Mom used to ask, “Can you quit being so wild?”
That memory probably came from days when the rain fell hard and summer playtime happened inside the house. Mom had too much to do all day to play with children inside.
It was the wringer washer era. Each piece was lifted out and run through the wringer into a galvanized rinse wash tub, later to be wringered and hand-wrung before taken outside to the clothes line. We owned no dryer.
On rainy days, clothesline ropes stretched from the dining room, through the living room, and into the parlor and back. Clothing hung inside until dry. Siblings raced between hanging pieces of clothing, zig-zagging like it was a ski slalom course in August. The action grew so strenuous it turned childhood cheeks pink. Connected clothespins shaped into airplanes flew fast between shirtsleeves and underwear.
More than likely that’s where the phrase originated, “Can you quit being so wild? Tarnation.”
That wild-tarnation story finally brought Angelkeep to the subject at hand. Not wild tarnation, but wild carnation. It’s a stretch as to how those two topics segue and link. It is the way things happen at Angelkeep. We’d have it no other way.
Wild carnations seemed to appear out of nowhere at Angelkeep. The hot pink color, though very small, with its half-inch diameter single bloom, stood out amid all the brownish-green growth along the edge of the chipped limestone driveway.
Once upon a time, it had been sometime since a rain of any proportion soaked the earth. Other blooms withered. A lone stalk with the hot pink four-petal top stood out.
A photo inspired investigation as to the name and type of this unknown flower. Had it appeared at Angelkeep prior? Had it ever been featured in Angelkeep Journals? Much remained unknown. Enlightenment relied on Googling “four-petal pink wildflower.”
The world has been overrun with pink wildflowers. Google ignored the fact the request had been for a four-petal bloom. All forms of higher count pink petal flowers were identified. No photo compared to Angelkeep’s four-petal pink.
Angelkeep was too smart to think it had discovered the world’s first four-petal pink bloom.
A wild carnation looked very promising. The size matched. Color matched. Leaves appeared similar. However Google indicated wild carnations as five-petal. Typically they grew in clumps of stalks. Angelkeep had but a single stalk topped with only four hot pink petals.
Had the rain been more frequent, the lawn would have been mowed more often. The four-petal pink bloom would have been lopped off long before any hot pink popped.
To be honest, the thought had occurred that perhaps the plant had been rubbed by a local critter and a petal lost. The “reason of four” could never be determined. Over time, other locations at Angelkeep began to sprout single stalks with hot pink petals. Nearly all discovered after the initial sighting had petals countable on all five fingers. Apparently the first sighted had been a fluke of nature, or a one-petal causality due to critter contact.
The newly found pinks, now considered to be the common pink wildflower, popped up all over Angelkeep. Some Angelkeep areas continued to be saved from the lawn mower. Certain spots remained as natural habitat for animals. At other areas, such as under trees, the grass continued to grow slow due to insufficient rainfall. These areas offered a fresh peek at hot pink plants perpetuating prolonged perplexity and pondering.
Some places grew multiple plants in close proximity. None held multiple stalks coming from a single root system. All seemed to be its own plant. A single bloom bearing five petals topped each.
Questions remained about the four-petal pink. Why only four, when all of its Angelkeep cousins bloomed with five? Where did they come from? Angelkeep recalled potting “pinks” years ago. Did they grow wild from that potted plant? Had they been growing for years, simply overlooked? What’s a dianthus?
One fun part of gardening and nature was the fact full disclosure remained unnecessary to enjoy either.
“Please, please, please, Angelkeep, never stop being so wild.”
Full laundry disclosure: Angelkeep occasionally continued the tradition of hanging a few pieces of wash on hangers to dry inside the house.
Mr. Daugherty is a Wells County resident who, along with his wife Gwen, enjoy their backyard and have named it “Angelkeep.”
