Sphecodina abbottii

That is a hard one to pronounce! Sphec=Sfeck ??? CODE?? Dina...um... Anyway, it is easier to call it the Abbott's Spinx Moth. Caterpillar. I noticed it on my Grape Vines. They are said to consume 8-10 grape leaves a day. The false eyeball is not on the head, but the tail. Could have fooled me!(not really)




It is also interesting to note, that this caterpiller eats Virginia Creeper and Poison Ivy! They may grow up to 4 inches in length, and they can morph their colors, sometimes becoming green and brown striped.

Over on the other side of the property, my husband was working on a lumber pile and found this shed:



It was in very good condition, however, the head and tail were not intact.



There is a way to identify the type of snake (poisoness and non poisoness) by examining the snake skin sheds. This page had a good explanation of how to do that.



The peaches were finally picked, and the yield was a little over dozen. Not too bad for the first time picking this tree.



The variety is a white peach, clingstone. They were very tasty and didn't last long. There are 2 more trees in the garden that look very promising this year, but they won't be ready to harvest until perhaps, the end of the month.



There has been spinning happening at the Great Wheel...putting aside some cops. ..the finished yardage will determine what I will use it for.

time to

So many things have to do with good timing. When to pick the peaches, is one of them. They look ripe- but they are still a bit too firm. On the other hand, they may ripen on the counter after picking. The birds and squirrels and chipmunks are watching them for readiness, also. They test for ripeness, just as I do. And so, it becomes a matter of timing. Who will get to them first?



The Black Hollyhocks are showing off. These were a gift from a fiber friend, years ago! Their petals make a lovely dye bath, and with an alum/cream of tarter mordant, will yield soft greys on skeins of white wool. This year, I have elected to enjoy the show, and save the seeds, as well as the dye bath, for another time.



Meanwhile, the timing is right for harvesting garlic scapes and dill weed. Mixed with some Philadelphia Brand, they make a tasty dip for spreading on a cracker. This batch was served up and enjoyed by the spinners/knitters/weavers over at the Hatton's last week.

How to slow down

One of my favorite poems comes to mind as I harvest the carrots.



How to Slow Down, find a little bit of land somewhere and plant a carrot seed. Now sit down and watch it grow. When it is fully grown pull it up and eat it. – Stephen Gaskin



I grew Nantes and Danvers on the far side of the garden this year. This is the first time I've ever planted carrots as a spring crop to harvest in the fall. One long row produced about a half bushel and yielded about 12 pints. And then some. for eating fresh.

I planted another row as a fall crop that is now well underway, and should be ready to harvest by Thanksgiving.



Meanwhile, there is some weaving under way. I'm experimenting with some Afghan Hound singles that I spun from distaff to spindle. I am using the spindle as a shuttle and have not finished the yarn, rather, just started weaving straight away with it!



I realize I may regret this decision, but sometimes you just have to take your chances.

almost

The first frost has yet to arrive. The last of the summer sun is savored.



Short walks and long shadows.



Ghost bugs are there, and then not.



Green peppers change to orange.



and beans to seed.



Potatoes are dug and moved from one underground storage to another.



...black walnuts, generously given by a friend, await the hammer.



the rafter of turkeys grow larger by the days.



and september projects are finished in october.



it is time for bonfires and almost the beginning of november!

hold everything - it's time to snap

Grab an apron and pull up an Adirondack chair. We can sit on the deck and listen to the river go by while we snap beans.



There are some 700 and some odd steps from the garden to the kitchen. This is the route I travel several times a day, in and out of the garden, with baskets full of beans.



These are Haricots Verts, they grow longer, skinny - tender and crisper than your ordinary bush bean. I raised them from seed I've saved over the years, and this year's harvest is exceptional.



The yield so far is over a bushel in weight. A good year for the beans.



Having picked the majority of them at the peak of their perfection, I will leave the rest to mature for seed, or possibly the bean pot. What comes in on top will be used for fresh eating. Handfuls-steamed then sauteed in minced garlic, olive oil and almonds.



pick, wash, sort, snap, chop, measure, steam, pack, process and store. only ten steps there. repeat as many times as necessary.

conical cotyledons

Windy weather is good for threshing seed, and so it was that I found myself sorting through and threshing last years string beans in preparation for this years planting. The harvest from last fall included beans of several different varieties, including my favorite, haricot verts (or french style green beans).



With the pod shell removed, the hard and shiny bean seeds fell easily into the container, and I tossed them in the air to let the wind carry away any bits of chaff, leaving me with a nice tray of seed.

At closer inspection, I noticed something strange.

I've been collecting my bean seed for years. There are times I order new varieties to plant, but I normally save the last harvest of the fall. Threshing and sorting bean seed allows time to look at and admire their beauty. This is the first time I've ever noticed this oddity. The cotyledons are not, ahem, normal. They are conical or tapered at the tips. They are pointy. So pointy, in fact, that they have split their seed coats. Look:



Efforts to find information about the cause of this peculiarity have been fruitless. In an attempt to see if the seed would be viable, I slipped them in between a damp paper towel and they entered the zip lock chamber for a germination test.



