Bean counting highlights

Paula and I sorted and weighed yesterday’s harvest.  Look at these beauties!  They were our favorites of each variety. Inca pea beans are maroon and white in the middle. Clockwise from the top are Alabama blackeye butter lima bean (the big flat white ones), slippery silk (pink ones), California blackeye cowpeas (whitish, not glossy), greasy grits (speckled tan), vaquero (moo cow pattern), and bolas maycoba (creamy color).

Garden clean up

Another Peruvian ground cherry finally ripened!! They seem to be a late year fruit. I hope it’s just the plants are big enough and not a day length sensitivity.
A standard ground cherry. Paula pointed out the lovely net effect on the husk. We found several like it.
True bugs!!!! There were dozens, grumpy we disturbed them. We put the leaves back after we got the ground cherries we were there for. Left some for them and next year’s seeding too.
The Chef was busy too.

Last bits of vacation last week

Common persimmon tree. A native with edible fruit! Yum! I will try to sprout some.
Yum. Gracie likes to eat fallen ripe persimmons.
Mom served blackberry cobbler with homemade no churn ice cream too.
A different day: leftover juice and berries from the cobbler with shortbread and whipping cream.
Judy gave me this Mexican sage which Paula helped me plant as soon as I got home last Saturday.
Good vacation but time to hit the road!
Reunited!!!! I am informed the cat was profoundly lonesome, clingy, and annoying in the absence of his big sister.

Last week Nov. 12 hike, no dogs

Gracie needed a rest so Mom and I went out to the Grasslands sans dogs last Friday.  My home ecosystem! You can see Mom’s photos on her blog in two parts (posts start Nov. 14 and then there is a second one after).

This Escobaria vivipara cactus is surrounded by babies!!
Without my silly human finger.
Escobaria missouriensis has red fruit.
Native white honeysuckle bush has red fruit too!
Great Spreadwings have big yellow stripes on the thorax.  This set of ravines and seeps has always been a reliable place to find them.
Looking up out of the ravine at the surrounding red oaks.
Mom showed me her exciting find of this 6+ foot tall waterfall with travertine stalactites, maidenhair ferns (zoom in to find), and frostweed (at front edge of picture).
On the way back up the ravine I saw this tiny pokey spider.  Gasteracantha cancriformis.
It was steep!