Tag Archives: hobbies

Beaucoup Precipitation

Posted on October 2, 2012 by AnnieRie

In other words. Lots of rain. Good soaking rain. The kind that pushes us towards a normal year where we don’t have to worry about the well going dry. I am a weather junkie. I love our local weather site, at RIMPO, here in Dayton. As I write, it is telling me we got 1.67 inches of rain today. My gardens love it. Particularly, the mums.

And. the herb gardens, which still have rosemary and thyme on steroids. I will be pushing the limit before harvesting the rosemary to hang and dry. I don’t want to harvest the thyme, as I do like it fresh, and creative wind barriers will keep it going even if we get a few frosts in the next two months. These perennials come back every spring, unless a blizzard buries them.

rosemary

English and silver thyme

The burning bushes have berries, and they are beginning to turn to that brilliant red.

burning bush

The marigolds are hanging in there. The sedum is also blooming out front.

The morning glories are giving up. They are putting out humongous amounts of seed pods, but the last blooms are fading fast. These plants are my best source to attract bees to the garden to pollinate my veggies. Even though they become a huge nuisance because they grow out of control, they do screen the garden and keep the honey bees and the bumblebees happy.

All in all, it was a fairly good summer in my gardens. The herbs went wild. The tomatoes did well, as did the cucumbers. I am about to plant 24 cloves of garlic this week, so next year I should get scapes, spring garlic and garlic to cure. This year I was too late and only got spring garlic. The cloves are ready to go in pots, and in the edge of the herb garden.

Here’s to rainy days, that nourish our gardens. And make our trees grow.

hocofood@@@

2 Comments

Posted in Food, Gardening, Hobbies, Howard County, Nature, Weather, West HoCo and tagged Food, gardening, hobbies, Howard County, nature, weather, West HoCo. Bookmark the permalink.

A Window Full of Sunshine

Posted on July 18, 2012 by AnnieRie

Varieties of tomatoes ripening on the sill

This is my favorite view in the kitchen. Dozens of almost perfectly ripe cherry, grape and pear tomatoes all reaching their peak of ripeness in the morning sun.

And, yes there are larger ripe ones these days.

Orange Blossom Tomatoes

Caspian Pink

The Caspian Pink is a new one for me. It looks wonderful, but I did have to pick it a bit early because it was cracking and I didn’t want a storm to water it down.

Detail of small cracks forming on top

I don’t have any chocolate stripes ripe yet, but they are getting close. They have the most tomatoes on each plant so far. I have three plants of them. Crossing my fingers that they ripen before that forecasted four or five days of rain late next week. The rains last year really watered down the flavors of the heirlooms.

Two weeks from this coming Saturday, the Howard County Fair starts. I will be picking which heirloom has the best taste. That is what I will enter. Taste, not looks, does better in the heirloom category.

The sweet olive is my most productive small tomato so far. They are predominant on the windowsill picture above. They also have a wonderful flavor, but cherry and grape tomatoes are judged on looks alone.

Have you ever entered anything in the fair? This year, besides tomatoes, I will again enter herbs. Definitely the basil, but haven’t chosen the other two yet.

African Blue Basil

This year I am also considering entering some of my photographs, particularly my little feathered friends, like these.

Bluebirds Rule the Bath

Put the Fair on your calendar for something great to do. It runs August 4th through 11th. We get a $20 pass for the entire fair and go almost every day. If you want to see a real hoot, go watch the zero turn mower competition. If you want to see something amazing, go watch the 4Hers show their animals.

hocoblogs@@@

Friday Morning Garden Report

Posted on July 13, 2012 by AnnieRie

The tomatoes have finally arrived for real. That is, the big ones, and not just the cherry, grape and plum tomatoes. I harvested the first orange blossom and Amish paste tomatoes the past two days.

Now, I just need those chocolate stripes, or the legend, or great white to ripen, to see what will be submitted to the Fair in three weeks. These tomatoes need to move into high gear. I know they shut down and go into survival mode during excessive heat, which is what they did for those 90-100 degree days we had. After a quick start, they are moving along at a snail’s pace. I did get the first of the red fig tomatoes, a very interesting heirloom I bought from the Howard County Master Gardeners on Earth Day this spring.

