loving the little things: tiny wells of happiness

  
Don't know what the deal is, but being very zen and digging things in-the-moment, yesterday and today.

Yesterday I made gingerbread cookie dough and for some reason was really loving it.

First, I thought about how amazing it is to open a fresh container of ground ginger: so beautiful, smells so amazing, is from India and China, so SUPER exotic (if you stop and think about it), and here it is in my humble cupboard, waiting. Imagine if you had travel to INDIA to get ginger, for heaven's sake!

And how gorgeous is this? Amazing rich, warm color, incredible scent, and together, the ginger and cinnamon add SUCH excitement and depth to food.

Then, I was rapt, watching the swirling molasses ripple onto the surface of the batter. The higher you hold the cup, the finer the lacy design they make. Hypnotic.

Next, you finely grate and add lemon rind. Again: gorgous! And such a clean, invigorating scent.

At last you blend everything together, then divide the dough into 2 and wrap them. Normally you let it rest 2-8 hours, but I was tired so shoved them in the fridge, and took them out this morning.

The texture of these KILLS me, and I love that deep, chocolate brown. I want to pat and squeeze them all day. Honk honk! (I'm a texture freak, FYI)
 
And, while puttering around in the garden this a.m., I practically trip on a zucchini, and as I bend down to pick it, I get this color hit. Intense, very different colors, in a very small area. GORGEOUS, yummy little visual gift.

I'll take it!

LOVING this living thing. =)

biobabbler

biobabbler breakthrough: a fall/winter garden is nigh!

 
Believe it or not, I was actually able to pull living plants OUT OF THE GROUND. That is, vegetable garden plants I'd put there--I yanked 'em.

The proof:

still beautiful...

I also pulled some squash plants--chucked them into the chicken yards.

before squash plant yanking...

after.

And then I planted fall/winter plant seeds.

Just

like

normal

gardeners!

Phew.

Really, this is huge.

When I was about 8 years old, we went to a church auction/yard sale thingy, and I bought about 18,000 coleus plants. Took them all home and clustered all the colorful, clay-potted lovelies on our porch.

One morning on my way out the door to school, I looked tenderly at my little plants, and saw that one of them had been knocked over. Plant was snapped in two, dead.

I lost it. I cried and cried and cried. (gee, and she became a conservation biologist?? shocking).

Anyhow, unless it's non-native and (by implication) trying to kill all non-natives and basically ruin the Earth, it's very hard for me to pull it.

So, I'm VERY proud of myself today. =)

So, in the shot above you can see where I planted "beet mix" (since I like color and hate agonizing over decisions), and below you can see where I planted Russian red kale,

where only weeds grew until last week,

and pak choi,

where minutes before stood (drooping and drying out) lemon sunflowers.

So, now I have 3 different types of baby plants to look forward to, in addition to monitoring the continuing progress of our TINY broccoli.

Yay!

Rewarded for bravery.

in loving memory

biobabbler

Rothko sunset

  

From last night.
Minimalist happiness.

=)

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tomato stitches, you know you're a hick when, and harvest shots

  
1. Here are pictures of one of the self-suturing tomatoes. Still amazes me. And, btw, how RED is that? =)

Perfect, tiny stitches. Honestly, biology NEVER ceases to amaze me.

2. You know you're a hayseed when...

... you are cleaning out the chicken coop, and to prop the door open, you use a corn cob.

All I need now is to knock out a front tooth to complete the picture. =)

3. Outdoor-oven-baked veggies

It will be well over 100 degrees today. Happy fall (-down-dead-from-the-heat)! Chicken pool day, for sure.

Poor garden is getting cooked:

3 days ago I DEEP watered it and yesterday dying leaves appeared on the tomato plants.

Yay.

Watered again yesterday (some) and will water again today (the rest and maybe start again). 100 dF yesterday plus single digit humidity = water magically disappears.

Here's the 3 sisters plot (corn, squash, beans) this a.m. with (sun-beaten) tomatoes in the foreground:

Clearly the squash is making a break for it, crawling up the fence. Once it gets out of the fence, though, thirsty deer snarf it right up, so it's never gonna happen.

SOME day the corn will be ready... the (few) beans are already drying.

Here's the watermelons with my (not so) dainty sneaker for scale.

Still not ready (tap tap tap go my toes), but a good number of the little guys. And they're so cute!

4. Aphidphreakout

Yesterday I had a kind of uncool moment in the corn plot.

