My Matchday - 259 Estadio Antonio Dominguez

CD Marino 8v1 CD Igara
Torneo Sebastian Martin Melo XII
Thursday 19th August 2010
Our destination for this years summer holiday was Playa de las Américas on the beautiful Spanish island of Tenerife, the largest of the seven Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Africa.
The resort is south of the island, in the northern part of the Municipality of Arona and was built in the 1960’s beside the town of Los Cristianos.
The beaches are man-made from imported sand from Africa due to the darkness of the native volcanic sand. Playa de las Americas is known for its busy nightlife with the Veronicas strip, Starco Commercial Centre and the Patch.

I’ve never have much luck ground bagging while on me jollies, we usually plan our vacation in July before the pre-season build up gets underway on the continent, however this year we decided to nick off a few weeks later.
When I booked our hols back in January I honestly didn’t know that our hotel would be on the same road and only a five minute walk from a football stadium, used by local side Club Deportivo Marino.

After regularly checking on the net on possible fixtures I was delighted to get confirmation a few days before departure that CD Marino were playing at home on my last night in the resort, the first match in a four team tournament stretching over three days.
The club were founded in 1936 and currently play in the Tercera Division - Group 12, which is the fourth level of the Spanish football league system, which features 361 teams divided into 18 regional groups.

The Estadio Antonio Dominguez has a capacity of 7,500 and is primarily an athletic stadium which is used by the local community on a daily basis with a gymnasium, boxing club and leisure centre under the main stand.
The grounds main entrance and reception is on the main road which runs through the resort and down towards the beach, but spectator access is gained at the top end behind the goal. Admission is gained by purchasing your ticket at the office then stepping sideways where a gentleman at the gate takes your ticket before callously ripping it in two, giving you half back and dropping the other part in a bucket. I got the left part back and James the right so I’ve just about got a full ticket.(see web album)
Once inside there is a bar with tables and chairs on the concourse which is perched high giving a good view across the stadium and the surrounding mountains. Only half the ground is used by spectators, the concourse with a dozen large concrete blocks in front continues around to the main part of the stand.
The main section of the stand is covered with smart looking wooden beams and supports. Centrally there is a section of blue flip seats with the club name and crest above which is set aside for club officials.
The rest of the ground is made up with banks of lawns and hedgerows with the far side having two large walls with ‘Paronates De Portes Arona’ (Arona Sports Board) on one and the club name and anchor logo set upon painted white stones, with an electric scoreboard in between.

The sparse crowd had a few tourists but was largely made up of locals, amongst those were some very ardent women, who were so passionate that two of them almost came to blows. A heated argument began after an incident on the pitch between two opposing players, in the end one of the ladies had to go and watch the game elsewhere in case she ended up giving to other wifey a dry slap.

The game was the first semi final of the 12th Torneo Sebastian Martin Melo, a competition played amongst four Tenerife based clubs.
CD Marino were due to play the as advertised UD Realejo, but were replaced by CD Igara who most likely wished they hadn’t bothered to fill in after receiving an 8-1 good hiding by the hosts.
The match was a lot closer than the score line suggests, well it was in the first half anyway. The visitors actually look a 9th minute lead, be it against the run of play and it wasn’t until first half stoppage time that Marino overturned the score line.
The second half was a different story as the home side played some fantastic stuff, adding a further six goals and it could have easily been double figures. The score line might suggest that the football was of a poor standard, but both clubs were technically very good, playing the now recognisable short intricate Spanish passing style, but Marino were much superior and were tremendous in the second half.

The following night Raqui San Isidro beat Tenerife B on penalties after a 1-1 draw in the other semi final before the hosts won Saturdays final, winning 4-0 to take the Sebastian Melo.

Me and James enjoyed an entertaining evening in the Estadio Antonio Dominguez, which was a nice wee break from our usual night in the resorts many pubs. However afterwards we hotfooted back to the town centre to return to the female half of the Smudger clan to finish off our last night of what was a fantastic holiday in Tenerife, which was nicely capped off by bagging a new ground.

Matchday stats
CDM 8 (eight 21,64pen, ten 45+2, twenty-one 51
twenty-two 72, six 75, nineteen 83 eighteen 85)

CDI 1 (eight 9)

att.70est

admission adults 9euro/ juniors 5euro
Link -

Tournament details and report on final

Ground no.259 Estadio Antonio Dominguez - Matchday Web album (21 pictures)

The Village Greenery

Come on in! The air is fine inside.


