CSA Week 8

I cleared out most of the remains of past shares before I picked up the week 8 haul. Only cucumbers, leeks, onions and garlic were left!

There was another onion in the week 8 share - and a bunch of scallions. It was a second week for tomatoes and continuation of summer squash/cucumbers. Items new this week were thyme, bell pepper and potatoes (purple!). I got three small kohlrabies from the overage table.

And there was a sunflower too! I cut off the stem a bit to fit it into an old wine decanter.

A special treat this morning for breakfast….purple hash browns seasoned with rosemary and scrambled eggs! Yum!

Invasive Plants in my Yard

I’ve been working in my yard between 7 and 8 AM all this week and finally got around to looking more closely at the area at the edge of the yard that blends into the forest. Yikes! The edge has been overrun with invasive plants!

I noticed the wavy leaf basket grass first. It was covering the area. I started pulling out handfuls and noticed other plants underneath --- maybe some of them are natives; I’ll have to go back with a book next time I work in that area. Then I noticed the mile-a-minute; not profuse (yet) but it does live up to its name. I pulled it out too.

Then I saw a pretty little blue flower that I didn’t recognize. I left it and went back later to take a picture so that I could identify it. Aargh! It’s Commelina communis (common names Asiatic Dayflower, mouse ears, dew herb) and it’s an invasive from Asia. That’s one more plant to pull in the area.

Hydrangea

I cut some hydrangea flowers from the bush in my chaos garden yesterday and brought them up to my office in a milk glass vase. I like the hydrangeas on my desktop - the physical rather than the digital one!

I remember taking home-grown hydrangeas to work almost 30 years ago in the same vase. I’d inherited the vase when we bought the house and it was large enough to hold even the largest flowers. The plant was one that produced blue flowers and grew in the shade of American beech and oak trees that towered over the house. It was one of the few times I took flowers into work; they were spectacular visually…and they lasted longer than most flowers.

The pink hydrangea bush that I cut these flowers from was purchased within a year of our moving to our current house almost 20 years ago. They grew well until a year ago when a late spring freeze destroyed almost all the leaf buds….and then the deer decided the plants were well worth eating. This year they seem to be recovering.

My mother likes to bring cut flowers and plants inside to enjoy. She has something just about anywhere that the eye passes frequently. It’s a good idea. During the summer I have enough flowering plants that all I need to do is walk around the yard with some scissors!

Iris Seed Pods

The irises that bloomed profusely near our front door (May 16 post) were fading by the first of June although some of the petals still remained. I snapped most of the spent flowers from the stalks to help the plant send all its energy to increasing the rhizome mass rather than the seed pod….but left a couple for observation.

By mid-June, all the color had faded from the petals even though the dried, twisted petals still topped the green pod forming underneath.

Now - a month later - the pod is beginning to brown. I’ll continue to take pictures as it ripens. The plan it to start a new bed of irises with the seeds and some rhizomes I’ll move from a bed that is becoming overwhelmed with new bushes and mint. I’m going to mark where I plant the seeds so I can observe their progress over the next few years.

Belmont Elm

Just before I got home from Texas - a friend sent me the news (Baltimore Sun from June 10 story here) that the large tree in front of Belmont Manor has Dutch Elm Disease and will be cut down soon. I took some pictures of the tree when I was volunteering at the park last week. It is a 250 year old tree and will leave a hole in the landscape that will take some time to fill. Hopefully the other large elms nearby (three between the Manor House and Carriage House) will be not succumb to the same disease.

The tree in front of the manor house looks partially dead even to the untrained eye but one side is still full of leaves that frame the pond looking away from the house….

And the Manor House looking up the hill.

There are many exposed roots on the hill where the deep shade has thinned the grass. The damage from mowers over the years is evident.

I’m always sad when an old tree has to be cut down. This particular one is a piece of tangible history….planted before the United States was a country!

Zooming - July 2015

I enjoyed traveling over the past month and many of the places provided ample opportunity for some close photography. Some highlights in this set of zoomed images are:

• Bluebird
• Hollyhocks
• Bees
• Cone flowers
• Milkweed
• Butterflies
• Dragonfly
• Poppies
• Red yucca pods
• Swan

Enjoy!

Gleanings of the Week Ending July 18, 2015

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Toward Blood-based Cancer Detection - Lots of promise….but it is still a work in progress.

