October 04, 2021

When conditions changed at my job several years ago, I decided it was a good time to move back to the state of my birth.  I had lived out of state for the previous 30 years and knew my parents were growing older and wanted to rebuild a connection with them.  Another motivating factor was that I had just turned 50.  While I did not consider this to be OLD, I realized many employers in my field did.  Most seemed to be looking to hire the perfect person, or a young person who had years of experience and a proven track record for growth.  While the perfect balance between age and experience rarely exists, I believed if I did not move soon, my likelihood of finding a good job in a new area of the country was slipping away.  This was an example of the ageism I knew existed in my industry.

I came across a report from LinkedIn that reported the US Census projects adults over age 65 will outnumber people under 18 by 2034.  Despite this population shift, ageism and age bias continue to confront Americans at both work and play.  While the employment rate of workers 55-plus took a hit during the pandemic, it is recovering slowly.   Regardless of the earning and spending power of the 50-plus, media and marketers are focused almost exclusively on Millennials and Generation Z consumers and continuing to ignore those over age 65.  Workers 50-plus make up over a third of the workforce in key sectors like technology, health, and education.  When the 50-plus are looking for work however, they find ageism hurts their chances for finding a job.  LinkedIn’s research showed that 78% of older workers reported seeing or dealing with ageism at work last year, up from 61% in 2018.

The covid-19 pandemic has especially had widespread impact on midcareer and older women workers.  About 40% have experienced at least one job interruption.  Of those still unemployed, 70% were out of work for six months or more.  Even if employed, these workers were concerned about the possibility of future unemployment.  Many are concerned about future job interruptions and one-quarter have seen their financial situation worsen over the course of the pandemic.  While younger women seem to bear the brunt of childcare and remote schooling, older women struggle with ageism.  This is particularly true when trying to find employment.  The Urban Institute reports that once displaced, older workers take about double the time to find a new job as younger workers.  

Thoughts:  The problem with ageism is that sooner or later, we all (hopefully) reach “that certain age.”  When I turned 35, I realized I would never be known as one of the Young Lions of my industry.  When I turned 50, I realized it would be harder to be hired by those who did not already know my reputation.  I skirted the loss of opportunity at 65 by retiring early, even though I now find myself in the workforce.  One reason touted for not hiring 50-plus workers is they require higher salaries.  They also bring the experience that makes them worthwhile.  Research has shown that innovative young workers become innovative older workers.  Ageism is not a reason to be reluctant to hire, it is an excuse.  Do the work.  Change is coming and it starts with you.

October 02, 2021

I received a notice to my email this week saying last Wednesday the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) declared 23 species extinct, including one of the world’s largest woodpeckers, dubbed the “Lord God Bird”.  The announcement came via a proposal to remove the birds, mussels, fish, as well as a plant and fruit bat, from Endangered Species Act protections because government scientists have given up on ever finding them again.  “With climate change and natural area loss pushing more and more species to the brink, now is the time to lift up proactive, collaborative, and innovative efforts to save America’s wildlife,” said interior secretary Deb Haaland.  The most iconic species was the Ivory-billed woodpecker, with the last indisputable evidence of existence coming in the 1940’s.  This woodpecker has been the Holy Grail for birders in recent decades, with numerous unconfirmed sightings over the years in the southeastern US.  Sadly, I was not one of them.

When I checked online, I found the Endangered Species Act (ESA) of 1973 is the primary law in the US for protecting imperiled species.  The Act was designed to protect critically imperiled species from becoming extinct as a “consequence of economic growth and development untempered by adequate concern and conservation.”  The ESA was signed into law by President Richard Nixon on December 28, 1973.  The US Supreme Court called it “the most comprehensive legislation for the preservation of endangered species enacted by any nation”.  Since the ESA was enacted, it has prevented the extinction of 99% of plants and animals under its care.  This includes the whooping crane, which numbered as few as 16 birds in the 1940’s but have since recovered to 500 to 600.  Today’s endangered species must also contend with the pressures of climate change, as rising seas and higher temperatures change and destroy habits.

