Looking out my Backdoor - Double bubble toil and trouble

In these perilous times, we must make our own fun. In the interests of pleasure and economy, aided by an unusual (to me) scientific bent, I set out to boil up some chemical experiments.

A huge tree with giant orange flowers lifts arms to the sky just outside my northern wall, an African tulip tree, common in Jalisco. I gathered a bowl of fallen flowers, dumped them into a large pot of boiling water.

What I hope for is a natural dye, a color in light shade of brown, to dye a pair of white cotton pants. I’ve tried the powdered dye available in farmacias in town to mottled results.

If I want brow...