Buzz Kill for Bumblebees: Climate Change Is Shrinking Their Range - Bumblebees prefer cooler temperatures than many other insects and they like open areas rather than forest. As the ‘normal’ temperatures get hotter, the bee’s southern range is creeping northward but the forests of the north are a physical boundary to their expansion…thus a shrinking area for bumblebees.

Why can’t we move? - A lot of people in the US spend too long commuting…stuck in traffic or on inadequate public transportation. The US has fallen behind the rest of the developed world in our ability to move people to and from and within our cities.

Solving the Energy Efficiency Quandary - It often hard to measure the efficiency of an improvement that is ‘supposed’ to save energy. Not there are some standards emerging that may help do that. It is something needed for homeowners to finally gain enough data to understand the energy use of their home…and guide their decisions re improvements that will have the most impact.

For the Love of Plants - I enjoy botanical prints in old books…and here are some modern ones from botanical illustrator Mindy Lighthipe! (art work) My favorite one is the Monarch Butterfly with milkweed; it includes the Monarch lifecycle.

How free is Your Produce? - How well do you know your 19th century history? Evidently the free produce movement was a food justice movement propelled by Quakers and other abolitionists who hoped to abolish slavery through food ways. And now we have the Fair Trade movement and Fair Food program which are very similar.  

The Chemistry of Ice Cream – Components, Structure, & Flavor - A favorite warm weather treat!

Dragonflies and Damselflies - Check out Elizabeth’s Wildflower Blog --- this time about insects rather than flowers.

Smoke North and Saharan Dust South - Smoke and dust travel a very long ways across land and ocean.

Photography in the National Parks: Framing Wildflowers in the Parks - Good photography tips…and National Parks offer so many subjects to choose from!

CSA Week 7

I have a lot of veggies to eat over the next week - most of the week 5 and 6 share left when I picked up week 7 share. There are going to be two full meals each day that are heavy on veggies (salad or stir fry are my favorite generic recipes to use lots of veggies fast)!

The veggies in the week 7 share include lettuce, leeks, zucchini, cucumbers and onions. There was a choice between carrots, beets, okra, eggplant, or cherry tomatoes; I chose the tomatoes even though I know in a few weeks I’ll probably be overwhelmed by tomatoes and be looking for ways to preserve them to use after the season.

I was also allowed a pick from the overage table and I couldn’t resist picking up a small purple cabbage; I like the additional color it adds to salads.

Returning Home

After being away from about two weeks - it feels very good to be home again.

The trek home began at Love Field (the old Dallas airport that has been renovated and has always been one of Southwest Airline’s hubs). The mural beside the waiting area of the security checkpoint is made of ceramic tile; I barely had time to look at it since I didn’t have to stand in line. Next time I’ll linger and get a good picture.

The airport was more crowded than usual and my flight was delayed by about 30 minutes. Not bad considering the forecast for the afternoon in Baltimore (my destination) was scattered thunderstorms. I used the time to walk around the terminal since travel days always seem to be skewed toward too much sitting. I always pause to look up in the center of the terminal at the ‘cloud’ of flying things (birds, planes, balloons, bees!).

I was delayed a little when I arrived in Baltimore. It always seems to take a long time for the checked luggage to arrive at the carousels. Then there was a huge crowd at the pickup lanes just outside. While my husband fixed dinner - I did the first load of laundry.

I went to bed at ‘east coast bedtime’ rather than ‘central’ and was surprised how easily I slept. I got up a little later the next morning - determined to go through 2 CSA shares that my husband had picked up but not eaten while I was away. I made good use of my food processor to make fruit beety, shred carrots and kohlrabi, and make squash hummus before noon along with a trip to the grocery store and another load of laundry.

By the time I picked up the CSA share - less than 24 hours after returning home - I was beginning to feel like I was almost back to ‘normal’ for being at home!

Josey Ranch Lake - July 2015

Every time I visit in Carrollton TX, I walk around Josey Ranch Lake and post some photos (February 2015, and August 2014). There is quite a seasonal variation.

The swans are a year round residents. There were adult swans this July - no juveniles (there was a juvenile in August 2014).

They were preening quite a lot - with down feathers stuck on their bills afterward.

I picked up a large white feather; it graces the pencil pot on my mother's desk now.

There are birds to hear and search for in the trees

and the cattails.

