Abandoned Well House

(click on photo for larger view)

Heirloom Climbing Rose

This is  a very small rose (blossoms are barely half an inch across). One of our local farmers gave me a cutting last spring from the bush growing on her 150 year old farm.

Foiling (and Oiling) Squash Vine Borers

Around here, pumpkins are all about the seeds. I do believe that my husband's family has a genetic predisposition to pumpkin seed addiction. His one request for this years garden was "Lots of pumpkins, please!" (He actually means, "Lots of pumpkin seeds, please!")

Lots of pumpkins is much easier said than done around here though, for those of us who are committed to growing our food organically. The dreaded Squash Vine Borer is much alive and very actively looking for any young squash plant to bore into and suck the life out of. In the past I've given up on growing anything but zucchini which fruits quickly and I can get a half decent crop from before the plants wither up and die from becoming a nursery to squash vine borer larva.  (The traditional Zucchini monster does not exist in my garden, I feel lucky if I get five or six young squashes off a plant before it dies.)

I planted Terry's pumpkins this spring and then went on a search for ways to prevent  squash vine borer infestation. Over all, what I found was not hopeful. The general consensus seems to be that squash vine borers are going to do their thing no matter how hard you try to stop them.

Oh, you can use floating row covers, but then you have to hand pollinate each blossom.

You can watch and wait until you see the plants starting to wilt and a sawdust like substance coming from the base of the stem, then do surgery:  split the stem, find and kill the borer, then cover the stem with dirt, water well and hope for the best. In my experience this just makes for a prolonged miserable death.

Then there is the contradictory information--some people say to plant your squash and pumpkins early so they are large by the time the borers start laying there eggs. (They start to lay in late June on plants that are just getting ready to vine.) Others say, plant them late so that they don't vine until after the borers lay their eggs.

Some sources suggest using BT (an insecticide approved for organic use) and other sources say that it is complete ineffective.

Besides using pesticides I only found a couple of suggestions that actually seem like they might be helpful. One  site suggested laying aluminium foil around the base of the plant "to confuse the moths that are laying the eggs." I'm not exactly sure how foil will confuse the moths, but when I mentioned this to my husband he suggested wrapping the foil around the stems, as a barrier. Another site suggested rubbing the stems with oil once a week during egg laying and hatching season. The oil would coat the eggs and young larva and cause them to smother. Then finally another site suggested picking the eggs off the plants.

So that is how I spent my evening--foiling, oiling, and picking squash vine borer eggs off of my two dozen hills of squash and pumpkin plants.

The eggs were actually very easy to see and easy to pick off, so I am wondering if, as long as I am diligent about it, if that would be an effective method of controlling the squash vine borers. I'm also not sure if I've already gotten too late of a start with the borers. I thinned my hills and several of the plants I pulled up looked like they had holes drilled into them, but when I split them open, I did not see any larva.

For pictures of squash vine borer larva and eggs click here.

For pictures of the moth that lays the eggs, click here.

Like I said, around here pumpkins are all about the seeds. I did my research last winter and ended up ordering three varieties that seemed like they would fit the bill for seed pumpkins.

Baby Bear is a cute little pie pumpkin with semi hulless seeds. I always buy some pie pumpkins for fall decorations then use cook up the flesh for pumpkin bread, so the semi hulless seeds are a nice perk.

Speckled Hound looks more like a squash, but was the most productive pumpkin with the least seeds per pound. Eight fruits per plant with big seeds sounded hard to beat.

Kakai isn't the prettiest or most productive pumpkin in the world, but its seeds are completely hulless. That gets it a trial run in my garden.

The seeds in the above photo that aren't on a packet are from a batch of raw seeds that husband bought to roast. They were uniform and large, so we are planting a few hills of them as well. They will be our mystery pumpkin.

Do any of my readers have tried and true ways of dealing with squash vine borers?

Stop by the barn hop for more happening on homesteads.

Colorado Potato Beetle Larva

Strange how it makes me feel all grown up to be picking Colorado potato beetles off my own potatoes, finally. That was something I did every summer as a child.

Want Curl? Plant Killarney Red Garlic!

I had to laugh when I saw Diana Dyer's garlic scape post today. I harvested my garlic scapes last week and was impressed by the perfect curls on the the killarny red garlic plants. Of the five varieties I am growing this year, this variety wins for drama and perfection in the scape department. Diana's post also has some picture perfect killarny red scape photos.

