Monthly Archives: September, 2009
Reaping and sowing
We’re, of course because we’re in California, still reaping the vegetable and fruit harvest of the season, as we ready to plant for the fall/winter/spring harvests. We have tens of pounds of tomatoes still to pick, pasilla and serrano chiles, bountiful bell peppers, copious cucumbers and squash. We also still have fruitful figs on the [...]
Vaya con Dios, Carlotta; Bienvenidos Facundo.
Well, Carlotta was (yes, was) female. She placed her egg sac on the cactus pad and, after attaching it with the fine filaments of her silk, she left. We haven’t found her body and we haven’t found her. Further reading indicates that her life’s work is done after reproduction, and that her time here has [...]
Carlotta’s web
On spindly, but stealthy, multi-hued legs, Carlotta scuttles across the light green nopal (cactus) pad. Her uniformly mottled abdomen is plump in brownish-black and yellow, accessorized with orange. Upon closer examination, we find Carlotta’s hairy face and head resembles that of a minute monkey. Eight bristle-haired legs, articulated in three places, stretch as she moves [...]
Same places, new wonders
The deer and quail frolicked in the dry grass while the gray squirrel barked (sounds like the beginning of a great country and western song). Blessings.
Flight of the Hummers
No, I’m not speaking of the vehicles. This evening I watched three hummingbirds flit and chase each other around and around a flower bed. Their frantic high-pitched cheeps let me know they were serious and this wasn’t a game. They kept at this “hummer-war” for a good thirty minutes before I finally walked away. Their [...]
It ain’t over ’til it’s over.
Even though the garden is showing the ravages of a time-worn summer, we have been given the great gift of plants newly coming into harvest. We planted in March, reaped much of our harvest in early July (an abundance of corn, a few green beans, squash, tomatoes, chiles, and a couple of bell peppers). The [...]
Bountiful blossoms, beautiful butterflies
We have flowers. Lantana, dianthus, buddleia, hibiscus, salvias, lilies, rose mallow, poppies, alyssum, ceanothus, and more, have given us a bountiful blessing of blossoms since the early months of 2009. There was no long “gap time” in our yard this year when we didn’t have something in bloom. The show becomes even more vibrant as [...]