Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, your popular host, Mani the roasting-hot purebred border collie, here today just to talk about a couple of things. You may remember me from such posts as “Some Like It Hot”, among so many, many others.
Here I am in a characteristic pose.
Notice I’m standing in the shade, like any sensible purebred border collie would.
It’s been really hot lately. They say it might rain this weekend, but that will be too late for the ipomopsis seedlings. The guy I live with forgot to water them for just one day, two days ago, and at least half of them are now dead.
Mostly the ones in the peat pots. The guy I live with wasn’t too upset about this, because it happens all the time. It was 92 degrees (33.3C) with low humidity and wind, and he just forgot to fill the watering can that day.
Speaking of watering, the guy I live with has been using this sprinkler from time to time.
It does “get the corners”, but the thing is, this sprinkler is about sixty years old, and the aluminum blades often don’t turn, and don’t get the corners, so he’d have to walk up to the sprinkler and set the blades in motion with a stick. As you can imagine, he’d get soaking wet doing that.
Of course the rubber washers (you can see one of them) are the same age, and they sometimes cause the blades to stick.
He thought about going to the hardware store to find replacements, but then it occurred to him he already had a solution: camellia oil.
Camellia oil, or “tea seed oil”–which is not the same thing as “tea tree oil”), is made from Camellia oleifera (Latin oleum, oil, and fer, bearing; “transfer”, bearing or carrying across (trans); “translate”, born or carried across, like with languages, from the perfect passive participle of the Latin irregular verb ferre, to carry or bear.)
Anyway, whew, camellia oil is an edible oil used in cooking in China; in Japan it’s used to protect carbon-steel cutlery and other blades, like the fancy Japanese pruners we have.
That’s why I said that it’s not the same as “tea tree oil” because that oil is toxic if you ingest it, and it’s made from the Australian plant Melaleuca alternifolia, so don’t get these mixed up.
This is camellia oil:
The guy I live with put a few drops of the camellia oil on the upper and lower washers and the sprinkler worked just fine when he turned it on.
There was, naturally, a shout of triumph.
And that’s all I have for you today. I hope you stayed awake during the Latin part.
I’ll leave you with a picture of me lost in thought, enjoying the company of my second-best friend, the portable swamp cooler.
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 
I loved the Latin word origins part, always fascinating!
Stay cool, friends.
Hopefully awaiting Fall at our house.
Thanks. It turns out that we have a “flood watch” for tomorrow, so I guess it’s going to rain. We’ll see about that.
So many forecasts this year have led to unfulfilled expectations.
Hi Mani, this is Dougie (mother a Jack Russell, father a mystery) It’s hot and humid here in SW England, and the woman I live with has just told me off for chewing her watering can. She says it didn’t need any more holes and that I should know better now I’m nine. All very unfair, I was only trying to improve the flow for her.
You’re not supposed to chew holes in things. I did when I was little, and I got like what seemed to me to be an awful lots of lectures.
I grew out of it, though.
Camellia oil soundss amazin! An reedin Guy did a ‘shout of triumph’ iss wudnerfull.
Hee iss so guud at thinkin outside THE box!
An Mani wee leered sumthin new today. Wee nevurr new about Camellia Oil an wee look fore it up heer.
Latin sure iss a xpressive language…iss furry innterestin how werdss beecome more werdss Mani…..
~~~head rubss~~~BellaDharma~~~ an 🙂 BellaSita Mum
It is pretty cool, since it isn’t a petroleum (petra=rock; oleum=oil) derivative (derivatio, a turning away of water, like rechanneling it) and so, safe for plants and stuff.
It’s funny that the guy I live with said that when he was learning Latin everyone said it was a waste of time. It obviously (Latin obvius, in the way, like right in front of your eyes) wasn’t.
By the way, the guy I live with had a friend who recently (recens, fresh, in time) passed away at the age of ninety, who was a retired professor (professor, authority) of linguistics (lingua, tongue, language), and he really misses having conversations (conversatio, dealing with other people) about language.
BellaSita meowed to me that so much of English comess from Latin an iss furry kewl to nose how werdss came innto beein werdss.
Wee are furry sorry fore youre loss Guy. BellaSita has a Purrfessor who iss about 87 yeerss old now an hee encouragess her an mee to write poe-etry. Sorta simmylar inn that you both have/had a Purrfessor frend!
Wee did not nose Professor meenss Authority….furry kewl….
**nose bopss** BellaDharma
(sigh) Usage these day for “conversation” seems to be “convo.” And, of course, “brekky” for “breakfast.” And these days, you don’t meet, but “meet up.” I love my Australian friends, and find it wonderful tracing how much Aussie-speak has made its way to our shore.
The guy I live with and his wife had a visitor from Australia, who stayed for a few days, and he and his wife learned quite a bit of “Strine” (pronounced kind of like “stroyn”). “Gone for six”, like “belly up”. “Ute”, for “pickup”. And so forth.
