Outlasting them is the best revenge


Jefferson Griffin, vile fascist pig

Today, at last, a ruling by a federal court put an end to a six-months-long attempt by a swamp-scum Republican, Jefferson Griffin, to steal a seat on the North Carolina Supreme Court. It’s important to understand the absurdity of Griffin’s claims to be able to invoke the appropriate level of disgust for this man. I won’t rehearse the details here — the mainstream media coverage has been good. But adding to the disgust is the fact that Republicans on the North Carolina Supreme Court kept Griffin’s claims alive for months when it was so obvious that Griffin had no legitimate claims and was only trying to subvert yet another election for Republicans.

North Carolina is a purple state. My expectation is that North Carolina will become bluer and bluer between now and the 2028 election, as Republicans show the world that what they are now is fascists. One of North Carolina’s senators, Thom Tillis, is up for re-election in 2026. He seems to understand that he cannot win a statewide election now, so he is one of the few senators market-testing flaccid Republican attempts to stand up to Trump.

My track record on Trump predictions is not good, because I have always been too optimistic that someone would stop him. Again and again, for years and years, the courts have let him skate, and Republicans in Congress blocked impeachments twice. For what it’s worth, I expect the next three and a half years to be a horror. But I still cannot imagine that fascism in America can survive the end of Trump. The fools who voted for Trump deserve all the misery that they are likely to get. Hatred for Trump already has reversed two elections in two other countries, Canada and Australia. Americans are far more stupid and more gullible than the people of Canada and Australia, but I don’t think Americans like fascism any more than Canadians or Australians, once Trump teaches them what fascism and corrupt government are, and they slowly perceive that it was not what they were promised.

Actually, the media have been negligent on one angle of Jefferson Griffin’s attempt to steal an election. I’ve tried to find out who paid for that six months of appeals, which must have cost many hundreds of thousands of dollars. I still don’t know. We need to know who is paying for these Republican attempts to subvert the law, the Constitution, and some of the most important principles of democracy.


2001 Honda Rancher TRX-350, 4-wheel drive, electric shift

I did not need an ATV

For several years I have fantasized about buying an ATV. Everybody has one here in the sticks, whether they can afford it or not. It’s considered essential equipment. I can by no means justify spending much money on an ATV, but I came across a 2001 Honda Rancher 350, well maintained with low mileage. I bought it from the shop that had maintained it. It had been parked for a year. It has new tires and got a thorough servicing including a rebuilt carburetor. It runs perfectly, and, like my 2001 Jeep, I expect it to still be running when I kick the bucket at age 104. It’s a classic.

I like the design of the older Honda ATV’s. The body has soft, curving lines, as opposed to the sharp lines of newer ATV’s. My 2001 model also has a kind — if slightly goofy — face, unlike the aggressive faces of newer ATV’s. I have plenty of woodland trails here to ride it on. I may get a little yard work out of it. And when I’m too lazy to walk the half mile to the mailbox and the half mile back, the ATV will get me there. It will get me outside more. Plus driving it is more of a workout than I would have thought. Steering it is far from effortless, and riding it in hilly woodlands requires a constant shifting of body weight according to the terrain. Maybe it will help keep me young, the better to outlast the fascists.

New glasses

At my age, part of outlasting the fascists is to take care of the brain. We now know how important good vision and good hearing are for keeping the brain healthy and active. It had been almost three years since I got new glasses. I have glasses for reading and glasses for driving, but I particularly notice the improvement with my new reading glasses (which I also use for the computer).

The book is Lower Than the Angels: A History of Sex and Christianity, by Diarmaid MacCulloch, an Oxford historian. I’ll have more to say about the book when I’ve finished reading it. It’s already pretty familiar terrain to me, though. When I claim that there is nothing on earth more cracker-fed delusional than the church, and when I further claim that there is no subject on which the church is more horsewash whacked than sex, I’m entirely serious. Anyone who doubts it either doesn’t know much about the history of the church or will believe pretty much any old thing as long as they’re told that it came out of the mouth of God.

My eye doctor is in King. That’s where the The Dalton bar and restaurant is, which I’ve written about before. (A Bistro and Bar in Trumptown). As usual, I had the grilled salmon with garlic mashed potatoes and grilled green beans.


I tried to talk the bartender into selling me a half shot of Oban 14, just so I could taste it. But he wouldn’t do it.

