The Sunday Poem

American Life in Poetry: Column 031

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

All of us have known tyrants, perhaps at the office, on the playground or, as in this poem, within a family. Here Long Island poet Gloria g. Murray portrays an authoritarian mother and her domain. Perhaps you've felt the tension in a scene like this.

The drawing "Sorrow" is the featured artwork on Gloria g. Murray's website entrance.


In My Mother’s House

every wall
stood at attention
even the air knew
when to hold its breath
the polished floors
looked up
defying heel marks
the plastic slipcovers
crinkled in discomfort

in my mother’s house
the window shades
flapped
against the glare
of the world
the laughter
crawled like roaches
back into the cracks
even the humans sat—

cardboard cut-outs
around the formica
kitchen table
and with silver knives
sliced and swallowed
their words

Reprinted from “Poet Lore,” Vol 99, No. 1/2 by permission of the author. Copyright © 2005 by Gloria g. Murray, whose latest book of poetry is “Five A.M. Anxiety.” This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.

Roswell: Trying to Wrap Up My Feelings About It

NOB HILL--Thinking back to this week's trip to Roswell one thought keeps coming back to me: the quality of their art museums is truly amazing. See Tuesday's post below for details about the Roswell Museum & Art Center. Tuesday afternoon Ken and I went to the Anderson Museum of Contemporary Art. We thought we would check it out before we left for Albuquerque.

The Anderson Museum is the result of Roswell's Artist-in-Residence program. About half a dozen artists are provided with living quarters and a studio for 6 months. They used to receive a stipend, although I am unsure that it still applies. At any rate, the artist owes nothing except a piece of artwork to the museum.

The Anderson is quite large...and it is stocked with nothing but work from former and present participants in the A-I-R program. Figure it out for yourself: say 10 artists per year since maybe 1975...let's see, 300 artists. Whoa.

And these people are not slackers. There are several Luis Jimenez drawings and sculptures, Skinny Schooley has several, ABQ artist Frank McCollough, and about 297 others. It is an amazing collection.

But the overriding thought I have is how farsighted those Anderson boys were to start the program in the first place. There is a Jimenez drawing on Ebay right now with a buy-it-now price of $17,000. It doesn't take too much savvy to figure out that if your selection of artists is pretty good, it will not really be a money-losing proposition. I was told that the Roswell program is actually the best in the country in terms of its generosity.

My final thought is this: Go to Roswell. Go for the UFO's...stay for the art. I have flown to Chicago to view the Monet exhibit. I flew to Los Angeles for the Van Gough showing. They were worth it, even though you have a 2-hour reserved viewing time and there are long lines and crowded galleries. The Roswell experience is more like you are in the room by yourself. Just you and Hurd, Wyeth, O'Keeffe, Jimenez, Schooley, Bromberg, and many many more.

Arthur Alpert Nails It

ABQ Tribune columnist Arthur Alpert tells the absolute truth in today's column, No Questions Asked. The MainStream Media has no responsibility except to preserve its profitable place in the Establishment. Alpert writes,

The news business is neither liberal nor conservative but is an Establishment institution.

Consider "class." When was the last time - before Hurricane Katrina - that you read or watched serious coverage of the underclass? Or respectful words about a blue-collar union? Or serious analysis of the globalism - espoused by both parties - that's exporting middle class jobs?

Arthur Alpert is always worth reading, but today he is essential. The media is always selling the sizzle and ignoring the meat.

Take the next Supreme Court nominee, for instance: will we be told the real issue is abortion rights and gay marriage? What about something a tiny bit more important. As Alpert states,

Establishment bias explains the dearth of stories about the issue of our time: how corporate power threatens democracy.

I referred to this a couple of time previously. One time I called it the "Jack Spratt" coalition: corporations and the religious right appear to have nothing in common, but together they are licking the plate clean.

But Alpert's point is about more than licking up profits, it is about the future of the world...or at least a hundred years or so of humanity ignored. Read the story.

Hanging Out in Roswell: The Roswell Museum & Art Center

ROSWELL, NM--Yesterday while The Artist Ken Saville was doing a workshop for teachers here in Roswell, I decided to check out the local museum. Roswell actually has two, in addition to several UFO museums. I don't really care about the UFO thing, so I went over to the Roswell Museum & Art Center. However if you want a virtual tour of the Roswell UFO Museum, feel free to follow your alien whim.