Now is the time to harvest your scapes or purchase some at your local farmers market. Check out Diana's blog for scape recipes (on her side bar). Trina, at All That is Good, also has a recent post with  a great recipe for garlic scape pesto and several ideas on using it. This year (only my second year eating scapes) my favorite way to eat them is to run them through the food processor until cut finely, then mix with soft butter and spread on everything from vegetables to pasta to toast.

Lentil Swiss Chard Soup

This soup is earthy, slightly spicy, and lightly tart, and perfect for this rather chilly June evening. And made with precooked lentils from the freezer it only took about 20 minutes to make from start to finish.

1 1/2 cup cooked lentils
4 cups chicken stock
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 small chopped onion
pinch of crushed red pepper
3 crushed cloves of garlic
3 cups chopped fresh Swiss chard (stems included)
1/4 cup finely chopped celery
Dash of lemon juice (to taste)
Black pepper to taste
Salt to taste

Heat olive oil. Add onion, garlic, and celery, and saute for a few minutes.
Add stock and lentils. Bring to a simmer then add the Swiss chard and red pepper. Simmer for 20 minutes or so. Add salt, lemon juice and black pepper.


(Swiss chard in the garden, with onions potatoes, and lilies in the background.)

Mayweed in the Onion Bed

Celebrating Summer Solstice

I celebrated the solstice by harvesting my first basket of vegetables from the garden. Dinner tonight was roasted new potatoes with onions, sauteed snap peas, a fresh lettuce salad, and grilled chicken. (I have been eating lettuce, Swiss chard and a handful of other greens from the garden for a while now, but today was the first day that the garden provided a major part of a meal.)

I pulled up three potato plants. The white potatoes are Irish Cobblers. This is the first time I have grown them and I am quite impressed. The plant had four decent sized potatoes and about a dozen marble sized potatoes. It roasted up tender and sweet, just like a new potato should. It is one of the earliest potatoes, but is difficult to find because it has very thin skin and bruises easily and does not keep well. (The red potatoes are Red Norland and Pontiac Red.) The potatoes were planted on April 21.

The onions and peas were planted on March 17th. This was the first time I planted onions that early, and I wasn't sure if it was a good idea. They have done really well and we have been harvesting golf ball size onions for the past week. Next year I am going to plant a whole row of them in March.

The twig trellis for the peas turned out to be a success as well. The peas really filled it out and it seems to be plenty strong enough to support their weight.

It is amazing how pretty vegetable flowers are if you stop and look at them.

And finally...

....every garden needs a toad.

Horses in a Field of Buttercups

(Photo taken in Chenago County in upstate New York on May 28th.)

A Flower Fit for a Fairy

Reseeded Poppies

No Longer a Stranger in a Strange Land

The land I grew up on will be forever etched into my heart. Acres of gently rolling hilly meadow land, hardwood forests filled with native wildflowers, the deep quiet you can only find far away from motors and modern hustle and bustle that comes with living in or near a town. Black nights with stars so bright and large you almost feel as if you can reach out and touch them.  The land was my Home.

I left that land 11 years ago, knowing that since I was also walking away from my parents belief system, I would probably never return. For the next  9 years I felt like a stranger in a strange land.

Then two years ago on a wet rainy morning in May, I walked 13 acres of land and knew I had finally come Home. I barely looked at the house. The house didn't really matter. I was suddenly no longer a stranger in a strange land. My soul knew that it had found a home in the 13 acres of gently rolling meadow land and hardwood forest. For, me, home is the land where my soul is.


(And speaking of souls being at home--this little grasshopper has decided this rose is his home. I have seen him on it every day for the past few days.)

This post is part of Five Minute Fridays over at Gypsy Mama.

Niagara Glen

We discovered Niagara Glen on our way home from Vermont a few weeks ago. Niagara Falls, Ontario is just about the half way point between where my brothers live in Vermont and our home in Michigan, so I planned an overnight stay there to break up the 13 hour drive home.

I wanted to make the most of our short time there without spending a lot of money. (Niagara Falls is an easy place to spend a lot of money--it seems like just about every little thing cost a fortune.)  To that end I was delighted that Niagara Parks has many nature areas and trails and best of all they are free. We only had time for one thing, and decided on hiking Niagara Glen..

I don't think we could have a made a better choice. Like Watkins Glen, there is so much beauty packed into a small amount of space--just a different kind of beauty. The trails in the glen total about two and half miles. We gave ourselves an hour to hike (our electric was out at home due to a bad storm that had blown though the night before, so we were a bit anxious to get home at a reasonable time.) However, this is not a place you can rush through. There is just so much beauty on all sides that every few steps I had to stop and turn to admire it.  It didn't help either that Terry and I had to stop and pull every single garlic mustard plant we found. (There wasn't a lot, clearly this glen is well maintained by volunteers, but still it did take a bit of time.) As it was, I think our hour hike may have only covered about half a mile of the trails. But that is okay. We can look forward to hiking the rest of it on our next trip to Vermont!