I visited a special shop in Yellow Springs, Ohio, while on my Excellent Weekend Adventure to the Native Plant conference. It's The Village Greenery, and it's in King's Court, right off the main drag of coffee shops and bakeries and jewelry/craft shops that grace Yellow Springs' tourist area. I think that when we sit around and dream of having a shop selling things we love, this would be what pops into my mind.


I like to see people self-actualizing and doing things they love. I'm drawn to people like that, and it never hurts to get a little of their magic fairy dust on you, either.

Awful MonkeyCam shot taken at arms' length of me and the affably adorable Mitch George. I took it just to show him the viewing screen you can turn backerds on the Canon G-11. Mitch used to work in an old-fashioned camera store, and when he saw the little G-11, he flashed on it and started peppering me with questions. I peppered him right back with houseplant questions. We were instant friends.

Mitch has carefully selected houseplants, beautifully presented.

The bromeliads were in a case, displayed under lights like the jewels they are, and obviously happy about it.

I stayed in a home in Yellow Springs that had the prettiest houseplants--unusual, beautifully presented. No surprise to find they were all from the same place. I resolved to track The Village Greenery down.

I walked into the store and immediately sensed the higher oxygen level, the serenity of good plants, well grown. The store is so well-lit any plant could live here for good. My tranquility was the diametric opposite of the feeling that overcomes me when entering the dark, cavernous garden zone of your typical Loew's, where all the plants are silently screaming to me to save them from a dry, dark, lingering death.

The emphasis here is on finding a plant that will fit your situation, so Mitch specializes in low-light tropical foliage plants that will beautify a home without demanding too much in return. He's careful to interview prospective plant owners about their growing conditions before recommending a plant. He says that choosing the right plant for the right situation is the secret to growing success for anyone.

This seemed like an excellent opportunity to trot out my new Canon G-11, the point and shoot that could. Even as it shines at macro shots of flowers and insects, it does an amazing job of shooting low-light interiors, with or without flash. I do not know how it does it, but everything looks more beautiful in my photos even than it does in real life--saturated colors, gorgeous lighting. Dig this:

Doesn't this look like a shop where you could spend an hour and a whole lotta money? It's a good thing I was traveling and it was very hot or I'd have loaded up the car. I saw so many of my old favorite tropicals and some new ones I lusted after. I'll definitely be back to see Mitch and his lovely little shop. If he's not careful I'll bring a folding chair and set a spell.

A magical place on a magical summer morning, whisk of broom, cicadas sawing loud in the trees overhead.

My Matchday - 260 The New Lawn

Forest Green Rovers 1v1 Gateshead
Blue Sq. Bet Premier
Saturday 21st August 2010


I especially flew in from Tenerife to catch my first game in the Blue Sq Bet Premier League this season. I arrived back in Blighty in the early hours of Saturday morning, then after grabbing a few hours kip, I was out of the house again by 6.30am and off to catch our bus down to Stroud for the Heed’s away game with Forest Green Rovers.

Forest Green Rovers FC hail from Nailsworth in the Stroud district of Gloucestershire, The former small mill town lies in one of the Stroud Valleys in the Cotswolds and has a population of over 6,000.
The town hosts the annual Nailsworth Festival every spring, where local artists exhibit their works in the windows of the high street shops. The festival includes many cultural and street events and a free music festival for local bands - Nailstock, which takes place on one of the town’s playing fields.


The club formed in 1890 as Nailsworth & Forest Green playing in the Stroud & District League, until becoming founder members of the Gloucestershire Northern Senior League in 1922, winning three titles in 1935, 1950 and 1951.
FGR joined another new league, playing seven seasons in the Gloucestershire County League from 1968 until joining the Hellenic League in 1975. In 1981-82 they were league champions and doubled up winning the FA Vase win a 3-0 win over Rainworth Miners Welfare at Wembley.
The following season they progressed into the Southern League, an era which saw a brief name change to Stroud FC in 1989. The decision was an unpopular one so after only three years they reverted back to Forest Green Rovers for the 1992-93 season.
The Green won back to back promotions and are still the currently the longest serving continuous members of the Conference. Last season they finished 21st but thanks to a reprieve courtesy of Salisbury City go into a 13th consecutive season, being in the top league since 1998.
Rovers have reached the final of the FA Trophy on two occasions, which both ended in defeat in 1999 and 2001 and also reached the FA Cup 3rd Round twice, the first of those was a 4-3 defeat to Derby County in January 2009 after leading 2-0, in front of their highest ever attendance of 4836 at The New Lawn.

