More fungus among us.

These nice specimens are on a tree stump next to the pond next door. The beavers got the tree a year or more ago, and then it looks like there may have been a stupid human trick with fire. Looks and feels ashy to me. I wonder if the fungi would have grown even if the stupid humans hadn't applied fire to the stump?? You just never know. It's things like this that make me so interested in climate change. What are we doing right now that we aren't aware of that might have an impact 100 years from now? How can we understand it all so we can make the right decisions in the right order in the right place? I'm not a denier or even a skeptic. I'm a confused. I heard an architecture critic say the other day that we are so fixated on car emissions when actually buildings emit more bad stuff into the atmosphere than vehicles. I guess we just do the best we can for now and hope. Or have faith. Or knit.

The zen of my knitting fixation.

I do the same stitch, knit, over and over and over. In different colors of either cotton or bamboo thread. Different lengths and widths, but all end up as a neck scarf. I've given away two (three?) but eventually I'll hand them out to all friends & family, until the fixation ends.

Sage from my herb garden.

I made this recipe. Instead of gnocchi I ended up with a kind of cheesy, creamy spinach that was very, very good. I'm sure I failed because I (a) didn't follow the instructions very closely, and (b) didn't measure the ingredients. I don't think I'm well suited, psychologically speaking, for recipes that demand much attention to detail. So rebellious of me.

The pond next door. Those grasses!

Purple cauliflower.

I planted narcissus bulbs in early summer, in a couple of big pots. Could these be baby plants from the bulbs? That doesn't seem good.

Basil seeds for next year. I miss my basil.

Rain has made me grumpy. I want to be outside doing .... anything.

All gone now. I picked these late last week.

Persimmons. I like them a little under-ripe. I wonder if I could grow a tree / shrub? around here. Inside the deer fence, I'm assuming.

Hellebores surrounded by maple leaves. And the mystery flower continues to bloom despite frost that has killed most other annuals. What IS this thing?

Bees first, then (maybe) chickens.

When I saw chickens on Sunday at the farmers market, it of course renewed my interest in raising a few. For the eggs. The idea of raising chickens who will happily produce protein for my dinner table is very appealing. No need for store-bought meat and chicken and fish that has been god-knows-where and is full of god-knows-what. There are obstacles to overcome: local rules and regulations, keeping a vigilant watch over the hens while they're out of their house so the hawks, foxes, and raccoons don't get them, convincing my husband that this isn't a crazy idea.

I talked to a beekeeper and hen-raiser on Sunday. He told me one thing that has stayed with me. He said, kindly and not condescendingly, "just don't turn your chickens into pets." Even though I really do want to raise chickens for the eggs (and for a little meat when the chickens, you know, pass on) I fully acknowledge that I would turn chickens into pets in short order.

I think I'll start with bees and graduate to chickens if the bees work out. I don't think I'll have an emotional attachment to bees. Although now that I think of it I do have an emotional attachment to my worms. I'll keep on thinking about this.

Still hanging in there.

From bottom to top: Parsley, chives, fennel, and burnet (or something like that).

Chickens! I want chickens!

A post-Halloween porch in Takoma Park. Who's the guy to Bill Clinton's right?

Until I hear otherwise I'm saying that Cyradaria/SEC is right. It IS Shimon Peres. Picture lifted from here (a very odd website).

Hmmm. Maybe my FaceBook gardening habit is worse than I thought. See links below.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33626149/ns/technology_and_science-tech_and_gadgets/

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/10/31/scamville-the-social-gaming-ecosystem-of-hell/

http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1935698,00.html

But I'm hooked! I'll be careful... although one article hinted that you can be careful personally but if another "friend-gardener" isn't careful then you're at risk too. The economics of it are very interesting. Although I'm not sure I believe all the statistics in one article. For example, one said that FarmVille claims to have 60 million players. 60 million? really? I guess maybe worldwide, but still.

