DaddyRoBlog

Does Anybody Really Know What Thyme It Is?

This is another new section of garden this year.  In years past, you could only get from the back yard from the front yard on one side of the house.  This year I took out a small section of fence from the other side of the house and built a path through the beds located there.  Not only does it improve access, it also makes picking berries/tomatoes/peppers and cutting flowers easier as well.

Along the path we've planted several types of thyme.  So if you've got the time to, uh,  see past the next step, think past the last mile, and look around, come on by and see if you can tell which is which.

(If you are of the age where you don't quite get the allusion, do a little searching and you might find a great new tune for your MP3 player...)

Hear My Cry for Help

Hear my cry for mercy
       as I call to you for help,
       as I lift up my hands
       toward your Most Holy Place.    --Psalm 28.2
(no crayfish was harmed in taking  this picture; his cry was indeed heard, and he was returned to the waters whereof he came)

A Restaurant fit for Royalty

If you were a sovereign, where would you eat?  I have a suggestion, located in my very backyard.  The food is apparently of such fine quality that it is frequently visited by monarchs.  It has the added bonus of being located in a beautiful setting.

This is the famous Milkweed Restaurant.   You can open your own franchise, if you like.  Build and they will come--you to will be able to be a monarch watcher right in your own back yard. 

(Milkweed spreads not only by seeds, but also by runners underground.  It will come up everywhere, and take over increasingly large sections of garden and grass if you let it.    You can see that this plant is coming up in the middle of lawn.  I've just been mowing around it--and yes, it now does have monarch caterpillars dining upon it.)

Enough to Share

If you've ever grown tomatoes, you've likely come to the point where you have so many tomatoes,  you don't know what to do with them all.   We've made soups and salsas and sauces, dried them and froze them, and, of course, eaten them fresh in salads and sandwiches and all by themselves  (well, Linda has.  I actually don't like fresh tomatoes). 

We give them away, but their comes a point where the neighbors are inundated too. Even so, there are still lots (and I do mean LOTS!) of tomatoes leftover, tomatoes that end up overripe or on the ground.    Maybe it's time to take up canning too.

I always feel guilty about the waste.  But then I remember I planted my garden for animals too, and so I suppose one way to look at it is that I'm sharing our bounty with them as well.    You can see they haven't wasted any time digging in to this Belgium Giant.

Goldfinch

I'm thinking maybe I should change the name of my blog to Robbie's Backyard Blog.  Backyard blogging is a lot of fun, and it is amazing how much life if present if one takes the time to cultivate it a bit and then to duly slow down, pay attention, and observe. 

One of the birds in our yard right now is the goldfinch.  They are almost always present, usually in groups of three to ten scattered in different parts of the yard, feeding on the seeds of sunflowers and coneflowers which are also scattered throughout the yard (and which therefore seem to be  reseeding  in increasing numbers and places every year).

The goldfinches in my yard tend to be on the shy side, keeping their distance and flying away before I am close enough to get a decent picture even with my zoom.  But lately some seem to be tolerating our presence a bit more, so maybe that will change.

I did manage a picture of this bird which seemed to be injured and unable to fly.   Sadly, after all this time, I still don't know how to manually focus my camera (I guess I should probably read the manual!).  So in shots like this with lots of possible focus points (like the blades of grass), I end up with subjects that are at least slightly blurred.

Even so, you can still see the remarkable colors of this bird--which have actually started to fade a bit as we've moved through mating season and now head toward fall.  Goldfinches are pretty common, so it is easy to fail to appreciate how stunning they are.  But when I am mindful enough to really see them--WOW!--these birds are really something special.    Add them to my list of "favorites"!

While You Were Sleeping--er, Cooking

My youngest daughter is about to leave for college, so we are making her favorite home cooked meals this week.   One of those meals is hamburgers (yes, she is her father's daughter), and of course hamburgers are best done on the grill.   

I'm a charcoal griller myself, in part because I'm too cheap to buy a more expensive grill--but also because I simply like the flavor of charcoal grilled meat best of all.  It does take more time, but I figure grilling was never meant to be a rushed deal.  To my mind, at least, part of the enjoyment of grilling is taking it slow.

So I went out to get the coals going, and while I was waiting I thought I'd wander through the garden and see what was happening.  I had the camera with me and snapped off a few pictures, including this one of--I know, I know--another tiger swallowtail.

This, however, is a female, whereas the previous pictures were a male.   This picture does a great job of capturing the difference.  Can you see it?

Garden Goodness

Let's see...  looks like its time to make some cherry tomato salsa, raspberry jam, chili powder from dried and ground chillies, tomato sauce, canned tomatoes, and still have both fresh tomatoes and raspberries left for eating...

Who Dares?

Who dares open the doors of his mouth,
       ringed about with his fearsome teeth?  --Job 41:14
(spoken by God about the great leviathan, which would appear to be a massive crocodile, but hey, don't you think Sasha is every bit as fearsome?!)

What's New

One of the things I'm often asked is if there is anything new in our garden this year.  And the answer is, "Why yes!  There is."

For instance, this year we sunk two small barrels into the ground to make a couple water features.  We filled them with plants and put a couple fish in each.  The plants have done well, the fish not so much.

Even Camera Shyer

And an even worse picture!  I apologize, but you'll have to put forth a little extra effort if you want to see what I was trying to photograph here.  Probably the best thing to do is click on the picture to enlarge it, then look just to the left of the blurry blade of grass diagonally bisecting the center of the picture.  If you do that, you should be able to make out a gorgeous yellow spotted salamander.

This little guy was one the move so he really didn't give me a chance to get his picture before he disappeared into some heavier foliage. 

When I was a kid, I'd pour over the pages of books about reptiles and amphibians, reading them over and over again, committing every detail to memory.  There would be striking pictures of stunning animals that I would desperately hope to someday find in the wild.  This is one such creature, and this was my very first time finding one.  Though I only saw it for a few seconds, it was every bit as striking as I had hoped.

As you no doubt know, salamanders are amphibians.  Amphibians live two lives--beginning life with gills in water before developing lungs to live on the land.  They also have moist, permeable skins that allow them to take in the additional oxygen and water that are necessary for their survival.  Because there is no real water near our lawn, I was very surprised to find him.  I'm guessing that the addition of two water features really has made a difference in the variety and diversity of life now inhabiting our yard.