No problems there! Inside of 3 days, the embryos emerged and the beans seed appeared healthy and ready to grow.



Since I only had a handful of these, I decided to feed them to the chickens (who, btw, were very happy that they were tossed in their direction). And just as the last one was eaten, I had the thought that I should have saved a few seeds to plant (isolated from the regular patch) just to see what the next generation's seed would have looked like.



Too late now!

lots of pots or counting cucurbitas

This past summer, my little gourds grew well.
I planted the seeds along the fence and allowed their tendrils to coil and cling to the poultry wire.
They bloomed, were pollinated (thankfully!) and eventually became fruit or little pepos.
Some of them grew very large!
I allowed them to mature on the vine, and finally harvested them just before frost.
I've been curing my cucurbitas in the mudroom, near the woodstove.
A few gourds have finished within 2 months time...and the mesocarp and endocarp are completely dry.



Now they are ready to be turned into flax water pots.



Once they are opened and cleaned, I sand and polish the exterior and create a hanger from my handspun linen.



Then I send them out into the world, to spinners near and far! They will hang on a spinning wheel and assist those who like to spin linen. The spinster will fill the pot with flax slurry, made from flax seed, and dip their fingers into the pot when they need to smooth the line.

pick a peck

One of the virtues of this October, has been an unusually long growing season. And that has provided us with an abundant pepper harvest!



Thinking back to last February, when these peppers were only eight little seeds on my windowsill, I am grateful to pick them and place them in my basket. I have to admire each one. Peppers take a long time to grow and mature. Normally, around here, the frost comes just as they are starting to produce. This year, I've managed to pick a peck or two. If the frost stays away a little longer, my little pepper patch might produce a bushel. The plants are still flowering. The red hot cherry peppers came from a friend, they were labeled simply, "Daves Peppers". So, I think of Dave, and thank him for the plants. They are a good performer in this climate.



The small test plot of Hungarian Flax from the USDA Germoplasm Bank was pulled this week. There was some lodging, but overall, the plants did well. Compared to the Elektra cultivar, the Hungarian flax did not grow as tall or erect. There won't be time to rett it this year, so I will dry it and store it until next summer.



Planted in June, these plants are showing nicely developed seed bolls at 150 days.



This October also brings two and sometimes three whitetail fawn that come by to visit. They look healthy with sleek coats. I wonder if they will stick around after the frost. Despite the wonderful growing season, it is a non-hard-mast year, there isn't an acorn to be found anywhere this side of the mountain. For that matter, I haven't seen a single turkey.

The masting of trees is a natural phenomena that continues to elude scientists.
While looking for information about it, I found an interesting article that ties Lyme disease to masting. Here are a few excerpts:

The first question is why individual trees regulate their nut production in a boom or bust manner; the masting behavior of an individual tree is called variability. The second and more profound question is how masting trees manage to coordinate the same cycle with other trees over a large area; the group behavior of masting trees is called synchrony.

The masting of trees is an important phenomenon in the ecological balance of the forest, as the food chain becomes distorted with a surfeit of nutrient resources. For example, high mast production promotes rapid expansion of the populations of predator acorn-eating mice and deer. The white footed mouse is a host for the spirochete Borrelia burgdorferi which is the cause of Lyme disease. The larvae of the black-legged tick frequently feed on white-footed mice and thus become vectors for the spirochete which they impart to deer and the occasional human. Thus a mast year can also be a year with a high black-legged tick population and a concomitant high incidence of Lyme disease. Predators may be satiated or starved and the trees may or may not efficiently distribute their pollen according to the efficacy of the mast, which must occur at the same time at the same place for it to work. Its synchrony is apparently caused by the climate; the impact of a changing climate on masting may be just one aspect of the larger problem, but it is a compelling one.

To read the entire article : click here.

red tomatoes and pink martini's

So, there are lots of red tomatoes coming in from the garden.



The first stop is in my kitchen sink. They look pretty and carefree floating about in the water.

I wash them and place them on the counter for quartering and a trip to the Squeezo.




As I begin to process the tomatoes, my mind wanders...and I begin to mentally process something that happened a few weeks ago... to two very good friends of mine.



Something unexpected. Something changed. It left me sad and blue...and seeing a little red...it is a "change that is hard and not so nice".



So, I'm singing the pink martini song while I stir the tomatoes. and hanging on. just like the little tomatoes.



It makes for good music to stir by, and reminds me that sunny somedays are still ahead....




The sun has left and forgotten me
It's dark, I cannot see
Why does this rain pour down
I'm gonna drown
In a sea
Of deep confusion

Somebody told me, I don't know who
Whenever you are sad and blue
And you're feelin' all alone and left behind
Just take a look inside and you will find

You gotta hold on, hold on through the night
Hang on, things will be all right
Even when it's dark
And not a bit of sparkling
Sing-song sunshine from above
Spreading rays of sunny love

Just hang on, hang on to the vine
Stay on, soon you'll be divine
If you start to cry, look up to the sky
Something's coming up ahead
To turn your tears to dew instead

And so I hold on to his advice
When change is hard and not so nice
You listen to your heart the whole night through
Your sunny someday will come one day soon to you