Picture is from a front flower bed, about a week ago. Amaranth, celosia, and 4 o' clocks (Mirabilis jalapa), also called marvel-of-Peru and beauty-of-the-night. Aren't those great names? The amaranth and celosia came up from self-sown seeds, and next year I should have lots of self-sown 4 o'clocks too. The deer don't bother with any of these plants until late in the season (now), but even now they really don't want to eat those 4 o'clock plants, which are so big and bushy but must taste horrible. Ha! to the deer! I'm going to plant tons more next year too. And nasturtiums, which they hate. And Russian sage. That's about it unfortunately. Well, butterfly bushes of course. And tickseed and eucalyptus. And rosemary and thyme. I guess it's not too bad, planting only things the deer won't eat. I walked outside tonight just after dark and a couple of small deer were about 15 feet away eating my clover. They looked up at me but then kept on eating. And I heard more across the street, and more to my left. It's kind of weird now, knowing that all night long there's a parade of them criss-crossing my gardens and yards.

First frost last night. Nasturtiums got bitten. Sad.

An email review from my friend SEC (aka cyradaria) who saw Bruce & the E St Band on Monday in DC.

Last night: Best concert of the Bruce dates I’ve seen to date. A real mix – mostly Born to Run, with some Irish foot stomping music, a smattering of the Rising, plus a lilting encore of Your Love Keeps Lifting Me Higher with back-up singers moved to the front as soloists. Very high energy. Everyone at their performance peak. Greatly improved sound system – really rock and roll – and a greatly improved stage. Not the simple stage but there were several wings and a mid-audience mini stage where he came out for a bit and moshed it back to stage rapidamente. Very warm, personal performance. Performed Lenny Sullivan’s favorite song -- -- Cowboy Pete – up-tempo. He also did No Surrender which isn’t often performed.

[review used w/ permission; photo used without permission but I got it from some sleazy celebrity website so I'm not too concerned--is that wrong?]

The park next door.

In progress.

11 months and 3 weeks of the year the bucks are not in sight, or at least very rarely. But in the last week they have been everywhere.

He's eating my clover in the foreground. The real grass behind him is my neighbor's lovingly cared for and seeded and aerated and pampered year-round lawn. I wonder if my clover-planting bothers her? She would never say. I wonder if left alone my clover would take over her grass? (Sounds a bit competitive, doesn't it?)

Is an hour a day too much? It's spread over 16 hours, but still.

Facebook has these gardening "games" and I'm hooked on two of them. You grow crops and flowers, raise animals, harvest and plow and plant. It's fun. More mindless than Solitaire I think. Is 1/16th of an hour too much time to devote to this, I ask myself.

Bread advice sought. I mixed up a batch of bread dough, Thurs night? Fri night? and forgot it. Found it Sun night and baked it. Tastes fine, but...

....can bread dough go bad? With only flour, salt, yeast, and water as the ingredients in this famous Sullivan Street bakery recipe, it seems unlikely that the bread is tainted. Any opinions out there among bread makers?

I'm posting this picture (from last winter) for Michelle in Massachusetts.

Her birds of prey post is well worth a visit. This hawk, a red-shouldered I think, enjoyed the fresh suet on my deck last winter. Usually, when I put out the kind of suet you buy at the grocery store--processed slab-like hunks of fat--I attract lots of creatures: mostly woodpeckers and chickadees and nuthatches, and of course squirrels. But when I offer up fresh suet from the local Amish market, even the crows and hawks and vultures stop by. Those processed blocks don't pass the smell test is my guess. Hawks know when there's really fresh meat to be had.

Lessons learned about food. Rose sauce.