He corresponded with her for years after his wife died.
Quite the Latin definition but very interesting. Never too late to learn something new. Sorry to hear about the Ipomopsis seedlings but things like that happen when it is so hot and you just want to hang around the swamp cooler. Have never heard of Camellia oil but it sounds the perfect oil to use on pruners. Will try and source it. Hope it cools down soon. There is a definite coolness to the wind and the evenings here even though the day time temps are still hot.
They’re saying it’s supposed to rain this weekend, but we’ll see if that’s right. Well, starting tomorrow I guess.
It’s been hot here, but not as hot as some places, and definitely not humid.
The guy I live with said “whatever” about the seedlings. There are still enough of them (unless they all die too). Just two would be fine.
The oil is also called tsubaki oil. It’s not expensive.
The thing is, and this is kind of weird for someone who cooks all the time, the guy I live with hates getting oil on his hands, and this oil isn’t as bad as some others. It washes off easily with soap and water.
We use camellia oil on our knives, the oil sourced from Milk Street, the cooking folks. We bought it during the late shutdown when all things needed delivery. I’m now ready to use it on the balky turner to the screen door leading to the side garden. If there is ever a fire here–heaven forfend!– I’d probably crisp. Speaking (writing) of, we still have not had major, major heat down here near the Mexican border, so, Mani, dear dog, come for a visit. So many plant fatalities here, we understand the guy you live with’s attitude. This weekend’s chore–thanks, Monty Don–is to get the caper bush out of the pot and into the ground. Then we must remember to water the native plants newly put in the ground. Key word: “remember.” Your guy knows all about it, dear dog.
The guy I live with writes notes for himself, but sometimes I think he’s off in some little world all his own, or something. He blames the swamp cooler and the constant cool breeze in the kitchen for not doing anything. I can’t criticize that because I feel the same way.
It hasn’t been hotter than normal here; just hot.
The camellia oil here came from Hida Tool in Berkeley. “A very dangerous place”, according to the guy I live with. He loves buying stuff from them.
That sprinkler is RAD! I remember this sort from when I was a kid. We used to run through the sprinklers, and I stepped on one of these once, . . . and only once.
That doesn’t sound like fun.
We also have a Rainbird sprinkler that’s the same age. It still works just fine.
Well, running through the sprinklers was fun, until that happened.
The guy I live with did that whenhe was a kid, and I did, too, when I was little.
Kitties have no idea what they are missing!
I bet.
We have a product called WD40 which is a fish oil and it is the go-to remedy for all similar matters, a cure-all.
We have WD-40 here, but it’s a petroleum product. There’s some in the garage.
The guy I live with uses it for the lower track on the outside sliding-glass door in the kitchen, since the roller wheels are broken and the door makes this incredible screech when it’s open or closed. (Of course this could be fixed, but I think it’s a low-priority thing, like getting a new driveway.)
Here it is a spray, an aerosol and the go-to thing to ease anything which is stuck etc.
“We have WD-40 here, but it’s a petroleum product”
The fish oil thing has been a longtime WD40 myth. While the EU formulation is slightly different than that in the US, it’s always been a secret, non-patented hydrocarbon based formula since the getgo in the early 1950’s as a treatment for Atlas rocket parts. The EU Safety Data Sheet may be seen at: https://cdn.wd40company.eu/wd-40/il-HE/uploads/2020/01/24105931/WD-40%C2%AE-Multi-Use-Product-Aerosol_IL_EN__1.0_SDS.pdf
We also keep a can of the WD40 electrical contact formulation around.
WD40 was invented–composed?–a very few miles from here, our house, where they built Atlas rockets. A certain segment of San Diego has always been proud.
Great stuff!
WD stands for “water displacement”.
“If it moves and it shouldn’t, use duct tape. If it doesn’t move and it should, use WD-40.”
The guy I live with has been, oh, let’s say “terrorizing” hardware store employees by telling all of them that the correct term for the tape is actually duck tape, because the tape was originally made from cotton duck. It’s easy to see how it wound up being called “duct tape”, but that’s really wrong.
“Here comes that ‘duck’ guy again. Everyone look busy.”
Just one day I forgot to water Scarlet Bugler seedlings: poof! Fortunately the seed is from my own plants and is quite viable, so I will try again. The heat continues in NM… Not wildflowers, but I am patting myself on the back for raising Angel Wing Begonias and Maverick Geraniums from seed for gifts to some friends later this year.
About half the ipomopsis seedlings are still alive. The guy I live with blames the peat pots, which dry out in seconds. Of course he should have thought of that.
He got some seeds from Jelitto and sowed the ones that have quick germination outside in pots, but a grasshopper got under the nanodome and ate everything. The pots are upstairs now.
Oh, but the worse thing, recently was him dropping three crocus corms in the garden, and spending hours looking for these brown things the size of peas. I thought he was going to cry.
It’s been hot here, but not today. It poured rain, with lots of scary thunder, just this evening.