What's This?

What did I take a picture of now, your wondering? Well, it's not spilled rice but eggs and pupae of the Carpenter Ant. I was mowing on beyond the lawn to try and discourage the infestation of grasshoppers. Our wet weather should have discouraged their reproduction but it hasn't. In fact, a local rancher told me they were haying as fast as they could ahead of the pesky insects for they were stripping their alfalfa fields clean. I figured that was all my garden needed, after two hail storms and the late frosts, is a swarm of grasshoppers.

Anyway, a piece of a two by six board was laying in my mowing path, so I picked it up. Underneath was this colony of ants and their offspring.

It was a good thing I still had my camera on me because in a matter of a few minutes the hundreds of eggs under the old board were carted off and stuffed down into the dark crevices of the earth.

Curiosity got the best of me and I looked up types of ants on the Internet and then their life cycle. They just have to be Carpenter Ants as they fit the description perfectly. Don't look at the red coloring the photos give them for the pictures are deceiving, they are pure black.

The ants were suppose to emit an odor when disturbed but, I didn't smell anything when I moved the board. Then again, my nose always runs a bit when I mow. The Internet didn't say whether the smell was good or bad. Of course, I like the smell of manure as the wind picks it up and whiffs it past my nose so maybe, they figured that was for us to judge.

What I found fascinating was that these ants can range in size from a quarter inch to a half inch, all in one colony. Ours are small, but that's not surprising because the food supply of aphids and fruit isn't plentiful. What really surprised me was that little ants do not grow up to be big ants. They don't change in size.


But, I think whoever named the workers was being degrading when they gave those who forage and care for the young the title, Minor Workers and those that guard the colony, Major Workers. Neither one would exist if they didn't do their respective jobs, so I think they should be renamed.

Garbage collectors can now be called Sanitation Engineers ( Or do they have a different title again?) then, why can't Major and Minor ants be called something else. How about Sentry Workers and Living Essentials Workers. Mmm..., too many s..es. I feel like I'm hissing like a snake. I give up. My brain is still working on my next gardening blog and the hordes of bugs that have suddenly descended upon my garden. Let me know if you come up with something better, while I join the battle outside. We've employed a small army to help fight the infestation of grasshoppers and Flea Beetles - only, they don't fight unless I'm by their side. Join me this Friday or maybe sooner to view pictures of the troops plus more gardening tips - that is if there is a garden left. Otherwise, I'll be showing a disaster film.

Lessons Learned

(Three postings this week. Don't miss the macro photography blog.)





Potatoes

The blossoms are fading on the potato plants today and the peas are flowering. It won't be long before I'll be snapping peas and worming my fingers down into the earth to steal a few new potatoes. Once the new potatoes are cooked I'll add fresh peas and smother them in fresh goats milk before I heat them and sprinkle with black pepper. I've planted red and white potatoes as some years one does better than the other.


Peas

Up until now, we've only had lettuce, spinach, and asparagus but I'm hunkering for a juicy tomato and zucchini fried on the grill. The store may offer them but there is nothing like the taste of fresh home grown vegetables and fruit. The tomatoes I grew in potting soil one winter tasted just like the stores - soft and tasteless. It confirmed my hunch that the flavor had to do with the quality and type of soil because we have carrots that must have a sugar content off the charts. No maple or honey drizzled on them for us. We've got the real deal. Then again, my apples should be sweet and they were really tart. I added lots of manure last year and we'll see what this years crop does.

Lesson 1. Soil nutrients effect flavor and texture of fruits and vegetables.

Another view of our Garden

The vegetables we are low on in the food storage room, I plant in at least two locations in the garden. Why? This year, my onions in the newest garden section are a third the size of the ones pictured above in the older area and had I planted them all in the new area, I would have only onions fit for salads. I think I know what the problem is and I'll fix it before next year. But, my experiment with putting them in a section and another group in rows doesn't seem to have made a difference in how well they grow.

Lesson 2. For some plants the pattern in which you plant
them makes a big difference.

My green beans have always been planted in double rows but this year, I'm trying them in single rows and I'll see if the plants grow larger and have a higher yield. The beans in the newer section of the garden I see are lacking in nitrogen and I've given them a boost but they seem to need it again.

When I saw how poorly they were doing I was glad I planted another two rows in the old greenhouse that is missing a cover. They should be ready the end of August or the beginning of September. With the grasshoppers as bad as they are this year, I hope at least one of the sections survive. And if both do then I plan on leaving some beans on the oldest plants and saving seed from them.

