in May and had eight perfect runs out of nine and completed his second Championship title.  I was so very proud of him, especially since the temperatures were in the mid-90's, but he took it all in his stride.  It was such a wonderful experience, and probably the only time I will compete in a National event, since this past year it was in California, and I am not going to fly my dogs across the country.

My older dog, Hannah, is very frail at 13 years old.  I almost lost her in August, but she is toddling along and is comfortable and happy, doing a few agility obstacles here at home and able to go for short hikes.  I know I will lose her soon, and I think back on all the wonderful times we had together.  Here she is in better days.

So, let's hope the Year of the Dog will bring all the dog lovers joy and happiness.

 

 

 

When it Rains ....

We have had very rainy weather the past two weeks and it is pouring with rain right now.  And, along with the rain, the last ten days or so have been another kind of ordeal.  Right after training my dogs, my heart stopped beating for ten seconds.  I had an implanted monitor, so this was caught on the monitor, and my heart started up again on its own (or I wouldn't be typing this), and I was admitted to the hospital for an emergency pacemaker insertion.  I had been having blackouts, and for the past many months I couldn't drive anywhere.  I could work, and the nursery work went along well, actually, since I was at home all the time, no dog shows, no hiking, no seed collecting trips.  During this time one of my terriers, Willie, was diagnosed with Cushing's disease from a pituitary tumor, and within two days of me leaving the hospital, he took a turn for the worse and I had to take him in to be euthanized.

I have, or had, three dogs, but Willie was my favorite in some ways.  He was no good at agility since he had severe arthritis, and all his life he had one health problem after another. So maybe I felt more protective towards him, but he also had the most personality of all of them.  He was funny and the most loving and affectionate dog I have ever had.  Hannah is my dancing partner, my agility dog who has won multiple championships, my little shadow that responds to my every movement and cue.  Arlo is the baby, meek and submissive and adorable, but Willie was just Willie, and that is all he needed to be.

My broken heart will heal.  My cardiologists are the best, and I am told that in five weeks my activity will be unrestricted and I can run a marathon if I want.  I don't want, I just want to work and go hiking and running with my dogs.  The big hole in my heart with the loss of Willie will someday be filled by another puppy, but I will miss him forever.

Summer's End

I have recently returned from my annual trip to Oregon, where my dogs and I participated in a trial near Salem.  We had a wonderful weekend, with little Arlo placing and qualifying in all eight runs.  Hannah placed in three out of four of her runs, and at eleven years old, I was very proud of her.  

After our exciting weekend I drove to Bend, Oregon for a week of hiking and camping. Usually there is an agility trial in Bend in September, but this year it was cancelled, and I decided to go anyway.  It is my vacation from work and a perfect time to visit the region.  
Bend is located in eastern Oregon in high desert, so you have a choice of desert hiking, or by driving less than 50 miles east, you are in the Deschutes National Forest, dominated by inactive volcanoes that were draped in snow. The hiking is very varied, and I chose carefully for my two terriers are old and my male terrier has arthritis and has gone lame on hikes before.  We hiked every day, and the scenery was incredible, snow topped mountains with black lava flows at their feet and fall colors everywhere.   Many of the lakes in the region are crystal clear and an incredible green, not from algae or bacteria because the water is too cold for that.  I had packed my camera, but every single day I forgot to put it in my backpack so I have no pictures from this trip.   Here are some pictures from previous trips there.  Three happy dogs.

Coming home always is a bit of a let down.  the garden is starting to look a little shabby, the swallows are all gone, and it really feels like the summer is over after our trip to Bend.  But .. stepping into the greenhouses (well taken care of by one of my helpers) there were many things to greet me.   I had seen buds emerging on one of my Bessera elegans when I left, and was almost tempted to take it with me since I didn't want to miss getting a picture.  It is a beautiful pink, and the only pink Bessera I have (I actually HAVE taken bulbs along with me so that I didn't miss them blooming!)  I have only one bulb, so it's going to be a long time before I can share this one.

Brunsvigia marginata

 

 

 

Brunsvigia marginata was in bloom, and the beautiful pink B. bosmaniae was just opening its buds.  

Cyrtanthus spiralis is a new one for me, so I was delighted to find it in bloom.