The nutrias that were evident back in February and last year were not around at all. Did the city manage to get rid of them somehow? They are invasive and probably made the maintenance of the wetland end of the lake more challenging.

The birds that come when someone throws bread/food to them are not as varied as in February. I only saw ducks, pigeons and the swans (the ducks always beat the swans to the food on land!).  In February there were acrobatic seagulls and coots too!

The ducklings from this year were getting their adult plumage. They tend to look a little scruffy and are doing a lot of preening.

The desert willows were blooming. The color of the flower highlights the light green of the foliage and the blue of the clear Texas sky on a very hot day.

There was a low growing plant with similar colors in the xeriscape garden beside the library and senior center on one side of lake.I was disappointed that I only saw one egret and no herons. In August 2014 there were several different species of herons at the lake. What a difference a month of so makes!

Sunflowers at Monticello

The sunflowers had a large bed to themselves in the vegetable garden at Monticello when I was there in June. I took a huge number of pictures and am just now getting around to looking at them again. I’ve picked a series that show various stages of flower development.

The flower stalks were much taller than a person and the flowers larger than a dinner a plate. As the seeds begin to develop the petals fade and the tops of the plants must get heavier because they bend over rather than continuing to turn toward the sun.

Sunflowers are always bright spots of the day!

Red Yucca

Red yucca is a popular landscaping plant in the area around Dallas where I’ve been the last few weeks. This time of year they are blooming and seed pods are beginning to form.

The long stalks with blooms lean over and move with each list breeze. They add color and motion in gardens that require relatively little water.

I managed to get a picture of the same branch on July 1 and July 6. Notice how fast the purplish seed pods developed. Soon they will be green….and along their growth to split open in the fall and spill their seeds.

Homemade Zucchini Hummus and Orange Marmalade

I have discovered two recipes recently that are so easy to make at home that I won’t be buying the equivalent in the grocery store any time soon.  Both recipes are the ones I will make again and again this summer - the 'condiments' of Summer 2015!

Zucchini Hummus

(This recipe uses zucchini rather than chickpeas. A version of it was included in a newsletter from the Gorman Farms CSA on the first week zucchini was included in the share. I modified it slightly - part of joy of cooking as far as I'm concerned.)

1 cup diced raw zucchini

1/3 cup tahini butter

1/4 cup fresh lemon juice

2 cloves garlic minced

2 teaspoon cumin

Salt to taste

Put everything in a food processor and process until smooth. Refrigerate and use as dip or salad dressing!

Some variations I am going to try:

• Add fresh basil or mint or both (since I have them growing in deck pots)
• Season with no-salt seasoning blends
• Add lemon or orange zest
• Add a little extra tahini or some olive oil for better salad dress consistency
• Add 1 tablespoon flaxseed meal for thicker consistency

Orange Marmalade

Cut the ends off an orange. Cut into wedges, removing seeds. (Option: If you have the skin and pulp of a lemon after making zucchini hummus, cut it up and add to the orange to make orange/lemon marmalade!). Process in a food processor until skin and pulp are reduced to small bits.

Place process citrus in a small saucepan. Add 1/2 cup sugar and 2 tablespoons of lemon juice. Set timer for 15 minutes and bring to boil on high heat then the lower the heat to simmer.

Cool. Place in a glass jar with a tight lid (I use a wide mouthed jar that salsa came in). Refrigerate.

I enjoy marmalade in warmed pitas (small) or on toast. It is a wonderful salad dressing either alone or combined with olive oil. Use as a component of dressing for carrot/raisin or celery/apple/raisin or spinach/strawberry salad.

Gleanings of the Week Ending July 11, 2015

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Exploring Vermont's Ancient Roads - (abstract of an article in The New Yorker: Where the Roads have No Name) Studying history through roads - some long abandoned but still ‘on the books.’

The oceans can’t take any more: Fundamental change in oceans predicted - A study that focused on the impact of climate change (specifically atmospheric CO2 increases) is likely to have on the oceans….it is not a ‘good news’ story.

Trails Win Big in Florida's 2015-16 State Budget - Hurray! This is important for Floridians and tourists that enjoy the outdoors in the state.

How did milk become a staple food? - Milk became the ‘super food’ of the early 1900s. This article provides the historical background for this ascendance.

Water usage for fracking has increased dramatically, study shows - And most of the water for fracking is disposed of deep underground, removing it from the water cycle. In areas of the world where water is already a problem - why would anyone want to take water out of the water cycle?