Don't underestimate Roswell. Their museum is wonderful! I loved the artwork, and the re-creation of Robert Goddard's workshop is totally fascinating. It really took me inside the joy of his experiments. I sort of felt like a kid again looking at how he solved problems nobody had ever encountered before. And he did it with the basic kinds of solutions you would find in an elementary plumbing class. Even rocket retrieval had to be solved with "toy" parachutes popping out of nosecones...and this was about 1935.

But I really spent a lot of time in the Art Center. It featured, of course, the works of Peter Hurd and Henriette Wyeth who lived close-by in the Hondo valley community of San Patricio. Just beautiful work. I was particularly impressed with Henriette Wyeth, whose "Bella" captivated me with the subtleties of her existential beauty.

Georgia O'Keeffe's "Ram's Skull with Brown Leaves" is worth the trip here all by itself. And then there is the original furniture of this place commissioned by the WPA. I loved it.

The dominating art piece of the museum has to be Luis Jimenez' "End of the Trail With Electric Sunset." I love his work anyway, and this piece takes advantage of the properties the hollow resin by lighting upthe base as well as the red eyes.

I should also mention their Artist-in-Residence program. Jimenez stayed here, among others. If you are interested, the deadline is the end of January for this summer.

I am not covering much of what is in the museum; it's full of historical, multi-cultural exhibits as well as art. In fact, I had to take a lunch break and come back in the afternoon. It is a wonderful place. If you find yourself in this part of the country, check it out. You will be surprised at how well done it is.

Two Postcards From U.S. Route 380

NEAR CARRIZOZO, NM--The Artist Ken Saville and I drove to Roswell yesterday. West of Carrizozo, as we climbed towards Capitan, the sky did one of those things that only seem to happen here in New Mexico. Here are two postcards from heaven.

The Adobe Stash in Don Eno's Basement

NOB HILL--A yard sale just down the street here on Tulane led me to one of the true legends of the neighborhood: the basement adobe stash of Don Eno. Even though I had witnessed parts of the story, I had never actually seen the cache in the cellar.

Several years ago, I saw a neighbor making adobes in his driveway. Everyday he worked his way along the house towards the street with a drying grid of mud blocks about 4 bricks wide. When he reached the sidewalk he stacked up the blocks against the house and started all over again. "Don," I asked, "what are you doing here?"

"I'm making a basement," he replied. "I always wanted a basement so I decided to dig one out." Now almost all the houses in this neighborhood have crawlspaces, but no basements. And I once saw a house where the owner had excavated a basement under an existing structure...unfortunately the floor had started to separate from the rest of the house and that led to him putting it on the market before it got any worse. I was, therefore, a little skeptical.

"But Don..." I began.

"Not only that," Don continued, "I'm using the dirt from the excavating to make adobes!" I'm going to use them in a wall later."

Well, the adobe part was certainly true...and they were good-looking adobes too...very uniform, solid, perfect...except for a few that his cats had crawled across.

"But Don, what about the house?"

"You should see the cool door pole I made for the cellar door. I threaded the rope through an eyebolt at the rear so the pole collapses up when the door is closed." Actually I was aware of Don's ingenuity, remembering the time he put 17 tiny speakers in the cab of his Ford pickup.

"Okay Don," I said.

I didn't get down to his place again for a couple of weeks. The driveway was clean. The adobes alongside the house were gone. Don and his truck were gone as well. He had gone to California to pan for gold on the American River.

What happened to the adobes? Why he stacked them in his new basement, of course.

The Sunday Poem

NOB HILL--Ted Kooser, editor of this column, focuses on what he calls "American Life." The poets he features are from all over the U.S. Their poems tend to be about common events and metaphorical insights that speak to almost everybody. He does not put forward a political point of view. These poems are about all of us. I say this not in reference to any one poet, but because the poems he selects tend to be more reflective than provocative. Therefore the poems might require more of a gentle look within oneself, rather than a head-nod of agreement.

Today's poet also has written an interesting essay entitled, "Letter from Naomi Shihab Nye, Arab-American Poet: To Any Would-Be Terrorists."