I saw an ear that had all this black on it, so looked closer, expecting a pigment or soot issue, and it was aphids. LOTS of black aphids. EEK! Gross.

Well, see, there WAS a ladybug there, so I should have just left and let him/her stuff his/her face, but was sufficiently freaked that I grabbed the ear, the ladybug flew away, and I hosed it down to get them all off NOW.

Should have waited. oop.

5. Today's harvest:

my favorite shot

mmm... leaves....(snarf, snarf)

I also could have harvested a bunch of jalapeno peppers and some basil, but don't know what to do with them, yet (including the pile of peppers in the fridge), so I'll wait.

6. Fall/winter garden happenings


So far have only planted broccoli--tiny cotyledons have poked their heads up, lately being brutally beaten by the crazy hot sun. Poor things.

I just hope they survive today (the hottest predicted day) and make it through to this weekend, when it should be less oven-like.

I really need to Today I pledge to go through my seeds and select 1-3 things to plant in the very near future. I have one very small plot prepped and ready to go, and I may yank a few squash soon to stuff that plot with root-plants.

The rotation order I follow is PLMR. P is potatoes (which I don't grow, but also is for tomatoes, peppers, any nightshades), L is legumes/brassica, M is miscellaneous (which includes squash and melons), and R is roots.


In the mean time, I just want to keep my chickens and plants alive through this last BLAST of summer.

How's your summer/fall transition going?

=) xobiobabbler

amazing bobcat pics at flower hill farm

  
Check these WONderful shots out. Her yard is SO beautiful and varied, provides a ridiculously stunning setting for these incredible close-up views of a beautiful animal. AWESOME!

biobabbler

Mumday: fall wetlands before... (the after will be in winter)

 

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ooh, latest Phriday Photo Quiz EVER; #18

  
TOTALLY spaced on this. Pardon.

As I mentioned, was away all last week, and drove back Friday, apparently erasing any thoughts of photo quiz Phriday.

So, with no further ado:

What species is this?

=) Pleasant ponderings!

biobabbler

Furtive Fauna Foto deadline, plus quickie harvest shots and low carbon ideas

  
Furtive Fauna Foto Free-For-All
So, we now have a collective Furtive Fauna Foto (or Crypto Photo? Camoflaged Critters?) post coming up, and the due date for submittals is October 8th. Send your links or photos to biobabbler at g mail dot com by then and you will be a player! =)

For those of you who don't know/recall this theme, to which YOU can contribute, it is explained and illustrated here.

It always shocks me when it happens. How did I not see it? It's SO OBvious. In some cases I was close enough to lick the animal, but was totally oblivious.

Anyhow, we have a FEW contributors (Yay!!) and I think I've got at least 3 shots, but the more the merrier, and of COURSE I will give you full credit in whatever G-rated fashion you desire.  =)

Garden update
Random (non-glamorous) shot of SOME of the recent squash pickings (pepo):

I think I may yank the sunburst squash plants pretty soon. Wanting more fall/winter garden real-estate, and the plant is looking pretty tired, but we'll see. I have great difficulty yanking living plants. I swear I can hear them pleading "I just wanna live!" I am also the world's worst plant thinner. Yeesh. Same reason.

Nightshade family goodies: tomatoes, jalapeno peppers, and sweet peppers. The jalapenos are ALL flawless, so I'm guessing they have some major protective qualities (mechanical/chemical warfare) protecting them from buggy attack. It's NOT because I've raised them in perfect conditions (note cracked tomatoes...).

Oh, one cool thing; check out the closest, lower left tomato. It stitched up it's potentially cracked skin. It's amazing. Looks like tiny, neat sutures, perfectly perpendicular to the direction of the cut. TOO cool.

These are seeds from my white cosmos. I've been resisting the very strong urge to deadhead the flowers (to get more fresh blooms) so I can get these babies. Seeds for next year! Makes my cheapie and carbon-frugal heart sing. =) I have loads more ripening, so I must continue to resist snapping them off--it's difficult!!

As I've said before, baby steps toward sustainable living. And this is one. =)

OH, and before I forget, ANOTHER carbon-reducer: I heard on an organic gardening show yesterday (You Bet Your Garden) that I can dig up my jalapeno plants, put each in a big pot, and keep them in some sunny, non-freezing place, and the plants can live for years and years. AND, he said they can keep producing up until November!