Rosetta's Comet Is Developing Giant Sinkholes before Our Eyes - Lots of changes to observe…and Rosetta is in position to do it.

The Best Places to See 10 Iconic American Animals - Bald Eagles, bison, gray wolf, moose, mountain goat, pronghorn, black bear, alligator, wild turkey, northern cardinal - oh my!

The traits that make human beings unique - Many traits once believed to be uniquely human have been found in the animal kingdom…what defines us?

These are the Minerals That Give Fireworks Their Colors - A follow-up to fourth of July!

A Satellite's First Look at Earth Has a Stunning Photo of the Sahara - An image from the second of six Sentinel missions to track land use, vegetation stress, soil and water cover…and for imagery needed for emergency response. There is a lot of information we need to guide our actions to sustain the planet.

CSA Week 6

I am going to have a lot of veggies to process or eat when I get home next week. My husband picked up the week 5 share last week and the majority is still in one crisper of the refrigerator. It’s a good thing my refrigerator has two large crispers since the second one is now filled with the week 6 share from the Gorman Farms CSA share.

This week we got beets (I’ll make fruit beety as soon as I get home), leeks, onions, carrots, yellow squash, cucumbers, green beans (he put them in a mesh bag, and purple basil. He realized that I had green basil growing in a pot on our deck so when he had to choose between green and purple --- he picked the purple.

There was a cut sunflower as part of the share this week too!

I can hardly wait to pick up next week’s share since the ‘overage table’ has been started since I have been away - and is a new feature of the CSA this year.

Monticello - June 2015

I’ve made periodic trips to Monticello since 1983 when I moved to the east coast from Texas. There always seems to be something new to learn at Thomas Jefferson’s home. We arrived early for the first Behind the Scenes House Tour and Day Pass - with reservations made ahead of time. There was a lotus blooming in the courtyard of the visitor center; I had not even remembered a pool there from my previous visit so it was a pleasant surprise.

Later in the day it would have been impossible to get pictures of the house without people milling around. Did you know that Monticello has three floors above the basement? Jefferson intended for it to look like a single story. Here’s how he got light to the 3 floors. Look at the stacked windows on the front of the house. The windows with the shutters are the first floor. The windows with a white frame and no shutters are the second floor. They fill the lower half of the second floor walls. The third floor has sloped ceilings and skylights!

The viewshed for Monticello is somewhat changed from Jefferson’s day. There were farms where the trees had been cleared within the viewshed during his time but probably not as many clusters of other buildings. From the house it is easy to position yourself where trees block the view.

No pictures are allowed inside the house so I don’t have a picture of the staples that were used to support the alcove beds. I’d not noticed how the beds were supported on previous visits. Jefferson’s bed was open on both sides (and he had a clock positioned on the wall at his feet…he got up when it was light enough for him to see the clock). The other alcove beds had walls on three sides; Dolly Madison visited with her husband frequently and did not like them (probably because she was on the side to the wall!).

The kitchen has separate ‘burners’ for cooking at different temperatures. But they are not vented. The kitchen would have been hot, sooty, and smoky.

The back of Monticello includes the dome. More of the house is visible these days because a giant tulip poplar planted by Jefferson had to be cut down in the 1990s. The inside of the dome room is being monitored closely these days because there are cracks that appeared in the plaster after an earthquake…and they are getting larger.

After Jefferson’s presidency there were quite a few people living at Monticello: his daughter and her many children and his sister….as well as other relatives and friends. They had to have quite a garden to feed everyone.

The view from Mulberry Row - the series of cabins for the slaves that worked in or near the house - may have included more trees that it does now. The kitchen is to the right of this view…the south pavilion above on the far left.

My favorite photograph of the house during this visit was through the flowers.

I was surprised at the number of butterflies we saw in the short walk around the grounds.

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Instead of riding the bus down the hill to the visitor center we walked past the cemetary and through the forest.

And then it was time to splurge for lunch at Michie Tavern. The food is good….but I’m not as fond of ‘all you can eat’ places as I once was. In this case - it is tradition. I think we have gone to Michie Tavern for lunch every time I’ve visited Monticello!

Maymont - June 2015

The golden age Maymont mansion in Richmond is well worth touring. I knew I wanted to see it when we walked the grounds and gardens back in April - on a Monday when the house is not open for tours (see my post here). I was very pleased to be back in Richmond in June and on a Saturday.