There will be many more to follow.  Fall is an exciting time.

www.telosrarebulbs.com

 

Cyrtanthus spiralis

Brunsvigia bosmaniae

August

August is almost over, and although it is a month full of pleasures for me, it is also my most stressful month with work days that can last from 4am until I collapse exhausted in the evening, too tired for a short training session with my dogs.  In addition to packing orders for a part of the day, I must take care of five greenhouses full of bulbs.  I have a little help one day a week, but most of the work is done by me. Watering takes place every day, and it is tedious and time-consuming, and repotting takes place whenever I can.  The computer work I do before it gets light.  I have been in the habit of waking around 4am for many years, sometimes even earlier when work builds up.   I don't mind it, I don't actually know how I would get the work done if I didn't get up well before the crack of dawn.  All is quiet, and I can enter orders and answer e-mails, print out invoices and labels.  I often get complaints that I don't answer e-mails, but if I answered all e-mails I simply wouldn't be able to get anything else done.  I try to provide basic information about planting and growing the bulbs, but I am simply not able to engage in extended correspondence beyond that.

My favorite agility trial is in August also, and it is one I simply cannot miss.  I rarely have an opportunity to do a dog trial locally.  Most of the time I trial in the winter when work is not so pressing and the temperatures are not sizzling (they rarely sizzle here), but the dog trials involve travel, usually a five to seven hour drive and three or four overnight stays.  The one we have here is just 30 minutes away, and I see all my friends from far and wide.  It is so much better for the dogs too, not having to endure hours in their crates in the car or staying in a motel.  My new dog, Arlo, is doing very well at the trials and is already in the Championship level where he is accumulating points and qualifying runs that count towards a championship.  He has just turned three, so I am very proud of him. Here is a winning run at a recent trial:  https://youtu.be/uiE2eYeifxk

My older dog, Hannah, did not get there until she was six, undoubtedly due to my poor training abilities, but I have learned a lot in the past years, and I am currently taking an on-line class from Finland (www.oneminddogs.com) which has taught me so much.  The Internet is amazing, you can take classes in dog agility from the world's best now.  
I still compete with my older dog, Hannah, and she still wins some runs.  She will be eleven years old soon, and won four championship titles before I put her into semi-retirement. 

Little Willie, my male terrier, is fully retired and perfectly happy to be so.  We do a few jumps and tunnels at home so that he isn't left out, and he still enjoys that.  Here he is, hanging out at a trial.

Shipping continues apace in September, but it is the month where I take a short break, going up to Oregon for a dog trial and a few days of hiking in the beautiful mountains around Bend.  I have a little travel trailer now, so no more tent camping or motels for us, and the dogs absolutely love the trailer.

 

 

 

 

Dog Day Afternoon

Arlo has been with us for about ten weeks now, so he is eighteen weeks old.  He has grown amazingly, almost catching up with Willie and Hannah in height, although not in weight.  It seemed he was a little fluff ball for only about a month.  He was due for his first rabies shot last week, and since I have to drive north about 20 miles to the vet, I thought it would be a good opportunity to take them to a favorite beach there.  The weather was not wonderful, overcast and blustery, but sometimes days like these are the best.  There are few people around, and the crashing waves and windswept beach has a powerful beauty, very different from a sunny day.

These were three very happy dogs.  Willie, as usual, was off on his own finding his particular adventures, while Arlo stayed close to Hannah. Willie loved the flocks of little sandpipers, chasing them until they took flight.  They would twirl around and land a little further down the beach, when he would repeat the chase, until all I could see was a tiny white dot far down the beach, and I had to run to get him back.

I often get buried in work here, and don't take them to the beach as much as I should.  The nearest beach is only a few miles from here, but I don't usually go there, since it is overrun with dune buggies and pit bulls, so tearing myself away from shipping orders and caring for the bulbs and packing the dogs in the car for a drive to a safer beach is not always an option.  This was a special day, and seeing the joy on my dogs' faces will encourage me to make the time to go more often.

 

The Morning Walkabout

Our local county fair has ended, marking for me the winding down of summer.  Some Amaryllids are blooming, although most will come later as the days shorten and the nights cool.  This morning there was a sharpness in the air with mist hugging the ground which cleared as the sun arose.

Shipping continues at a brisk pace and caring for the bulbs has to be squeezed in whenever I can.  the bulbs should come first, of course, but customers needs are important also, and I sometimes get plaintive e-mails asking when the bulbs will arrive.  I will be leaving for my annual trip to Oregon in a week for a few days of hiking in the mountains and a two day agility trial with my dogs.  I will be taking Arlo for his first camping trip, but will leave him with friends while I take longer hikes with my two terriers.  This, of course, puts more pressure on me to clear as many orders as possible before I leave, including several large international orders.  Here is Arlo, worn out from helping in the greenhouses.