The rest of the little tomatoes continue to put out new growth and are giving me a few a day. I got the first green grape tomato today, in the middle of the sweet olive, yellow plum, yellow pear and red figs in the bowl, there is a lone green grape, just about ripe. I pick these just a bit early to minimize pest damage, like stink bugs do.

They will ripen on the windowsill. As for other garden goodies, the stealth cucumbers are still out there. This one was hidden down in a crevice behind all the tomato plants. The vine had climbed over the bunny fence and dropped down into the fence post corner, where it hid until it reached mega size for a pickling cucumber.

We are actually attempting to make this monster into a dill pickle, which should be interesting.

On the flower front, the gladiolus plants are winding down, but hanging in there. The first marigolds have bloomed, and this one was saved after the bunnies chomped it off its stem.

Herbs are doing well in spite of the heat. Hope we get a little more rain to get the gardens around here in better shape again. I know there are water restrictions due to the water main break repairs. That doesn’t bode well for gardens in intense heat. Being on a well with a high water table right now, I am thankful to be able to water the herbs in the pots and keep them going.

hocofood@@@

1 Comment

Posted in Food, Gardening, Howard County, Weather, West HoCo and tagged Food, gardening, heirloom tomatoes, hobbies, Howard County, spring flowers, tomatoes, weather, West HoCo. Bookmark the permalink.

Tonight We Fiddle, Saturday We Farm, Later We Look for Fairy Houses

Posted on July 12, 2012 by AnnieRie

My volunteering schedule is pretty full this week. We held a planning meeting Wednesday for upcoming events at the Conservancy, and this is the busy part of the summer.

Fiddlers and Fireflies, a picnic with music and crafts, is tonight starting at 6 PM. It costs $10/car, and the music is great. Bring a blanket, chairs and a picnic dinner. The event is held in the lower front yard, where the sisters had their garden.

This Saturday, the 14th, there will be one of the monthly Wonder Walks, that focuses on living and farming on the 230+ acre property. We will be leading groups down and around the buildings and talking about what it was like to live here from the early 1800s until the time that the sisters gave the property to the Conservancy.

Naturalists will be leading groups. The event starts at 10 am, and is no cost. I will be leading a group and we will be visiting the out buildings, the barns, the gardens, and take a walk down to the grasslands to see how the farmers used their land to the best advantage to grow crops and keep their farm animals.

A little farther out this month there will be another special event. Looking for Fairy Houses in the forest. It is on the 28th of July. Another free Wonder Walk that is geared towards the little ones, ages 4-10.

It looks like there’s lots to do around here, and I am certainly not bored in my retirement.

hocoblogs@@@

Stealth Cucumbers …

Posted on July 5, 2012 by AnnieRie

… again, and other things found out in the garden. I posted a while back about cucumbers having a mind of their own and trying to escape. My garden in west Howard County is a source of many home grown meals in summer. Cucumbers and tomatoes will make great gazpacho, if the tomatoes will start coming in before the cucumbers stop.

The cucumbers are still going crazy, and still trying to escape the garden confines, only now in the back of the garden. This one was outside the fence hiding under a sticker bush.

I get weeds between the bunny fence and deer fence, which I leave alone as a deterrent to little critters trying to squeeze in. This cucumber plant decided to plow through two fences and climb the sticker bush. I didn’t find it until it was this large.

I have others coming through near the gate, and also winding their way into the tomato garden, so this year they are taking over. That does give us enough cucumbers, though, in order to make lots of salads, pickles and to can some. Not a bad year for them.

As for tomatoes, they are getting bigger, and the small ones continue to ripen. They were all lined up on the windowsill waiting to become part of last night’s dinner.

The gladiola have exploded. Never have they given me this much bounty. Maybe two or three per plant, but not there are dozens. In the heat, they will wilt quickly so I have been cutting them and keeping a large arrangement on the table.

Tomato update shows all but three plants with tomatoes, two pineapple tomato plants and one of the great white tomato plants. A few are suffering in the heat. The yellow pear, last year’s big producer, both plants look a little ragged. At least this year, the green grape, sweet olive, red fig and yellow plum plants will keep me in tiny salad tomatoes.