John Fitzpatrick, director emeritus of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology said, “The fundamental thing that drove the woodpecker down to near extinction was the loss of the southeastern first growth forests, which really started taking place after the Civil War.”  Fitzpatrick was part of efforts to search for the bird in Arkansas and other regions in the mid-2000’s.  He still believes there is hope for the Ivory-billed woodpecker.  The species was revered not just by Alexander Wilson and John James Audubon, called the founding fathers of ornithology, but by collectors who hunted them.  Fitzpatrick said the nickname, “Lord God Bird,” was said to be derived from the expression “Lord God, what a bird.”  Now it is extinct.

Thoughts:  Tiera Curry, a senior scientist for the Center for Biological Diversity, praised the current administration for requesting a US$60 million increase in endangered species protections, but criticized the fact a new FWS director had yet to be appointed.  “Extinction is not inevitable.  It is a political choice.  Saving species isn’t rocket science.  As a country we need to stand up and say we aren’t going to lose any more species to extinction.”  Sadly, unless we make immediate changes, critical endangered species will continue to become extinct.  Follow the science.  Change is coming and it starts with you.

October 01, 2021

My feed from the NY Times this week led with the story of how the US owes its existence as a nation partly to an immunization mandate.  In 1777, smallpox was a big enough problem for the bedraggled American army that George Washington thought it could jeopardize the Revolution.  An outbreak had already led to one American defeat, at the Battle of Quebec. To prevent more, Washington ordered immunizations for all troops who had not yet had the virus.  This was done quietly so the British would not hear how many Americans were sick.  The number of smallpox cases plummeted, and Washington’s army survived a war of attrition against the world’s most powerful country.  Ron Chernow wrote in his 2010 Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Washington that the immunization mandate, “was as important as any military measure Washington adopted during the war.”  Mandatory immunizations are still part of the military.

While mandatory immunization for many diseases are common and largely accepted, that was not always the case.  In 1901 a deadly smallpox epidemic tore through the Northeast, prompting the Boston and Cambridge boards of health to order the vaccination of all residents.  Some refused to get the shot, claiming the vaccine order violated their personal liberties under the Constitution.  A Swedish-born pastor named Henning Jacobson took his anti-vaccine crusade all the way to the US Supreme Court.  The justices issued a landmark 1905 ruling that legitimized the government’s authority to “reasonably” infringe upon personal freedoms during a public health crisis by issuing a fine to those who refused vaccination.  While immunization treatments became safer (the Revolutionary War method killed 2 to 3 percent of recipients), and mandates became more common, they also tend to generate hostility from a small minority of Americans.

Federal and local covid-19 vaccine mandates requiring immunization seem to be working.  Tyson Foods now has a 91% vaccination rate among its employees.  New York City school teachers and staff are required to show proof that they have received at least one covid-19 vaccine shot.  A California judge ordered vaccine mandates for prison guards and staff, and Gov. Gavin Newsom says a school vaccine mandate is on the table.  There is also opposition to mandatory immunization.  A New York state mandate that all health care workers be required to be vaccinated has sparked multiple legal challenges and fear of staffing shortages.  Since the current administration announced new federal vaccine mandates affecting roughly two-thirds of the US workforce (100 million people) it has received backlash from congressional Republicans, as well as state and local officials.  Many seem to believe saving people’s lives is an “unreasonable” infringement.

Thoughts:  One of the reasons for the immunization mandates for covid-19 comes from the increased risk with the Delta variant.  Roughly 1 in 500 people in the US have died from covid-19, and vaccination rates have slowed despite the uptick in delta variant cases.  Meanwhile, more than 98% of people hospitalized with a covid-19 diagnosis between June and August 2021 were unvaccinated.  The longer the virus goes unchecked the greater likelihood it will mutate into a variant not controlled by the current vaccines.  Our Republican Lieutenant Governor even says, if you do not like wearing a mask and are sick of going to funerals, get the shot.  Immunization is a faster and safer way to reach herd immunity than spreading the virus.  Follow the science.  Change is coming and it starts with you.

