We have chinquapins!

Or chinkapins or Allegheny chinquapins or dwarf chestnuts or more specifically, Castanea pumila. Whatever you want to call them, I am happy to have them growing here, especially since I was tempted to buy a couple this spring when I saw them on sale at Bob Wells Nursery.

Farm Boy and I noticed the funny spiky balls yesterday while walking the dogs. We actually walk past this spot every day (and have for four years!), but two small trees among 7 acres of big trees have to really work to stand out to us unobservant humans. I have to assume that this is the first year they have fruited, because I really don't think I could have missed this:





According to what I've read, the chinquapin is a great source of food and shelter for wildlife and the nuts were once extremely popular with people, as they are much sweeter than chestnuts. I'm not sure why they have fallen out of favor, except that they are so small and a little difficult to collect.

Originally we only noticed the one tree, but there are two trees a few feet apart. One is shorter with multiple small trunks and the other is a single trunk, about 4" in diameter at the base. They are mixed in with American beautyberry and some (annoying) rattan vine. We'll have to see if we can get that cleaned out a little bit to let the chinquapins form a nice thicket.


The foliage is dark green, glossy, toothed and...


apparently, very tasty. I noticed there were chunks were missing from many leaves, then spotted this guy. Another reason I'm happy to have chinquapins: they are a larval host plant to the orange-tipped oakworm moth.


I spent a few minutes liberating some nuts from the husks. Even when they are fully opened, it can be a painful operation. I've read that they are really good roasted, so we will have to try that with a few. The rest I'm going to try to propagate, since they are a fairly rare - and in many areas, endangered - species, due to chestnut blight. The chinquapin isn't as susceptible to the blight as the American chestnut was, but it can still be severely damaged by it.

Goodbye summer, hello fall.

Well, it was a rough summer around here, so let's hope the fall brings better things. On a positive note, though, we still have hummingbirds and I adore hummingbirds! They're beginning to head south for the winter, but at the peak I was putting out 16+ cups of sugar water a day. I'm not sure why they like this particular spot so much, but I'm glad they do!

Ellie May's spy cam

For my birthday, Spork gave me a really cool present: a Moultrie game camera. The camera is made to be mounted outside and can capture both still pictures and short video clips. In daylight, the images are color, while the nighttime ones use an infrared flash, yielding black and white images.

The camera is intended to be left in place for months at a time, but I can't stand to let it go for more than a day or two before I have to grab the images and see who has passed through. I've had it set up pointing at the bird baths, the bird feeders (thanks to the nifty clamp that Spork made) and at various places in the woods.

So far we've had lots of birds, raccoons and foxes. I'm hoping to add opossums, skunks and deer in the future. I've even set up a bribery station in the woods with a feeder block and a salt block. When I have some intriguing fruit leftovers, such as melon rinds, I put those out near the feeder block, for extra enticement.

Bathing cardinal family

Banditos!

Enthusiastic blue jay

Chickadee

Baby cardinal and wren

The camera makes a slight shutter sound. There were about 20 pictures of this baby cardinal giving the camera a suspicious stare.

Male red-bellied woodpecker

Downy woodpecker and wren

Firefox looking for some din-din

Firefox pounces

The berries are becoming more cordial

Today was the first weekly shaking of the berry cordial. Spork and I pulled it out of the cabinet this afternoon and noted a few changes from last week: the vodka has become pinkish, the blackberries have turned red and the raspberries have turned white. The sugar at the bottom of the jar was almost completely dissolved, too. One shake down, seven more to go.

Before shaking

After shaking. Note the white raspberries.

We are harvesting more berries than we can eat right now, so Spork resorted to freezing some for future use. I broke with cobbler/pie tradition this week and baked a clafoutis (or flognarde, since it's made from berries). It is one of the best smelling things to have ever graced my oven. It was yummy, but I regretted not having some vanilla ice cream to go with it.

Crusty, oozy berry goodness

The garden is finally beginning to produce. It's been a strange spring - even the farmers' market produce is behind. I've only had one bird-pecked tomato so far, but lots of yellow wax beans, summer squash and eggplants.

Ichiban eggplant showing flea beetle damage on the leaves

My butterfly garden, while messy, is very bloomy. I can't get enough of the passionflowers, which I find to be almost hypnotic. I originally grew them only because they are larval host plants for gulf fritillary butterflies, but now I love their complex flowers.

Passiflora incarnata

Bee balm with one of the skipper butterflies

My sister, Terri, has two new puppies, Taz and Buckley. It's great for me because I get to play with puppies, but my shoes aren't destroyed in the process. The pups are 1/2 schnauzer and 1/2 catahoula. The rescue group Terri adopted them from told her these would be small dogs, but Buckley has the feet and legs of a Clydesdale. Mmmm-hmmmm. They are mighty cute, though.

Taz (front) and Buckley, with hand model

Even more spring!

Have I mentioned that I'm a fan of spring? I'm not sure. In case I haven't, let me just tell you that I love spring! Love it, love it, love it!

Signs of my favorite season are popping up all over the place. First, we have the dogwoods. They seem to bloom "big" every other year here and this is one of the "small" years, so we only have 25 or so blooming. I know, poor us! But, even though it's a small year, they are still pretty.

From Spring 2009

The wild dewberries have been blooming for a couple of weeks now and this morning on the dog walk, I spotted the first baby berry. Cobbler season, here we come! (Not to mention I plan to try making blackberry cordial this year - tipsy season, here we come!)