Sweet Olive tomatoes, lots of them

The chocolate stripes are getting bigger. And, on the three plants there are dozens of them.

While out there, I spied a visitor. A spicebush swallowtail. We have one Carolina spicebush, and two butterfly bushes in the yard, so butterflies are frequent visitors.

Plus, one little pest, who is probably mamma to the babies who are eating my herb garden.

At least she can’t get through the bunny fence. Her little ones still do, though, so I have to be vigilant for a few more weeks. It’s not like there isn’t enough other things out there for them to eat. The garden seems to be doing well, so far this year, and I hope to start seeing big fresh Maryland grown tomatoes soon. I will be out there with a bucket of water and a salt shaker soon. Nothing like fresh tomato, rinsed clean and lightly salted, eaten minutes after picking. Best lunch I get in west county!

hocofood@@@

1 Comment

Posted in Food, Gardening, Locavore, Nature, West HoCo and tagged Food, gardening, heirloom tomatoes, hobbies, hoco loco, Howard County, nature, photography, spring flowers, tomatoes, West HoCo. Bookmark the permalink.

The State of the Garden

Posted on June 21, 2012 by AnnieRie

Other than slightly wilted. I have been good about watering it. The heat index today will make it difficult to keep the container plants hydrated, but I will get out there and keep them from scorching. I love the celosia that is blooming on the steps and I wouldn’t want to lose them.

I hope the heat doesn’t mess up the cucumbers. There are lots of little ones on the vines and one monster that was hiding under the fence. I usually like the pickling cucumbers smaller than this, but I think a few large dill pickles can be handled.

The tomatoes are coming along nicely. One large Amish paste, and lots of little ones on all four plants. I was worried about them at first because they seem to wilt more, but they are hanging in there.

Both orange blossom tomato plants have tomatoes now. The biggest ones are hidden deep down in the midst of the shady leaves.

The pole beans are over the top of the fence and climbing the extensions and even attaching themselves to fence posts.

With three or four slicing cucumbers ready to pick today and two coming in the CSA box, I think I will be making cucumber salad for the weekend. Hard to believe a few weeks ago the garden was just starting out, and now it is full of large healthy tomatoes, cucumbers, and pole beans.

Time to go mist the plants with a water bottle containing a little dish soap since I found a few aphids on one of the tomato plants. Can’t have them spreading. Have a good Thursday, and stay cool.

hocofood@@@

3 Comments

Posted in CSA, Food, Gardening, Locavore, Nature, Real Food, Weather and tagged CSA, Food, gardening, heirloom tomatoes, hobbies, hoco loco, Locavore, nature, real food, tomatoes, weather. Bookmark the permalink.

My Blooming Rhododendron

Posted on May 8, 2012 by AnnieRie

One of the prettiest, but one of the most difficult species of plants I have on the property are my rhododendron catawbiense. They love rain and temperate climates, not the scorching heat and oftentime droughts here in our region. That’s why I am so happy to see them doing well this spring.

Lots of blooms. Lovely flowers. Lots of new growth as well. An evolving display as they open.

They look so deep in color when closed, but are so delicate after they open.

Saturday they were at their peak. Over two dozen blooms on each of the two plants.

I really do appreciate all the spring flowers left behind by the original owners of our home. These plants are a delight to see every year.

1 Comment

Posted in Gardening, Hobbies, Howard County, Nature, Weather and tagged hobbies, Howard County, nature, photography, spring flowers, weather. Bookmark the permalink.

Smarter Than the Average Squirrel

Posted on April 10, 2012 by AnnieRie

Sometimes I feel that the squirrels are winning. No matter how hard I try, they figure out most of the squirrel proof solutions. The latest is one of those feeders that they are managing to empty by hanging a certain way on it.

We have gone to great lengths to keep them from the bird seed, giving them corn and peanuts but trying to keep them from the woodpeckers’ favorite treats.

This arrangement gives them the cheapest suet I can find, and they have to work for it. They get corn, but if you don’t wedge it in, they run off with the entire ear of corn. My neighbors find the entertainment of a squirrel trying to carry an entire ear of corn to their nest in the old oak trees amusing, but it is expensive to put corn out there every few hours. I usually only feed the squirrels in the winter, and let them fend for themselves when the ground is full of nuts and seeds.

