On work-from-home days Jeff is sometimes able to step out to the barn for a few minutes while a task bar hums away, and this is often the result.
Between the donkey’s quivering lips, the goat’s butting, the sheeps’ yearning and the cow’s searching tongue, he did not stay over long. Sharks- they’re all sharks.
When the person you proofread novels for asks you to a Halloween costume party, is it a perk or extra duty? I got rid of most of the dress up box a few years ago, only keeping the few things that were in really good shape or hard to replace. Knowing the age and style of the usual crowd at Donna’s gatherings, there was a good chance no one would actually dress up. It would likely be very similar to her other book release parties. Donna writes historical romance mystery novels as a retirement hobby. Her newest one is set in the gilded age around the turn of the century and among the costume pieces I kept was the curly yellow wig that Nana crocheted years ago…
…add bit of lace pinned to a white blouse, some fake beads, a long skirt and a shawl turned into a sash, and I was Tiffy Rose, heroine of Death on Jekyl Island, released only last week. The old rabbit stole was also still in the dress-up box, so I wore that as my coat, of course, and stuffed a clean, white handkerchief in the matching muff just in case. Donna’s heroines are always being offered a ‘clean white handkerchief’ by the hero.
As it turned out, a few others did dress up- there were a few witches, a gypsy and a twinkie- but Nana’s wig was enough on its own to win the popular vote and Donna was tickled by the whole concept.
I’d say it was mostly a perk. 🙂
Yes, that is a good band name. Yes, I have a purple kazoo horn. No, I have not been allowed to bring it to a soccer game. Instead, I torture the animals with it.
It is not actually necessary to blow the horn in order to torment them. All we have to do is pick it up for Tansy and Joy to skitter away. Adam is, of course, the master of the kazoo horn. He has some innate understanding of it that the rest of us do not. He found a kazoo in Grammie’s dress-up closet when he was tiny and immediately got more sound out of it than any of the adults.
The high school soccer team has gotten to round three of the playoffs. They weren’t really expecting to be there at all and now have to go play the number one seed Monday. It is tempting to bring the horn to cheer with in spite of Adam’s objections. He would know it was me if he heard it, though, and he’d have to correct my technique.
Someone didn’t get the message. A praying mantis would normally place her ootheca on something a little sturdier than a celery stalk. The eggs are well protected in their hardened spray foam, but they do need to last through the winter before all the hundreds of teeny little instars can hatch.
Every fall I go around and dig up volunteer saplings from the flower beds and transplant them to where we want more trees. Some are easier to identify than others. I am quite familiar with the mulberries, ashes and maples and oaks that regularly volunteer. Some show up less often but are still easily recognizable like catalpa and redbud. Others are tougher to identify when young. It wasn’t until I scraped a root and smelled the characteristic odor that I was positive my suspected walnut was who I thought it was. I am almost sure this one is some kind of willow, but is not the kind of willow we already have and I don’t know how it could have found its way to the porch door.
And there’s this guy. It has been growing under the recently removed dead crabapple for a couple of seasons. I can see where I previously cut it back. It is not likely we will be able to transplant it but knowing how large it might get will determine whether or not it is allowed to continue right at the corner of the driveway. I just can’t seem to identify it even after breaking out the dichotomous tree key.
While attempting identification, I found an unfamiliar caterpillar on the sapling. Many insects are associated with particular plants so there was a chance that the bug would point me in the right direction with respect to my mystery tree.
Of course, I was not able to identify the caterpillar either. It is definitely a Schizura, either the larva of aUnicorn Prominent moth, or that of a Morning Glory Prominent moth (also known as the False Unicorn). Either way, they eat aspen, oak, maple, hickory, birch, willow…
You never know where this sort of thing will take you. I did not succeed in identifying my tree sapling or my caterpillar, but I did learn that larvae of the genus Schizura have a large gland behind the head that produces “a mixture of formic and acetic acids along with lipophilic (fat-loving) compounds” which the caterpillar can spray with accuracy up to six inches away. The lipophilic compounds help the spray spread over the skin and the acids raise blisters. Huh. Good to know for next time.
No comments were made on this post. Clearly I am the only one who still has The Princess Bride mostly memorized…
Inigo: Who are you?
Wesley: No one of consequence.
Inigo: I must know.
Wesley: Get used to dissapointment…
Sometimes it is not just invasive plants that take over and make one frustrated. Devil’s beggarticks (stick-tights, tickseeds, old-lady’s-clothespins…), Bidens frondosa, is a North American native wildflower that has been driving me insane lately. It is not bothersome until it sets seed. It is small and unobtrusive for a long time until it flowers at the end of summer. It gets small, yellow, composite flowers which seem just as friendly as any other flower until…
… that pretty, unobtrusive, little yellow flower turns into a prickle bomb that lurks in the background of vision, waiting to embed a multitude of two-barbed achenes into every single piece of clothing I am wearing and sometimes even my hair. Each plant can produce around a thousand of these dry, one-seeded fruits.