The glen is located on the Canadian side of the deep gorge that the Niagara River runs through. To enter the glen you go down a tower of steps along the cliff.

View from the top of the steps.

The path was mostly made of roughly formed steps and wound through a damp, mossy woodland full of boulders.  

There were lots of interesting plants. I kept looking for orchids, since this is an idea woodland setting for many of them. I did not see any, but we say many other plants, including Jack in the pulpit, trillium, foam flowers, hepaticas, wild lily of the valley, bunch berry, and several others that I didn't recognize.

According to the sign at the entrance, wild ginseng used to grow here, but has all been destroyed by over harvesting. (I wonder why no one has planted a few seeds to to bring it back? If I come back in the fall, it is tempting to just do it myself!)

. There were carpets of wild ginger. I have never seen wild ginger growing so abundantly in one place.

I would advise that you go to Niagara Parks website before your hike and print out a map prior to your hike. There is a visitor center at the entrance to the hiking trails, but it was closed. I took a photo of the sign at the entrance to use as a map while we where on the the trails. We went Memorial Day morning. I was surprised that there were very few people on the trails.

Part of the trail does run directly along the water, with a good view of the rapids. We didn't make it any where near that far though. And there is a trail on the US side (we could see people walking) that looks like it has a excellent view of the river as well, but from what I read, the canyon on the US side isn't as impressive as it is on the Canadian side.

At the end of the glen the river takes a sharp right turn and forms a whirlpool. The river is a deep, inky green. A very pretty, and unusual color for a river, at least in my somewhat limited experience of rivers.

(We did drive by the water fall,but  it was so foggy and misty we could not see them. Even so the parking areas around the falls were very crowded so we decided to skip the hassle and go straight to the glen.)

The month of June

The month of June

when the earth is green and golden

and the sweet smell of multiflora roses

hangs heavy in the air

and for a moment

the thorns that rip and tear

are forgotten.

Word Picture for my Grandfather

In Memory of My Grandfather

5/10/1910 to 5/24/2011

A man of quiet strength and simple faith

thoughtful and kind,

but with an Irish twinkle 

in his eye

and a teasing sense of humor

He was a quiet consistency

through my childhood

faithfully visiting

 in spite of  parental rebuffs

it was always a good day

when Grandpa came

to visit

Letters, birthday cards,

 silly poems,

boxes full of

 little flea market finds

make up treasured memories

of my childhood

He was an inspiration

as he cared for Grandma

at home

in her last years

her body shrunken and small

and mind destroyed by dementia

a shell of the dynamic woman

he married

showing me what true love does

for the person who is beloved

I think that watching him

care so gently

for her

may have planted the seed in my heart

that led (eventually) to me

becoming a nurse

I don't think he ever

 forgot a grandchild's birthday

even when he turned 100

I still have my cards from him to prove it

His sense of humor

and gift for writing silly poems

seemed to improve with age

as well

Buttercup on a Golden Morning

One of the things I loved about my recent trip back East was seeing buttercups in bloom. Yes, we have them here, but they are very few and far between. Nothing like the golden fields of they you see in upstate New York. (This photo was taken during a morning walk in the Finger Lakes area.)

For some more lovely buttercup photos, check out these two posts at one of my favorite blogs, GardenPath: Common Buttercup and  

Blue Flag (Sandy's second photo  of a swath of wild irises in  a field of buttercups is breathtaking.)

Blue Light

Watkins Glen

Watkins Glen is a a gorge cut into the escarpment of Seneca Lake, the deepest of the Finger Lakes. The one and a half mile hike is a magical wonderland of waterfalls, pools, tunnels, and stonework--some of the stonework is man made and much more is carved out by nature.

To enter the glen, you go through a tunnel cut into the cliff then cross over a little stone bridge. (As you can see,  there is some repair work being done at the entrance.)

The stonework was done as part of the public works projects that gave many men work and helped them support their families after the great depression. The bridges and other stonework in the glen are a stunning example of how man made structures can compliment nature instead of detracting from it.

The one and half mile hike contains a series of 19 waterfalls. Several of the waterfalls you can walk behind.

The patterns worn into the stone gorge by thousands of years of flowing water are stunning.