This feeder is truly squirrel proof. The good seed goes here, with the vitamins and minerals the birds need while raising their young. I have had to move it twice, though. Once, it was too close to the bird bath. The second time it was too close to the yucca and deck seats. Squirrels will jump quite far to grab that bar and get the good stuff. Even risking impalement on a yucca tree.

The squirrels do provide entertainment to us too. They know how to descend a ladder quite quickly when startled.

Even the hummingbird feeder isn’t safe.

They scrounge around where the birds push unwanted items out of the feeder on the pole, at least keeping it somewhat clean, but I usually get volunteer plants and weeds coming up where I don’t want them.

When we moved in, we had a lovely cedar feeder out there. The previous owners had dogs, so no squirrels. It lasted just a few months before they chewed through the wood. They will chew on the plastic too, so now we have metal feeders with metal lids and as many baffles as I can manage.

The double baffle works, as does the witches hat over the nuts for the woodpeckers.

Of course, the woodpeckers go where they want, and not always to their little feeder.

I now cram two small suet holders into the large one. Put them at an angle to minimize the area that the squirrels can reach into and grab suet. It doesn’t totally stop them but it slows them down considerably.

I have created a habitat here to keep the birds that assist us in having my garden lush and relatively bug and flying insect free. They have coniferous trees for nests. Water, heated in the winter. A constant source of food, including insect suet when they are feeding their young. We have lots of trees and bushes that produce berries. I leave the pokeweed in the meadow so they can feed from it.

We have lots of worms, good for the soil and for the robins (and their allies).

Of course, they also need to learn how to play nice around here. Looks like a little mom and pop spat going on here.

At least the robins and cedar waxwings get along.

So I put up with the squirrels, knowing that a dog will keep them away, but also impact the birds. Who needs the Discovery Channel when all this excitement goes on, right outside the kitchen window?

6 Comments

Posted in Birds, Gardening, Hobbies, Nature and tagged birds, gardening, habitat, hobbies, nature, photography, squirrels. Bookmark the permalink.

Revisiting My New Year’s Resolutions

Posted on April 6, 2012 by AnnieRie

Well, it has been three months since New Year’s. I revisited my post made on the 30th of December to see if I actually am doing what I said I wanted to do this year.

Resolution #1:

I do resolve to be more creative and expand my culinary boundaries to include more baking, and more ethnic foods outside our European heritage. I do intend to continue being more and more of a locavore, and use up as much processed stuff in the pantry, and not replace it.

Well, the Dark Days Challenge was a way to expand what I eat locally. I haven’t been baking much, unless you count those black bean brownies a few weeks ago.

And, the pantry is still pretty full of processed stuff, because I am eating mostly CSA and local meats. I need to continue to clean out what is in there, and not replace it with more of the same.

As for ethnic foods, haven’t done much there either. I will challenge myself from the spring/summer CSA to use those Asian vegetables in ethnic dishes, not simple stir frying, but really trying something new. Not chicken chow mein with the bok choy. And, I resolve to not swap the peppers, like the habanero or jalapenos we get. Make my own salsas. Attempt a mole sauce, too.

Resolution #2:

I intend to can more things, pick more veggies and fruits, and process them. I need to get a freezer and buy something at the fair, from the 4H’ers. Maybe lamb, or goat, or part of one of the steers or hogs. Our friends’ children raise animals to bring to the auction. We want to support them more by making it worth their efforts.

Not there yet. This is a summer time thing. I do need to get off my butt and buy a freezer if I want to do this. Larriland for strawberries isn’t that far away. The auction at the fair is on our list to do this year as well. Last year we just observed.

Resolutions #3 and 4:

I want to build a cold frame. Will I find the time?

Not gonna happen, due to my health changes. Recovery from surgery got in the way of doing these. Plus, I need to make sure we don’t have problems with predators, and research the best coops to buy. We have a new addition to our predator community.

Not the best picture of the red fox who has been hanging around. I took it through the screen so as not to spook him. He was hunting something in the meadow and paced back and forth many times. Yesterday I wasn’t fast enough to grab the camera as he ran through our yard carrying something large in his mouth. I think it may have been one of my neighbor’s chickens. It was just before sunset, and if you leave the chickens free range too late in the day, they become dinner for the fox.