The Lawn Ground had been home to the club since it was founded in 1890, and remained little more big lawn surrounded by hedges until the club's progression saw a series of upgrades. The ground closed in 1960 and reopened on 19th August 1961 with new terraces, a main stand, a new corner entrance and the sloped pitch was levelled off.
The ground was extended and floodlights erected in 1981. The Trevor Horsley Stand and Barnfield Terrace moved with the club a short distance to The New Lawn in 2006 which was built at a cost of £3m.

The new ground has a capacity of 5,147. The Western Thermal stand is the main stand which has a dozen rows of black seats with FGR picked out in white and 7 boxes at the rear. The stand also has a leisure club, gym, sauna, conference and meeting facilities as well as The Green Man pub.
The original Trevor Horsley Stand is now called the EESI Stand and is allocated to away fans. The stand is fully covered with eight rows of approximately 500 green flip seats.
The rest of the ground is made up of terracing, the East side is open with a scaffold TV gantry, four floodlight pylons and the team dugouts which includes a one man dugout exclusively for the fourth official (never seen that before) The north terrace is covered and now known as the Rockwool Stand
The stadium is fully functional used seven days as part of the Five Valleys Conference & Leisure Centre and was officially opened in September 2006 when the England C team played a friendly fixture against Forest Green.

Both teams settled for a share of the spoils in an entertaining open game at The New Lawn, this despite of the inconsistencies of a pernickety man in black.
Rovers started the game brightly and early pressure paid off, taking the lead in the 10th minute when a precision through ball from Lee Fowler found Reece Styche with plenty of time and space to score.
The lead was almost doubled ten minutes later when a close range shot from Mike Fowler was brilliantly tipped onto the crossbar by Deasy, then the woodwork came into play again as a Marwood shot clipped the top of the bar to almost draw the visitors level.
On the hour mark Gateshead made a double substitution, going with a more attacking formation and they reaped the benefit almost immediately, a Baxter cross was met with a glancing header from recent signing Gary Mulligan for his first goal in a Gateshead shirt.
Rovers were gifted a golden chance to take all three points when the referee awarded a penalty after an innocuous trip on Styche by Turnbull, but Deasy made a great save to deny Herring and assure that the Heed made the long trip back to the north east with a well earned point.

I collapsed into deep sleep by the time we reached Durham, awoken when our minibus came to a halt at the M1 services in Derbyshire for our half hour rest stop.
We arrived in Nailsworth at 1pm. Those of you who have been to The New Lawn will know that the ground is situated up a long winding mile long steep hill.
I had planned to go into the village for a drink but I just couldn’t be chewed to walk there and back, besides The Green Man’ had Wychwood and Marston’s real ales on offer, comfy settees and football on the box, so I was quite content to stay put.
A few of the lads had enquired about a taxi, but were told the nearest cab firm was in Stroud and just for starters they would charge £15 for having to make the 4 mile trip to pick you up! What a rip off! The words - the piss, taking, and surely, spring to mind.
After a long day I arrived back home at 11pm, finally feeling that I was back from my holidays. Although I was totally “cattle trucked” I still enjoyed the day, so overall it was well worth flying back for.

Matchday stats

FGR 1(Styche 10)GFC 1(Mulligan 66)

att.882
Admission (PP)£13

Programme £2.50

Ground no.260 The New Lawn - Matchday Web album (16 pictures)

NPR Zick Alert! Purple Tomatoes!

After a long drought, I'll be on National Public Radio's All Things Considered this afternoon, sometime after 4 pm ET, exulting about some strange purple tomatoes that grew on my heirloom plants. As you know, I love messing about with plants and seeds, but then so do bumblebees. So I got a surprise when my seed-grown babies finally bore fruit.

Here are the tired old snap beans in the foreground. See those tiny white blossoms? They keep making dinner for me. So they get to live.

The purple tomatoes on the hoof.

Zinnias, a florist's strain called "Blue Point." Much the finest zinnias since "Yoga," also a Shepherd's Garden Seeds offering.

Man, it feels good to be back on the air. Listen in. Go to the story page on the NPR site, register if you haven't already (it takes a matter of seconds), and leave a comment. Hit Recommend at the top of the story page. Let 'em know you liked it (if you did). I don't want any more long NPR droughts. I need radio like I need Boston terriers, katydids and strange purple tomatoes.

