February 25, 2021

"What's the avocado tree's name? (I have forgotten). It's looking pretty large."

Said MadisonMan, in the comments to the post with video of Meade grinding hard red winter wheat. Meade answered "Arthur" with a link to "Recurring features in Mad (magazine)" (Wikipedia), and then, later, took this picture of the tree and me. 

IMG_5364 

I'm there, I suppose, for scale. 

The hat is not an affectation, but a needed shield for my eyes as I work in front of the big window, but it's funny to see it in the picture, because I just finished writing a post on the NYT obituary for the artist Barry Le Va, and the obit has the line, "Mr. Le Va became known for his ever-present Borsalino hat," and that's what my hat is, a man's Borsalino hat. 

Here's how Arthur looked in May 2019, after we drove home from Utah in one day to save him from a mid-Spring freeze. And here he is in October 2015, when he was 2.

40 comments:

Joe Smith said...

Great taste in hats...if you're going to wear one, wear a Borsalino...

tim maguire said...

My first avocado tree, Mel, was a great success, but we had to leave him/her (we never confirmed) behind when we moved from Brooklyn to Toronto. I am currently on Mel VI, having never recaptured that early glory. They keep dying within a few months after sprouting.

tcrosse said...

If you want to get ahead, get a hat.

Birches said...

Arthur will soon be too large to bring inside... what will you do then?

bleh said...

You cut short your trip and drove home from Utah just to save the tree from cold weather? Don't you have any friends or neighbors in Madison who could've saved you the trouble?

Wince said...

bleh said...
You cut short your trip and drove home from Utah just to save the tree from cold weather?

You can't take a vacation when your avocation is an avocado.

Original Mike said...

"I'm there, I suppose, for scale."

I know the feeling.

Ryan said...

If we are on that topic, everyone must watch Tommy Emmanuel play "Borsalino."

Joe Smith said...

"You can't take a vacation when your avocation is an avocado."

If you live in Spain and your abogado is an avocado, you won't win your case : )

Joe Smith said...

"I'm there, I suppose, for scale."

So not just a potted plant beside the potted plant?

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...

I have a kentia palm that was re-potted a few years ago. very happy in the corner growing and sprouting many new fronds. I've named it "Palm-zilla". don't get too close it's little shop of horrors over there.

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...

I wonder if the in-door plants are happier that we are home more due to covid?
I think so.

Temujin said...

Looks like a StandDesk.

BarrySanders20 said...

Put some shades on the back and . . . Tag! you're Itt.

Althouse is Itt

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...

be cool if it actually produced fruit. you could enjoy avocado sandwiches on Meade's home made wheat bread.

loudogblog said...

I planted an avocado in the back yard a few years ago. It's a Fuerte avocado and, instead of growing up, it grew very wide and is still mostly at ground level. It's like a giant avocado bush. It actually bore about 20 fruit in 2019, but not in 2020. (So I figure that it only bears fruit every other year.)

mikee said...

Here outside Austin, the big question after the unusual cold spell has been which of our plants will live, and which are gone? Cactus plants melt into gooey globs upon thawing after long term freezing, and so do agaves. But cactus and agaves have a good chance to remain alive, losing only the above-ground leaves while the bases and roots remain viable.

Live Oaks drop their leaves in spring, anyway, so this cold spell has merely accelerated their browning. Live Oaks are expected to live through these days of subfreezing.

Indian Hawthorne and other shrubs are anyone's guess. The leaves are all killed, so we will wait and see. I intend to wait until the HOA demands I remove the dead remains of my plantings upon threat of fines. Not to give the plants a chance to come back, I just hate my HOA.

MadisonMan said...

@mikee, I had a conversation on that with my sibling who lives in the mid-south. He figures he'll lose a lot of things to ground level (crepe myrtle, nandina), but they'll come back.
Yesterday he killed a mosquito. Last week's snow/sub-zero didn't kill everything!

Ann Althouse said...

"Arthur will soon be too large to bring inside... what will you do then?"

Meade should answer this, but I believe he's already solved this problem through expert pruning. Notice how much horizontality is going on with that thing.

Yancey Ward said...

"Here's how Arthur looked in May 2019, after we drove home from Utah in one day to save him from a mid-Spring freeze. And here he is in October 2015, when he was 2."

So, are you homeschooling him?

tim maguire said...

Joe Smith said...
"You can't take a vacation when your avocation is an avocado."

If you live in Spain and your abogado is an avocado, you won't win your case : )


Your abogado would be an aguacate. But, yes, you would not be in good shape.

RMc said...

Avocado
What makes you think you're so holy?
You're gonna be guacamole
Before too long
Avocado

Churchy LaFemme: said...

beep-boop-beep 602-214-1527

Hello, is Arthur there?

Shane said...

It's George Harrison's birthday, so I'll ask? During "AHDN" when he is asked "What do you call that hairstyle?" He answered: "Arthur." I've read too much on The Beatles so I always assumed this was an in-joke to his best friend growing up, named Arthur, but there is another scene in the film where one of them is reading MAD magazine, and after fifty years of my obsession ~ this makes a lot more sense as the in-joke.

Terry di Tufo said...

That is a beautiful room.

Indigo Red said...

Time to buy another roll of paper towels. Between 2015 and now, you've used most of the roll on the countertop. That one lasted a long time.

Quaestor said...

"Arthur" should be renamed "Arthur/Guinevere" in deference to its dioecious biology,
"Artwen" for short.

The tree's gentler, nurturing side will appreciate the recognition. Meadehouse might even get some homegrown guacamole in return. Avocados (or is that avocadoes?) rarely self-pollinate, but "Artwen" might just make the effort.

Currently, "Arthur" is doing the male thing. He's growing and spreading, shading out the competition. Eventually, the tree will compete with the human denizens of Meadehouse, and then it will be war -- cellulose versus steel! The Day of the Avocado!

It would be wiser to avert avogeddon; change the name.

Rick.T. said...

Getting a Randy Newman "You Can Leave Your Hat On" vibe with that topper.

Rick.T. said...

I'm so old now I missed by two years the Arthur AndersEn CPA firm hat mandate. Unfortunately the wearing the suit jacket when outside the office was still in full effect. It was years before I ever thought of buying a non-button down dress shirt and having pleats in my pants. It is still cuffs on suits for me, though.

Rick.T. said...

I am currently on Mel VI...
-----------------
Avocado's number, then.

DocTeach said...

The love story is one of my fav things about this blog.

Rick.T. said...

...in deference to its dioecious biology
----------------
or Hermie

Lars Porsena said...

Mat Drudge is missing his topper.

Ryan said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Quaestor said...

or Hermie

Clever, clever...

MadisonMan said...

When does Arthur get its own tag?

Nancy said...

I made the mistake of looking up the derivation of "avocado". Sadly it is not related to any words for lawyer ... It's from an Aztec word for a part of the male anatomy which the avocado supposedly resembles, and it grows in pairs.

Francisco D said...

I really need to get a computer screen like Althouse has in that photo.

I still work on an Apple McBook Pro.

ColoradoDude said...

I like the slippers. WARM

Skippy Tisdale said...

My mother died in the 1980's, and one of the things I remember her telling me back then was that women who came of age in the 1960's, who still wear their hair long and straight are desperately clinging to their youth and it makes them look stupid. Imagine what she'd say over three decades later.