American Life in Poetry: Column 030

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

Naomi Shihab Nye lives in San Antonio, Texas. Here she perfectly captures a moment in childhood that nearly all of us may remember: being too small for the games the big kids were playing, and fastening tightly upon some little thing of our own.


Boy and Egg

Every few minutes, he wants
to march the trail of flattened rye grass
back to the house of muttering
hens. He too could make
a bed in hay. Yesterday the egg so fresh
it felt hot in his hand and he pressed it
to his ear while the other children
laughed and ran with a ball, leaving him,
so little yet, too forgetful in games,
ready to cry if the ball brushed him,
riveted to the secret of birds
caught up inside his fist,
not ready to give it over
to the refrigerator
or the rest of the day.

Reprinted from “Fuel,” published by BOA Editions by permission of the author. Copyright © 1998 by Naomi Shihab Nye, whose most recent book is “A Maze Me” Harper Collins/Greenwillow, 2004. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.

Can the Riders on the Bus Go Blog, Blog, Blog?

NOB HILL--I saw the mayor do it on TV. The RapidRide buses now have wi-fi, so this afternoon I got on board and tried it out. Yes, you can surf on the bus...and no, it is not perfect. Some sites are a little slow, and some don't work at all. Most, however, work fine.

I tried moving around in the bus to see if that helped. I don't know...hard to say.

I had trouble getting my email. Posting to "Blogger" didn't work. Everything on the Duke City Fix, including posting, worked just fine. So I am giving mixed reviews of the system at this point.

One more thing, if you are subject to motion sickness...

Gorgeous, Gorgeous Tingley

RTE 66 & THE RIO GRANDE--It's Friday morning and there are maybe 100 people at Tingley Beach. Most everybody is fishing. I had forgetten how much Tingley Beach is absolutely LOVED by Albuquerqueans. Even in Tingley's darkest, most abandoned, most stagnant days it was crowded with people fishing. And now it is a truly beautiful park.

Whoever designed this park deserves a medal. You will love this place! And it is still not finished. Although the official opening has already taken place, most of the features are not completely finished. There is still a lot of open ground, and whatever it is that is being constructed over in the bosque by the river is far from ready. The train is not running. All the new trees are not planted. And workers are still crawling all over the Tingley Beach railroad station.

But you will love it. It is built to stand the test of time: solid...really solid. Also, the designer resisted the temptation to turn the whole thing into a giant parking lot. It has class as well as style; it will age well.

And then, as if things couldn't get any better, I look up and find the first flock of cranes of the season circling above the Biopark. Whew.

Corporeal Convergence Tonight

NOB HILL--Every once in a while the digital and corporeal worlds intersect. Tonight is once in a while. MaryAnn and I will certainly be at the Duke City Fix Happy Hour. We would really love to hear from anybody out there who has the time to show up.

Some of you may not be aware that I have a weekly post on the DCF. Well, this would be a good time to check out the Duke City Fix if you haven't already. Come by the Gulp tonight. Have a drink. Wander around. Free appetizers.

The Curse of Chester Nez

NOB HILL--It's World Series time and the Boston Red Sox have long since hung up their spikes and grabbed their remotes. Boston fans have nobody to blame except themselves. Last year they relied on Navajo Code-Talker Chester Nez to break the Curse of the Bambino. This year he seems to have been ignored.

Last year he stood in the front yard of his Albuquerque home, turned east, and blessed Boston with raised hands and corn pollen sifting into the wind. This year...nothing.

Last year he was a hot search engine query here at Albloggerque. This year, one query. And boy did it show. Boston seems to have done the same to Chester Nez that they did to the Bambino: they got rid of both of them when they thought they didn't need them anymore. Now they just might have a double curse.

El Vado Motel: The Mayor Has Reservations

WEST CENTRAL--This afternoon's ABQ Tribune is running a story by Maggie Shepard that Mayor Martin Chavez is saying that he will not allow the historic El Vado Motel to be torn down. This story is not posted on their website as of this afternoon. "I am not going to be a party to detroying historic Albuquerque," he said. He is looking to work with the new owner Richard Gonzales, a personal aquaintance of the mayor, to turn the motel into a profitable operation. He even states he will go so far as using "eminent domain" if all else fails and have the city take over the property.