Agnolotti di Spinaci
Housemade stuffed agnolotti with spinach and ricotta in a spinach pasta served in a tomato or cream sauce

This is what I ordered last night at Da Marco's. I asked for the tomato sauce, not the cream sauce. It was great. But, when the owner stopped by and I quizzed him, as I so annoyingly do quite often, about the ingredients in the tomato sauce, I learned that he makes his tomato sauce with... cream: called rose sauce. First time I'd heard of it. I've been reading a lot of books about food lately, especially chain-store food--like you get at Chili's and TFIG for example--and I thought that food was bad because of all the hidden ingredients and multiple deep-fryings. And I learned years ago that lots of restaurants, good and average, often drizzle melted butter on top of their vegetables. But I didn't know that when I ask for "tomato sauce" instead of "cream sauce" I may still be getting a cream sauce. The owner also told me he uses skinned plum tomatoes for his sauce but he doesn't start with fresh ones and remove the skins and seeds on-site. I guess that would be asking too much, even of a small restaurant. But I DO wish he'd start calling his "tomato" sauce by its rightful name: rose sauce.

Is this also late blight? Looks buggy to me. Teeny fungi. Good band name.

Say what you want about her, her husband, her politics, his politics. She's one cool first lady.

credit TBA

You can get your next brain respiration treatment on 14th Street, just a few blocks from the Washington Monument.

I sauteed some of these green tomatoes last night along with some Mahi Mahi. I liked it. That's one of us.

I heard someone, on Stephen Colbert I think--one of my primary news sources, say that we should eat only catfish, tilapia, and carp. Not sure I'm going to follow that advice. Now if I was still feeding small children I'd be more attentive, but hell, what's the point at my age?

Nasturtiums never give up. These formed the basis for a good salad last night.

The deer love all the clover I've been planting to replace grass. (What's that on his back?)

You gotta love a first lady who says this about French fries...

"...my favorite food in the whole wide world are French fries. I love them. Dearly. ... Deeply.

"I have a good relationship with French fries, and I would eat them every single day if I could. I really would,'' she said.

Photo from wikipedia, where they have many words saying "it's OK for Pam to use this photo."

The pond next door. Two days ago, maybe three.

On the far. far left (you really can't see it) is the beaver lodge. The park people think the family left, and I tend to agree with them. For one thing, no new trees have been felled in months. There were at least three in the beaver family, maybe more. I'll miss them but am glad I got to watch them work and build and grow (and slap their tails at me at night) for the almost two years they lived here.

I don't know what these are but they bloomed all spring, summer, and fall in a shady spot.

I mixed them in with some polka dot plants (Hypoestes phyllostachya) in a color combo no one would ever recommend. But I kind of like it. I read today that the polka dot plant is evergreen. We'll see.

Such a pretty mystery bug on Queen Anne's lace, in the park next door.

Grasses are at their peak in my front yard right now.

Garden "art."

Here's one way to deal with my inability to throw out old stuff that has sentimental value. I inherited this pitchfork from my parents. I have no idea how old it is. I like to pretend that it belonged to my great-grandmother (or father) and he or she used it to pitch hay on their farm. It's possible. When the handle broke off earlier this year I was crushed. I used it only for my compost pile. It's been hanging around the garage and carport since then, getting in the way, reminding me daily that I should toss it out. Now it has a home in my herb garden. And it doesn't seem to have pissed anyone off...yet. (I'm married to a non-hoarder; it's a struggle. For both of us I mean.)

Bald cypress. A deciduous conifer. Didn't know there was such a thing.

What's with these tomatoes? Black rot? Mold?

It looks like blossom end rot but the black spots aren't on the blossom end. Am I being too literal?

Not the last one but close to it. The deer left me a few beans. I'll miss these in the winter (tomatoes, not the deer).

Nasturtium. Painfully beautiful.

Deer way, way in the distance. They're on their usual trail. This is the entrance to the park next door.

My two pumpkins. Came up on their own, from my compost I guess.

Today is BAD--Blog Action Day. An unfortunate acronym but here's my 2 cents.

I've been trying for a year or so to read enough about climate change to have a shot at a slightly well-informed opinion on this subject. It's taken me that long to figure out that the subject is way too complex for me to have a truly well-informed opinion so instead I have a list of thoughts-questions, interesting people who have unconventional opinions on climate change, and a couple of fascinating historical weather events.
Thoughts-questions:
1. The subject would be easier to talk about if we could forget about whether or not humans caused the situation. Of course, our actions (like when the first humans dug up some trees and planted a garden) are causes but there are other factors so why waste time blaming or denying?