Cyrtanthus sanguineus is now in bloom in the greenhouse.  I grew these from seed, and was rather unexcited about them until they bloomed, since the flowers are orange, a rather common color in the bulb world, and I had not seen them in the flesh.  Well, they are outstanding, an almost glowing creamy orange, with very large flared trumpets.  Really beautiful.  Also blooming is Veltheimia deasii, sometimes thought to be a subspecies of V. capensis.  It is very similar, but more compact and with leaves that are much more crisped along the margins.  Very nice.

I often work until evening these days, my pets usually wanting to be near at hand.  I have to keep an eye on the puppy, who has energetically dug up entire flats of seedling bulbs, but the cats tend to curl up and nap in the warm temperatures.  The evenings are beautiful, all golden with the setting sun, the sea fog lifting this time of year.  Here is a picture from my office.

www.telosrarebulbs.com

Meet Arlo

The last two months have been very hectic, packing bulbs, shipping bulbs, repotting bulbs, and so on.  This time of year I have little exciting to post about the bulbs, and the task of keeping up with orders fills my day.  I have only been to one dog trial recently, since both my dogs are having back problems.  Willie, my male terrier, ruptured a disc in his neck some years ago, then ruptured a disc in his back in January, so agility is over for poor Willie.  Hannah slipped on takeoff to a jump in the early part of the year, and has had problems that came and went, so I pulled her from class and trials in March.  We had no training either, and we both really missed it.  She seemed recovered, and I entered her in a trial recently.  We placed second in five runs and third in two.  Not bad, but a pale shadow of her performance last year.  Athletic ability doesn't last, and she will be eight in October, so I decided it was time to start training another dog.

This was not an easy decision.  I have two terriers, feisty dogs with a streak of aggression, and they fight with each other.  They don't do any real damage, but if I acquired another terrier, the fighting could excalate.  I can break up a fight between two of them (although I have been bitten in the process), but I wouldn't be able to break up a fight between three, so I realized some time ago I would have to get another breed.  This presented some problems.  I wanted a dog that would have a sweet enough temperament to put up with my two terriers, but have the energy and drive for agility, plus I wanted a small dog.  Those qualities are hard to combine, since most high drive dogs are not mellow.  I talked to everyone at the dog trials over the past year, and finally came up with a solution.  He's called Arlo.

Arlo is now twelve weeks old (eight weeks in the photo above), and he is a Miniature Australian Shepherd.  We aren't supposed to call them this because the Australian Shepherd establishment doesn't like them, so now the AKC has told us we need to call them Miniature American Shepherds.  I don't care.  He will be about 20lbs when full grown, and is sweet and very, very energetic.  I have been told by others who have this breed that it will make me feel like a brilliant dog trainer, they are so easy to train.  Honestly, although they have a reputation for stubborness, I found my terriers easy to train.  Not easy to keep them focused on the job, but they learned the intricacies of agility very quickly.

I was still very anxious when I brought him home, thinking that Hannah would not accept him.  She is very jealous and possessive, but Willie has been friendly with small dogs at the trials.  Well, I couldn't have been more wrong.  Hannah loved him and played and played with him.  Willie was mortally offended.  He wasn't aggressive with the puppy, he just wouldn't speak to me, turning his back on me and refusing to come even when tempted with a cookie.  He wanted nothing to do with Arlo.  Incidentally, I had Willie tested for thyroid problems, since his personality had changed a lot.  His vet thought it was from pain from his spine, but his thyroid tests came out low, and the day after he started his medication he started playing with Arlo.

Arlo has been here for almost a month now, and things are going very smoothly.  Both dogs play with him, rather roughly at times, but he seems to be able to handle it.  He is learning commands already, although he won't be doing agility until his bones are fully formed.  I am thrilled.  The great adventure begins with Arlo.  We have so much to look forward to.  Agility training (the training itself is great fun), hikes and camping in the mountains, winning ribbons, and cuddling in front of the fire in winter.  My dogs have more than accepted him, and he is part of our family here at Telos.

And, yes, he has blue eyes.

Happy New Year!

I will remember 2011 as a good year, full of new joys, and a testament to the adage that patience is a virtue, and that hard work has its rewards.

