Tag: Briar

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Catch-up on dinners

Couscous, roasted chicken, and roasted okra from farm share.
Noodles with sauce, I forget what kind, but it has garden onions and garden purple bell peppers in it.
Cheesy grits with farm share tomatoes, roast chicken, and roast okra.
Briar knows about the roast chicken. Mostly farm share veggies here, I can’t remember if garden onions involved?
Not sure if Shackleton is here for the chair or the chicken smells.
A veggie and chicken omelet with couscous and cilantro. Veggies included garden onions and garden purple bell peppers.
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Supervisory bonding time

Wednesday around 4pm, Gram began snuggling the back of the dog.
She’s had an undignified two weeks in an inflatable cone to keep her from bothering incisions for benign sebaceous cyst removal. So, she’ll be fine, we just have to make it ’til stitch removal.
I think she’s learning the rule: you do not disturb the cat.
Gram moved to a much cozier cat-sized spot.
By 6pm on Thursday he made himself at home. Two hours is a new record for them! He hasn’t been snuggly since last winter.
Thursday we discovered him snuggling his big sister again.
Friday: “oh hey it’s Big Sister…”
Go for it!
Happy siblings. I hope this becomes regular. They’ve always played a lot but both have been a bit jumpy around snuggles before.
I accidentally interrupted it by taking the dog outside, but I brought her back in with a sun-warmed tail and that was quite acceptable.
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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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07/03/2022 daisies

Briar had minor surgery last Monday and is recovering well, but still needs her safety donut to not lick her stitches. She continues to enjoy lounging on her patch of buffalograss and squishing the Englemann daisies.
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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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06/26/2022 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
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06/23/2022

The second Coryphantha sulcata seedling seems to have died, but the original is getting longer.
Another two spotted bumblebee (Bombus bimaculatus) visited the mealy blue sage today!
There was only one but I took a lot of angles. You can see the two spots if you zoom in.
In flight you get the best view of spots.
I liked the pollinating wasp zooming through in this picture.
Baby mantis!
I believe this is a baby red yucca, as that’s what I planted here, and it seems too sturdy to be grass.
A big ol mydas fly in the backyard!!
The native clematis likes its new sunnier spot about 20 ft to the west. It already has two or three new leaves!
I weeded the strawberry/honey berry bed but got called in for dinner when there was still a patch left. Maybe tomorrow.
I found a second pale zig zaggy spider in the backyard. Looking at it closer, I think it’s the wrong pattern and shape for Argiope aurantica, the usual banana spider.
Filling up the bird bath intrigued the dog.
African blue basil has flowers!
One of the many marigolds in the raised beds (we mixed the old seedheads and plants in over the winter) is beginning to flower!
The corn is going to town! A vaquero bean is flowering!
A fine little bell pepper!!
Cooling off after gardening with the mysterious Paper Protozoan. Note the hairy flagellum sticking out.
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06/21/2022

Gram guards the rooting juniperleaf.
There’s a new pollinator garden on campus!!
Very pleased at least one of the partridge pea seeds I sprinkled last year made it up.
Paper wasps made a nest on the debris of the invasive clematis.
A small lynx spider eats a fly
Just noticed that the long true bugs have little flat pom poms on their antennae.
A second individual. I think you have to see them from the right angle to get a good view of the antennae spots.
Dog
A helpful cat saw this wasp (maybe a spider wasp?) In the aloe and knocked the pot over.
I took it outside and shooed the friend off. No dinner in the house for it. Only cat.
I spotted a plume moth hiding on rain barrel stand.
Potatoes in straw bale getting big. Hope roots are too.
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06/19/2022

Will Rogers Zinnias came back true.
A little Solanaceae volunteered in the rainbow garden.
It conveniently has a yellow flower.
Paula started a batch of kimchi fermenting. Walking onions for the green onion.
Who is this
This friend not want to play