My Book of Field and Roadside quotes Thoreau describing the experience of finding you have walked through beggar-ticks “as if you had unconsciously made your way through the ranks of some countless but invisible Lilliputian army which in their great anger had discharged all their arrows and darts at you, though none of them reached higher than your legs.”
The plant usually grows up to three feet tall. I am lucky. I have some growing up through the fence at the back of the garden that are taller than me.
A few days ago, one of the critters knocked down the hayrack I bodged together out of a small skid some six or so years ago. I didn’t see it and no one was hurt in the process, but I did have to find a replacement.
Since we started with goats, everything in the barn was set up with them in mind. They like to graze high, above their heads if possible, using their front feet to brace and get even higher. The hay racks are (were) both a good two feet off the floor at the base and when we had kids, we would put little steps underneath so they could climb up and reach which suited everyone just fine. Sheep are more inclined to eat low. They are certainly able to use the hay racks mounted high on the wall, but they also tend to accumulate even more chaff in their wool that way than they would otherwise, especially when they move underneath the rack.
The conkey likes to graze low as well, so the plan has been that, eventually, with the transition to sheep we would lower the hayracks. It did not seem to make sense, therefore, to put the same rack in the same place again, even if I could repair it. Instead, I set about coming up with a new, lower system. I suppose I could have found plans somewhere complete with dimensions and a materials list, but I didn’t. I stared at the old one and the spot where it had been and then at the animals. I browsed through a few pictures and took the last remaining good timber from the old chicken coop out to the barn. I decided to make a free-standing rack this time instead of one hanging on the wall. There was a remnant of plywood in the garage that seemed about the right size for a base. Some more staring gave me the height off the floor I wanted and measuring the one purchased rack in the barn gave me the height of the rack itself. Back out in the yard with some treats and a ruler, and I was able to guess about how far apart the slats should be to support hay and still allow the maximum variety of schnozzes through. I think the height turned out to be a little more than I actually wanted. I was picturing sheep eating from the sides and conkey from the top. That was OK, though, they would be fine eating from the sides like everyone else.
It wasn’t until I put it in place that I realized that I had not made a hayrack, but the most hideous baby crib in the world, possibly more appropriate as a prop in some Halloween B movie than in a barn.
Luckily Eunice was on hand to inspect it and put it to use. It looks much better with hay in it and a goat eating from it.
Last night, Maria and I sat around a dying fire, watching the embers and talking, reluctant to call it a night. We had marshmallows left over from this summer, but no graham crackers or chocolates. Maria likes marshmallows. She roasted a few jumbo ones and ate at least one raw. I roasted one, but after just a taste I knew I did not want to eat it. I offered it to Maria who declined, saying she’d had enough. Joy wandered over a few minutes later, looking curiously at the gooey marshmallow in my hand. I offered it to her, and she took a small, tentative bite, taking it a few feet away to eat it, wiping her face over and over with her leg after. She came over again, and again, getting stickier all the time. She seemed to be unsure she really wanted the last two bites but came back for them anyway. By the time she finished she had marshmallow on her face, legs and feet. She raced around the yard while we close up, collecting leaves on the sticky bits. When we finally came in, she crashed so hard she never even joined me at bedtime.
After too many weeks without a drop, it finally rained last night. Many of the plants on the property had been suffering for a while. Hopefully this will be enough to keep them going until we get a little more.
It was not until eagerly anticipating the predicted showers yesterday that I realized the vegetable garden did not need it nearly as much as the rest of the property. It actually did not seem to be suffering at all in spite of the dry conditions. The only difference I can think of is all of the manure and compost and grass mulch that regularly gets dumped in there to soften the native clay. In the rest of the yard, the ground is cracked and hard, but not in the garden. It must be the power of poo.
I joked about needing more cows to amend the soil elsewhere on the property, but immediately backed off. One is already more cows than we ever intended to have. We are, as Maria put it, at maximum cowpacity.
One of the best yields this year, through no fault of mine it seems, has been the leeks. I have grown them before, with varying degrees of success. They seem to be another example of how the right circumstances promote flourishing, in all of its possible and very complicated variables.
Whatever it was that led to a good leek year, we are enjoying the results. our first batch of potato leek soup came off the stove this past weekend. I admit to looking forward to it the way I do fresh strawberries or lettuce. The first year I had access to an immersion blender, I might have made it a bit too often. Potatoes + leeks + salt + milk + blender = magic. Top it with cheese, croutons, pepper flakes, nutmeg, whatever you like. Fantastic.
The interesting thing about growing leeks myself is that I really don’t have to do much to clean them. A fair-winning perfect leek should have several inches of pure white growth before branching into green leaves. This is achieved by heaping them up with sand as they grow, and the cook then needs to swirl the sliced leeks in a bowl of water then let them float to allow the blanching sand and grit fall out.
I heaped mine early in the season with a mulch of grass clippings, but did not keep them as a mulching priority and mostly let them grow on their own. They did a decent job of blanching themselves. The white parts have a bit of green striping, but that does not ruin the leek in any way. The soup was so yummy that there have been requests for more. I don’t think they will take my immersion blender away from me for a while yet.
EICIE 