Put On A Happy Face

...or at least a reasonable facsimile :-)

Eating Local

Treebeard has always believed in providing for his family. When we were first married, we had no money to speak of but we always ate well. Meat came from the woods, fields, and streams and vegetables came from the garden. Things haven't changed much over the past 30 years, Treebeard still puts meat on the table along with homegrown fruits and vegetables. There is nothing quite like stepping out your backdoor and doing a little grazing...

We have three varieties of raspberries and all are putting on fruit. The raspberry plants were a gift from SIL -- thanks, Sis! We have 40 blueberry bushes thanks to our older son and they are all beginning to bear -- thanks, Trekker!
There would be more berries in my hand if not for the greedy pair of summer tanagers nesting nearby...

 

Treebeard covered the bushes with the ripest berries this afternoon.  If you were to walk out to the berry patch you would see a whole lot of chicken wire over the bushes.

 

We've been enjoying salad from the garden for a while now.  The weather in April made getting anything to grow a challenge but Treebeard managed to coax all his varieties of lettuce into growing.

 

The dill is added to salads, eggs and other dishes, but we also grow it for the flowers and for the black swallowtails who love it.  They get their fair share of the parsley, too.

 

The broccoli has been tasty but the recent wet weather has led to an explosion of pests.  We don't like to use any chemicals on our crops so there has been a lot of manual squishing of caterpillars going on.

 

The tomatoes are starting to set fruit, too.  Can't wait for that first tomato sandwich of the season.

 

And the squash vines are starting to coordinate their blooms - finally.  For a while there we would have male flowers but no females, then females but no males.  Now that they have their acts together we'll have squash big enough to pick in another day or two.

 

I'm looking forward to the green beans, butter beans, okra, corn and melons, too. Eating local is a good thing.

Hey, Baby...

On Wednesday's wander we really had to watch our step as there were babies out everywhere...

This little box turtle, probably a couple of years old, was smack dab in the middle of a heavily shaded trail. I just did see him in time to avoid stepping on him.

 

Newly transformed frogs were hanging out right at the water's edge...

 

While up from the shore line a bit, toadlets were everywhere...

 

Milkweed Patch

Each year I like to check this patch of milkweed...

 

The flowers smell sweet and it's a great place to find monarch caterpillars...

 

But to discover the real reason I like it so much, all you have to do is walk in among the stems and train your eye to detect subtle variations in the greens you see...

 

I showed great restraint yet again and photographed only five of the many green treefrogs we saw.

Frogs Underfoot

Treebeard and I went for a hike yesterday. We covered about seven miles, some through the woods and some along the shoreline of the pond. No matter where we walked, there were cricket frogs underfoot...

 

Click Beetle Larva

Yes, it does bite...but it doesn't really hurt. This one just has me by the fingernail.

 

You know what they say: If you play with beetle larvae, you're gonna get bitten...

Let's Not Overlook the Reptiles...

Last Friday wasn't just about the dragonflies, frogs, and fish. We also had a nice assortment of reptiles, mainly snakes, to keep us company. Here is a sampling of what we saw...


This is a brown water snake.  Take a close look at him.  He shouldn't be all skinny and wrinkly like that.  Browns are usually nicely rounded.  This fellow may be ill or maybe he's just a poor hunter.  We saw quite a few browns hanging out in the bushes and on stumps.

And of course we saw our fair share of cottonmouths as well. The first photo is not so great but I included it anyway. See that pile of poo next to the snake? That's raccoon scat. Granted, it's scat from a big raccoon but you can still get an idea of how small this little cottonmouth was. It's getting ready to shed as evidenced by the cloudy eyes...

A bit further up the swamp we encountered an old beaver lodge that was a lounging spot for four other snakes.  Three were cottonmouths and one was a brown.  The cottonmouths were quite handsome.  I didn't get a photo of the brown.

We saw several redbelly water snakes out on the pond and up in the swamp.  This one cracked me up.  I didn't know that snakes could have expressions on their faces, but check this guy out...

Last, but not least, we have lizard love.  A male five-lined skink (the brown one with the red head) was doing his best to sweet talk the female.  She seemed mildly interested in, or at least tolerant of, his advances ;-)

There were some interesting turtles out on the pond as well, but turtles can be downright uncooperative. Sadly, I have no turtles pics to share with the exception of this one...

 

It's a turtle egg. It was all by itself on a rotting stump.

Little Fishies from Friday

We found some little fish hopping through the duckweed on Friday. There were several of these little guys...not a clue as to what species they are.

But I do know what this one is. It is a baby largemouth bass. He hopped out of the water and onto a lily pad. I snapped a picture of him before he flipped himself back into the water.