Mountain Laurel

Mountain laurel is very common all over the Blue Ridge Mountains. Here in the foothills it is less common, but it is very abundant on the ridges and creek valleys around my house. The ATV gets me to places where I’m more able to appreciate it. Just now the mountain laurel is approaching the end of its blooming season. If I had ever seen mountain laurel bloom before, I don’t recall it.


Scottish pie from the high street bakery in Dunbar. One of these is a meat pie, and the other is a fruit pie.

Scotland calling

Travel is another thing that helps me outlast the fascists. I’ve booked a trip to Scotland in late September — a lovely time of year in Scotland. I’ll be hanging out with Ken, of course, near Edinburgh. But also an old friend from California is making his first visit to Scotland, so I’ll meet up with him and tag along for a few days in Aberdeen and Inverness. I have been to Inverness, but not to Aberdeen.


Scottish pie from the high street bakery in Dunbar

Panisses


Chickpea panisses with a dipping sauce made of Greek yoghurt and a pepper sauce. Click here for high-resolution version.

I have never been to the south of France. But I understand that panisses (singular = panisse) are a popular street food there, particularly in Marseilles. I came across a recipe recently online, and I had to make some.

The recipe is simple, though you’ll need to do some frying. Google for the recipe and you’ll find many online. You’ll need a dipping sauce. Pretty much any dipping sauce will do.

The panisses soak up remarkably little oil, probably because the chickpea polenta is saturated with the cooking water and is not thirsty for oil.

I’m always looking for high-protein, low-carb foods. I wish I’d known about these things sooner.


Click here for high-resolution version.

MSG for roasting


A low-carb, high-protein meal: salmon cakes with roasted Brussels sprouts and leftover slaw. Click here for high-resolution version.

I’ve written in the past about how I think MSG (monosodium glutamate) has gotten a bad rap. Thus I won’t go into that here, other than to say that MSG is not unnatural. It’s found naturally in some foods, and the commercial product is just a refined product of fermentation. When used for sautèeing and roasting, it hastens browning and adds umami.

My favorite way of cooking many vegetables these days is to wrap them in foil (with seasonings and oil), and put them on the gas grill. Turn them halfway through cooking. Total cooking time (at least on my grill) is 15 to 20 minutes. The vegetables get some steaming along with the roasting.

Asparagus is in season. Foil roasting on a gas grill is a great way to cook asparagus, not to mention broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, and even carrots. You don’t need much MSG. A quarter to half a teaspoon will do.


The rhodendrons are blooming, as is the snowball bush in the background. Click here for high-resolution verson.

Is revolt taking root in the zeitgeist?


“People will suffer,” says Mon Mothma. “That’s the plan,” says Luthen. “You’re not angry at me. I’m just saying out loud what you already know. There will be no rules going forward. If you’re not willing to risk your conscience, then surrender and be done with it.”

Last night I finished re-watching “Andor” season 1 (for the third time). Tonight I will start watching season 2. I have avoided reading reviews, but I’ve seen some of the headlines. It seems season 2 is going to have a lot to say about American fascism, or, as NBC News mildly puts it, “the plot’s relevance to current events.”

The Trump White House will start walking things back when rich people and CEO’s complain about the pain they themselves feel from Trumpian recklessness. But, toward everyone else, as many have pointed out, the cruelty is the point. It was reported that the CEO’s of Walmart, Target, and Home Depot met with Trump this week to warn him that, given the course Trump is on, there will be empty shelves by summer. Trump, of course, doesn’t care a fig for what empty shelves would mean for ordinary people. He would only be able to understand what empty shelves would mean for corporate profits.

The Trump White House can be counted on to double down on cruelty when ordinary people are concerned. As I said to a friend in email this morning, it is as though their fascist sadism gives them so much joy that they are blind to the political calculus of blowback. Or maybe they just assume that they have enough force at their disposal to put down revolt.

You don’t get to work for the Trump administration unless you are corrupt, completely uncaring, sadistic, and willing to do any vile thing that the emperor wants done. Thus they are all blind to the motivations of anyone who isn’t like them. There isn’t any wiring in their brains for that.

I have high hopes that, while the Trump administration merrily and triumphantly provides the motivations for revolt, “Andor 2” will help provide some inspiration.