YES!!!! The Mayor got this one exactly right. This motel is in the heart of what has become a main tourist area: the biopark complex. And it is a completely different situation than tearing down the Royal Court and American motels on East Central. They were offensive huge multi-story buildings that detracted from their neighborhoods even when new. "Boutique" motels such as El Vado are small mom & pop facilities that go back to the first days of Route 66. Their scale is neighborhood size, and their ornamentation was designed to awe the traveler with an opportunity to spend a night in an exotic location...Albuquerque!

Mayor Chavez deserves some credit for this stand. He did not have to stick his neck out. He could have said there was nothing he could do. Maybe he hears the wreckage of the Alvarado echoing 35 years after its destruction. That could have been saved if Pete Domenici showed the same kind of resolute determination that Mayor Chavez is showing today.

The Weekly Poem...&Three Good Reasons Why You Should Be Reading It

NOB HILL--Some of you must wonder why I publish Ted Kooser's poetry column. Here are three reasons.

1. Reading poetry makes you a better reader, listener, and thinker. Following the sometimes complex structure and images of a poem is a short lesson in logic.
2. Kooser's column presents a different poet each week. You probably have heard of none of them. A year from now you will have read a short piece by 52 different poets...and unlike your college coursework, these writers are still alive. Almost nobody can name even one living poet.
   
3. The best reason is that because all these poems are short as well as good, you can use this column to judge your own state of mind...kind of like an ethereally digital mood ring. If you get bored in 20 lines or less, then you need to get a better grip. Life (including poetry) is better than that.
   

American Life in Poetry: Column 029

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

Many of you have seen flocks of birds or schools of minnows acting as if they were guided by a common intelligence, turning together, stopping together. Here is a poem by Debra Nystrom that beautifully describes a flight of swallows returning to their nests, acting as if they were of one mind. Notice how she extends the description to comment on the way human behavior differs from that of the birds.

Cliff Swallows
—Missouri Breaks

Is it some turn of wind
that funnels them all down at once, or
is it their own voices netting
to bring them in—the roll and churr
of hundreds searing through river light
and cliff dust, each to its precise
mud nest on the face—
none of our own isolate
groping, wishing need could be sent
so unerringly to solace. But
this silk-skein flashing is like heaven
brought down: not to meet ground
or water—to enter
the riven earth and disappear.

Reprinted from “Torn Sky,” Sarabande Books, 2004, by permission of the poet. Copyright © 2004 by Debra Nystrom, an Associate Professor of English at the University of Virginia. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.

"What the...?" MaryAnn exclaimed. I Handed Her the Camera.

WEST CENTRAL--"What the...?" MaryAnn exclaimed. I handed her the camera. We were headed west on Central near Rio Grande when we saw the column of smoke. I was at the wheel.

I punched it and we bulled our way into the heavy traffic. We had been on our way to La Casa Grande for another Red Special...and a few photos of El Vado as well, since it was right next door. But life is pretty adventurous in the Mango_Mobile when Yours Truly is at the wheel. You never know where you will end up going.

We passed the restaurant in a hurry, tore over the bridge, and were headed up the hill. "Getting any pictures?" I asked. She didn't answer...just kept shooting. Just as we got to New Coors Blvd. I could see everything was blocked off. I hooked a left down a side street and drove across a vacant lot on the right. A little hike up a berm brought us to the sidewalk about 100 feet from the scene.

It had been a car fire. I figured it might be: black smoke usually means petroleum. Two guys standing there said they thought it was a TransAm. I guess the owner missed the recall letter. Then again, a car fire at a gas station could have a lot of causes. The fire was out by this time.

On our way back down to the Casa Grande I stopped to take a few pictures of The Beach Apartments. Designed by Anton Predock, they are a really wonderful site to behold, day or night. Daytime they echo the colors and lines of the southwest: earthy, stepped, unapologetic, faintly reminescent of somewhere a person might live.

But at night they take on all the Route 66 kitch of a neon-lit curio shop...all zig-zags...Storms of zig-zags floating in the dark beside the road. I say this because I don't want to get too depressed thinking about them tearing down the El Vado Motel. It IS possible to put up something good. But God I wish it didn't have to be the El Vado...

