Tag: Shackleton

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07/10/2022 eeeee!!

Five Coryphantha sulcata from Montana!!!
Eleven in this tray.
You can see the roots!!
Another one with roots.
“What are you doing to my favorite window perch?”
Five in the last tray.
A few here were somehow upside down. We’ll see if they make it!
One upside down in a pot with plastic wrap. I think the food containers with clear lids are the way to go. Seven days from planting to sprouting. About 50 seeds, 23 up so far.
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07/05/2022

Baby cushaw squash!
Recovering from removal of benign sebaceous cysts is more complicated than either of us expected.
Purple hulled pinkeye cowpea.
I really like the little signs Paula got me for Christmas. They stand out well.
A gray hairstreak on a Madhu ras canteloupe flower.
Paula’s Coryphantha sulcata is blooming!
In fact, it has two. She says it had six earlier this year too.
New tiny moth – a spotted thyris!
Bee butt in loofah gourd.
Paula made Thai green curry for dinner. It contains last year’s garden white currant tomatoes (from frozen, so that works well), garden onions, and garden walking onions.
The Texas buckeye is very angry. I put a hose out to soak there. Jeanne has let me know the wild ones do this too, so maybe it will recover.
Possibly purple prairie clover from free packet from prairiemoon.com?
A second round of standing cypress flowers on a different plant.
A volunteer Carolina snailseed in the front yard.
Will Rogers Zinnias are looking good in the rainbow garden.
Briar loves escorting Shackleton for a walk.
Shackleton doesn’t know why we have to ruin a good thing by bringing the dog.
We were about to go back inside, but she got up and scooted closer. He turned to glare while she got a treat for laying down.
Shackleton says no eye contact.
Here you can pretend there is no dog, only lush, succulent grass and corn.
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06/28/2022

The accidental shot of the week. I didn’t notice this bee kicking a wasp off its foot until I looked at the photo later!
The bumblebee is feeding on Echinacea purpurea.
Front of the bumblebee face is yellow.
A zoomed in shot. The short overall hairs, all yellow on thorax and head, smoky dark wings, and minimal color on abdomen have led me to think it may be Bombus griseocollis, the brown-belted bumblebee. I have entered the sighting and photos on Bumble Bee Watch’s community science website where they can verify or correct this identification. This would be our fourth bumblebee species for the yard if I have identified it correctly. 🤞🤞
I found a second partridge pea plant blooming in the “prairie”!
An all orangish solider beetle on a Rudbeckia flower.
Shackleton the cat enjoyed hiding in brown crinkly paper. He has such big eyes!
Paula is experimenting with kombucha fermentation thanks to a culture from Abby. This is the first sample and contains a garden strawberry for added flavor. It was good!
Briar helps us observe bees out front. I’ll do a separate post with evening bees if any pics turned out.
A baby moon and stars watermelon!!
A baby praying mantis on the mint!
Paula and I weeded the orange and red section of the rainbow garden. It has a lot of invasive grass in it.
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06/11/2022

The Chef made no bake lemon curd/ cheesecake layered parfaits with homemade whipped cream, farm share blueberries, and homemade granola for a garden tour.
Prepared the night before in the fridge.
Perfect for the tropically humid day.
A wasp carrying a caterpillar
Spittlebug
Hello Tuqu
This young man.
Two Texas dandelions from home! White specks are elderberry petals.
Bee fly
Possibly a baby Grindelia leaf??
A second Coryphantha sulcata seedling came up!!!!!
Lace bug (Tineidae) on giant ragweed leaf.
Nobody home…
…except for this crab spider!
My keeled treehoppers have a big family!!
Soooo manyyyyyy
Shackleton and Briar disagree about social distancing.
A nice jumping spider.
It’s on a houseplant that is outside for the summer.
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06/03/2022

Lyre leaf sage sprouting where I have sprinkled it in front yard.
Who’s this lurking in the buffalo grass?
Shackleton of course!  He persuaded the Chef to go outside.
The Chef decided it was so nice out we walked to Braum’s for dinner.
Then we walked to the duck pond and saw some geese and their baby goslings!
Close up of the babies.
There were a lot of winecups around the duck pond! Great to see.
Possibly smells nice too? The end.
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06/02/2022

New book in the mail! The Social Wasps of North America by Chris Alice Kratzer. It looks very useful.
Awards for bravery all around tonight. Shacks walked right past Briar and she stayed put.
Purple coneflower finally opening up!
Ironweed is budding, seems early??
This is one of two dill seedlings in the herb bed.
Pretty sure now that this is the Mexican sage from Judy.
Whoa, standing cypress about to bloom!
The just-planted two leaf senna doing okay.
The older two leaf senna seems to have gotten nibbled. I’ll have to consider if I should put some Vaseline around it against earwigs or a wire cage over it maybe for rabbits.
A non native moss rose (Portulaca). Dog behind.

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05/30/2022 holiday Monday

A megachilid bee on Gaillardia pulchella (blanket flower or firewheel).
I repotted the lemon balm into a clay pot so I could use its plastic one. In the upper left I also put one winecup in the very long tall head shaped pot. The root system was starting to escape the sprouting cells so I should probably plant its friends soon too.
I needed a lot of medium to large plastic pots to put showy evening primrose (here in middle) and Maximilian sunflower (next pic) in actual soil.
These are the Maximilian sunflowers I’ve been pulling from the prairie area, where the main plant we moved was last winter. I was storing them to give away in a tub of water and soil, but they were looking sad, so I figured it was time for potting. There’s so many they are crowded, but whoever takes them can separate them out. They seem very, very hardy.
While I had my hands dirty I repotted the ashy sunflower (Helianthus mollis). I figure it can get much bigger in this pot, and then we can plant it in late summer to overwinter in its final location (to be decided).
Someone (tail end pictured…) Kept wanting to bark at our fine feline friends in the plant window. So I made it less convenient.