I don’t think the kitten wants its picture taken.
The Re-Farmer
Author: Re-Farmer
There are fungus among us
My apologies for the bad pun… :-D
Walking through the West yard, we noticed these, high above our heads…
This is on one of the three big maples near the fire pit.
They showed up very quickly; I know for sure they weren’t there, just a couple of days ago!
Looking around, we found these on another branch of the same tree.
That’s as much as I could zoom in with my phone’s camera and still get a half decent photo.
Of course, we immediately started looking around the other trees for more, but found none, so we continued on through where I had been working this morning. We ended up going through the rest of the maple grove, too, and found more!
These were just a few feet above our heads.
Whatever these mushrooms are, they like maples, they like the spaces where branches used to grow, long ago, and they grow really fast!
The Re-Farmer
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Feline domesticity
A visible difference
While walking around the maple grove with my daughter (and finding mushrooms growing on trees! Will post those later…), I found myself looking at the lonely little Colorado Blue Spruce near the main garden.
Here is how things looked about a month and a half ago.
This first picture was taken at the very end of June.
On the left, you can see three sad looking trees, grouped together.
This next photo was taken on July 2.
I cut away two of the three trees, and pruned the dead branches on the remaining one, hoping it would survive, and maybe even thrive.
Well, this is how it looks now.
As you can see, the new growth filled in vigorously!
It’s even looking blue. :-D
Here’s a closer look at one of the branches.
Here, you can really see the older, greener, needles contrasted with the new, bluer, growth.
It is already becoming a happy little tree, instead of a sad little tree. :-D
This is exactly what I was hoping to see – and faster than I expected!
This is a tree with the potential to grow 65 ft tall, with a width from 10-20 ft, though I have read they can reach 135ft high and 30 ft wide. They can grow anywhere from 12 – 24 inches in a single growing season. This is a tree that needs space! It’s unfortunate that the three of them had been planted so close together. There are others that I hope I can clear up around and salvage. This one, at least, might actually make it!
This makes me happy. :-)
The Re-Farmer
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Clean up; west fence line, moving north
It’s been a much cooler day today, so I took advantage of it and continued working along our west fence line.
In all, the before and after photos below represent about 2 1/2 hours work. This includes pausing to take some video, and also pausing to drag away the branches and tree trunks I took down.
What a job!
Let’s start at that group of three maples, where I left off last time. Continue reading
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It’s a Cat’s life
That face…
I actually thought he was asleep when I saw him sprawled on his back like this. Then I saw the eye. Staring. At me.
The Re-Farmer
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It’s a bit hot out there…
And getting hotter.
For those in the US, 34C = 93.2F
43C = 109.4F
By 4pm, we are expected to hit 36C, or 96.8F, but it’s supposed to feel like 44C, or 111.2F
I hope we do get that storm tonight, even though it’s still supposed to be 32/40C (89/104F).
Thankfully, even though we don’t have air conditioning, we’ve been able to keep the house fairly cool. Closing the windows before it starts heating up (except the kitchen window, because of the frog), and having the basement door open, makes a difference!
The Re-Farmer
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Plums and kittens and more…
Yesterday evening, while walking around the yard, I was followed by a little beast!
I was even able to pick him up and pet him for a bit. I dragged the end of a stick on the ground that he and his mother had a blast trying to catch, and I caught him (her? still don’t know). He was tense about it, but not freaking out, which is progress!
I found that the plums are now ripe.
These tiny little plums are almost all pit. If I were to do something with them, I would be harvesting them now.
I might just leave them for the birds this year.
I can think of a number of things to do with them, Continue reading
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Chokecherry Vinegar Drink
I finally got some photos of a drink mixed using the chokecherry vinegar I made not long ago.
I have been using it for other things already. One of the things I like to do is put some frozen mixed berries in container to thaw out over night and enjoy them with breakfast. Usually, I sprinkle a bit of vanilla sugar over them while they are still frozen. I tried it with a drizzle of chokecherry vinegar, and it worked out very well! It made plain, ordinary toaster waffles really something!
I’ve drizzled some over fresh cantaloupe, which was also really nice. It would work just as well over any melon or fruit salad. The vinegar adds just the right tang.
For a drink, we spooned some over some ice (about 3-4 tablespoons for a large glass), then added ginger ale.
Give it a bit of a stir, and that’s it!
Very refreshing.
I don’t actually enjoy ginger ale as a drink on its own, but I do like it as a mix. Half and half with orange juice or cranberry juice, with frozen berries instead of ice, is a favorite of mine. This chokecherry vinegar would be right at home in any drink like that!
Perfect for a 34C day!
The Re-Farmer
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A photogenic morning
The beach was quite lovely this morning. :-)
Someone’s sand castle looks like part of its wall has already been claimed by the waves.
I played around with the settings on my phone’s camera and was happy to get more true-to-life photos.
The closer to the marina, the rockier the beach. I find the beach much more interesting, the rockier it gets.
These boulders are right at the wharf. It’s not unusual to see someone sitting on them, reading a book or something, and just enjoying this quiet little spot.
There is a little cove on the other side of the marina. The lake shore here is lined with boulders to protect from erosion. The entry/exit through the breakwater into the marina is near here, and the yacht club is nearby as well.
A beautiful day for a sail.
Near the frog fountain are a couple of mountain-ash trees, aka rowan. They are gorgeous trees. We had a couple, around where our plum trees are, when I was a kid, but I have no idea what happened to them. These trees are of similar size. When we first moved to the city we were in for the past 14 years, one of the things that amazed me was how many mountain-ash trees there were, and how HUGE they were, compared to here. When we first moved into the housing co-op, we were in a townhouse on the second and third floors at the end of the row, and there was a mountain-ash right outside the third floor bedroom windows. Every spring, it would fill with waxwings, eating the remaining berries. Gorgeous birds, though it didn’t take long for their incessant fee-fee-fee! noise, that would start at about 3 a.m. and continue for hours, to get very annoying. :-D
While in the area, I saw some gazebo tents set up and remembered that it was Saturday – Farmer’s Market day. This was the first time I was able to take it in, since our move. It was still early, to I walked for a while before coming back to the market and seeing what was there. I even had a bit of cash on hand, for a change. I normally never have cash and use my debit card for everything, but I had decided to take some money out this morning, just in case.
Then I found my cousin’s honey booth.
I no longer have any cash on hand, but I now have a big bucket of creamed honey!
That should last us through the winter. :-D
The Re-Farmer