September 30, 2021

One of the lead stories on last nights national news concerned the toxic fumes that have begun to rise as lava from a volcano on the island of La Palma contacted the Atlantic Ocean.  The lava reached the ocean on Tuesday, raising concerns about the release of toxic gas as the hot rock reacted with the water.  It has been estimated by the EU’s Copernicus service that the magma has covered 267 hectares (2.7 sq km) on its way to the bay.  Clouds of white steam were seen rising from the contact area near Playa Nueva.  The steam carried a mix of sulfur in the lava with the ocean water to create sulfuric acid.  Residents were advised to seal their windows and doors and not go outside.  They might be better advised to leave the island and its toxic mist until the crisis is over.

The initial lead on the volcano was the “miracle house” that managed to survive the initial volcanic eruption.  The property escaped the molten rock flowing from the Cumbre Vieja volcano last Thursday and videos were posted on social media showing the little home standing unscathed on a patch of land, surrounded by a toxic, scorched earth.  The house was owned by a retired Danish couple, Inge Bergedorf and Ranier Cocq.  They used the house as a winter retreat, arriving in October or November to collect the grapes from the vines grown there.  The initial flow had taken the vines but miraculously left the house.  They owner said, “now there is nothing left.  It first swallows the vines.  Now it has also devoured our home.”  For many, this would be a toxic blow.

The lava has flattened hundreds of homes in the region since the volcano erupted on September 19, and more than 6,000 people have been forced to flee.  The Spanish government has since declared the island of La Palma (Canary Islands off north-west Africa) a disaster zone and pledged financial support for all those affected by the volcano.  The president of the Canary Islands, Ángel Víctor Torres, said that an estimated £346 million (US $401.7) of damage had been caused by the eruption and described the people of La Palma as “cowering in fear with a tremendous sense of desolation.”  Those who were not burned out by the lava now face the toxic acid mist.  Apparently, most of the residents are foreigners from central Europe.

Thoughts:  While the sulfuric acid plaguing the residents of La Palma is naturally occurring, I found a similar toxic man-made occurrence when I researched the lead smelters in the Salt Lake Valley at the turn of the 20^th century.  While lead was toxic enough, the ore held other elements like mercury, arsenic, and sulfur which all escaped up the smokestack during the smelting process.  The Salt Lake Tribune reported when the wind was right and rain fell, it created a death strip 3 miles (4.5 kilometers) wide and 15 miles (22.5 kilometers) long.  The sulfuric acid that fell with the rain killed both crops and animals who were unlucky enough to be in its path.  The solution was to build taller smokestacks to carry the acid further from the population center.   It still fell somewhere.  We need to protect the planet from ourselves.  Follow the science.  Change is coming and it starts with you.

September 29, 2021

One of the myths I believed for most of my adult life was that as a child our family never had much access to candy or sweets.  I never recall this being the case when I was growing up but as I aged, I seemed to splice several different stories together to create this reality.  Two events happened at Christmas that might have been the foundation for this myth.  The first concerned my grandfather.  I have memories of him arriving around Christmas with his pockets filled with sacks of ribbon candy and cut rock hard candy.  The other was the Christmas movie our town showed at the abandoned theater to mark Santa’s arrival.  All the children who attended got a sack of peanuts in the shell, several bonbons, an orange, and hard candy.  Somehow this morphed into a lack of sweets.

