Ask the Experts – The Best, Smartest, Funniest and Only Plant Blog Panel of Experts Anywhere

Hello everyone, and happy day!

Welcome back to the Good To Grow site, and thanks for being here.

I’m sorry it’s taken me a few days to finally roll out this Panel of Experts post. It’s been a busy past few days! I appreciate your patience.

Let’s get our festivities started right away. Hi Experts!

 

“Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiii Liza!”

You’re so cute! From left to right, that’s Andy Williams, Tim Thackaberry, EZ Ed Johnson, Dottie Correll and Lewis Casey. If you’d like to know more about them, please click here.

Here’s this week’s question:

Q. Tell us about the best pet you ever had.

Expert Andy Williams, you’re up first:

A. I’m a dog guy and I’ve been lucky enough to have two awesome dogs over the years.  Suzy was my first dog, a black mutt that wandered onto my porch when I was 5.  She made it until my freshman year of college.  She was attached to my hip all the time and very protective.  Then came Rambo, a salt & pepper mini schnauzer.  He was a character and smart as a whip.  He knew many words like “walk”.  When you’d say that he’d start hopping around and actually go into the hutch it was stored in and retrieve it to go for a walk. He’d spend most of his days sitting on the couch and looking out the front window watching the squirrels hop up and down the large maple tree in our front yard.

As an aside, the Sleepy Dog Brewing Co. in Tempe, AZ has a slogan that states “You never forget your first dog.”  And they put it on a T-shirt which I secured at the Flagstaff Beerfest a few years ago.  Every time I wear that shirt I remember Suzy.  So, they’re right.

A. I had a great cat a little more than 10 years ago, the first cat I really ever had. He was a mean little bastard, hated everyone except for me, for reasons I never really understood. I had never been a cat person before that, but that little guy was loyal. He hissed and scratched at everyone else, but was perfectly calm and nice to me. He was kind of a like a dog in that he followed me around, always looking for attention. He would even fetch little balls of paper I would throw to him. I’d wake up with him laying in the crook of my elbow or even sometimes on my neck. Could have done without the neck part.

Great cat. I haven’t had a pet of any kind since he passed.

A. Frankie was a little terrier, mostly black with splashes of white. He liked to follow me when I pushed my gold Stingray bicycle over rough dirt roads and hard red clay. He got into his share of mischief — with a skunk, with a porcupine, even a rough go with a rattler. There is no need in this space to bring up how he died. Just know he was a good dog, with a friendly disposition and a boy could never have had better company. 

A.

Without a doubt, “Himalaya Harry” was the most delightful and interesting pet we ever possessed. We saw an ad in the paper that one of the airlines had flown in a plane load of baby Minah birds from the Himalaya Mountains to be sold at a large department store in downtown Cleveland. We had a family meeting and all agreed that we needed to add this to our animal world and what fun it would be to raise this fledgling and teach him to talk! Minahs are known to be the best mimicers of the spoken word!

Off the 6 children and I went to find this new family member. Mature Minah birds are a vision of beauty to behold. We were not prepared to find the fledglings looking like rejected sparrows. At any rate, the children made their choice and we made sure to find him a fine cage that would become his very own quarters, found a book that described his feeding, care and training and purchased the proper food.

In the ensuing weeks, while the children were in school, I would spend the recommended 15 minutes of “Talk Training” each day. At the end of 6 weeks, I thought we had been scammed and given a bird that couldn’t talk. All he would do is look at me and express: “AWWWWWWK” – A week passed and by then he had acquired his adult plumage and was a beautiful to look at but no talk. Suddenly, one evening when we had company over, he heard all this laughter and joined in and then began to talk. He repeated everything I had taught him, plus everything he selected to remember that the children said. He even imitated the voices of each of us, sang the songs we had taught him. He ended up with a vocabulary of over 200 words plus many songs and sayings and copied my daughter Karen’s laugh exactly. He also delighted in vexing me with calling –Mom, Mom!—sounding just like one of the children—-I would retort with—“Don’t yell – if you want something come here and ask me” Then foolishly I would realize that it was Harry because the children were all in school.

