Tea Time

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our kitchen window grows one of the darkest green shrubs in our landscape. Evergreen and trouble-free, and slightly informal, it needs no special care, and other than nipping back a stray sprout now and again, it has never needed pruning in all of its dozen or so years of gracing it little niche in our world. Perhaps my wife’s favorite shrub, Camellia sinensis is essential here. I believe it has reached its mature height at about six feet, maybe a little bit more. Its top-most branches just barely wave around the bottom of our kitchen-sink window.

Every

morning that little wave reminds us it’s tea time. We wouldn’t even think of trying to harvest the leaves for making that tea. You cannot imagine what intense labor is required, the time involved in curing and processing, and how many tea plants are required to make it all happen. That doesn’t even take into consideration the soil type and climate required to make a great cup of black tea. Various regions in India and China are where tea mainly comes from. The whole enterprise, from harvesting to processing, is done by hand labor. If it were easy, everybody would be growing it. We love it for its dark evergreen foliage, and an extended bloom period in the fall. Notice in this first pic the unopened buds. This soldier will bloom for another two or three weeks, and it has already been blooming for almost a month. A frost toward the end of October may spoil a few blossoms, but any unopened flowers will go ahead and provide perfect blossoms after it warms back up in a day or two.

Our

tea plant has been blooming since mid September, and as you can see by the pics, the honey bees have been having a field day. As the bees gather nectar, their hind legs are picking up pollen as they tromp around the anthers. Officially white, the blossoms are largely hidden by the forest of yellow pollen-laden anthers. Notice in this last pic how much pollen this greedy gut has gathered around his hind legs. I’m sure he had exceeded his DOT weight limits, as he was flying low with his legs dangling down when he flew away. He wasn’t the only one. Even though it was—and has been for some days—a cold and cloudy day, this tea plant was a buzz with honey bees, all in a frenzy to stock up against the soon-to-arrive winter.

I am so very sorry I missed last week’s Friday Photo. Beside the fact that my main computer was in the shop getting a new keyboard (some of the keyssss kkkept sttticking) and track pad (it’s hard to mimic that in a similar fashion), it was a very busy week. My wife had shot some good ones, and maybe I’ll post a “missing episode” some day if I get the chance. In the mean time, now is the time to make plans to get out in the yard this week end. I looks like the weather is going to finally break around here. Have a good weekend. Live in light of His return, and I hope to see you in church Sunday.