I realize this could not have been true when I remember my younger brother and my favorite game, concoction.  This was a game we could only play when mom was out of the house.  Mom often iced cupcakes (sweets?) and kept a supply of the small cake holders available.  These became the container where we placed the concoction.  The purpose was to challenge each other to eat whatever concoction was created.  I recall the base of most of these delicacies was brown sugar.  Then we would comb the cupboards adding different ingredients (chocolate chips, coconut, syrup) to the concoction.  The trick was to make a treat that was disgusting enough to force the other to refuse to eat it.  However, if one brother refused, the one who made the concoction would have to eat it to win.  The game usually ended when we could no longer ingest the generous amount of brown sugar involved (sweets?).   

I also recall that while we may not have eaten a lot of “store bought” sweets, home-made sweets were plentiful.  Every Sunday night was reserved for popcorn, fudge, and divinity.  My mom still relishes popcorn and fudge as her Sunday night meal.  I recall several times where we had marathon taffy pulls, taking up most of the day on Saturday.  Apparently, once you started pulling you could not stop, even when your arms were tired.  I do not ever remember getting it to the soft stage I now buy in the stores.  Then there were the candy apples and popcorn balls we were given by houses for trick or treat at Halloween, and they usually appeared at our house sometime during the fall as well.  While I am not big on sweets now, perhaps it is because I had too many as a child.

Thoughts:  One of my childhood memories is the questions my mom would ask.  I previously touched on her questions about the missing cookie dough (and cookies) from the freezer.  The other was a periodic, “Where is the brown sugar?  I was sure we still had brown sugar.”  My brother and I always feigned innocence.  Despite the copious amounts of sugar ingested as a child, I still held to the myth that we did not have sweets.  As an historian I have been intrigued by how our bias results in a fabricated reality concerning events of the past.  This is true for my memories of sweets when I was a child.  This is also true for the stories being circulated about the vaccine.  What we do know is vaccinated people rarely go to the hospital, let alone die.  Follow the science.  Change is coming and it starts with you.

September 28, 2021

I believe I have mentioned how my sister has been working with my mom to prepare her for a move.  That has meant going through the boxes, clothes, and memorabilia that one can accumulate while living in the same location for the last 30 years.  While they were busy on the inside of the house, they had paid little attention to what was going on outside the front door.  Today I received a text with a photo of the spider that had made a web between the posts on the front patio that was four feet across (just over a meter).  It was black and yellow in color with a one-inch (2.5 centimeters) body and about three inches (7.5 centimeter) of legs.  The web went up in one day.  As mom exclaimed when she saw the web, “She has been busy!”

This time my sister looked online, and then sent me the link.  The Black and Yellow Garden Spider (Aurantia Argiope) belongs to the orb weaver family of spiders.  It is common to parks and gardens in North America and is known for the huge webs it builds in the fall that span several feet.  The black and yellow garden spider is sometimes called the writing spider, due to the elaborate silk web it weaves.  While the garden spider leaves the support strands, it eats the circular interior part of the web and rebuilds it each morning with fresh silk.  The spider may be recycling the chemicals used in web building, or it may be consuming the minuscule insects and organic matter that had attached to the web.  Mature females usually weave a zigzag pattern in the center of their webs, while immature yellow garden spiders tend to fill the centers of their webs with heavy silk patterns to camouflage themselves from predators.  You would think the bright yellow would give them away even in the web.

Black and Yellow Garden spiders breed twice a year. The smaller males roam in search of a female, and then build a small web near or even in the female’s web.  Males court the females by plucking the strands on her web.  Like other spiders, the female is just as apt to eat the male as embrace his advances.  The male will often have a safety drop line to fall from the web should she decide to eat him.  After inserting the second palpal bulb into the female, the male dies.  Then he is sometimes eaten by the female anyway.  The female builds up to four nest sacs that hatch the young spiders the next spring.  While some of the little spiders remain nearby, others exude a strand of silk that gets caught by the breeze, carrying them to more distant areas.

