"I'm not dead yet!!"

Looking around at the bare trees, colorless grass, and grey sky could lead one to think that we're in the "dead zone" now and for the next few months, but that's not completely true.  There are startling flashes of green and evidence of life all around!

I ignore moss most of the year, but it's easy to appreciate it in the winter.

Putty root orchid leaves start poking out when everything else looks dead.

Green ferns abound.

There's even a bit of red, like this very tiny maple tree that continues to brave the cold.

We've had some unusually warm (near 60 degrees!) weather here lately, and it's had an amazing effect.  We...have...flowers.  In December.

Snapdragons are starting to bud out again!

Roses!

Creeping Charlie!

My parsley is still going strong.

Real, actual flowers...this veronica persica is actually blooming.  

Dandelions too!

Other "proofs of life" are more commonplace.  At the lake down the street from our house, the beavers have been busy.

A big pile of sticks and freshly-disturbed mud shows us where some of them are living.

Beavers don't hibernate, so I'll be watching to see more signs of activity!  

Animals that do hibernate in the winter...these cats.

On some of these darker days, it looks pretty appealing!

Have a great week!  

birds in thirds

 Good morning!

red milkweed beetle

It's been a very busy couple of weeks around here.  First, we had a series of crazy storms...

Seventy mph winds that uprooted a 30 - 40 ft tree right in front of us!

Todd cutting up fallen yellowwood tree

We lost power three or four times, for up to ten hour stretches.  Then, we had smoke drift in from the Canada wildfires, and for some reason it was really bad here.

For reference, our air quality this morning is 33!

That kept us inside for a couple of days, too.  But once it stopped raining, and the air cleared, we were able to get outside and get back to work.

Corn is growing!

I'm getting insanely big 2 lb zucchini from the garden...the one below is one of the smaller ones!

Borga is unimpressed.

That's a lot of zucchini bread!  

Grilled zucchini ribbons with white beans and pesto coming today.  Because, you know, we also have a ton, and I mean a ton, of basil.  

I love using it in bouquets...the cilantro I'm growing is great, too, with its pretty purple flowers...but I prefer to eat it.  I made pasta with a basil vinaigrette and roasted cherry tomatoes last week that was to die for!  I'll make it again soon and pop in the recipe here.  

I've got to be diligent about checking our veggies for insects.  I found close to 50 squash bug eggs on our lone zucchini plant.

They'd devour the plant if allowed to hatch.  Helpfully, I found a mating pair of trichopoda flies on a leaf, too.

Trichopoda flies parasitize both stink and squash bugs, helping to balance things out just like the ladybug nymphs did on the milkweed last week.  I've always got to be diligent with the plants, because even flowers have pests.  This isn't a great photo, but one of my cosmos stalks was infested with oleander aphids this week.  Fascinating to see all the different things going on in just a few inches of space!

Tiny-but-deadly ambush bugs help keep things in line, too.

They are venomous and can deliver a nasty bite, but they also eat aphids and other pests!  Here's a quick video if you want to see their grab 'n stab technique.

Lots of animals out and about.  Here's our possum, right at bedtime, after one of our big storms.

I see our big turkey family several times a week.  There are nine poults and I love hearing them chattering in the field!  I can easily see them from my office window.  

In our front pond, we've started seeing a little wood duck family every day...mom and three babies!!

Although the back pond is fine (probably because it's a lot larger), you can see that the front pond is choked with algae.  We've ordered grass carp, a type of fish that love to eat algae, and we're hoping that they'll quickly clear out the gunk.

Of course, we see the chogs all the time.

I see hummingbirds every single day.

waiting out a storm

They are pretty foul-tempered birds and I can almost hear their string of profanity when I enter the garden and they have to zip away for a few minutes.  

The roses are done blooming after a brief show...

...but when one thing stops, another starts.

hosta flower

Madame Butterfly snapdragons

It's a lovely time of year, both outside...and inside!

Have a great week!  

the last of the red [cool] lovers

I love my little herb garden, even though it's pretty inconveniently distanced from the house.  Dill is great for salmon, cilantro puts out beautiful tiny flowers that I love to use in bouquets, and parsley is great for a mild accent.  I haven't used any thyme yet, but I have plenty...along with the basil.  When you plant 10 varieties, you get...a lot of basil.

So far, I'm only using 2 varieties in cooking.  Cinnamon, Ruffled, Lemon, Holy Tulsi, Amorotto, Cardinal, etc. sound interesting, but they don't smell quite right for recipes.  Thankfully Todd likes pesto!  So far, a broccoli lemon pesto pasta and a standard mixed-basil pesto for an artichoke/roasted tomato pizza have been rousing successes.  And, of course, all basils are lovely in bouquets!  

We had one last blast of rain before the summer heat set in.

My beloved sweet peas and snapdragons are rapidly going to seed.  I've picked a last few bouquets using those and other last-legs cool flowers.

The final poppies are giving up the ghost, but leaving behind gorgeous seed pods.

Thankfully, there's new growth in the garden to distract me.

These are strawflowers, which look like juicy raspberries before opening.

They are so named because their petals already feel dried - like straw - when they bloom.  Naturally, they last forever in bouquets and dried arrangements.  Aren't they unusual?

See the little hunter?

We have a lot of other life around here.  Deer...with baby!

A lone turkey, hurrying into the underbrush.

Growing tadpoles!!

Bees...

Dragonflies...

...and loads of butterflies.

Pests are abundant, like Japanese beetles...

...and the flea beetles on my amaranth.

You have to take the good with the bad in gardening, of course.  Now that the heat has set in, "the bad" includes 3 hours weekly of monotonous watering for me, and around the same for Todd with mowing, just to keep our paths clear around the barn and to the pond.  Typical summer stuff!

At least the dry, hot weather slows down the weeds. 

Have a great week!