2. I believe what I read (in the IPCC report, for example) about the trends and likely causes of our current global warming (deforestation, burning fossil fuels, too many cattle on the planet, etc), but I have no faith that humans have the ability to stop or reverse the trend. With a massive, massive effort we could maybe slow it down but that's it. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't change our ways.

3. Every country should be looking for fossil fuel alternatives b/c fossil fuels are running out, they're dirty, and we have to be international hypocrites (and total ass-kissers) to keep the Saudi oil flowing into our oversized cars. I still don't like nuclear power plants even though I know we have 80 or so plants in this country and France gets about 80% of its electricity from nuclear energy. Have we been lucky or is it really possible to keep them safe from angry evil-doers of all stripes and human error?

4. Our two biggest problems are overpopulation and dwindling supplies of water. If I wanted to be, you know, part of the solution, instead of buying a Prius I should lobby on behalf of reducing population growth or increasing research on how in the hell we're going to have enough water in the future.

Interesting people with unconventional opinions on climate change:

Freeman Dyson:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/magazine/29Dyson-t.html?_r=1

James Lovelock:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Lovelock

Interesting weather and geological events:

Mount Tamboro and the Poverty Summer of 1816
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Tambora

The cooling of 535-536 AD (leading to widespread famine, drought, and plague): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_weather_events_of_535–536

Next book I'll read about all this stuff:

The Long Summer: How Climate Changed Civilization (Paperback)
by Brian Fagan

High up in my magnolia tree. Wasp nest?

A garden lesson for me. Two crops of lettuce. Mine at top (no thinning of plants); Susan's at bottom (much thinning of plants). Thin your seedlings!

Gus just had a nice drink of water. See the drop on his chin? He's such a sweetheart.

I've often admired his rosy nosetip. It's a great color--dark rusty rose.

This may be just as depressing as the Snark book but I have to at least skim it. Great title!

But first a word from our sponsor. How can you not love these singing pepperonis?

I read this very short book & it's ruined blogging for me I think.

It's made me hyper-self-conscious .... who the hell do I think I am? As my friend GR said to me when I first started blogging "Why, exactly, do you blog?" I'll never forget him squinting and eyeballing me up close while he asked this question. I don't know what I said in reply. Probably "because it amuses me." I may keep up the worm and weed blogs and go dormant on this one for a while. Other bloggers I follow (or used to follow) have done the same thing. Maybe blogging has a natural lifespan and mine is near the end? What do I know? nothing.

Saw him the other night at the Birchmere in Alexandria, VA. James McMurtry.

P is for Pencils.

My father whittled. He also got obsessive from time to time about little projects. So does my sister, but that's another story. He made a few of these little pencils and I loved them so much I gave them to most if not all my cow-orkers (thanks again Kitt for that wonderful way to spell cow-orkers) who of course all loved them too. This made my dad so happy that he went on a mass-production spree. Here are some of the results.

Late harvest & one of the last salads of 09. But until the first frost I'll have lettuce, nasturtiums, fennel,chives, basil, beans, & sickly tomatoes.

Some of my sister's flowers.

Listen to the rain. First minute or so of this Slovenian group's performance. Speakers up, please.

"Toto's Africa," performed by Perpetuum Jazzile live at Vokal Xtravaganzza 2008 (October 2008). Thunderstorm simulation effects inspired by Kearnsey College choir (South Africa).

New category: New Yorker cartoons I don't get.

Beans and Autumn Joy sedum.

I did almost every single thing wrong in growing these beans. But I learned a lot and the deer are only nibbling at the edges. Next year's goal: make my vegetable garden neater. It looks fine for a 5-year-old, not so fine for an adult.

Growing in a mossy area under a pin oak.