I stopped by there last Mothers Day with MaryAnn. We were on our bikes. I had heard it was for sale. I had also thought how nice it might be to turn a couple of those outside rooms into a bike rental place. It's right next to the bike trail and in the center of biopark area. We talked to a woman who was managing the place. We went in a room to take a look.

The woman said the sales price was $1,300,000. The rooms were small. The rent was $32. There were 35 rooms, mostly empty. How could it stay a working motel with numbers like that? Not in the private sector at any rate.

Take a look around you. What's next? The properties we like the best are smallish, kitchy, and create an ambience on a human scale. And they are disappearing under the rising tide of real estate prices.

In Memorium...El Vado Motel...1936 - 2005

No Wonder This Guy Is Driving Fast

NOB HILL--At first I couldn't believe my eyes. There seemed to be something big and yellow sticking out the side of that car a good five feet. The blue Ford turned onto Lead from Washington and started racing up the hill. It had almost caught a light pole with that yellow thing. MaryAnn and I were sure Lead Ave. was going to claim another victim.

Just this week Coco listed the Lead and Coal Speedway as the most hazardous surface street in Albuquerque. Put that together with the ordinary amount of driver idiocy and this is worth following.

We caught the Ford as it sped away from the light at Lead and Morningside. That looked like a yellow plastic playground slide sticking out the window. Now the car really started going fast.

Lost it. We got snookered in the middle lane and lost that flying circus as it turned left on Carlisle. Good luck...everybody.

Those Waypoints

NOB HILL--If you have time for a stop along the way, you might want to check out the "Waypoints" in the sidebar. Let me highlight a few. I just added Web Sudoku. Unlike the ABQ Journal offering, this site gives answers as well as graded puzzles and tips. You will love it.

"Ivan Diego Knudsen, Realtor" is my son's website. If you need a realtor, give him a call or send him an e-mail. He'll work hard for you.

One of my favorite cartoons in the ABQ Tribune was Boondocks. They took it out of the paper because, according to Editor Phil Casaus, it contained inappropriate material and references. Well, they did put a link to it on their website, and I have a link to it as well. I love that little rascal!

I listed bigblueglobe under Waypoints because at the time Tom was living in McMurdo Sound, Antarctica. It seems he has since moved to Santa Fe. Maybe I'll move him.

Check these out if you get a chance. I am also open to other links in the sidebar, if you have any suggestions. By the way, The New York Times headlines feature may be on the way out. I know they are going to a subscription format for their online newspaper. We will see.

American Life in Poetry: Column 028

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

Although this poem by North Carolina native Ron Rash may seem to be just about trout fishing, it is the first of several poems Rash has written about his cousin who died years ago. Indirectly, the poet gives us clues about this loss. By the end, we see that in passing from life to death, the fish's colors dull; so, too, may fade the memories of a cherished life long lost.


Speckled Trout

Water-flesh gleamed like mica:
orange fins, red flankspots, a char
shy as ginseng, found only
in spring-flow gaps, the thin clear
of faraway creeks no map
could name. My cousin showed me
those hidden places. I loved
how we found them, the way we
followed no trail, just stream-sound
tangled in rhododendron,
to where slow water opened
a hole to slip a line in
and lift as from a well bright
shadows of another world,
held in my hand, their color
already starting to fade.

First published in “Weber Studies,” 1996, and reprinted from “Raising the Dead,” Iris Press, 2002, by permission of the author. Copyright © 1996 by Ron Rash, a writer and professor of Appalachian Cultural Studies at Western Carolina University, whose newest novel is “Saints at the River,” Picador Press, 2005. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.

I Love the Wind

NOB HILL--I love the wind. Not that it sometimes isn't destructive. But I love it because it is simple enough for me to understand. Yet it has become a personal metaphor for much that I don't understand.

Take religion...Christianity anyway. You can't see either the wind or God, but nobody says, "I believe in the wind." You either feel it or you don't. Sometimes you can see the results...like the other night. But most days are calm. Still belief never becomes an issue.