Riley Moore, a congressman from West Virginia, is one of the Republicans eager to do photo-ops at Trump’s concentration camp in El Salvador. It seems obvious that he can’t comprehend, or just doesn’t care, what a public display of sadism like this means to decent people, or how history will view images like this. He imagines, in his triumphalism, that he will always be on top. But he is just one elite fascist up against the global many, and he can’t comprehend just how precarious his position is. I’m reminded of another quote from a story — Tyrion Lannister’s lines to Cersei after her acts of cruelty: “I will hurt you for this. I don’t know how yet, but give me time. A day will come when you think yourself safe and happy, and suddenly your joy will turn to ashes in your mouth, and you’ll know the debt is paid.”

Foxes!


Click here for larger version.

I have been spreading bird seed in my back yard each morning, hoping to befriend a pair of crows that I believe have a nest in the woods behind my house. The crows come regularly, as do the squirrels. But I was surprised to see foxes eating the seed.

I believe these foxes have their den, with pups, in a brush and stump pile in the woods a hundred yards or so behind my house. They deserve more than bird seed, so this morning, once the sun is up, I have some other things for them — leftovers, and some eggs.

The foxes seemed very comfortable in the yard. I suspect they’re very familiar with the place but that they usually come after dark.

The fate of quislings after fascists are defeated


Vidkun Quisling, sentenced to death by firing squad for betraying Norway to the Nazis, 1945.

The American people are stunningly stupid and easy to deceive. But even Donald Trump and his machinery of deceit cannot fool all of the people all of the time. The Trump resistance is starting to form. The conservative columnist David Brooks wrote yesterday in the New York Times:

“It’s time for a comprehensive national civic uprising. It’s time for Americans in universities, law, business, nonprofits and the scientific community, and civil servants and beyond to form one coordinated mass movement. Trump is about power. The only way he’s going to be stopped is if he’s confronted by some movement that possesses rival power.”

We can only guess what percentage of the American people would happily follow Trump into full-on fascism. My guess would be 20 percent. The rest of us will do whatever it takes to get our democracy back. And we won’t forget who the fascists are and what they did.

In their gloating and triumphalism and sadism, Trumpists haven’t started to imagine what might happen to them once Trump is put down. Since they don’t know much history, maybe we should start reminding them.

I asked ChatGPT’s “deep research” AI for a summary of what has happened to “collaborators” in the past — both as a legal process, after fascists are deposed, and as a grassroots resistance as people rise up against fascist treatment.

Here are two AI reports. They will open as PDF files in your browser:

The historical record shows totalitarian regimes almost universally establish networks of camps, prisons, and forced-labor colonies. 982 words.

Meanwhile, the stories of resistance and eventual justice (from the Nuremberg gallows to the lustration files) serve as enduring reminders that even in the darkest times, there were those who defended freedom and, when light returned, insisted on accountability. 5,282 words.

Open-source surveillance using AI


Keeping an eye on the fascists. Image by ChatGPT 4o. Click here for larger version.

Safety and survival

There would be no thriving, and no survival, without surveillance. When deer in my backyard see me watching them through a window and retreat into the woods, they’re doing surveillance (and I’m surveilling them!). Today we have many types of machine surveillance to help protect us. Our smoke detectors are a form of surveillance. Automatic braking systems on vehicles use radar for surveillance. Governments, obviously, have many ways of doing surveillance. Corporations, too, do surveillance, including snooping on our privacy.

But what about us ordinary people? Forty years ago, I heard a brilliant managing editor of a Pulitzer-prize newspaper say that newspapers are intelligence agencies for the common man. That was very true then. It’s less true now, because of professional timidity and corporate capture.

Low-information types — the type of people who voted for Trump — are upside down about the need for surveillance. They are gullible to propaganda, easily manipulated, easily persuaded against their own vital interests, pumped full of appealing and easy-to-understand deceptions that serve the purposes of a predatory elite.

We high-information types have been living through terrible times. New technologies such as social media have been optimized for mass deception. The sources of trustable information not only have been weakened, they are under attack. One of the reasons we “doom scroll” is that, perceiving danger, we are desperate for information.

Beyond doom scrolling

Corporations and governments have covert ways of doing surveillance. We ordinary people have no covert sources. Open-source intelligence has been a thing for a long time. It’s more important now than ever, and we instinctively feel that. When we doom scroll, we are doing — or trying to do — open-source intelligence.

Open-source intelligence is not always free. I still subscribe to newspapers, weakened and compromised though they are. I’ve written here before about how Substack has become an important source of information. The first two things I read each morning, before I spend the next hour making my daily rounds though a series of reasonably trustable web sites, are the daily Substack posts of Heather Cox Richardson and Paul Krugman.