These mushrooms looked like potatoes buried in my lawn. Nice deep black centers.

My jeans quilt is growing larger. It's going to be heavy, man. Literally heavy.

I'm taking an odd pride in how messy it looks. It's lumpy, bumpy, and nubby.

More fungi.

Except for the top one these mushrooms came up in one of my compost piles. The big ugly monster at the top is from the park next door.

This delicate vine is covering the netting around my vegetable garden. Hummingbirds love it. Cypress vine (Ipomoea quamoclit).

So many purple perennials. The far left is rosemary but I'm not sure if the others are all the same.

My two volunteer pumpkins are turning orange.

New lettuce. If we get more sun it might grow enough for a salad or two.

My sweet potato vine survived two deer maulings but produced this single tuber. Yes, single.

Do I eat it or save it until next year to make new "starts" in the spring? I'm not a sweet potato fan.

Very odd fungi. Hard as aged leather, not soft and mushy like most mushrooms.

My faithful frog. He's been living (alone?) in my tiny pond all summer.

Adorable old match book covers from Mrs. K's Toll House, the older on the right. I ate there just 2 months ago.

Late beans. Poor things. I planted them in such a bad place in late summer but still they produced these nice flowers.

Lesson learned this summer. Look UNDER tomatoes to decide when they're ripe. Tops alone can be deceiving.

Are we getting tired of tomatoes yet? Not quite, but almost.

Pumpkin?

It's one of four volunteer melons in my garden. I had to pick this one before its time (I accidentally trampled the vine). One other is definitely a cantaloupe and the final two are probably also pumpkins. I hoped they were watermelons: they're very green. But I think pumpkins don't turn orange until later in the season. To be continued.

Pale but pretty. Not an outstanding tomato but OK.

Fungi near a compost pile.

Lavender (center) looks dead. I can't grow lavender; I always do the wrong thing. I may cut this to the ground & see what happens in the spring.

Deer proof. From my neighbor's front yard. What is it?

I don't know WHAT to make of this. (9/3: Black walnut seed. Squirreled away by a squirrel maybe?)

It's a nest in a big evergreen shrub in my yard, about eye-level. In the nest is a big green "egg." I call it an egg b/c that's what it looks like but it's huge. Looks more like a smooth oversized black walnut. But there are no black walnuts nearby--that I know of. I don't want to touch the green thing in case it's actually an egg. Somehow I doubt it. To be continued.

I can't remember what this is but I'm going to prune it hard when it's time to prune. Spring, I guess.

It's 3+ feet wide and 5-6 feet tall. Deer don't touch it. Sweet shrub, but it's overgrowing too many other plants. And isn't pruning good/necessary for some shrubs?

Watermelon. About 1/3 of my gardening space was taken over by 2 watermelon plants that I didn't plant.

The deer have nibbled off all the foliage that pokes its head out of the netting.

I don't take my hostas and liriope for granted. This is the first year in many, many years that we still have foliage in Aug. The fence worked!

Summer lettuce.

I like this take on the health care/health insurance/health delivery debate. Last 3 paragraphs are the essential take-home message.

Tchotchke Challenge, Letter O: Outhouses, miniature.

Hand-made by Geo. W. Winters.

The Tchotchke Challenge is evolving. Some might say dying, but I prefer "evolving."

Mystery flower. Found growing in Gormania, WV, by my sister. A type of bellflower??

9/2/09: I'm pretty sure that it's American bellflower (Campanulastrum americanum).

A Kellogg Breakfast tomato. I love them as much for the color as the taste, which is excellent.

Probably dreaming of mice.

Tonight I'm cooking chicken and nasturiums in my new thrift store pot.