The funniest episode occurred when our neighbor across the street, relayed a story about another neighbor that we all thought of as that “Dirty Old Man”. Our neighbor was lovely to look at and delighted in gardening in her short shorts. One day as she was working in her flowers she heard this wolf whistle and a man’s voice saying, “What a doll—What a doll!” She was incensed and called her husband and told him that nasty neighbor was annoying her again and whistling at her and making unseemly remarks. Her husband immediately went across the street and read the man out for his behavior toward his wife. The neighbor just stared open mouthed and said nothing as her husband marched defiantly back across the street. As she relayed this story several weeks later, I recalled that on that particular afternoon, I had placed Harry in his cage outside on our stone table to get some sun. I recognized that was one of Harry’s favorite sayings that the boys had taught him. He would Make the wolf whistle and then repeat “What a doll” over and over again and then laugh uproarishly! Needless to say we had a lot of explaining to do to many! However, Harry brought us years of Joy and many memorable moments.

——————

Liza here. Expert Lewis is unavailable this week. Let’s admire his adorableness:

And wrap up the Experts Panel.

Yaaaaaaay – Dottie’s back! Loved, loved, loved that story, Dottie. I can’t even imagine a Cleveland department store selling birds, but it was a different time then. Thanks so much for sharing your story!

Fellas, I enjoyed your stories as well. They each made me smile. Thank you for sharing your pet memories with us.

That’ll do it for this week’s Panel of Experts. The Experts will be back soon!

Up next, the answer to the current puzzler:

???Real or Fake???

Last week, I asked if these flowers were real or fake:

Let’s see how you answered:

Joseph Brenner of Texas wrote, “I vote real. And, barring another round of storms, I think we’re in the clear. The levees have been going down, finally.”

mr_subjunctive of Plants Are the Strangest People wrote, “Fake?”

Claude from Random Rants and Prickly Plants wrote, “A very real and completely georgous claret cup cactus.”

jangogh61 wrote, “Real beautiful cactus!”

Carmen wrote, “Real. Cacti have the some of the most beautiful flowers I’ve ever seen….which is why I find it sad that stores sell them with fake straw flowers a lot of the times….they can’t compare to the beauty of the real things!!”

Jason from Garden in a City wrote, “Wow! As a person who really likes red and orange flowers, I’d say that is one spectacular plant! As for your quiz, I say real.”

Nancy Popp Mumptom of Phoenix wrote, “I know it is real because I have one like it in my front garden!”

That’s five votes real, one vote fake.

What’s the correct answer?

Maybe a wider view will help:

REAL! But personally, I think they look fake because they are almost too perfect. Up close, it’s hard to believe that something so delicate could possibly grow from something so harsh. They sure are spectacular, aren’t they? They’re blooming all over Albuquerque right now. This one belongs to a client of mine and it took my breath away.

Good job, everyone! It’s awesome that you played my puzzler!

To show you my appreciation for playing, I’d like you each to have the following prizes: The downward slide of June, one premier status, three cowboy hats, imminent summer, five gold stars, a lemon tree, one roadtrip to winningville, blue eye shadow, four avocado wontons, 13 1/2 bonus points, one dance contest, Mount Taylor, an ice cream maker, six bees knees, a trophy made of salami, one white picket fence, two skylines, William, four kiwi fruits, organic windchimes, the title of “plantiest” for the week, five sugar cookies, two gift cards, one game night, three parakeets, garlic salt, two compliments on your hairdo, plaid, a new propane grill, 7th Street, four diagonal lines, a peach sunset, and one water fountain.

Congratulations, and thanks for playing!

Up next, a new puzzler:

???Real or Fake???

Are these flowers real or fake?

Think you know the answer, smartyplants? Leave your best guess in the comments section. You have until midnight MST (that’s 2a.m. EST) Thursday, June 25th, to cast your vote. I’ll reveal the answer and the winners after next week’s panel of Experts. The prizes may be imaginary but the link to your site and the glory of winning are oh-so-real.