Thanks for your support, as always and ever.

xo

jz

Cedar Bog with Science Chimp

On our field trip to Cedar Bog outside Springfield, Ohio, most of us were kneeling and snapping away and oohing and aahing on the boardwalk

led by Jim McCormac, one of the finest naturalists I've ever had the pleasure of knowing.

If you don't read his blog, Ohio Birds and Biodiversity, you must. He's a sparkly writer, good photographer, and best of all he knows what's interesting. He's always got a little wrinkle in the story, something I never knew. In short: Silverback Science Chimp.

There were some much rarer things yet at Cedar Bog's lovely visitor center. For one, I would really, really love to see a giant beaver. Alas, I would be seeing wooly mammoths, too, were that in the cards.


Here's a tooth. Imagine finding a tooth from a beaver the size of a black bear. The tooth was about 9" long. Eeeee-gad.

The cicadas were singing, and Jim taught us the difference between the Lyric Cicada's song (virtually no oscillation, just a steady buzzing trill) and the Lens Cicada (a gentle oscillation) and the Swamp Cicada (a heavy oscillation, all zizzy and snappy), and the Scissor-Grinder Cicada, the classic summer evening in-town species that goes ZWEOOO ZWEEEOO ZWEEOO.

Don't you love knowing that?
Again, no idea which one this is, but I was glad to spot him resting in a sumac. Speaking of spotting things, here's a young ruby-throated hummingbird hiding out in a tall umbellifer:


It was tending a patch of jewelweed. Always such a treat for me to see hummingbirds feeding from something other than red plastic.

A Snout butterfly, Libytheana bachmanii, only the second I've seen in Ohio. Jim says this is a "big invasion year" for this southern butterfly with the Jimmy Durante rostrum. They are very cute, if you can catch them sitting long enough. That's not actually a snout, but elongated labial palpae. I'm not sure what the snout does with its elephantine projection, but it is fond of fermenting fruit and nectar, so perhaps there's a food-gathering advantage. Or maybe it's a weevil with big dreams.


A net-winged beetle, Calopteron terminale. It was moving slowly about the leaf surfaces, raising its soft wing covers over its back in a semaphore display. I owe this ID to Eric Eaton and Kenn Kaufman's wonderful Kaufman Field Guide to the Insects of North America. Get it, and figger out the bugs in your world.


As I neared the end of my allotted time at Cedar Bog, Jim casually pointed out "that thing that looks like a human brain lying on the forest floor."

The Science Chimp was not fooled for an instant. This softball-sized object was the fruiting body of a skunk cabbage, from which the leaves had nearly melted away. She considered it for a moment, then asked aloud,

"And what would be the dispersal agent for the human brain fruit?"

To which, without missing a beat, my new friend Rich quipped,

"Zombies?"

Out of focus because I was laughing.

Rich and I bonded good, making jokes about prickly ash and such.

I love a plantsman. He works as a horticulturist by day, but clearly his avocation is Resident Stinkpot. We were trouble when combined.

Alas, all too soon it was time for me to bolt. I had an hour's drive to Columbus, where via the magic of cellaphones I was to connect for a torrid 20 minutes with my bestest Oklahoma buddy Timothy Ryan, he of the peerless photographic eye and the glorious blog From the Faraway, Nearby.

On my way I saw the most auspicious of automobiles, a Hot Rod Lincoln,
boding well for our quick reunion.


Is that not the baddest car you have ever seen? Nice color, too.

Tim was literally passing through Columbus on work, shepherding a platoon of mini Coopers from party to party. Tim has the most interesting life, which makes him great company. He is full of beans and ready for anything.

Seeing Timmers, however briefly (he had to leave within the hour) was the cherry on top of a perfect Zick weekend! We were both steamin' sweaty but we didn't care. My brutha from anotha mutha.


Why does he have to live in Oklahoma? Doesn't he know that he should move to Southern Ohio? I have amassed quite a list of people who should do that.

Midwest Native Plant Conference

Science Chimp, ready for anything. Photo by William Ringer, a nature-loving Hoosier who gets around, from the Potholes of North Dakota to the Fens of Ohio.

On the first weekend in August, I traveled to Dayton to speak at the second annual Midwest Native Plant Conference. I couldn't know what a blast it would be. I was so freaked out at the thought that native plant purists would turn up their nose at my habitat gardening talk, rife as it is with Chinese buddleia and Mexican salvias

Autumn sage, Salvia greggii

and Chilean fuchsias, that I refused an invitation to speak at the first annual conference.

But my friend Kathy MacDonald persisted and assured me they really did want me to come, so I spent a couple of days tearing up my talk to emphasize native plants like these in my garden.