I like to buy at thrift stores. When I realized that I had to get a new bread-baking oven-pot I hoped I could find one for under $10. I found what I needed, for $5.99. But I also bought this cast-iron enamel-coated baby even though it was $24. Not what I consider a thrift-store price although I just knew that a new one would cost more than that. (Terrible buying ethic: buy it because it's a good price even though you don't need it.) After doing a little online research I think I've discovered that it shouldn't go in an oven that's over 400 degrees. And my daily bread must go in a 450 degree oven. So. I'll make myself use it for other dishes. And I'll probably use it at least once for a loaf of bread at only 400 degrees just to see how it turns out. Maybe 450 isn't necessary. Am I babbling? Don't you think that I should clean my stove top before I do anything else? Should. Won't today.

My brainy (volunteer) tomato. Dee-licious. Made me smarter just to eat it.

4 o'clocks with black seeds popping out. In theory, they will fall to the ground and produce plants next year.

And I know people who have seen that happen in their yards. But last year I had 12 plants with lots of these little black seeds but only one plant came back. Big gip (gyp?)

From somewhere on the Internet:
Gyp (Jip, Gip, Gypsy, Gippo, Gypper, Gypster)
A British college student called his servant a gyp because the servant preyed upon him like a vulture to obtain tips.A person who cheats or swindles people. A trickster. A person who is not quite honest. Gyp is the Greek word for vulture. In the 19th century, the Universities of Cambridge and Durham in England provided servants, who attended one or more undergraduates. Students called the servants “gyps” because the gyps found many ways of obtaining ale and tips from them and preyed upon the students like vultures. Gyps made beds, ran errands, helped their young masters over the college walls late at night, and provided other services. Sometimes they ran away with everything they could lay their hands on.
Jordan Almond, Dictionary of Word Origins: A History of the Words, Expressions, and Clichés We Use, Citadel Press, New York, 1985, page 113.

A visit to the Patuxent Wildlife Refuge in Laurel, MD

This place is just too amazing for me to sum up in a few sentences. They helped save the whooping crane, pictured at the top. I'm going back many times for the indoor exhibits. I'm determined to get a better fix on the way-too-big-to-really-understand subject of climate change. Yeah, yeah, I read books, I listen to discussions, I know the subject is politically charged, which adds a layer of gauze to the whole thing. I don't expect to understand it; I just want to have an opinion other than the one I have now, which is "who the hell really knows?"

A single grape tomato plant. A slow but steady supply of bite-sized fruit.

Spotted at Home Depot.

One plant, two colors.

Harvest.

Like a million or two (or three) others I'll spend this weekend with Jimi et al in the background. [Update 8/16: didn't happen. Outdoors instead]

And no, I wasn't there.

Wake me when it's over, in approximately 20 years.

An outline of an earlier health care debate. From this website.

1945 - Harry Truman sends a message to Congress asking for legislation establishing a national health insurance plan.

Two decades of debate ensue, with opponents warning of the dangers of "socialized medicine."

By the end of Truman's administration, he had backed off from a plan for universal coverage, but administrators in the Social Security system and others had begun to focus on the idea of a program aimed at insuring Social Security beneficiaries.

July 30, 1965 - Medicare and its companion program Medicaid, which insures indigent recipients, are signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson as part of his "Great Society."

Annoying things.

Some years ago my friend SEC started a list of things that annoyed her. I've watched this list, now listS, grow over the years, and now SEC has graciously allowed me to put her lists on a blog. So here they are. Two of them. More to follow. I'll make no deletions, although I may add an item or two.

My first Utilikilt sighting! It was on the beach but it still counts. What DO those guys wear under the kilt???

More fungi.

I think I just learned (at http://gaiagarden.blogspot.com/) that the mushroom on the bottom is a false parasol (or Chlorophyllum molybdites) and it will cause "severe abdominal cramps, bloody diarrhea, and projectile vomiting" if eaten. Ewwww. The orange and yellow 'shrooms are the top and bottom of one fungi.

Blue jean circles and miscellaneous cotton squares. It will be a coverlet, which is not exactly a quilt but sort of.

It's all rough edges and primitive hand-sewing but it will keep someone warm. I got the idea here.

Sunrise at Bethany Beach, DE. Saturday morning.