This Week in Flora and Fauna

Notice the rabbit-proof fence in the upper right.

We have a bald female cardinal in the yard.

The first hummingbird moth (clear wing moth) of the year. It was moving so fast it was hard to get a good image.

The first hummingbird moth (clear wing moth) of the year. It was moving so fast it was hard to get a good image.

Carrot Harvest

It was a blistering hot day today. It reached 93°  F with not a cloud in the sky until late afternoon. That did stop us from  pulling our carrots, though.

 

All in all we had around 5 pounds of carrots. That’s not a great deal, but it is good for us. Some will be frozen. Some will go into a carrot cake, and some will be eaten, either raw or cooked like dinner this evening.

We roasted our root veggies for a wonderfully savory dish.

Savory Roasted Root Vegetables

• Preheat oven to 400°
• Two turnips, cubed
• One onion, cut into wedges
• Ten small carrots, if using fresh, or 3 or four if store-bought, cut into inch long sections
• One large potato, largely cubed.
• Salt, pepper, whatever seasoning you like. (Tonight we used dried poultry seasoning.)
• 3/4 of a stick of butter

Place all the vegetables into 13X9 glass baking dish. Season with salt, pepper and whatever seasoning you choose. Mix to evenly coat. Slice the butter and arrange evenly over the vegetables. Convection roast at 400° for 40-50 minutes or until the vegetables are tender. Let cool for 5 minutes before serving. Enjoy – of course its always better when you can use vegetable picked from your own garden, that day!

Hey there Woody!

We had an exciting visitor at Pinefell today. A Pileated Woodpecker made its way through the yard early this afternoon.

It only stayed briefly, but it was an exciting site.

Pileateds have come to the yard in the past. One year we had a pair that spent more than a week visiting a gnarly hackberry tree in the front yard. At the time, we were wondering if they were making a nesting hole, even though it was not a secluded spot.

The one evening we noticed a column of carpenter ants were marching to the house, up the siding and into the attic. We followed the line of ants down the driveway, along the edge of the road and into the bushes surrounding the base of the hackberry tree. Then we noticed that they were coming from a large nest inside the main trunk of the tree. The Pileated woodpeckers had made several holes in the trunk feeding on one of their favorite foods. (Interestingly enough, another food source for Pileated woodpeckers is poison-ivy berries. They are one of the few animals that eat the berries.)

Unfortunately, we could have carpenter ants taking up residence in our attic. We waited a few days and baited the ant trail and hackberry tree. As much as we liked seeing the beautiful birds, a structurally sound Pinefell was more important.

Onions and a Surprise

We pulled the onions today.

They had started to fall, so it was time to harvest. We pulled ~70 bulbs. The averaged a little on the small side. Most were just smaller than a racquet ball. Though the largest few were baseball sized or larger. Since there is only three of us, the smaller onions work well for our family.

We then hung them to dry. Using cotton twine we tied them off and wrapped the leaves. Then hung them in bunches under the carport. We should have some sweet onions for cooking in just a couple of weeks.

Surprise

This evening we were looking over the raspberry bush, admiring all of the just forming berries. We are somewhat surprised at the number of berries on the canes. Then, hiding under a leaf where three ripe berries! One for each of us. They where very early, and very tasty. We can’t wait until the rest ripen.

This Week in Flowers

 

 

Notice the cabbage moth on the left.

 

 

Lettuce be plentiful!

Our lettuce is full, tasty, and plentiful. There simply is no way we can eat all of it. That makes it great to share!

The great thing about lettuce, especially this bib type, is that it keeps very well in the refrigerator. Simply pull the whole head, roots and all out of the ground. Brush off as much dirt as possible and remove any dried up outer leaves. Wash the taproot well. Then place the head in a large plastic container or gallon-sized zipper bag. Then just place it in the refrigerator. It should stay fresh up to two weeks.

Chick-o-Stick and Envelope looking for a treat.

The Girls like to beg for scraps when we eat dinner on the deck. They are usually endulged.

Roots in the Earth

The following is a passage written by Pulitzer Prize winning author Louis Bromfield in the foreword to the 1943 book “Roots in the Earth” by P. Alston Waring and Walter Magnes Teller

“The great “factory” farms which appear to be the most practical and economic cure are no cure at all, for they create another whole category of social problems, perhaps more serious than the economic ones. They strike also at the very foundations of traditional American life and create endless problems of education, morals, wages, insurance, public relief, sanitation and son on. Worst of all, this development threatens to turn agriculture into industry, creating all the industrial problems which already have done so much to disrupt American progress and unity. The sickness of agriculture is responsible for a migrating population in normal times of nearly ten millions of American men, women and children who work on an average of four months a year and spend the other eight months on relief or in jalopies seeking work to feed themselves. The children have no permanent home, inadequate schooling, if any, little moral background, bad diet, poor sanitation. They are growing up to become future citizens of the United States. What kind of citizens will they make?

“The great percentage of metropolitan citizens have little concept or understanding of the problems confronting agriculture nor the countless was in which these problems affect them directly – in food, in taxes, in a hundred ways. They do not realize that out of their own pockets comes the money which supports the dispossessed farmer and his family on relief.

“It would be well for all of us to remember that the earth is still the mother of us all… that the sickness of our agriculture affects not us alone but the future of the whole world.”

 

Thanks to Central Street Books in Knoxville for carrying such a great old book.