Another reason for planting vegetables in two or more areas of the garden is that disease such as a fungus is less likely to spread to your entire crop and bugs well, I learned my lesson with flea beetles. Those black little pests that jump can eat a young broccoli plant down to the nubbins in one day. For several years, I lost my broccoli to them until I placed them alternately with my tomatoes. This year, I've placed them in three different sections of the garden and planted them at different times because moisture and the time of year is a big deal with the monsters.

Lesson 3. Planting each of my garden vegetables in two or more areas of the garden, has two big benefits:

You are less likely to loose or have serious damage to your whole crop due to:
a. Bugs or disease
b. Or inefficient soil nutrients

Baby Spinach

I mentioned planting my beans in a double row versus a single row and my onions in rows versus sections. Some crops it isn't as important the pattern they are planted in but others it makes a significant difference. Spinach for instance does much better in a section. I haven't planted it for three years as I let a batch go to seed one year and they've come up as volunteers every year since. I just till around them so that they are controlled into a kind of square shape and I'm eating spinach in early May now not late June; This year, I heard that others were planting spinach in the fall not spring which is what mine is doing naturally. Inbreeding is concerning me though, because I did the same thing with carrots in a cold frame and after a few years I had the craziest colors from white to dark orange. Their texture became rather wooden and the flavor wasn't as sweet. I've some studying to do on that matter as far as it has to do with spinach. Also, growing spinach in a section rather than a row helps them withstand frost, keeps them cooler in the hot weather so they don't bolt as quickly, and the soil doesn't dry out as fast because they shade one another.

Volunteer corn

Had this and a few other stalks of corn not shot up where they were planted last year, I would never of thought of trying to plant a few seeds this fall, mulching them, and seeing what they do come spring. Remember the spinach, well I also learned just a few weeks ago the corn should be planted in a square for better pollination and remember Nancy's mother with the corn planted in hills? Well, my corn is really in for some experiments next year. Another tip is to spray your corn when it tassels. I do it in the evening as the higher humidity helps with pollination.

Lesson 4.Try planting some of your crops in the fall for an earlier start.
Lesson 5. Some plants benefit from being grown in sections rather than rows or in between other plants.

Row of tomatoes
I had voluntary Roma tomatoes that popped up here and there throughout my garden for two years. Since they were late and never would have developed before frost, I transplanted them into pots and brought them inside to produce tomatoes for the winter. I put them under grow lights and a toothbrush did the bees job of pollinating. I changed the breed I planted this last year and I've no volunteers. I just might try several other breeds and see what happens.

This sunflower along with a few others are scattered throughout the garden. The seed must of blow in from the bird feeder. The seedlings that weren't in the way, I left. They have brightened my days.

Lesson 5. Weeds tell a tale.
Lesson 6. There is a time frame in which to pull them
and sometimes its best to just let them grow.

I look upon weeds a little differently than most. I thank God my soil is rich enough to produce them. The clay soil I started with is only fit for building sod homes and it has taken years of work and study to get where I'm at - still ignorant.

I do know how to eliminate thistle from my garden without pesticides for if the weed pops up in my garden I know that that area's pH is too high and I add sulfur to acidify the soil. My new section did just that this year and so I added another dose of sulfur fertilizer and only one new thistle popped up but it was a sickly yellow.

A holistic ranch manager told me that different plants draw to the surface different nutrients from down deep in the soil. It made me feel much better about the weeds in my garden and I imagine all the good they're doing me. Then again, they may only be stealing nutrient but as long as they don't get out of hand, some of them are staying if only because I get tired of fighting them.

When an old gardener and scientist in the field said not to pluck the weeds from your garden after six to eight weeks I felt pretty smart even if it was by default, for I wasn't weeding at that time anyway. That's when I'm in the middle of freezing and bottling my harvest for the winter. Apparently, you disturb the roots of your vegetables which have by then spread out and the plant spends its energy not toward the fruit but in repairing the damage you've wrought to its roots.

Lesson 6. Don't rototill any more than absolutely necessary.

I try to only do it once a year so as to not disturb the worms and micro organisms. The worms till the soil and break down compost leaving behind worm casts that is one of the best natural fertilizers. Rototiller also kills the micro organisms that attach to the roots of your plants enabling them to draw in nitrogen and other nutrients from the soil. The powder you can buy and put on your bean seeds before you plant them to help them grow is what should be in abundance in your garden if you haven't killed them.

