Daily Thoughts 6/6/2011

Graffiti de Toni Morrison en el frontón del barrio de Aranzabela-Salburúa, en Vitoria-Gasteiz. Imagen tomada el 30-12-2010 Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication, by Zarateman
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vitoria_-_Graffiti_%26_Murals_0392.JPG

Daily Thoughts 6/6/2011

This morning, I read some more of Founding Gardeners.  There is an ideal being expressed that comes from the Greek republics that a good citizen is a farmer, more so than a merchant or tradesman.  The founding fathers idealized the small holder with a plot of land and a garden.

Today has been another quiet, steady day.  I updated the Twitter account, entered a new survey, and checked the displays.

This morning the truck came from Better World Books to pick up our boxes.  They are on the way.

Another book came in for me to read, Paul Allen Idea Man A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft. 

Tonight we have a special meeting of the Board of Directors at 6:30 p.m.  I plan on going.  Also, this week we are reopening on Saturdays.  This week we are having the Friends of the Library Book Sale on June 10 and June 11 from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Daily Thoughts 6/4/2011 (Founding Gardeners)

Frontispiece by Jan Wandelaar (1690-1759) of Linnaeus, C. (1738), Hortus Cliffortianus. The plate shows Mother Earth, seated on a lion and lioness, holding the keys to the garden. At her feet are a pot with Cliffortia and a plan of the Hartekamp garden. To the left a negress brings her an Aloe from Africa, an Arabian woman offers Coffea arabica from Asia and a befeathered American indian brings Hernandia from America. On a pedestal is a bust, possibly portraying George Clifford. On the right is a banana in flower and fruit. A young god Apollo, with the head of Linnaeus, steps forward, bringing light in his left hand and with his right hand casting aside the shroud of darkness around the goddess. Underfoot he tramples the dragon of falsehood, a reference to the counterfeit Hydra at Hamburg exposed as a fraud by Linnaeus while on his way to Holland. (desription summarized from Stearn, W.T., (1957), in Ray Society, Species Plantarum, A facsimile of the first edition: 46)

Daily Thoughts 6/4/2011

I have been reading more of Founding Gardeners.  Andrea Wulf is describing how the founding fathers, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and James Madison saw the United States as an agrarian republic focused on farming and self sufficiency.  I very much like the descriptions of their visits to gardens in England as well as their ideas about botany and horticulture.  There are descriptions of people like Benjamin Franklin collecting seeds in France and Engliand to be sent home.