Several bridges criss cross the gorge. This foot bridge connects the lower trail with the ones along the top.

I almost felt like I had stepped into a fairy tale--where else can you find 19 waterfalls, ancient looking stone work, and so much natural beauty all packed into one place?

This one was my favorite waterfall--rainbow falls. It is a delicate fall almost like a bride's veil, that cascades from the top of the cliff into the gorge. The trail goes under this fall.

I saw a lot of plants I did not recognize, but not a lot blooming. (It looks like if you want to see unusual wild flowers, the best time to visit would be early May.) One of the few things that was in bloom was columbines. They grew abundantly on the rocky walls over looking the stream.

A rail road bridge spans the gorge at the end of the trail.

There are three hiking trails--one that is deep in the gorge and two that run along the rim. All the above photos were taken during the hike on the gorge trail. We walked back along one of the rim trails. These last two photos were taken from the rim trail, looking into the gorge.

(Next post---we explore the Niagara Glen.)

Almost Like Stained Glass

I love the stained glass like feel that irises can take on in morning and evening light.

Is anyone else having trouble leaving comments on blogs hosted by Blogger? I'm almost caught up on reading my favorite blogs after being away last week, but there are a few blogs I can't even leave an anonymous comment on. Not sure why. If I'm a regular commenter and haven't commented recently, this is the reason why. I'm not ignoring anyone! Hopefully the problem will soon be fixed...

Today is going to be spent working in the garden and getting warm weather crops in. Goals for this weekend are planting beans, squash and pumpkins, cucumbers, eggplants, tomatoes and peppers, and if I'm really good and get every thing done that I am supposed to, I'm going to plant sweet corn. I don't feel that pressured to get it planted if I run out of time, since there are many farmers with road side stands near here who sell excellent fresh picked sweet corn all summer long...but still it would be nice to grow my own.

It has been a surprisingly challenging spring for gardening. I got my most of my cool weather crops in early, and thought they would do very well given how cool and wet this spring has been. Strangely though, most of my early greens got only a few inches high then bolted. Peas are getting nibbled down by rabbits, and lettuce, cabbage, and brussel sprouts are just limping along. My onions, potatoes, ands Swiss chard are the only things that are doing very well. I've been eating spinach regularly for the past two weeks, but don't have enough to freeze, which had been my plan.

 The rhubarb plants that I planted last year are flourishing and I've filled the freezer with rhubarb and we've had rhubarb muffins and pies to our hearts content this spring. On my parents homestead rhubarb literally grew like weeds and we couldn't have killed it if we tried. In the garden I left behind when we moved here two years ago, I babied and coddled rhubarb plants for seven years and never got more than a handful of stalks from them. So I am excited that rhubarb thrives here!

I do have more photos to post from our vacation. I'm still sorting through photos. This weekend I promise a post on Watkin's Glen--a beautiful canyon in the Finger Lakes Area in upstate New York.  And then a post on the best kept secret at Niagra Falls. (We skipped the falls themselves and went straight to this place instead. Granted, it was foggy so it wasn't the best time for viewing the falls, we had both seen the falls before and neither of us like crowds and we don't like paying $15 for parking...)

Every Day....

It is easy to become overwhelmed
with everything life throws at me...
a complex, time consuming nursing job
that requires mountains of take home paperwork,
house work that is never done,
13 acres full of invasive weeds that won't stop growing on their own,
a Spring that is racing toward summer
with so much work to do, and so little time to to it in.
Dealing with chronic fatigue each day doesn't make it any easier, either.



Every day I have the choice of racing through the day
trying to get as much done as I can, then collapsing when the day is over,
or I can go at a slower pace, and savor the little things...
like watching a poppy flower unfurl,
Or stopping at the side of the road to admire a field full of daisies and lupines.
Or taking that extra 20 minutes to just BE with a patient's wife,
 as she cries and makes the hardest decision of her life---to place her husband in hospice care.
Or at the end of the day, to fix my husband a simple hot meal,
though he doesn't expect it of me, when I come home from a long day of work.


(Daisies and Lupines--photo taken yesterday while driving between patient visits.)

In the grand scheme of things, it is the those little things that matter the most.
The big important things will get done, one way or another.
But it is taking the time every day to stop and do those little things
that brings joy to each day and makes life worthwhile.


(Poppy photos taken yesterday--same poppy--five minutes apart. I like poppies, because they grow themselves...just scatter the seeds one year and poppies will continue coming up year after year...)

This post is part of five minute Fridays over at Gypsy Mama.