Pastures and House Lawn
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The Big Freeze
We’d experienced several frosts and a hard freeze even before Winter formally began, with Nov. 30th changing us out from extended Summer conditions to plant-killing anomalous cold blasts. But the last few nights have been a straight dive into the low to mid 20’s with dangerous wind speeds and potential for freezing rain. I wasted no time and went on an expensive shopping spree at Lowes to get a huge roll of 6mil plastic, spring clamps, two more 1500 watt electric milk house heaters, a second Cat 6500 watt generator and a remote temperature sensor. My mom was right out there with me to put up the thick and heavy…
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A Sweet Week
Ma’s new chicken shoes arrived, and the birds each had to strut over to inspect. Style, comfort and cleanliness make tending the coop more enjoyable for everyone. I added to the fun by feeding them a couple of “treat sticks” that had trespassed on our plants. Across the yard at the banana bed, just below the mulch line and attached to sprawling vines was a jumbo yield of sweet potatoes we weren’t expecting the first year. These grow better in enriched sandy soil but put all their growth into leaves and vines, not tubers, when growing in recently built-up composting mulch. Such had been the case twice in Estero, but…
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Bugs…..again.
But they’re wickedly cool, and everywhere. I archive what I come across as I go each day, stumbling upon interesting insects with a regularity that is unreal. Some encounters, like the predacious wasps dragging their prize kills across the patio, really should come with comical incidental music. Many of the solitary wasps we’re seeing paralyze their prey, drag it to a nearby burrow, lay an egg on it which produces a hungry grub that will eat the host alive as it matures. This is pest control that is downright Medieval. The three rust-colored, horned beetles in the lower photos also drew the short straw, having the misfortune of emerging above…
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Gardens and Sanctuaries
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Sebucan Seed Harvest
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From Bed to Bed and In Between
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“Hey, that’s not a yardlong bean!”
These were so cute as not to generate the usual scream from Ma at several of the regular stops on the farm. I melted at the sight of this sweet baby Southern coachwhip snake catching sun and hopefully a passing breakfast while resting on a squash leaf. Known to eat rattlesnakes, as does the Indigo snakes that we have, you definitely want these around in this part of the country. The largest I have seen was in excess of eight feet in length on the house lawn recently. Perhaps they’ll make a meal of any squirrel that makes a move on the corn now coming up in the Duck Garden’s…
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Pilosocereus Royenii has Set Fruit and Flowered Again
Well, it was a success! Self-pollination with the expert advice of a botanist in AZ and those 3AM wanderings into the backyard resulted in fertilization and the first fruit on this cactus. The Royen’s tree cactus is busting out in a conveyor belt of buds, flowers and now fruit that should contain genetic clone seeds if I can keep the critters from getting it first. The second flower opened last night and was even prettier than the first. In the past two weeks the growing tip of the stem has become an ever-changing activity center full of intriguing protuberances with inspiring shapes, colors and functions. I’m not sure how many…
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Rhinoceros Beetle
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What We’ve Been Tending this Week
And what a week it has been. With this heat it’s a good thing the watermelon is plentiful because we’ve been sucking it down to stay hydrated and fueled while caring for everything here. The birds have been working hard too, so their share of the melon crop has been earned. I think they’ve figured out that leaving some juice in the eaten out melon halves attracts a week’s worth of bugs, therefore extending the buffet. Farm and homestead plants need daily monitoring, watering, fertilization and repositioning. Mom’s orchids are flowering for an unexpected bonus round since December, and her Gasteria succulent has divided into a handsome clump on The…