From Spring 2009

Another sign of spring I think a lot of people miss is the emergence of the mayapples, Podophyllum peltatum. They look like a plant plucked from a fairy tale and I always imagine bands of leprechauns and other tiny magical creatures living under them.

From Spring 2009

From Spring 2009

From Spring 2009

Alas, the creatures I'll most likely find beneath the mayapples are snakes. I'll just have to pretend it's something magical living under there.

Spring is springing

That Christmas song has it all wrong. Spring is the most wonderful time of the year!

Here at the stuga, we have a small stand of baby redbud trees. This is the first year they have really bloomed. They are going to be gorgeous in a few years.

From Gardening

I've never looked very closely at redbud blooms. I was playing around with the macro setting, trying to capture the bees, but this butterfly scared them off.

From Gardening

The ground here is covered with wild violets. They have a nice scent when in direct sun.

From Gardening

Another of our wild flowers, rose vervain (a type of verbena).

From Gardening

A not-so-wild strawberry bloom.

From Gardening

Asparagus. This year we are allowed to eat some of it!

From Gardening

And our favorite harbinger of spring, the dogwood!

From Gardening

Jealousy

There I sat, sipping a refreshing beverage at Spork's sister's house this past Sunday, when I happened to look out the window and see a hummingbird on the feeder. A hummingbird. In freakin' February. I, Ellie May, friend to all things furry or feathered, don't have any hummingbirds. But Spork's sister has hummingbirds. How can this be? It's not fair! I cry fowl.




P.S. Please excuse the poor picture quality. I only had Spork's phone to use as a camera.

Mexican mint marigold is a hit, but what IS this thing?

Earlier this year I planted Mexican mint marigold, which can be grown here in Texas as a replacement for tarragon. It actually does taste fairly close to tarragon, though whenever I plant something experimental there is always a part of me that is absolutely sure that the plant is mislabeled and what I'm growing is actually poisonous, hallucinogenic or something else undesirable. That's the problem with growing your own food, at least for someone who reads too much Dean Koontz and Stephen King.

My MMM is now blooming, so I went out to take some pictures of it's purtiness. It was in full sun at the time and the nectar was obviously flowing, because it was a nectar-feeding-species bonanza. A blooming Golden Corral for insects. There were bees, bee-like things and butterflies, all swarming around. The nectar must have been good stuff because they were willing to let me take pictures. It was Friday afternoon. Maybe they were having happy hour.

Bees

Metallic green bee?

Variegated fritillary, I think

And now, what the heck is this? Is it a bee? A bee fly? Something that managed to sneak in from an alternate universe? What???

The opposite of doves

Who needs a stinkin' bird of peace when you have hummingbirds? This is much more interesting!

Some things to like about August

For August, the weather has been fairly pleasant so far. We've had a few really hot days, but today for instance, it's just after noon and a chilly (by Texas summer standards) 73F. I could get used to this. Unfortunately, it is August and I'm in Texas, so I know it won't last.

There are a few good things about August in Texas, however. First, the hummingbirds that will migrate further south for the winter are gathering here to fatten up for the trip. Right now we have about a dozen fighting over our two feeders. I have put out between four to eight cups of sugar water a day for the last few weeks. I love these little monsters. They are the terriers of the sky!



Second, the raspberry plants are putting out their fall crop. Honestly, I'm a little confused by this, since technically seven of the nine original plants are supposed to be spring-bearing only. I'm eating a few raspberries every day, though, so you won't hear me complain. About the raspberries, at least.



Third, since we have had rain recently, some of my roses are blooming again. This is Flutterbye, which is a relatively recent introduction that never shows up for sale in nurseries. I really don't understand that because it is a cast iron rose, very disease-resistant and drought-tolerant. The blooms start out yellow and turns an orangey-pink. In the spring it is absolutely covered with blooms for weeks on end. Mine is still young, but I'm hoping that it puts on an equally impressive fall show.



And fourth... Well, it may be stretching a bit to say I count this in my "good things about August" list, but it did amuse me. I found this green lynx spider in the blooms when trying to photograph Flutterbye. He became really irritated with my attempts to get a good macro focus on him. This wasn't the best shot to showcase his hairy legs, but it does show his green color better than the others.

Time for some whine: it's hot!

The temperature has reached 100F here the last few days, which forced me to make ice cream. Originally, I was thinking coconut, but I happened to mention an Irish coffee ice cream recipe to Spork and that pretty much ended the discussion. It turned out pretty darned good, too.




Usually when it gets this hot, the roses take a siesta and save up energy for a fall bloom. However, this pretty guy surprised me with a bloom yesterday. I guess his name is appropriate, considering how well he has adapted to the heat. Here, let me introduce you to Charles Darwin, aka Chuck. :-) It's a nice Austin rose with a wonderful scent and pretty, cupped apricot blooms.



Are there any hummingbird experts out there? This one, a female ruby-throated showed up last summer. She will perch to drink, then go limp, with her wings and tail splayed. Her head will loll to the side or sometimes will flop all the way back, bill open and tongue hanging out. Other hummingbirds will buzz her, trying to get her off the feeder, but she is oblivious. After a few minutes, she shakes herself off and flies away. I was amazed when she showed up again this year. I was sure she wouldn't survive the migration.





Any theories?