I was frustrated with a path between my back bed and the greenhouse and so in desperation I sprayed it last year to kill the weeds. They died and this year it was more lush than every before with different weeds than I was fighting the previous years. I rototilled it with two passes and now I barely have any weeds. That was an eye opener for me as I applied that knowledge to my garden - rototilling kills.

Lesson 7. Mulch your garden and you will use far less water
and have fewer weeds to pull.

Thirty years of working in my garden has taught me that the more I learn the more ignorant I realize I am. I read magazines and books to learn to be a wiser gardener and that knowledge gained helps my garden become better every year.

My Pretty Garden

Macro Photography

Peas

volunteer Sunflower

Tomato

Potato Blossoms

Calendula Flower
( I use in making soap)

MacIntosh Apples

Peas
There is something about a garden that not only feeds your hunger but also your soul.

Tomorrow pictures of our garden from a broader view will appear along with lessons learned.

Up To My Whazoo

I had half a Holiday Waffle this morning. You know, the ones I told you about in an earlier blog. This was a frozen chocolate one that I reheated and put blueberries and strawberries on with a dollop of whip cream. It was to lift my depressive mood at seeing all the work ahead of me. My mom has been here for eleven days and I'm backlogged to the Whazoo. Where's the Whazoo ? I don't know. It's so far away, I've never been there before and since I'm never caught up - just less behind- I probably never will know.

So today, I decided to show you what our daughter Toni did with my bison pictures, do my laundry, mow the lawn, etc. and shoot a few photos for a corrals to garden recycling blog I've had in mind for a couple weeks. You haven't seen my garden before because it was either frost bitten or shredded by the hail. Since catching up on the blogs I follow and seeing JLB's hailed out piece of property, I've decided I'm blessed and I'll give you a peek.

If anyone needs a recipe for those chocolate waffles or gingerbread waffles you'll have to e-mail me at HollyRexroat@gmail.com since they aren't original to me and if I put them on my blog my daughter, the assistant editor, said it would be illegal.

I was taking some pictures early in the morning and the sun's rays were back lighting the animals. I wasn't real pleased with the photos but the camera did some unusual reflections. Our oldest daughter started to play with these rooster photos and they turned out pretty cool but they're not showing up correctly on the blog. Sorry! Later that same day, I wasn't real pleased with my bison pictures as the pixels were low. Again, Toni who has a degree in photography along with one in English started to play with them on her computer.


Photograph



Computer altered photo done in Crosshatch


Computer altered photo done in Water Color

What's your vote? Mine is for the water color picture.


The bison have moved to one pasture away. When they move into the same pasture as the bees then maybe, I'll get some good shots of them.

Canadian Geese

Mom and I kept a close eye on the sky where clouds dog piled forming a towering, ominous white mass as cold and warm air collided. We hoped it wasn't moving in our direction for it was sure to be packing high winds and hail. Meanwhile, we strolled around the Panther Pond. A pretty little spot created by the town as a fishing hole for its residents. In the shallow waters little fish team, the same ones our grand daughters love to catch.

To show them how it's done, we dig worms in the garden and thread them on a fishing hook but in reality, these little fish, what ever they are, don't need a worm to entice them to bite. They'll leap out of the water after a bare hook - but don't tell our grand daughters that- they may get the wrong idea and figure all fish are that stupid.

My fishing abilities are limited and with a spinning rod, I feed more fish than I catch. Good thing our garden has an ample supply of worms. I'm much more adept with a fly rod and so the only spinning rod I use is a short white and red one our kids fished with when they were little and is now used by our grand daughters. I've yet to fly fish this year and I'm itching to go. Maybe, my husband will want to go for his birthday. And I don't mean the local pond but a creek, (or crick as we say it in Wyoming) since lakes and ponds have too many people around them. I love the solitude of the country where I can listen to the sounds of nature. I've caught Browns, Brookies, and Rainbow Trout, but in truth the only fish I really like are the ones that are biting. Fish isn't my favorite choice for dinner so catch and release suites me perfectly.

For today, Mom and I were mainly interested in the resident Canadian Geese. Presently, there are three adults and six goslings. How do you tell a male and female goose apart? I'm not looking for an answer like the one the expert on snakes gave me who said you could tell the difference between a rattlesnake and a bull snake by the shape of their pupil. And I'm sure I could - but I don't care to.

We watched as they grazed and then as we drew a little closer they trailed into the water.