They just can't take the freezing temps we get here, so if I can possibly figure out a way to protect some southern-exposure window real estate from plant-killing-kitties, I could save my super productive little plants, then, after spring frosts are over, I can chunk them back in the ground, and away they go.

That'd be sweet.

Just to be on the safe side, though, I'll harvest some jalapeno seeds, too. =)

xoxo biobabbler

an aside--FASCInating post at MOBugs

  
A-MA-zing manipulation: In the battle of wits between mold and fly? Mold wins--BIG time. Check it out!! Poor little flies... Definitely one of those truth-is-stranger-than-fiction moments.

Thursday thoughts... the accidental portraitist

 
Have you ever taken a picture of one thing, and once you looked at the shot (via computer, or whatever) you saw something else in the picture, namely a living creature, that you had NO idea was there?

This has happened to me. More than once. Usually with insects or other inverts, and it leaves me terribly impressed by their ability to be calm, cool, and camouflaged, despite the nearness of me.

Sneaky little orthopteran!

Back end of grasshopper-esque creature. Considering the preponderance of grasshoppers v. katydids in my garden, I'm guessing it's the former.

So, I was thinking it'd be fun to do a post of just those accidental portraits.

THEN I thought it'd be WAY more fun if other folks had them too, and contributed them (sent a photo a link to it/them to biobabbler at g mail), so I could post a bunch.

Anyhow, what do you think? This would be our first official interactive, group blog. I'll credit you in whatever (suitable-for-an-innocent-public) way you wish.

I would, however, take the liberty of selecting from among the contributions, if needed, for a balanced post.

So:
a) Has this happened to you, and
b) are you willing to/interested in sharing?

biobabbler

Mumday interpreted: smoky SEKI!

  

This is one of the first places we stopped to gaze across the landscape and into the soup that was Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks last weekend. The Sheep fire has been burning there for weeks and putting up a respectable amount of smoke.

Check this link out to see the fire via satellite. It's the puff of smoke east of Monterey Bay and south of Mono Lake. There's just about no other fires visible, so you can't miss it.

MODIS, by the way, is an AMAzing source of daily views of the planet. Truly stunning images, and free. I highly recommend bookmarking that pup.

Bear loves fire, and I suspect this is what prompted this, our FIRST trip here. Little did I know it's spec-TAC-ular. Wow. A lot of the views normally available were completely obscured, but we will definitely be back: now that I viscerally "get" the "Kings Canyon" title. Very apt.

This is about where we first saw the actual sources of the smoke, and loved what it did to the sun--some freaky lighting that day, all glowing orange and diffuse. I happened to be wearing orange pants that day, and they looked like they were plugged into an electric socket--too cool.

Here you can actually see places on fire--didn't usually see flame, but saw the smoke climbing up out of the trees.

If you didn't know, going to see a fire at night is the best time to see actual flame--looks totally different. This I learned when we had a fire about 3 miles from our house.

The base of this tree was on fire. Bear noted it was probably frustrated, 'cause this tree's toes are IN the river (see extreme foreground of picture), and it's surrounded by rock, but nevertheless, it still caught on fire

Ah, well. It'll be a lovely snag for some very happy bugs and birds (and mammals, etc.), once its temperature lowers to something hospitable. Snags (dead trees) really do seem to bring out biological joy; so many species benefit by them, it's a biological party that continues for years.

I figured I'd end the post with some huge sequoias that had obviously been burned in the past. Fire scars can be seen pretty commonly on these behemoths.

If you've not heard the story re: sequoias and fire, years ago parks with sequoias suppressed fire around the trees to keep them from burning up. Wouldn't want a Sequoia National Park where all the sequoias were just huge piles of ash, would you?

Well, then someone (super smart) looked around the sequoia forest floor and noticed something. No baby sequoias. NONE. That is not good.

Turns out sequoias MUST have fire to regenerate--to get new sequoia trees. So, everyone revisited their fire management plans and now they do allow fires to occur in the groves. They may be carefully managed fires, but fire has returned to these groves to do what it needs to do.

It's amazing how many times we tinker with nature and later figure out that it really wasn't such a good idea, and, in fact, is hurting the very thing we were trying to protect.

Lesson? Unless you have a mountain of evidence, when in doubt, ask yourself what had happened there for millenia before we ever arrived. That's probably a very good place to start.

biobabbler

P.S. SEKI is the NPS 4 letter code for Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. If you want to learn more about these parks, go to www.nps.gov/seki. =)

Mumday

 

 

 

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