As for the cold frame, it will get put off until fall.

Resolution #5:

We still need to clean out the stuff we accumulated at our jobs, which sits in boxes in the attic and garage. That is a priority.

We are making some progress here. The shredder is working overtime. And, at Greenfest I will be getting more out of the house and garage. I have been going through old pictures and keeping those I want by scanning them into the computer. Less paper around here will be a good thing.

The Summary:

do new things including expanding what I do in my volunteering, like geocaching and giving presentations. Another priority. Looks like I have enough to do, and I’ll see how it turns out in my second year of retirement.

There are numerous programs at the Conservancy this fall where I will be doing presentations, and where I will be using the geocaching skills I am learning.

All in all, not a bad start to doing what I want in 2012. Putting them down in writing here in the blog makes it harder to ignore them, or lose them. Let’s see if I do more in the next three months.

1 Comment

Posted in Commentary, Howard County, Local Businesses, Locavore, miscellaneous, Retirement and tagged cooking, hobbies, hoco loco, Howard County, local businesses, Locavore, real food, retirement. Bookmark the permalink.

A Day Trip to Breaux

Posted on March 24, 2012 by AnnieRie

About an hour from here is an amazingly beautiful vineyard, developed by Paul Breaux as one of the area’s destination wineries. They purchased 400 acres of land to the east of the Appalachian Trail near the border of VA and WV. They are six miles south of Harper’s Ferry WV. When you cross the bridge from MD to VA on US 340, turn left at the gas station and drive the six miles.

On the site, they planted 100+ acres of mostly vinifera. This was one of the few large scale, well bankrolled wineries in VA in the 1990’s. First class all the way. Paul Breaux had done well in real estate. You may know of his company, Sun Realty. If you rented a place in the Outer Banks, it may have been one of his. In an interesting “six degrees of separation” moment, it was Sun Realty that rented us a house on the Outer Banks for our honeymoon in August 1980, when they were a fledgling company.

In the year 2000, we first went to visit the vineyards with friends, after a morning hike in Harper’s Ferry. The building is impressive. Way bigger than almost any winery I had ever seen in the mid-Atlantic. Now, after a trip to Napa and Sonoma, I can put it into a different perspective. Barboursville in VA also has impressive grounds, but we never saw the other big VA wineries until years later. So, for us, this place was awesome. They had invested in much better equipment than any Maryland winery we had visited in the 1980s or early 90’s. This place even has a misting machine in the barrel storage chambers, to keep the barrels from drying out by regulating the humidity. And, they are still growing.

Coming up to the building yesterday, we saw massive construction going on. A new building that promises to add more capacity for storage of production, as well as surprises, since they are not revealing yet what all will be housed there.

We are charter cellar club members. Breaux and Linden are the VA wineries we support as case club members. Black Ankle and Boordy are the cellar clubs in MD that we also support. As a hobby, wine collecting is not inexpensive, but it beats car collecting, or having a boat, or playing golf. All those other things are money sumps, just like our winery visits are. We have become very selective about where we go and what we purchase now that we are retired. We continue our Breaux membership because we believe they provide a great value for the money. The wines for the club are not available to the general public.

Yesterday we went to pick up six bottles. We get two bottles every two months, or a case a year. It is one of the more affordable clubs, as others were requiring two bottles a month. We were last there in October. The hostess opened a bottle of one of the cellar club wines for us to taste to decide if we wanted to purchase more. We ended up getting a couple of bottles of the Cabernet Franc Reserve, and a couple of bottles of the Viognier, which has won numerous awards. Viognier is a wine that Virginia does a very good job of producing, and Breaux makes a stellar bottling.

We bought a baguette and some salami, and took our picnic lunch of local Howard County cheese, and my brownies out on the patio to enjoy the view.

Served with a bottle of Lot 10-08, a cellar selection. We enjoyed a glass and corked up the bottle to bring home for later.

As a committed locavore, I want to support local wineries as well as the local farmers. Even extending my tendencies to buy local to buying pottery, and plants, and services. Supporting local businesses puts some of our money directly into our local economy, and I feel good about that. Not to mention, day trips to wineries are a benefit of living in a very good viticultural climate.