The basement area is set up as the waiting area for the tour and has displays of how the ‘upstairs’ of the mansion was supported. The maids’ room (used for sleeping and sewing/mending) had more outside light than I expected. The walls of the room are well back from the edge of the foundation for the upper floors; the windows are normal sized and the window wells in the external wall are large enough to lessen the ‘below ground’ feeling a basement usually has.

The tour allows pictures inside the house. The furnishings were left to the city of Richmond along with the house so the furniture that was in the house when Mrs. Dooley died in 1925 is still there. Mr. Dooley’s library/office has dark woods and large windows….and a winged lion chair.

Across the entry hall - Mrs. Dooley’s front parlor also has lots of large windows and a very fancy ceiling: pink and blue - roses and clouds. There is a lot of gold leaf too.

In the entry hall there is a fireplace with a comfortable chair….a dog sculpture…and a teapot on a hook.

The staircase to the upper floor has a large Tiffany window and a stuffed peacock.

All the windows have stained glass transoms at the top. They are different for each room.

One of my favorite rooms was a small parlor upstairs used as a breakfast room. The China on the table was perfect for a summer morning. One of the chairs had a water lily inlay - that included a dragonfly. The poppy pattern of China in the cabinet along one of the walls….and the cabinet itself...added to the ambience of the room.

In the niece's bedroom a tea set was displayed on a small table. There was a lot of trade with Asia during the late 1800s when the house was built.

Probably the most famous room of the house is Mrs. Dooley’s bedroom. The swan theme is everywhere: the bed, a rocking chair, the painting over the fireplace. Another unusual item in the room: the dressing table and chair are supported by narwhal tusks.

Out on the front porch after the tour I noticed the mosaic on the floor.

There is a small garden with sculpture and columns with a very large magnolia in the background.

As we walked back toward our car we walked through the herb garden. The bees were enjoying the beebalm and cone flowers.

Celebrating Southern Magnolias

I am contemplating my history with southern magnolias this morning. My grandparents had one in their front yard in Wichita Falls, Texas that struggled with the high heat and low humidity of the area. The same was true with the tree in the front yard of my first house in Plano, Texas. I noticed them more when we moved to the mid-Atlantic piedmont area in the 1980s.

In Maryland, there are some large specimens but the weather sometimes is too cold for them. They survive well with care. Belmont has a large one in front of the manor house. I photographed a seed pod from the previous year back in March. The red seeds that remind me of M&Ms were already gone. The buds for 2015 were already showing on the branches.

Richmond is where I first noticed very large magnolias. The short trip to the area in June was well timed to see them in bloom. Maymont has a number of large specimens with ropey trunks. They were trimmed high enough to walk under and it was a popular place to position a bench!

The classical picture with the white flower and glossy green leaves is very appealing but in this series - my favorite has rust petals and developing seed pods!

Road Trip: Maryland to Texas

A week ago I was driving from Maryland to north Texas (over 2 days).

Road Trips - even one that are mostly just driving - allow a close view of the land. We had good weather; it got progressively hotter as we drove south and west through Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas and into Texas. We stopped for a night just west of Nashville.

Since I was doing most of the driving - I only took a few pictures as we crossed the Mississippi at Memphis…..the Memphis Pyramid and the bridge into Arkansas over the river.

The closer we got to Texas the wetter it got. The center of the US has gotten a lot of rain and some areas are flat enough that it does not run off like it does in the piedmont area of Maryland where I live.

One place I noticed along the road that I had somehow missed in previous treks through the Virginia part of the route was the mansion at Fort Chiswell. It is visible from the highway. I’m going to want to stop to look at it more next time I am in that area.

Fireworks on the Fourth

We walked to a viewing location for fireworks last night - spraying ourselves with insect repellent to deter mosquitoes. I already had enough bites from earlier in the week!

The fireworks were scheduled from 9:30-9:45 PM. The display started with a few 'test' sequences....a long pause between them; we begam to think the fireworks were going to be a 'dud' --- but then the more connected bursts of booms and light commenced.My monopod stabilized my camera well enough to capture some of the 'light' portion of the show (even though the power lines were between our viewing location and the fireworks)…and I am enjoying the fireworks again this morning as I prepared this slideshow. Hope everyone had a great 4th of July celebration!