Thoughts:  Black and yellow garden spiders are largely unnoticed for much of the year as they grow and molt toward maturity.  By fall the female spider is huge and the enormous web that is built attracts attention.  As menacing as the spider seems, they are harmless.  The black and yellow is another of the orb weavers (Pholcid) who rarely bite unless under duress.  Instead, they act as a valuable pest control by trapping insects and even small lizards in their web.   My sister told me she accidently bumped the web, and the spider began to shake it vigorously.  While this initially may have scarred her, she had read this was done to trap an insect or scare away predators.  Knowing why it reacted meant it no longer scared her.  When we get to know why people react as they do, it can make their actions less scary as well.  Do the work.  Follow the scienced.  Change is coming and it starts with you.

September 27, 2021

When I entered the sun porch last week, I noticed that an intruder had gotten into the area and had chewed through one of the bags that contained the squirrel mix I had been placing in one of my feeders.  I found it interesting because none of the other plastic bags had been touched.  It seems the corn in the squirrel mix was what had attracted whatever animal it was.  Once more, I defaulted to the usual suspect, a squirrel.  What I did not know is how he managed to break in.  The porch is screened, and the squirrels always scamper away when I go out on the deck.  When I was watering this morning, it became apparent how the break in happened.  One of the window screens behind a succulent rack had been pushed open.  Appropriately, the size was about what would be needed for a squirrel to enter.

Melissa sent me a feed this morning from the NY Times about an intruder break in who then tried to take over a house recently purchased by Shanetta Little in Newark, New Jersey.  Not long after her purchase, she began receiving letters with documents claiming an obscure 18th-century treaty gave the sender rights to claim her new house as his own.  She dismissed the letters as a hoax, until she arrived to find a man in her house. After the break in, he changed the locks and hung a red-and-green flag in its window.  He claimed to be a sovereign citizen of a country that does not exist and for whom the laws of the US do not apply.  The man who entered her house was arrested June 17, and charged with criminal mischief, burglary, criminal trespass, and making terroristic threats.  Prosecutors in New Jersey are preparing to take the case before a grand jury, according to Katherine Carter, a spokeswoman for the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office.  He was released on his own recognizance.

When I looked online, I found the loosely affiliated group called Members of the Moorish sovereigns (Moors), have come into conflict with federal and state authorities over their refusal to obey laws and government regulations.  The events around the break in at Little’s house used a popular ploy known as paper terrorism.  According to government experts. Moorish sovereigns are one of the fastest growing extremist groups in the US.   Also known as the Moorish sovereign citizen movement, they are loosely based around a theory that Black people are foreign citizens bound only by arcane legal systems.  The Moors then encourage followers to violate existent laws in the name of empowerment.  Experts say it lures marginalized people to its ranks with the false promise that they are above the law.  Neither the break in person nor the new owner of the house was impoverished, and both were Black.

Thoughts:  Sovereign citizen ideology was initially adopted by white supremacist groups in America in the 1970’s, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.  The Moorish permutation gained popularity in the 1990’s.  Present membership in the Moorish sovereign citizen movement has been driven by the internet to include hundreds of thousands of adherents.  Real Estate agent Jordan Fainberg confronted a similar break in during 2013.  “It was the most bizarre thing in the world,” Fainberg said recently. “This was just somebody saying the sky is purple when it’s blue.”  There seems to be a lot of this going around in national politics.  Facts no longer matter, and truth is relative.  If you claim your “rights,” you can do whatever you want.  Do the work.  Follow the science.  Change is coming and it starts with you.

September 25, 2021

After I commented on the Naked Ladies that were withering in the mailbox planter several days ago, I was surprised by new growth this morning.  The two Naked Lady lilies that had sprouted last week were now joined by eight new shoots poking almost a foot (30 centimeters) out of the ground.  When I went back and checked last year’s post (Naked, August 26, 2020) on the flower I found that it had followed a similar pattern.  Two shoots had grown up, blossomed, and had begun to wither only to be followed by the other eight.  The difference this year is that it happened in late September, a month later than last year’s late August blooms. 