I have so many subscriptions these days that it has become a considerable expense. One of those subscriptions is ChatGPT Plus, from OpenAI, at $20 a month.

ChatGPT’s ‘Deep Research’

A couple of months ago, ChatGPT introduced a feature called “Deep Research.” So far it seems remarkably reliable and less prone to hallucination. It cites its sources. If asked a question that it perceives as unfocused or ambiguous, it will ask for clarification before it begins. It takes time and resources. Those at the $20-a-month level get 10 queries per month. A $200-a-month subscription gets 120 queries per month.

Paul Krugman’s Substack post this morning was an interview with Claudia Sahm, an economist who developed “the Sahm rule” for the early detection of recessions. The interview wasn’t exactly clear on what the Sahm rule says at present about whether the United States (probably) is in a recession or not. So I made a deep-research query to ChatGPT 4o.

After about five minutes, ChatGPT responded with a longish discussion, followed by this summary:

Overall, current employment data do not meet the Sahm rule’s recession criterion. The unemployment rate’s modest uptick (on the order of only a few tenths of a percent from its cyclical low) suggests that, by this real-time measure, the economy has not entered a recession. This assessment aligns with other economic evidence: job growth, while slower, remains positive, and GDP has continued to expand in recent quarters. In conclusion, the Sahm rule presently does not flash a recession warning – a sign that the U.S. economy, while perhaps past the very tightest labor market conditions, is not yet in a recessionary decline according to this indicator.

This led me to some questions about the safest instruments for parking money in the current economic conditions. Again, ChatGPT spent about five minutes doing whatever it does and told me that the Schwab money market fund (SWVXX) that I am at present invested in is highly liquid, with low risks. I asked what economic developments might suggest higher risks in the money market, and what instrument I might move to for greater safety. ChatGPT responded at some length, with this summary:

You’re wise to stay in SWVXX while liquidity remains high and credit markets are calm, but be alert to:

• Widening credit spreads
• Repo market dysfunction
• Rising systemic banking stress
• Sharp risk-off sentiment
• Redemption gates in peer funds

If any of these flash red, Treasury-only MMFs and short T-Bills offer the highest liquidity and lowest risk, with yields only modestly lower.

Would you like me to monitor these indicators for you and give you alerts if conditions shift?

It happens that Schwab has a money-market fund invested only in treasury bonds — SNSXX. I will indeed watch for the conditions ChatGPT listed and move money into SNSXX if that seems wise. ChatGPT offered to monitor those indicators, but I’m not yet sure how monitoring works.

I could not detect any errors in ChatGPT’s response. Some of the information was easy to verify on the Schwab web site. ChatGPT’s numbers were both accurate and up to date.

Keeping an eye on the fascists

My next deep-research query to ChatGPT was this: I would like information on current and very recent activities of right-wing grass roots organizations such as militias, as well as intel from social media where this type of people congregate. Under Trump, are they emboldened? Or, do they feel safer and thus less motivated to cause trouble?

ChatGPT asked for clarification:

To help guide the research effectively, could you please clarify a few points:

1. Are you interested in U.S.-based right-wing grassroots organizations only, or would you like international examples as well?
2. Do you want the research to focus solely on militia-style groups, or also include broader grassroots movements (e.g., anti-government, Second Amendment, anti-immigration, etc.)?
3. Is there a specific timeframe you’re interested in (e.g., only post-2024 election developments, or the past year)?
4. Would you like examples from specific platforms (e.g., Telegram, Gab, Truth Social), or a general overview of social media trends and chatter?

This will help narrow the scope and tailor the findings to your goals.

I replied with: Only U.S., please, only post-2024 election, and chatter from any relevant platform.

After almost ten minutes, ChatGPT came back with a response of several thousand words, too long to include here. I asked for a bulleted executive summary:

Executive Summary: U.S. Right-Wing Militias and Grassroots Movements Post-2024 Election

