Mystery flower greets the sun

The first of the mystery plants greeted the morning with a bright yellow flower. A male flower. When the female flowers appear, they’ll have mini-proto-fruits at the bottom, and we’ll finally have the best clue as to what the mystery plants are.

Cicadas are heard more than seen

I hear cicadas buzzing every warm day, but hardly ever see them. The closest I get is their discarded shells, on the ground, on a branch, on a wall. They live as larvae in the ground, growing to fat nymphs, and when they mature, they crawl up and shed their old selves.

Fresh as a wind-picked pear

Did you know storms can pick fresh fruit? It’s true. All you have to do is wrap netting around the tree to catch it. Irene was kind enough to knock this one loose. So that’s one pear harvested successfully, two to go.

The butterflies after the storm

There’s nothing quite like the clear weather that comes after a good storm. The sky seems extra blue, urging you to look up. That’s how I saw a kettle of hawks migrating this morning. Five or six hawks were wheeling around each other, steadily moving in a southerly direction. The bees were back to business […]

Storm has been duly weathered

The tomato plant has a couple broken branches, but that’s about it. Someone’s broken tree branch came aground on the sidewalk in front of the house, but I have no idea where it came from. Mostly we spent the day pretty much the way these sparrows did: hunkering down in a safe place and chittering […]

Enjoy the storm

We’ve had two bands of showers pass through so far, and now it’s quiet. There’s a pot of braised short ribs in the oven. Windows are shut. The stray bits outside are collected. We’re just waiting for the real Irene to storm through overnight.

Might be a good time to plant fall vegetables

Late summer, July, August, is about when I start thinking it’s a good time to plant some fall crops. There’s a whole list from broccoli to carrots that are supposed to grow quickly in the warmth and rain, which lets you get another harvest in. But I never look at the list any more. I […]

It’s a solar powered grasshopper

Okay, so it’s just a grasshopper sitting on a solar powered garden light. But isn’t he pretty? And doesn’t he eat grass? And doesn’t the grass consume sunlight? But then, if you look at it that way, everything is solar powered.

I might get to pick an apple soon!

Hard to believe I only planted apple trees last spring. Both are still scrawny little things, but one tree is bearing fruit already. One beautiful little apple, almost ready to pick.

I could grouse and carp about the Hugos, but I won’t

The Hugo awards were announced last Saturday, while I was sleeping off the effects of my hard work at Blues N Brews. And if you compare the winners to how I cast my ballot, you can probably infer how I feel about the whole process. But I’ll talk about it a little anyway.