Some more 'froufrou' for those who have an interest in it - or who don't mind it.... I've finished reading The Chinese Taste in Eighteenth-Century England and An Analytical Inquiry Into the Principles of Taste. Neither had much direct relevance to gardening but did connect to the Hogarth book I read. The Chinese Taste book was largely about the process/stages/impact of how exposure to a different culture affects the first culture. What I 'took away' from the book was as follows: The initial reaction to Chinese porcelain imports into 18th century England was very positive - a widespead fascination with the beautiful porcelain and the culture that produced it. Later, there was a negative reaction against it, mainly led by those with an aesthetic philosophy bent. Later still, certain aspects of it became adopted as part of English culture and identification (think - afternoon tea....) Aesthetic philosophies of the time were heavily based on the 'authority' of the 'ancients' (mainly Roman, Greek, and - to a lesser extent - Egyptian civilizations). So the initial exposure to an even more ancient, and obviously highly civilized and enduring, civilization was one of fascinated admiration. However, as they learned more about Chinese culture, it became evident that the Chinese aesthetic was entirely different than the western one. Given that 'ancients' were considered authoritative, that posed a dilemma/threat to western aesthetics because here was an even more ancient civilization who had an entirely different aesthetic approach! So the backlash against the Chinese imported articles/cultural ideas seemed to be in large part motivated by a desire to 'protect' the western aesthetic framework. This description of some of the differences in appoaches to landscape painting seems to be a good summary of the different aesthetics: " One of the central organizing principles in early modern Chinese landscape painting and gardening is the balance of tension between eternally opposed forces, yin and yang, water and rock, earth and sky. Human figures, like pine trees, typically represent a merely transient, intermediate state between these poles, rather than the fully consummate pinacle of devine creation." Women became the major purchasers/collectors of Chinese porcelain. The author - and others he refers to - speculate that a large part of the attraction was that the portrayal of women on Chinese porcelain seemed to depict them as having more autonomy and dignity than in Western classical art (where women often nude and/or the object of - often violent or coarse - male desire). Nudes were absent in the Chinese depictions of women. So, the presentation of women in Chinese art seemed compatible with emerging trends of women actively seeking greater autonomy and control in 18th century England. (Of course, women's place in Chinese society was not as rosy as it appeared on the Chinawares....) Chinese porcelain became a symbol in the art of Hogarth and his contemporaries of rebellious women challenging/undermining male authority. Hogarth did not like Chinese porcelain - it had none of his lines of beauty or grace. The author of this book clearly did not like Hogarth! The impression you get is that he thought Hogarth was a sexist lech! (He probably was - but so were most 18th century men...) In summary, the book was interesting but I didn't learn much about Chinese gardens or where serpentines might fit into the picture. It did leave me wanting to know more about Chinese gardening traditions so I will look for a good book on that once I finish some other (non-gardening) books. Moving on to the Analytical Inquiry Into The Principles of Taste.... I confess - I didn't finish this one! At about the 75% complete point he was talking about architectural styles and referring to his house. I went on-line (good old Wikipedia...) to see what his house looked like - and found the bio summary on him. His first book was The Worship of Priapus - which apparently sought to recover the importance of ancient phallic cults! Sheesh...! That destroyed his credibility as an arbiter of taste IMO!! I was finding the book a struggle to read anyway. It's one of those where you read something and say 'that makes sense', but each piece doesn't make a strong narrative that hangs together in a memorable way, so you keep losing the point.... I would be hard put to try to clearly state what his principles af taste actually were! He didn't approve of Hogarth's lines of beauty and grace because he didn't like rule-based approaches to art and consideration of beauty. One of the interesting things about the book was that it really hits you over the head that a classical education at the time involved 'reading the classics' (i.e. Latin and Greek writers - in Latin and Greek). Many of his footnotes are in Latin or Greek (with the Greek ones in the Greek alphabet). I now thoroughly understand why when something completely baffles you, you say 'It's all Greek to me..."! The INKognito effect can lead you down some interesting - and a bit strange - roads... :-)

Hi everyone, Well, I am double posting this in 2 forums - I hope nobody minds. As promised, here I am posting about what in the world I've been doing all summer while traveling to & fro Wisconsin. As some of you already know, I work with fish-eating birds: cormorants, pelicans, herons, egrets, gulls, wood storks, etc. My husband and I have been working in Wisconsin for the past 3 years, but we also regularly work in Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Michigan, Ontario, and a few other places. Yes, we are a husband + wife team, working together out of the same office. Many people are surprised that we work together, but it is great. We make a fantastic team, and are often at our best under challenging field conditions. Great minds think alike, and being dear friends & in love sure helps too. (ok, enough with the mushy stuff). So now for a few photos from the vegetation surveys we did this month. Background: We are working on remote islands in Lake Michigan, around the Door Co. Peninsula area. All the islands have nesting double-crested cormorants and herring gulls. Some also have nesting Am. white pelicans and Canada geese. Back in April, we put up some 6 ft x 6 ft pens (we call them exclosures) to exclude the cormorants because they damage vegetation with their nesting activities (too much POOP!). So then we went back in August to catalog everything that grew in the pens, by plant species, and weighed it to also determine biomass. That meant breaking out the field guides, studying up on botany and the flora of Wisconsin, and bringing the plant presses for species we couldn't identify on the island. We compareed the exclosure plots to some "control" plots, which had nothing but 4 wooden stakes at the corners. We had 45 plots to do on 3 islands, plus another 3 islands down by the city of Green Bay that we did simple vegetation surveys on (no pens). It was alot of work, but very interesting. The bottom line: there are lots of nonnative species on those islands, like motherwort, catnip, pigweed, common mallow, stinging nettle and sow thistle. The native vegetation was primarily lambsquarter and smartweed species. Almost done clipping this 1-meter plot: Looking for small plants beneath the lambsquarter The finished, sampled 1-meter subplot Who would even know what this was?!?! I saved seeds to winter sow and see if I can't figure it out. The very last veg plot to measure. You can tell, because we look so happy! A friend found crawling across the plant press The stinging nettle I hacked through to make us a nice trail to get to the center of the island. At least its not poison ivy! Ok, that's all for now. Have a great evening. Katie (heh - I've been working on this post for days!)

Nice eggs and on blue willow too! Ian

Lots of Fords- very nice.