Belief always seems to be the issue in Christianity. Never mind that one either feels the presence of God or not. Beliefs are what allow Christianity to differentiate itself from your ordinary, wilderness wandering, semi-mystical, reverent Nob Hill coffee drinker. That is to say, it is possible to be reverent without being a "believer." And it is certainly obvious that many believers are not reverent. TV today is full of believers spouting anti-gay, anti-environmental, anti-science, anti-thinking pronouncements. Reverent? Only to a set of beliefs, not to life.

I am no theologian. Don't ask me about anything spiritual or religious. Let's just say that sometimes I am humbled by just being alive. Some days I do feel that invisible breath, like the slightest wind, kiss my lips softly. I do not have a belief that fits this. Only a momentary smile.

J-Lo Stalks Martin At Party

NOB HILL--Election night at the Mango_Mansion means everybody has a good time. The Albuquerque Tribune caught it with a fast lens. Here pop singer Ricky Martin, fresh from his recording session at the Joe Monahan Vo-Town Studio, gets a good laugh. He seems to have caught J-Lo's eye. Jennifer dashed up for the Mango_Mosh from her film location in Mexico. Is this a Richard Burton - Liz Taylor type of situation? Is this another "Night of the Iguana" spectacle in the making?

Don't be surprised if there is more to the plot. I say this because the last time I ignored a woman with a prominent man I missed the story.

You Won't Find This Amazing Balloon in the Fiesta...It Uses Hot Water, Not Hot Air

SOUTH VALLEY--The Wanderer Mike Moye ran across a lot of machinery in the street not far from his house. He sent me some pictures and filed this report:

The sewer is being replaced on Goff and San Ignacio. A sink hole had developed and a quick response from the city corrected the dangerous situation. But then an even greater problem was revealed. The aging drainage pipe was in desperate need of repair or replacement.

This contractor is lining the existing pipe with an inflatable liner that when filled with hot water hardens and adheres to the inside of the pipe. The liner is dragged through the pipe from one manhole to another then inflated and filled with hot water. After a section is completed then they move on to the next.

Pretty amazing.

Mike said they are gone this morning. They repaired 3 blocks of sewer pipe in two days.

Pluots and Apriums

NOB HILL--I was down at La Montanita Co-op yesterday looking for a piece of fruit. And there they were: 2 different varieties of pluots. It stopped me cold. What in hell is a pluot? Now I could figure out that they were some sort of plum/apricot combination. But I had questions. For one thing, my Stark Bros. catalog had come this week and I am thinking of ordering a dwarf aprium tree. An aprium is another kind of plum/apricot. And then there is the plumcot, originally invented by Luther Burbank in the early 20th century.

Pluots and apriums are trademarked varieties invented by Floyd and Betty Zaiger. Their firm is called Zaiger Genetics, although NO genetic engineering is involved. The main contribution of the Zaigers has been in the efficiency and innovative structure of their cross-breeding program. Even so, it took 20 years to turn out the first proto-pluots. But now it turns out that the Zaigers are at the forefront of a revolution in the plum and apricot industry, what they call interspecifics, with all kinds of new fruit such as the pluot and aprium coming to market. The hallmark of all these is the enhanced sweetness of the fruit...about 20 - 30% sweeter.

Pluots
Pluots are 70% plum and 30% apricot. They have the smooth skin of a plum, but are sweeter than either a plum or an apricot. There are about 15 varieties and La Montanita Co-op carries at least two of them. Dapple Dandy, considered by many to be the best tasting of all pluots, is selling for the attention-grabbing price of 5 bucks a pound.

Apriums
Apriums have the fuzzy skin of an apricot with some of the sweetness and juiciness of a plum. The Stark Bros. catalog says they are 75% apricot, 25% plum. Now that sounds pretty good. I think I'll order one. The price from Stark Bros. is $21.99 for the dwarf size. Their "supreme dwarf," a larger pre-pruned super-straight tree, sells for $28.99.

By the way, I love Stark Bros. nursery. This spring I ordered 4 trees and 3 varieties of grapes. They were all bareroot plants. All are doing super. And in fact the grapes are actually doing better that the potted grape plant I purchased at the same time from Rowland's. Also, for ordering that much I got as a free gift 10 everbearing strawberry plants which have grown and filled in my whole raised bed with the healthiest, most luscious looking plants imaginable.