Neighbor's Back Porch

Considered using Flickr? All the kids are doing it...

(The UI is actually pretty cool. You can add notes to regions of an image. It supports tags. RSS feeds of everything. Etc.)

This is not a diss -- I think this is a cool photo -- but I think it says a lot about the amount of grey we live with during winter in Portland when this counts as "colorful." You know? This probably is about as much color as you're likely to see on any given day, so I'm not saying that it shouldn't count as colorful. And it's not that I'm complaining -- it's easier on the eyes than a bunch of daisies and flamingos and speedos or whatever it is they have to look at in warmer climates. That's probably why they all wear sunglasses. That and the sun.

Speaking of dank, how are those mushrooms coming?

I'm sorry this will have to appear on your comments list, since it it will seem a little incongruous there. Rather than 'commenting' as such, I would like to request copyright permission to use one of your photos on our educational, non-profit website. The URL is http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/ada/index.htm If you have time to reply to me via email, I will give you some more details about our site and how we would like to use your picture.
Best Wishes with your blog!
Genevieve de Pont
University of Auckland, NZ

heya, I was looking for, a monkey tail tree of all things,lol, on google image search, and came across this pic in your blog from 2003 but now I have a question, when I grew up in portland oregon, (I now live in Texas) I used to go to claredon grade school, and in the front yard of the house like 3 blocks outside of what used to be the columbvia villa, (I heard it's gone now) was the monkey tail tree, is this your monkeytail tree? don't worry, no stalking you or anything, lol I was just really curious if this really is that same tree, cuz the neighborhood looks the same.
�ynn

Hey, so in response to the various emails I've got asking which photo the New Zealand Nabokov folks wanted, it's the Poppies in Alameda. I will defer to Mary in answering the Monkey Tail Tree question!

;Chris

the tree is about 10 blocks West of the Columbia Villa, which is, indeed torn down, so it's possible that it's the same tree you remember. On the other hand, Portland has an unusually large number of Monkey Tail trees because they were handed out as samples at the 1905 Lewis and Clark Exposition. So it could have been another one you saw (although ours is particularly grand.) A friend told us about the LC expo connection at first and then I just called the urban forestry department at the City of Portland to confirm it. Apparently some woman there named Phyllis Reynolds has written about them in actual books and says it is true. I'm thinking about nominating this tree to be a heritage monkey puzzle tree. I'm not sure if any priveleges come with that, but it sounds good!

And we should have a big Money Puzzle Birthday party in June!! (the expo ran from June to October.)

how long did it take to grow that big? are they fast growing trees? I was wondering, because the tree that Forest Farm sells looks more like a seedling, and I would rather have a sapling. Also do you think they would do well in Southeast Texas.

I think the monkey puzzle/tail tree pictured on this site (for example: http://www.chrishiggins.com/blog/archives/000086.html) is around 100 years old. Unfortunately I don't know much more about these trees, though Google does turn up some interesting (if mostly historical) information on them.

;Chris