Category: FRIENDS

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07/10/2022 purple

Paula tried one of our Purple Beauty Peppers and found it to be not very sweet, more green bell pepper taste still, and after looking online I think I picked them too early. Needs to be fully, deeply purple. I was worried about sunscald though (see the big tan area on the top one). They’ll still be good to use though.
The William’s Pride apple continues to get a flush of red. It’s hot out, me too!
I thought this grasshopper was really pretty. Not sure I’ve seen one like it before. We have lots of predator insects and birds in the yard so a few grasshoppers are no harm and lots of food for our other wild friends!
Zucchini begins.
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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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Change of procedure

I have finally succumbed to inaturalist.org. I am putting the yard non-planted-plants list on it, i.e. anything I didn’t plant (critters, fungi, volunteer plants). So, for now, the mediocre critter pictures (as well as the good ones) from the yard will go there, and I will only put the arty or really exciting ones on the blog (plus field trip ones). Less work for me. There is an RSS feed in the blog sidebar with the most recent critters, as well as a link directly to all yard observations. I might also link to individual iNat sightings if I’m feeling wild. Vegetable and food sightings will continue apace on the blog.

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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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06/27/2022

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.
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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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06/25/2022 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.