• Mass Pardons Embolden Militias: President Trump’s extensive pardons of January 6 participants—including key leaders of groups such as the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys—have revitalized far-right militias, restoring their leadership structures and morale.
• High-Visibility Demonstrations: Far-right organizations, notably Proud Boys and Patriot Front, have staged highly visible, coordinated marches and rallies across multiple U.S. cities since January 2025, signaling renewed confidence and willingness to publicly assert their presence.
• Integration into Mainstream Conservative Events: Extremists are increasingly blending into broader conservative movements, such as anti-abortion rallies, positioning themselves as accepted, even celebrated, participants rather than fringe outsiders.
• Targeted Harassment and Intimidation: Militias continue aggressive actions aimed at perceived enemies—particularly LGBTQ+ communities, left-wing activists, and immigrants—under a perception of impunity due to a sympathetic administration.
• Militant and Strategic Online Chatter: Social media chatter on platforms like Telegram reveals a tone of victory coupled with strategic planning. Extremists advocate using Trump’s presidency as a window for recruitment, infiltration of institutions, and normalization of radical ideologies.
• Shift from Anti-Government to Pro-Trump Alignment: Militias have transitioned from opposing the federal government to aligning themselves with Trump’s administration, viewing themselves as enforcers or supporters of official policies rather than insurgent actors.
• Cautious Strategic Pause: Despite an emboldened stance, some extremist groups indicate they are currently in a phase of organization and preparation, viewing Trump’s second term as a secure period to rebuild and expand their influence without immediate risk of repression.
• Potential for Future Mobilization: Experts warn that Trump’s open alignment and legitimization of far-right militias create conditions where these groups may readily mobilize or escalate violence if politically encouraged or directed.

Where I am at the moment

Every day, the news is horrifying. For the past week, we have all been mesmerized by the Trumpian drama over tariffs and the turmoil in the stock markets and (much worse) bond markets. Though I haven’t posted in 12 days, I am by no means tuned out. It’s just that there has been little that I can add, and I don’t want to be one of those people who can’t add anything to our understanding of what’s happening other than snark, or merely repeating what so many of us are already thinking and saying.

Just now, it’s all about self-care while keeping an eye on the world — good eats, a slosh of Scotch, a glass of wine, watching a beautiful spring unfold, trying to figure out why I’m seeing more crows nearby and where they’re nesting, reading, re-watching the first five seasons of Game of Thrones, staying in touch with friends, and planning a visit to Scotland in September.

I’m thinking about making a project of befriending crows. There are many articles and YouTube videos on how to do it.

Disclaimer: Nothing here should be taken as investment advice. We’re all in different circumstances and can tolerate different levels of risk. As a retired person, my first priority is protecting what I have.

Reginald Dalton


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John Gibson Lockhart, 1794-1854, is best known as the author of a seven-volume biography of Sir Walter Scott. He married Scott’s oldest daughter, Sophia. Scott died in 1832. Lockhart, 23 years younger than Scott, died at Abbotsford, Scott’s home in the Scottish borders.

In addition to the biography of Scott, Lockhart also wrote four novels. Because my surname is Dalton, I was very curious about his third novel, Reginald Dalton, which was published in 1823.

Unless I missed something, Reginald Dalton has been out of print since 1849. (As with many old books, there are some low-quality facsimile editions.) The novel has become obscure, and when it is mentioned, the criticism is fairly harsh. I’m only about a third of the way through Reginald Dalton, but I think it’s going to be a better novel than some people have thought it to be.

Reginald Dalton is the son of a vicar in northern England. He’s about 15 years old when the story starts. He has never been far from home until, at the age of 18, he’s sent off to Oxford. The novel is said to be a comedy. I’m not really seeing that so far, though clearly some of the conversations and incidents (such as a stage coach overturning on the way to Oxford) is clearly meant to be funny. I understand from what I’ve read about the novel that Reginald is going to have some misadventures at Oxford.

Anyway, for a long time I have been on the lookout for an out-of-print public-domain book that deserves to be brought back into print through my micro-press, Acorn Abbey Books. This is a lot of work. It means using optical character recognition (OCR) to recover the text, then proofing and cleaning up the text from the many OCR errors that are inevitable. This novel is quite long. It was published in three volumes. It’s almost 200,000 words.

And the plot thickens.

I have scans (made by Google) from the 1823 first edition as well as scans from a reprint edition from 1849. I was conflicted about which edition would be the best source. That’s an academic question. I Googled to try to find a Lockhart scholar, and I quickly found one. He happens to be an American, Thomas Richardson, who is Eudora Welty professor of English at the Mississippi University for Women. Richardson is editing a series for the Edinburgh University Press, the Edinburgh Critical Edition of the Works of John Gibson Lockhart. A part of that series will be a new edition of Reginald Dalton.