When I rechecked the plants online, I found they were called Surprise lily (Lycoris squamigera), as well as naked lady and resurrection lily.  Its common names come from its habit of growing leafless flower stalks and blooming after a brief period of summer dormancy.  In this case it was nearly three months of dormancy.  This was probably due to the extended heat spell, with temps finally falling into the high 50’sF at night this last week.  The plants are called “resurrection” as the lush leaves die and wither prior to summer dormancy.  They are called “naked” as the stalks (called scapes) shoot up months later without any accompanying leaves, but just bare stocks.  They are called “surprise” because of the rapid growth as the 1-inch-thick, leafless stems suddenly pop from the ground.  All three names are apt.

I was pleasantly surprised to see the shoots emerge from the ground.  I had uncovered several of these waiting in the ground when I prepared the soil for the mum planting but had not recognized them to be the Ladies.  I seem to forget about these flowers every year.  Last year I got too close with my weed eater and cut two of the flowers down.  I will try and be more careful this year.  I learned another important fact online as well.  If you repeatedly mow or cut it back the lush clumps of surprise lily’s springtime foliage, you will prevent the flowers and eventually kill the bulbs.  Since they are in the planter, I avoid mowing them and although I pull the dead foliage, it usually takes a couple of weeks to happen.  So far, this approach has worked.

Thoughts:  I was not surprised to learn the plants need virtually no water after their foliage dies and they go dormant during the summer.  I rarely water the mailbox planter.  I allow the spring rains to work and then the plants are on their own.  The hen and chick succulents do not care but the hibiscus has died back this year.  The pruning guide suggests you cut any dead stems or branches down to about 8 to 12 inches (20-30 cm.) in the fall and then apply a protective cover of mulch.  I may try that as now it is hanging dead on its trellis.  I am continually being surprised by the growth habits of all our plants.  Each is unique and often quite specific.  My ICU nurse friends tell me their covid patients constantly act surprised.  They have gone from believing it to be a hoax, to refusing to be a sheep (vaccinate), to a hospital ventilator.  While cases seem to again be on the decline, it is too late to be surprised for over 690,000 people in the US.  Follow the science.  Change is coming and it starts with you.

September 24, 2021

I have mentioned that I had two tremendous picks in the Fantasy Football Draft four weeks ago.  My first pick was the number one overall pick Christian McCaffrey and my second was Patrick Mahomes.  Both have put up amazing stats for the first two games, despite Mahomes and the Chiefs losing to the Ravens 35-36 on Sunday night.  Both players had suffered injuries last season, with McCaffrey limited to only three games while Mahomes sustained a concussion and torn plantar plate (turf toe) in his left foot during the playoffs.  I was hoping for their sakes they could play the season without injuries, as well as letting me ride their production into the Fantasy Playoffs.  That hope is now questionable as McCaffery suffered a hamstring injury in last night’s game.

The game commentators mentioned how many Panthers were already injured prior to the start of the game.  When I checked online, I found that as of today there were already 16 injured Panthers three weeks into the season.   Of these 4 are on injured reserve, 5 were listed as questionable for Week 4 (including McCaffrey), and 7 were inactive during last night’s Week 3 game.  The panthers are not the only team who appear to be suffering from a rash of injuries.  Every team in the National Football League has been plagued with injuries this 2021 season, and many took place before the season officially started.  Some say it may be because of the pandemic that a lot more injuries happen. 

A similar situation with injuries occurred in Major League Baseball this season, and covid and the response is again blamed.  The 2020 season saw players ramp up during spring training in February or March, then return home for four months as the pandemic interceded, followed by an abbreviated “summer camp” in July and then a 60-game season.  While the winter should have provided a reset, the 12-month rhythms many have lived for more than a decade (physically, mentally, and emotionally) were disrupted.  James Gladstone, head of sports medicine at New York’s Mount Sinai Health System said, “The whole last year really threw people off; in part, injuries may be a result of that . . . The psyche of pretty much everyone in the world was affected by this covid pandemic.  It’s hard to directly correlate the two sometimes, but I think there’s some kind of connection.”

