I was whiling away some time on our Twitter feed a few days ago when I came across a conversation between Annie’s Annuals and Fern from Life on the Balcony. Fern had written a “tulips vs poppies” post (referred to by Annie’s Annuals as a “smackdown”), and was wondering what other plants could square off with each other. One thing let to another, and then Gardenfix mentioned that it could be an Olympic event, and then… Well.

The Plantolympics, of course.

Commentator 1: “Welcome to the Plantolympics, folks, we’re in for a spectacular display of skill and foliage here.”

Commentator 2: “That’s right! Top plant athletes from all over the world have converged on this field to compete for a medal in sports like Curling for Vines, Best Display of Shade Foliage, and Leaf Dancing.”

C1: “Not to mention the Quadrathlon. This is a really tough event undertaken only by the sturdiest plants — in order to qualify they have to look good through all four seasons of the year!

C2: “Let’s go right to the Shade event now, where Hosta and Heuchera are neck and neck! Hosta was thought to have an advantage due to its ability to brighten dark spots with neon green foliage, but Heuchera have put on a tough fight with bright new cultivars, and Hosta still has to get through the Slug Resistance event. Hosta’s trainer has talked about Hosta’s struggles with slugs before — it’s still recovering from an injury at the last Plantolympics.”

C1: “Yes, slugs are bad news, and Heuchera might have an advantage there. But let’s move on to the Leaf Dancing event. Now, Quaking Aspen has won this event for the past 600,000 years, but this year there are some gorgeous Silver-Leaf Linden that are really pushing the boundaries of the sport of Leaf Dancing! It remains to be seen if Quaking Aspen will rise to the challenge and make this year its 600,001st win.”

C2: “Breaking news, folks!  Poppies have won the Flower Quadrathlon! The crowd is going wild!”

C1: “Very exciting news for Poppies!  Love-in-a-Mist gets the silver medal! They make a handsome pair standing there on the podium. An excellent combination!”

C2: “Well, that’s it for today’s events. Tune in tomorrow for the Most Pernicious Weed event! Kudzu and Garlic Mustard will go head-to-head!”

C1: “Mmmm, garlic mustard.”

C2: “Shhh! We’re still on the air!”

This morning when I opened up my browser (which is set to the Timber Press homepage) I was caught by the phrase “The Panic.” I did a double-take — surely we don’t want anyone to panic on our web site? It turns out that it was a truncated plant name — “panic grass” without the “grass” part.

That got me thinking about plant names, and how odd they sometimes are: panic grass, mother-in-law’s tongue, butter-and-eggs, venus’ navelwort, wolf-fart puffball, Molly-the-witch, kiss-me-over-the-garden-gate, toadshade.

And THAT got me thinking about one of my favorite books: The Wonderful O, by James Thurber. The Wonderful O is about two pirates, Black and Littlejack, who are hunting for treasure in Littlejack’s ship. The ship is the “Aeiu”, which contains all the vowels except for O, because, as Littlejack says: “I’ve had a deep hatred of that letter ever since the night my mother became wedged in a porthole. We couldn’t pull her in, so we had to push her out.”

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With thanks (and apologies) to Robert Frost.

Whose leaves these are I think I know,
But neighbors can’t control the wind, and so
The leaves all gather on my lawn
In piles when it starts to blow.

My husband groans and droops his head
As I send him to the shed
To fetch a rake and clear the lawn.
But he doesn’t groan much – he’s too well bred.

Up and down we drag a rake.
We brace against the wind, and take
A rest to look up at the sky,
Admire the view and prevent backache.

The sky is dark and huge and deep,
But wind starts to disturb our heap,
We’ve leaves to rake before we sleep,
We’ve leaves to rake before we sleep.

[Mollie's dog, Moxie, submitted an entry for this blog, which Mollie was nice enough to type up for us.]

As the most reliable office dog in the building and self-proclaimed Timber Press mascot, I made a shocking discovery yesterday when checking this blog. Since when do we allow cats to review books? Who approved this? How can this be?

For the last several months I’ve faithfully arrived at work: I’ve traversed through 105 degree heat waves while wearing a fur coat. I’ve nearly been blown off the Burnside bridge during a freak summer thunderstorm. I’ve stuck my nose into smells that really should be forbidden. And then I take one month off (not by choice either — my human is participating in the September Bike-to-Work challenge and she still needs someone to buy her a bike trailer) and suddenly those few and far between animal/publishing opportunities are being handed out like catnip to animals that have never even set paw in the office.

I guess I’ll just have to start being a little more vocal with my ideas so all my co-workers don’t think I’m just lounging around and dreaming the day away. You know, maybe Tom’s next book could be about canines, the truest companion out there (much more loyal than perennials, I have to say). Or perhaps Laura Foster would be interested in refocusing her abilities in a Portland Dog Walks book? Give me a few belly rubs and I think I could dream up the perfect reviewer for those titles …

As the Timber Press Web and IT Manager, I’m probably one of the nerdier people in the office.

Well, I should probably qualify that, given that from my desk I can see coworkers who are probably thinking right now about graphic novels and/or Star Wars (don’t worry, office-mates, I will keep your identities safe from the Internet … for now). To say nothing of the discussions I’ve had with members of the editorial department on the finer points of grammar.

Fine, I’m one of many nerdy people in this office. But I’m the only one I know of to have taken an interest in a particular old book I found one day while perusing the extensive backlist in our library. That book is Computer Graphics in Biology, and this is the story of my adventure with that book.

No, wait, don’t stop reading yet!

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Over the weekend, I came into the house with a handful of radishes and tripped and fell, dropping a radish in the process. After nursing my dignity, I looked for the radish. No luck, so I said that it would probably turn up.

And my husband laughed. My radish would turnip. Heh.