Surely, this is the most comical animal I have ever owned. You guys all know the story. You know I never intended to have a miniature cow. I do not, however, regret her for a minute. She is hilarious! Her 2ft snaking tongue is just the beginning.
She makes dogs look like polite Victorians in the toot department. She snores. She gets very excited when she sees the brush and forces herself between me and anyone I might be brushing first. She gets terrified when she sees Patsy’s lead, possibly because she associates it with the TRAILER RIDE she had to take to get here. She drools. A lot. Her nose is ALWAYS wet. And she makes the most ridiculous faces.
She makes me think of the Sandra Boynton/Five for Fighting “Penguin Lament”…
“Can anyone small be anyone serious?… I’M SERIOUS!”
We have lived in this house nine years now, and have not done a whole lot to the interior besides painting upstairs. All of our projects have been fencing, outbuilding, planting, etc. We have come to the stage, however, when we can no longer ignore the collapsing kitchen cabinets and threadbare living room carpet.
Wall to wall carpet is icky. It may not be that bad for people who don’t spend much time outside or live with any animals besides fish, but that is not the case here. (EICIE!) Hardwood is ideal, but a little out of our reach, so we will be replacing it with engineered wood.
Open doorways mean the other floors are all effected as well. It is very difficult to work in just one room here. That means the kitchen floor also gets replaced. We are not going to replace the kitchen floor and keep the footprint that stupid flow-chopping peninsula the former owners put in. That means the cabinets have to be replaced. That means it is also an appropriate time to replace the range that decides to flip out on occasion- mostly while preparing holiday feasts- and seize up, flashing “probe” and beeping unless turned off at the breaker. That means a new range, and Jeff has always been of the opinion that replacement is the time to upgrade. So, it will be an induction cooktop. I will be cooking with magnets, which is weird but very efficient and safe according to what I have read. It only produces heat when in contact with ferrous metal. That means I will no longer be able to keep my pot of tea warm on the residual heat from the inefficient electric cooktop. And,that means:
my teapot needs a sweater. It will look good perched on a sleek, modern stainless steel unit, don’t you think? 🙂
Well, actually, the best thing about spiders is how the ones who camp out in the house eat all the other bugs who try to camp out in the house.
The second best thing about spiders is how long they sit still, allowing for a clumsy person to take as long as she needs to get her camera to focus on the amazing way the low autumn morning sun is highlighting every single hair on their bodies.
My sheep are insane. I know this. They love me and I love them and I am allowed to scratch their cheeks or pick hay flecks from their wool for as long as the other barn residents allow, but if I attempt to trim their hooves or shear their wool, or handle them in any way that restricts their opportunities to escape, they cannot stand it and it is all I can do to hold them in place. Or not.
And yet, there is nothing so soothing as watching the sheep when they are at rest. Tension simply drains away and the blood pressure drops.
Seth likes to lie with his chin on something, and if it happens to be his snuggly mother, all the better.
Their wool makes the comfiest socks, too. While not quite soft enough to be worn directly on more tender skin, cheviot is sufficiently soft for feet. It also has a unique ‘helical crimp’ that gives the wool a resilience and spring ideal for sock knitting. Before Maria left, I was able to make her two pairs (and a spare single) of squishy, cozy socks out of the wool she used for her dyeing project this summer. Between the two of us, we sheared, carded, spun, dyed and knitted these at home- sheep to sock. For some reason, that makes them feel even cozier.
Maria has always liked mismatching her socks, so not having enough of a given color for two was not a problem for her.
Saving seeds from winter squash is very easy. Open squash, pull out seeds, dry and store. Easy. But there’s a catch. Squashes interbreed readily between species and each species include many varieties that we think of as distinct from one another but are very closely related: zucchini and acorn squash, for instance.
I like to save seed whenever I can, partly because I am a cheapskate, but also because I then have seed that has already proven successful in my growing environment. To save seed from squash, however, means only growing one of that species if the intention is to have the same kind of squash again next year. I generally don’t save seeds from my zucchini and other summer squash, but it is the cross-pollination that we are worried about here, so that uses up the Cucurbita pepo slot.
If I am growing pumpkins, I like to go for a C. maximus. Some pumpkins are C. pepo, so it is important to have a starting seed identified by species. I have grown Cinderella pumpkins before with success, but none showed up this year. Except one- in the barnyard where it volunteered and grew out from under the goat deck. I had been wondering one day last week when they were going to notice and if they would wait for the fruits to ripen. I got my answers that very same night: 1. now, 2. no. There is no trace of the plant left at this point.