Thoughts:  The covid protocols over the last two years have disrupted sports on all levels.  Last year youth traveling teams tried to proceed as if there was no pandemic, only to find themselves struggling with travel restrictions and rising case numbers.  Some high impact college players sat out for a year to avoid any worst-case scenario.  Now that vaccines are available stands are full of screaming unmasked fans, and players at all levels are increasingly facing injuries.  It is interesting how every problem in life now seems to be blamed on covid.  When injuries increase, it is blamed on covid.  When supply chains do not work, it is blamed on covid.  When the takeout food order is messed up, it is blamed on covid.  It may be that “there’s some kind of connection,” but at times the connection seems to come from a loss of effort.  The pandemic is the new reality, but it can only defeat us if we quit adapting.  Or trying.  Follow the science.  Do the work.  Change is coming and it starts with you.

September 23, 2021

Several weeks ago, I finally gave up hoping the dehydrated mums in the mailbox planter were ever going to come back.  I pulled them out and threw them in the trash.  Not long after, the naked ladies that had sprouted leaves in the spring decided it was time to raise their flower stalks.  While these are pretty, they only bloom about a week and now they are on the decline.  Even though it has been hot there are predictions of cooler weather ahead, and that prompted Melissa to make a run to the local market to see what was left in the outdoor flower section.  When we arrived most of the flowers and all the vegetables were gone.  They did have a display of tiny succulents (Melissa already had them), a few varieties of pansies, and several sizes of different mums.   I would not have bought anything, but Melissa wanted some color in the planter.  We came home with four pansies and two mums.

When I looked mums up online, I found that the hardy mum (Chrysanthemum morifolium) is valued in landscaping because they primarily bloom in the fall, adding to a four-season interest in your yard.  The varieties of mums come in a wide array of colors, as well as different flower forms, growth habits, and petal arrangements.  Mums generally hit their stride in late summer.  Like poinsettias, they are photoperiodic, meaning they rely on specific amounts of light to send the signal that it is time to start blooming.  Though technically perennials, mums are often grown as annuals, being planted in the fall already in bloom and then discarded once the cold weather starts.  They have a shallow root system and tend to heave out of the ground during the winter freeze-thaw cycles.  That happened to my mums.

Between work and the prediction of 90F’s temps next week Melissa was reluctant to plant the pansies.  They were careful placed on the screen porch where Melissa could care for them until they could safely go in the ground.  The Mums had been placed on the front walk with the expectation they would be planted and were beginning to dry out in the heat.  I decided it was time to get the mums in the ground before it was too late.  This mailbox bed has a variety of bulbs that produce new flowers and leaves in the spring and early fall.  As I carefully extricated the Bermuda grass that grows through the mulch, I came across several bulbs that I tried not to disturb.  Then I dug up the soil in the corner where it was safe to plant and placed the mums in the ground.  A last drench of water and they were officially planted.  They were scraggly, but it least there was a little color.

Thoughts:  When I directed camp our main meeting was in October.  One year I found two mums about three feet across the local nursery was trying to get rid of at the end of season.  These made the perfect splash of color to frame the entrance of the building.  Several years ago, horticulturists at the University of Minnesota developed a new chrysanthemum hybrid described by breeder Neil Anderson, as a “hardy shrub mum.”  The Mammoth Series mums can measure 2 to 3 feet (.6 to .9 meters) tall and 4 to 5 feet (1.2 to 1.5 meters) across by their third season and sport a massive canopy of flowers with up to 5,000 per plant.  Mums, like people, seem to flourish best when they are in their own niche.  The barrios or Spanish speaking neighborhoods in the southwest US have counterparts in the Chinese, Japanese, or Korean towns of larger US coastal cities.  There is a difference between settling together to feel comfortable and being red-lined and/or forced to only live in specific areas.  A variety of locations with affordable housing should be available to all.  Do the work.  Change is coming and it starts with you.