My cardinalflower Lobelia cardinalis bed, with some Salvia guaranitica "Black and Blue" and Salvia greggii "Cherry Chief" and Fuchsia "Gartenmeister Bonstedt" and Crocosmia "Lucifer" thrown in for fun and hummingbird appeal.

The naturalized purple coneflower Echinacea purpurea along our driveway. I find it grows best along woodland edges.

So I wrote a special piece for the occasion about native plant snobbery, useful exotics, why I love lilacs and tuberoses and crape myrtle and how I don't care what anyone says about them. I love them not because I am too dumb to know the difference between a good (native) plant and a bad (exotic) plant but because I love them. For my own reasons, for the memories and the beloved people I associate with them; just because they are beautiful and good.

Being non-native doesn't automatically make a plant (or any organism) bad, despite the awful, awful preponderance of invasive exotics from grass carp to bamboo. I was still nervous about how it might go over, scarred as I am from a few run-ins with people who consider anything non-native a noxious pest. I needn't have worried. The Native Plant conferees were the finest kind, friendly and warm and full of good humor. Front-loaded with Master Gardeners, in fact, who are used to working with plant material from all over the planet. The talk went well, I had a load of fun, and best of all there was a field trip to Cedar Bog just west of Springfield, Ohio. You must, must attend the next one if you love native plants and would like to learn more about using them in your landscaping.

The gorgeous conference room at the Bergamo Center in Dayton, where I was privileged to speak.

Cedar Bog, outside Springfield, is the only open fen where white cedar grows in Ohio. A fen is an open wet meadow through which little streams course. Heavily underlain by marl (limestone) and somehow having escaped the cement mining that ruined most of our other marl bogs, it's got a terrific floral and insect community, and it's full of things you can't see anywhere else.

Here's part of the open fen/wet meadow which was full of white boneset, tall ironweed (purple) and obedient plant ( Physostegia, pink, in background) as well as black-eyed Susans, hops, dodder, sandvine, nettles...on and on. It was full of butterflies!

Tiger swallowtails on pasture thistle.

A Monarch on tall ironweed.

And a black swallowtail, also enjoying pasture thistle.

A pugnacious hackberry emperor kept hitting me in the chest and sometimes below the belt as I trod upon his boardwalk. He looks mean, doesn't he? I was intimidated.

A gray hairstreak rubbed his hindwings together as he sipped from a yellow flower only Jim knows. Bog loosestrife? No. Some sorta St. Johnswort? I dunno. Hm. Sumpin'. This is the problem with being a generalist, and on the downside of 50. I should write this stuff down. I should know by now I won't remember it for ten minutes.


At Cedar Bog there are orchids in spring, like showy lady's slipper and dragonmouth. There are elfin skimmer dragonflies (exceedingly rare) and the also rare and charming seepage dancer, which were abundant when we visited.

Seepage dancer, Argia bipunctulata. Nice name! It has much shorter wings than the common bluet, but otherwise, it'd be hard to know you've got an endangered damselfly.

A far more common but unnamed damselfly. My field guide only does dragonflies. Rats! Arrgh! Jim told me what it was...I found a beautiful pdf, Dragonflies and Damselflies of Ohio, by my friend Dave McShaffrey online! Maybe maybe a female blue-ringed dancer?

Anyone?

There is spiked gayfeather Liatris spicata
and cowbane Oxypolis rigidior

which is host to black swallowtail larvae, which eat things in the parsley and carrot family.

There will be more natural wonders from Cedar Bog in the next post. If you're passing through Springfield, Ohio, on I-70 (and judging from the traffic, who isn't?) you must take a detour and walk this amazing boardwalk. I had time for less than half of it and came out wanting to return soon! What a glorious place, with a wonderfully appointed and staffed "green" visitor's center. Check out their website, and visit Weds-Sun 10-4.

Yes, I'm posting one more day a week, to make three: Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. There's just too much good stuff to share and the backlog is tremendous now.

And today, August 17, is Charlie the chestnut-fronted macaw's 21st birthday. I found my check register from 1989 with the record of his purchase. That was before kids, house, dog, Ohio; even before Bill. We're in it for the long haul. He'll be trundling around the studio floor, playing Stab the Doll with Liam, stealing toys from Chet, hanging out on my shoulder as I paint, cackling maniacally under his favorite blue cabinet, and sharing stirfry and a beer with Bill at sundown--just another day for a kooky and well-loved little macaw.

Ooh, that's GOOD!