This Red-winged Blackbird wasn't very cooperative as he kept flitting from cattail to cattail.
P.S. The storm went around us.

Bee Country

No, they aren't bees, their bison but our bee hives are on the Durham Ranch (they raise buffalo or the more correct term is bison) and I wanted to check to see if they needed any more boxes to store honey in. We wouldn't want to slow production down would we? Since my mother is visiting us this week, she came along. I gave her a brief tour of the area and thought you might like a peek at where we live.

The cows and calves are a couple pastures over from where our hives are and presently the calves are lighter in color than their parents. The cows start calving in May and remnants of their winter coats are still hanging in tatters off their backs. Some of the buffalo's winter hair can be collected by wandering the fields searching the ground for clumps that have fallen. One year, I had a little sack of it and spun it into yarn. I haven't done that in years but I keep saying one of these days, I'm going to ask again to collect some for spinning. Some of the clumps of fallen hair are too felted to spin, but I've toyed with the idea of piecing them together into a vest.

Please pardon the fence in the picture. My husband asked why I didn't get closer to the fence and stick my camera lens through but I couldn't without causing the bison to stir since they were so close and cow's with calves are protectively skittish. One of these days, I'm going to ask John, the owner, if I can move out amongst the herd so that I can photograph them up close. I haven't yet as my 35 millimeter camera is now a dinosaur and the cheap digital lens camera I'm presently using is frustrating me to no end with its limitations. Some day, I'll save and buy one that has interchangeable lenses but right now, I'm saving for a new spinning wheel.

Below is a picture taken in the large field where the bees are nestled against a hay stack.The yellow blossomed sweet clover is a beautiful contrast to the purple flowers on the alfalfa.
Honey made from alfalfa and sweet clover is very light yellow in color. The flavor is delicate.



The purpose of the trip of course is to check the bees and as I open the boxes I always become so fascinated by the inner workings of a colony that I forget the bees buzzing about my head. Today, I did not where my bee suit just a denim shirt, gloves, and a bee veil.



This honey super is nearly full of honey as the bees have started to cap the cells . That is the white waxy covering you see in the upper right hand corner. The cells with the yellowy brown seal are brood or a bee at the pupa stage.

Name That Pig

The two oldest grand daughters have called daily since the little pigs arrived. They couldn't wait to come and see them. Since the family gathering wasn't far away, Kirk thought it would be fun to name them with the little girls. On the fourth of July, we sat around the table waiting for our son to arrive and began the discussion. First we asked our grand daughters if they had any ideas and when they didn't, Kirk suggested Ellie Mae. There was nods all around but when I tossed in Daisy Mae, thinking I could call them the Mae sisters, our middle daughter protested. Emphatically, she informed us that we had previously had an animal named Daisy and we weren't repeating any names.

That is easier said than done since I couldn't remember any animal we'd named Daisy. But that is not surprising since we've been married thirty years and twenty-six years of them we've had a multitude of animals to name - sheep, goats, pigs, calves, ducks, turkeys, and a few of the chickens. Especially fuzzy are the titles we gave to the forty bum lambs we raised one year. That was when I learned to hold a bottle in each hand and two between my legs, one high and one low. When one was empty, I tossed it on a low roofed shed and grab for a refill. Two of our children refilled them while another held a bottle in each hand and fed alongside me. The next year and years to follow, I learned the word most essential to survival mentally and physically. It's NO and after that we never had more than two or three bum lambs, even if they were free. This year, I became even smarter and began using a lumbar bucket. Though we no longer have lambs, it was wonderful for the kid goats.

But, according to our daughter, Joise, apparently there was a Daisy so Great Grandma Rexroat suggested Sophie and the vote was unanimous in favor - though one of them was a reluctant one - mine.


We ate, played games, flew kites and laughed the afternoon away. When evening had come, those who remained began the trek to the corrals. One of the little meadowlarks that I discovered and wrote about in an earlier blog was near the road and the little girls watched as it skittered off and crouched underneath the swaying grass. (Yes, it is a Meadow Lark not a Horned Lark)


The Pronghorn antelope are a watchful presence on the plains, especially in Campbell County, where the population is the largest in the world. They are a common sight to the grand daughters.

.
Buck Pronghorn Antelope


Doe and a fawn ( the fawns are typically born in May and June)

A number of times we have clocked antelope running at over sixty miles per hour. (They were running parallel out in a field while our pickup traveled down a road.)