Some years ago, I did a post on juniper allergies. Then I learned that when pollen entered the body, the mast cells release histamines and other inflammatory substances that trigger allergic symptoms. [1] I assume something similar was happening this week with the dust that was in the air. By Thursday, sensitized cells were in a self-perpetuating mode. I had used a nasal saline solution, but on that day I used a great deal more.
I figured the problem with my eyelids was they were successfully stopping whatever was in the air, and getting punished. The places that hurt most were under my eyes and in the corners where gravity took what I washed off with water, salt water, and alcohol.
I finally decided to try an herbal ointment. Years ago, I asked the friend who recommend it for some other use how something on the skin could heal an internal problem. He told me the chemicals irritate the skin so the body sends more blood to the area, and the secondary effect is what does the curing.
I was careful, and realized applying the balm was like putting on eye shadow. The first time, my lids were warmed. After that, it was just another cream. However, the itching was reduced to the areas that were most irritated, and I could control the urge to rub them.
Did either actually help? I have no idea. Since I believed the problem was caused by the dust, then the atmosphere could have changed and been the active agent. When Saturday was calm. my symptoms all but disappeared.
Last rain: 4/1. Week’s low: 32 degrees F. Week’s high: 83 degrees F in the shade. Winds were up to 48 mph in Santa Fé on Friday.
Days since 1 January 2022 with high wind gusts in Los Alamos or Santa Fé:
25-39 mph: January-4, February-9, March-17, April -19
40-49 mph: January-1, February-2, March-3, April-3
50+ mph: April-2
Total: January-5, February-11, March-20, April-24
What’s blooming in the area: Apples, forsythia, lavender moss phlox
What’s coming up in the area: Grapes leafing
What’s blooming beyond the walls and fences: Alfilerillo, western stickseed, dandelions, cheat and June grasses
What’s coming up beyond the walls and fences: Prickly pear cacti have new pads
What’s blooming in my yard: Sour cherry, purple and white sand cherries, spirea, lilacs, Siberian peas, parrot tulip, grape hyacinths, lilies of the valley, blue flax, vinca
What’s coming up in my yard: Asiatic lilies, baptisia, Maximilian sunflowers, Mönch asters, purple coneflowers, coreopsis; catalpas and sand cherries are beginning to leaf
Animal sightings: Rabbit, western chickadees, hummingbird, geckoes, cabbage butterfly, bumble and small bees on Siberian peas, hornets, sidewalk and harvester ants
Tasks: Wind and allergies kept me inside until Saturday. I only ventured out to water, pick dandelions, and pick up Russian thistles.
On Monday, I dislodged the thistles that had gotten stuck in salt bushes and winterfat shrubs outside my fence, so they wouldn’t blow in. A slight wind was blowing, and I learned if I dropped them on the far side of the dirt road, they would blow away. While I was working a stronger gust blew up, and I saw new carcasses landing in my yard. I looked up and saw big ones flying through the air thirty feet up. When the wind stopped, they dropped.
Dandelions are a different problem: they weigh less. As a child I learned not to pick them: the milk in the stem stained my hands brown and my parents warned me against blowing the white heads and spreading the seeds. Besides, I also had learned they wilted as soon as they were picked.
I didn’t know then the flowers are short lived, but new ones come into bloom every half hour. Buds appear from nowhere. It’s a Sisyphean task to pick them before they go to seed. Every year I miss some, and I have more plants. But it would be worse if I didn’t try.
On Saturday, I found elm seeds littered through an area I had cleared before the winds. They follow the same paths as the dandelions, and Saturday I found seeds on dandelion leaves.
I did notice one tree had been cut down. All that was left was a very wide stretch of wood at ground level.
I have no idea how old the apricot was. They can live more than a hundred years, but don’t tend to bear fruit after twenty-five years. [2] This one still was blooming this year.
I don’t know if it had been weakened by the drought. Apricots need water, at least an inch every two weeks. They have get it from the surface with shallow roots that can extend twenty-five feet. [3] One of mine is putting out suckers up to three feet away.
The people there used to irrigate and grow vegetables, but in recent years the weather has discouraged such efforts. In 2020, the pipes only were set up around the garden bed.
The tree had divided into two trunks, and that sometimes can make them more vulnerable to wind damaged.
But, it may not have been wind at all. The owners may just have grown tired of the tree shading their younger, fruit bearing apricots.
1. Apricot that was cut down this past week, 1 October 2016. It was fall and the leaves were turning yellow. You can judge its height by the utility pole in the foreground.
2. Dandelion growing with a Siberian elm sprout near my apricot tree, 30 April 2022. My the time I see the elm sprouts, the roots are too long to pull. They grow too close to desirable plants to kill. If I cut them, them copse.
3. Dandelion growing near the garage, 30 April 2022. The tan spot on the leaves is a Siberian elm seed.
4. Same apricot tree, 2 November 2013. The swing at the far right is hanging from a branch. Younger apricots are in back.
End notes:
1. Juniper allergies are discussed on Nature Abhors a Garden on 15 March 2009.
2. Athena Hessong. “How Long Does It Take for Apricots to Grow Fruit?” SF Gate website, 14 December 2018.
3. “Apricot Tree Care: How To Grow Apricot Trees.” Minnetonka Orchards website.
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