When I learned this from an email from Richardson, my first thought was that an Acorn Abbey edition would be redundant. But then I realized that the Edinburgh edition probably will cost at least $130, like the Edinburgh editions of the novels of Sir Walter Scott. Whereas Acorn Abbey Books can produce an affordable edition for casual readers, and maybe even ride the wave if the release of Edinburgh University’s books rekindles some interest in John Gibson Lockhart and Reginald Dalton.

In any case, as I said to a friend, I pat myself on the back for realizing that Reginald Dalton deserves a revival.

A few first editions of Reginald Dalton are for sale here and there. I found all three volumes for sale at Bagatelle Books in Asheville. I have no idea how the books came to be in North Carolina, but old notes left inside the books suggest that the books came to the U.S. through Toronto.

I hope to have Reginald Dalton back in print before my next trip to Scotland, which I think will be in September. I probably will have more to say about the book once I’ve finished reading it.


<Click here for high-resolution version.


Click here for high-resolution version.

Ayn Rand’s world


AI image by GPT-4o. When I asked GPT-4o for an image of a burning Tesla, it said: “I can’t generate or provide images of real-world accidents, injuries, or disasters, including depictions of vehicles like Teslas crashing or catching fire. However, if you’re looking for a fictional or stylized representation for artistic or storytelling purposes — like a sci-fi scene involving a futuristic electric vehicle damaged in some event — I can help with that. Just let me know the context or tone you’re going for!” I replied, “OK, then. Make it fictionalized.” This was the result. It sure looks like a Tesla to me.

The Atlantic has a chilling (though overly long) piece about the legal war over Ayn Rand’s estate: “The curse of Ayn Rand’s heir.” It refers to Rand as “the queen of selfishness.”

Here are a couple of examples of the vile things she said: “If any civilization is to survive, it is the morality of altruism that men have to reject.” Also: “The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.”

It’s Ayn Rand whom Elon Musk was parroting when he said (on a Joe Rogan podcast), “We’ve got civilizational suicidal empathy going on” … “The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy.”

I have not read Ayn Rand’s books, and I never will. But we know that she spent her life developing this primitive, dog-eat-dog philosophy. It became a religion. I wouldn’t hesitate to call it satanic. A cult formed around her. It is easy enough to see what kind of people Rand’s philosophy appeals to: the sociopaths, the narcissists, the brats on the lower end who have nothing but who fantasize about how much they can take, and the predators like Elon Musk on the upper end who use their money and power not only to get more, more, more, but also to try to turn the world into the jungle empire that Ayn Rand and her cult imagine.

True-believing members of this cult, now installed in Washington, are doing everything they can to break the parts of the American government that don’t serve the rich and to use American power to beat the empathy out of American institutions and Western civilization. Even by 2016, they had all too easily succeeded at beating the empathy out of the American “evangelical” church. If you consider everything that Trump and MAGA have done so far and are trying to do, you’ll find that it’s all consistent with Rand’s philosophy.

Who is going to stop them? Some people are optimistic. Their case is that the courts will stand in Trump’s way, and that we will have a free and fair election in 2026 in which Republicans lose control of Congress. I hope they are right.

Maybe, ultimately, American democracy can be saved. But are we prepared for the damage and calamity that are inevitable before we can stop these people from doing what they obviously intend to do?


Our first image of a Trump concentration camp. In the photo, Kristi Noem is wearing a $50,000 Rolex watch. The Trump White House actually staged this photo, as propaganda, and is proud of what it shows. MAGA types cheered. This is what Ayn Rand’s world looks like. To them, it’s beautiful.

Photos before the frost


Deciduous magnolia. Click here for high-resolution version.

Deciduous magnolia blooms are very susceptible to frostbite. In many years, frost gets my deciduous magnolia trees before they reach full bloom. There may be frost tonight. But at least the magnolias were able to fully bloom.

As far as I know, even the summer-blooming and evergreen magnolia grandiflora, also called Southern magnolia, grows well farther north, including in the United Kingdom. To my lights, every landscape (or garden, if you’re in the U.K.) needs magnolias. The deciduous magnolias have very little scent. Whereas Southern magnolias can be smelled a mile away (I’m exaggerating) on a hot summer night.

The apple trees are not yet blooming.


⬆︎ Deciduous magnolia. Click here for high-resolution version.


⬆︎ Plum. Click here for high-resolution version.


⬆︎ Peach. Click here for high-resolution version.


⬆︎ Periwinkle. Earlier I had identified this as bluets, but the PlantNet app seems pretty certain that it’s periwinkle. Click here for high-resolution version.