Posted on July 2, 2022July 2, 202207/02/2022 pasta dish Pasta sauce contains garden garlic and garden onions and the pesto on top is with our basil.
Posted on July 1, 2022July 1, 202207/01/2022 winning sweet millions is scary Sweet million variety tomato, that is. I was going to pose Shackleton with tomatoes but apparently they were alarming. He went from dozing to high alert.
Posted on June 28, 2022June 29, 202206/28/2022 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.
Posted on June 27, 2022June 27, 202206/26/2022 kimchi pancake dinner Paula made dinner with kimchi pancakes (with plum sauce) and egg foo young on rice to go with it. Cilantro from the garden is garnishing all of it, plus the kimchi contains walking onions. Red cabbage kimchi makes a mess. More walking onions from the garden here.
Posted on June 27, 2022June 27, 202206/27/2022 A paper wasp flies to mealy blue sage. Using the two new wasp books, we narrowed it down to three species of Polistes: dorsalis, bellicosus, or fuscatus. I’ll look this wasp up tomorrow in the pollinator wasps book. It was going in and out of the hollow dead branch. The native black currant is ripening! Pizza with garden basil, garden onions, garden garlic.
Posted on June 27, 2022June 27, 202206/27/2022 a single giant clove This giant garlic got mixed in with the onions.
Posted on June 26, 2022June 26, 202206/26/2022 sleepy yard day Partridge pea blooming. A big skipper caught my attention this morning. I think it may be a Confused Cloudywing or an Outis Skipper. The pale ish area below the antennal club is why I think maybe Outis Skipper, but I also get the impression that one is rarer, so I wonder if I’m missing something obvious that makes it a cloudywing. Both have been recorded in Cleveland county, Oklahoma though. Saw a two spotted bumblebee on mealy blue sage again! The juniperleaf cuttings have started to perk up and poke at the plastic wrap, so I am unsealing them a bit to see if they can handle less humidity yet. Silly sleep
Posted on June 26, 202206/25/2022 mysterious new friend Abby kindly identified this new sprawling but small plant as green carpetweed (Mollugo verticillata). It reminds me of bedstraw but is not sticky. According to Wikipedia, it is a spreading annual, but has been found in North America for at least 3,000 years. So its status is a bit mysterious as native or invasive. So, for now I think I’ll let it grow and see if it suits this patch of the garden. Two Sachems were resting on dayflower leaves. You can just barely see the back one’s face. Three sharpshooter plant hoppers on a giant ragweed stem at night.
Posted on June 25, 2022June 25, 202206/25/2022 spittlebug A two lined spittlebug hanging out on one of my ceramic mushrooms. Mom and Dad gave them to me a long time ago.
Posted on June 25, 2022June 25, 202206/25/2022 fluttermill harvest I love the fluttermill primrose seed pods. Their four “paddles” split apart when pulled to reveal seeds inside in four channels. Most pods had seeds. Some just had some shriveled little specks fall out which I assume were seeds that didn’t get fertilized.