I also had no luck with my C. angyosperma selection this year. The white crookneck seems to be picky about where it grows and how much moisture it gets. They are huge squash and are fun to feed to the livestock, but like the pumpkins, they were a no show in the neglected garden.
I always grow butternut squash because that is the main ingredient in one of our favorite winter soups. Trombonchino has been in the garden the last two years as well, but I did not mind having these two C. moschata because they both share that rich butternut flavor in a slightly different shape. The butternut is a bit chunkier, more pear-shaped, and the trombonchino is long and curvy. If anything, I thought the butternut might bulk up the trombonchino or the t. add a bit more neck back into my saved butternut.
None of this serves to satisfactorily explain my most successful squash of this season:
I have no idea what this is. I would have thought that a cross of my two moschatas would at least have some kind of neck. Is a volunteer pumpkin involved somewhere? The leaves are definitely more pumpkin than butternut. I hope it is not spaghetti squash. A little of that goes a long way with my crew and I only ever tried to grow it for my mom. Do spaghetti squash get that big? The whole question is exacerbated by the fact that my planting record has disapeared into thin air. I thought I tried to plant butternut there, but let’s face it- I have not been at the top of my game this summer. If it tastes good, I may decide to keep it, but then I will have a squash whose species- and future crossing potential- is unknown.
This post is inspired by the praying mantis sitting on the screen of the kitchen window again. I have no way of being absolutely sure it is the same individual (short of splashing some of my paintwork that way), but there has been a mantis in that exact spot several mornings of late. I suspect it is hanging out in the virginia creeper that we have allowed to climb the south wall of the house and feasting on everything else that likes to hide there. The first time I saw one up close was many years ago, but memorable. It was eating a roach it held in both front legs and munching from end to end like a person eating ribs.
While moving the remaining old strawberries from the overgrown patch to a new plot this spring, Maria found a whole caseful of newly hatched mantises and at least a few have stuck around. I have become used to making sure what I am about to pick is actually a green bean and not a green mantid abdomen.
When the dill gets tall and leggy, the black swallowtail caterpillars come. They have the most hilarious defense mechanism wherein they curl their heads back and shoot out a forked, fleshy protuberance called an osmeterium (there’s a vocabulary word for you, Adam.) It is supposed to be foul and stinky and repel whatever might be attcking it. Unfortunately for the caterpillar, I do not find it repellent and cannot help but play with the first one I see each season. The milkweed caterpillars are just as pretty if not as entertaining. They are often not big enough for a busy person to notice until after the milkweed has bloomed its loveliest and looks like maybe it should be cut down. My best patch of milkweed volunteered right outside the living room window- convenient for easy viewing.
The third picture is of a Common Pondhawk dragonfly. I had to look that up. I had not seen one of these before. Apparently the emerald green color means it is either a female or a young male because the mature males develop to a dusky blue. It is sitting in the barn bedding I dump on the garden in a desperate attempt to not so much control weeds as keep them from eating my vegetables before I can.
And then, as my final justification for not being always on top of everything going on in the yard, I give you… whatever is going on here:
Adam broke the big toe on his right foot during soccer practice, and has been out for four weeks with the injury. The team’s first game of the season was scheduled for a few days after. It has been a challenge for him to be patient and heal while watching from the sideline. It all paid off in his first game back on Saturday. He was in for two quarters on defense and performed well, but the play that will stick in everyone’s mind came in the second half when he took a free kick from the midfield sideline, put it right on net AND SCORED.
It was a blustery day, and the wind may have helped a bit- the announcer credited it with the assist- but it was still a score for the defense. The only thing better is a goalie goal.
His foot was a bit sore at the end of the 2-0 win, but he did not care.
I have had songbirds crash into the house before, but this is no songbird.
There has been a whole kettle circling low overhead today, with much protest from our resident pair of hawks. Nonetheless I did not expect to see one of them quite this close. The poor dippy young thing hit so hard it scraped its nose. It made no protest as I moved it to the shade to recover. Hopefully there will be no turkey vulture under the maple tree later when I go out to check.
UPDATE: A little while after I posted this, Maria called demanding more details and asked if the vulture was still there. I had put it under the tree right outside the big kitchen window, and as I walked over to check, it heard me talking to her and took off, with big, deliberate wing flaps. I cannot say I expect such a one to live a long and fruitful life, but it did not end today.
EICIE 