Hollis Baker’s Blog

I went to the feed store the other day to buy some wildflower seed. I know, that is God’s job but I just wonted to be of some help. There is nothing prettier than a hill side covered with springs blanket of bluebonnets. The color, the smell, the feeling of bluebonnets raises a mans sprits. I have the proper setting, blue sky, green trees and plenty of space. All I needed, it seemed to me was a few packets of seed. Besides the picture on the container looked beautiful and the instruction on the back sounded easy.
About that time a voice behind me said, “What are you thinking of doing Baker?” I turned to find John Steel standing there with a whimsical smile on his face. Now John is a tall, slender, slightly stooped man with plenty of experience showing in his lined face. He wears faded jeans, muddy boots, and a jacket of some undefined color or shape. John lives by him self on a little ranch out county road 200. He keeps a few cows and one old horse he has retired from years of work on that ranch. But John is a warm honest man and tends to make people trust him and listen when he speaks. I explained my plan to paint the hills with the bluest of bluebonnets, that Mother Nature not to mention God would be proud of. “Put those packets of seeds back in the rack and come with me?” John said. I don’t think Chris, the man who runs the feed store appreciated John Steel just then, for I put the seeds back and went out with John.
We drove in his battered, ‘ 85 Ford Pickup out to his ranch. We walked out into the pasture behind the barn. “There”, said John pointing down to the ground, “There they are.” He kneeled down and showed me a small gray-green plant no bigger than a half dollar. They were everywhere. ” These are bluebonnets,” he said. “But this is January” I said. “They can’t be up now!”
These plants he explained, came up last October. “Won’t they freeze?” I asked. “No, they can stand a lot, but they do need moisture to handle extreme cold.” They come up in October and just lay flat on the ground, pushing their roots down deep, getting ready for spring. On their roots the bacterium, Rhizobium, buries itself to live on the juices of the bluebonnet and in return extracts nitrogen from the air for the plant. This works well for both of the life forms for a while. In time the nitrogen builds up in the soil and promotes the grass to grow stronger and chokes the bluebonnets from their field. In the middle of March the bluebonnet begins its growth spurt for the gold, in this case, the blue. By the middle of April they have reached their peak and are almost gone by May. John explained the plant throws its seeds by June where they lay until the rains of October. They then start the cycle over again. “So that is why I could not let you buy those seeds. You are to late for this spring.”
All of this seems a little farfetched to me. However John Steel said it and most would say it is so. Before I embrace John’s story I am going to wait until one of my grandchildren comes by and Googles it. If the story passes Google I will accept it. Just don’t tell John what I said.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 31st, 2007 at 11:01 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.