On the patience front was the blooming of some of my South African bulbs, the seed of which I had sown as long as fourteen years previously.  Fourteen years ago my life was vastly different.  I lived in a very different climate with temperatures that could be consistently above 100F for months at a time, and bulbs were a hobby but also a consuming passion.  My work was in the medical profession, and I shared my life with a partner.  Now I live in the cool coastal climate of northern California and the bulbs are my work, as well as my love.  I live a single life, which I enjoy a great deal, and I have a new passion, the sport of dog agility.  It is almost disorientating to look back, feeling as though the person who optimistically sowed those seeds was a different one than that of the present day.  Many of the changes in my life were not of my choosing, but life goes on, and there are rewards in store for us that we may never anticipate.  The blooming of my Boophone haemanthoides was the pinnacle of excitement on the bulb front, although Behria tenuiflora was a close second (this did not take fourteen years!).

On the more competitive front, my female Wire Fox Terrier, Hannah, won her first championship title in CPE agility in May, then went on to win a second championship in November.  While the first one was exciting, the second one was even more so, since it was at the largest trial we attend, and many of our friends were there to cheer us with our winning run.  Hannah loved it, and pranced and danced around to the applause and cheering.  What a ham! I should mention here, that when I got Hannah she was about ten months old, and was so terrified of the world that I could not even enrol her in a puppy class.  She was afraid of dogs, cars, noises, new situations and people.  It took a lot of both work and patience to bring her around, but she loved agility from the very first day.

Besides the trials, we had a wonderful trip to Oregon, hiking the mountains in the Bend region.  Here is a picture of Smith Rocks north of Bend.

And now we end the year with the Oxalis season well under way.  Here is the lovely Oxalis massoniana to the left and an unidentified Oxalis to the right.  The right handed one is clearly in the Oxalis flava group.

 

Happy New Year, and happy bulb growing in 2012.

www.telosrarebulbs.com

C-ATCH Hannah!!

Hannah completed her championship title in CPE agility this past weekend in Oregon!  I was so proud.  Out of twelve runs over the weekend, she placed first or second in eleven.  That (for all you non-agility people) is quite an achievement.  She got special treats (sausage), and lots of congratulations.  The title stands for CPE Agility Trial Champion, and the letters now go before her name, so she is now C-ATCH Hannah.  Just Hannah to me, though.  I was far more exhausted than she was after the trial ended, and now we are catch-ing up at home.

A New Year Dawns

This morning it actually stopped raining, our first non-rainy morning in many, many days.  The dawn sky was beautiful, with a sliver of moon floating in an almost clear sky.  The property is still flooded with pools of water everywhere, but the greenhouses are dry and the bulbs are flourishing.

The year was a good one here at Telos, with many exciting bulb events, like the first flowering of Paramongaia weberbauerii.  I have been growing rare and unusual bulbs from seed for almost twenty years now.  Learning about the bulbs and how to grow them (and where to get the seed) has been an exciting adventure, made much easier these days by the Internet.  At first it was an uphill stuggle (but then, I used to be a rock climber!), and a lot of trial and error - LOTS of error, and much wasted seed - but these days you can Google just about anything and come up with useful information.  I am happy, for although I have most of the information under my belt now, my customers may not, and the more information that is available about these wonderful treasures, the better it is for all concerned.

In looking back at the year that has passed, I feel very blessed to have the life I do.  I have work that I love, work that is constantly exciting and challenging, work that results in beauty, and in pleasure for other people also.  I am past the age of 'retirement', but hope I will never retire from growing bulbs.

The new additions to Telos have grown.  Take a look at Mamie (the grey and white one) and Lucy (the black and white one).  They have learned their jobs well, and I have had NO LOSSES TO MICE!!!!   I have to say that again - NO losses to mice.  Each year I have lost valuable bulbs, some that I have not been able to replace, to the depredations of mice.  Now, with no effort on my part, they are at bay.  The dogs have accepted the cats and even seem to like them, but terriers are not to be trusted with cats, so I never leave them alone together, but when I am working with the bulbs they are mostly unsupervised and do very well. 

The dogs won so many ribbons last year I have stopped counting, and Hannah is very close to getting her championship.  Along the way we have made many great friends, and even when we don't win we always have a wonderful time.  In September we took a trip to Oregon, first to an agility trial near Salem, then the following week to another in Bend, spending the five days in between hiking in the Deschutes National Forest.  It was absolute heaven being in the mountains for five whole days hiking the trails surrounded by spectacular scenery.  Those strange collars are GPS collars (not shock collars), since the little devils love to take off after squirrels, and I don't want to lose them.  Now I always know where they are, even if I lose sight of them.

Oxalis season is well under way, the earlier Oxalis starting to bloom in October, so here is a picture of one, O. pulchella, to end the year, with many more to come.

Happy New Year, and happy bulb growing in 2011.   

www.telosrarebulbs.com