Another Swallowtail

After I posted pictures of tiger swallowtails yesterday, a black swallowtail showed up. The blacks are even more jittery than the tigers and I was lucky to get these shots. I also got a bunch of chigger bites from wading into the flowerbed.


While the tigers feed exclusively on the coneflowers, the blacks prefer phlox and tiger lilies.


Aren't the dots on the abdomen a nice design touch?

Today a mob of fritillary butterflies are feeding on the coneflowers, but I can't handle any more chigger bites just now.

Swallowtails

This morning six newly-emerged black swallowtail butterflies are feeding on the coneflowers. They are always in motion, making it hard to get good photos with my Canon Powershot. These photos show the markings better than others I took, but I'm not bragging about their quality.

It Was A Sunny Day

Many times I've stood in the sunshine in my garden and watched heavy thunderstorms pass along the Kaw Valley. Yesterday it happened again, providing a nice backdrop for the sunflowers.




Sometimes I like to get in a sunflower's face. A butterfly clinging to the petals is almost invisible in the bright light.




After observing the storm, I pulled the remaining shallots and a few dried bean pods. Shallots mature at different times, and I've been pulling the ones whose tops are turning brown for several days.

Last year I lost a third of the crop to rot because I hung them in bunches to dry. The thicker stems began to rot before they dried, infecting the bulbs. This year I'm through with the romantic idea of having bunches of allium family members hanging around. I'm back to the tried and true method of separating all the sections and spreading them on newspaper to dry.

Here they are putting the treadmill to good use.



Those in the foreground were harvested a week ago and have been through their first clean up. That involves removing outer skin until I reach a layer that doesn't have dirt under it. The tops will dry completely now and I'll pull them off before storage. I've been growing this variety for four years now. The original bulbs came from the grocery store, where I noticed they were beginning to sprout and decided to give them a home.


The dried bean pods are beautiful to me with their curvy shapes and mottled colors.



They are an heirloom dried-bean variety descriptively called Tiger's Eye. I grow them because they are beautiful, sure, but they have softer skins than most beans, which makes them more tender and digestible.

Ephemera After The Rain

This tiny mushroom, growing alongside the garden hose, was one of many like it growing from straw mulch in the garden path. The almost transparent cap was less than half an inch in diameter. Do you suppose it opened like a tiny parasol?





A larger, more substantial mushroom appeared in the potato mulch. It was the only one of its kind.

They won't outlast the day.

Hi, I'm Sandwich Man

Here's my creator, Todd.


He later smothered me with ham and ATE me!


Looks a bit embarrassed about it, doesn't he?

Applesauce

This spring the Lodi apples bloomed, a biennial event we eagerly anticipate. The little green apple presaged bowls of golden applesauce on our table.

Lodi apples have only one use - applesauce. They are harvested just before they ripen, while they are still green. Ripe Lodi apples are tastless mush. The green ones are tart and bursting with apple flavor.

Typically, the apples are ready to pick the second or third week of June. They were a bit late this year and Dennis had picked several big buckets of apples shortly before the Reinking family arrived. Nancy has wanted to make applesauce with me for years, but her visits home haven't coincided with the apple harvest. This time, though, she honchoed the whole process.

First, the washing and cutting...




The cooking (sorry, no photo) and transfer to the strainer...


The straining...


And the finished product with a little sugar and cinnamon added...



Nancy kept a hand in all parts of the process, washed and cut apples, washed the pots and strainer, and took the photos. I mainly cooked the apples. Cleo ran the Squeezo strainer. On the second day Carol and Jennifer joined in cutting apples. Jennifer cut her finger, too. All seemed right with the world as we chatted and worked together, carrying on a tradition that my mother started decades ago.

Two cooking sessions yielded almost four gallons of applesauce. After the applesauce cooled, I ladled it into various recycled cartons, and Dennis took them to the freezer. The Squeezo is back on its shelf in the basement, at rest until the Lodi blooms again.

Pie

Deserved or not, I have a reputation for baking good pies. When grandson Zachary's birthday came in June I decided his gift would be a pie a day during his visit here beginning on June 30. The first pie was cherry but it was gone before I got a picture. The next day he requested chocolate cream pie with whipped cream topping.


The next day it was Meyer lemon topped with meringue. Last Christmas my friend Chris Theis gave me Meyer lemons from the tree on his Baton Rouge patio. I froze the juice for just such occasions as this.


Zach and his dad, Todd, finished off the lemon pie the next day, and I took a day off.

The next day, July 4, we all went to Grant's goodbye party. I made blueberry and peach pies. From the extra crust, I made a little peach tart in an antique pan that has "Happy Home" stamped in the bottom.



Sad to say, my favorite pie eater and his family have gone back to Colorado Springs. But today I made a rhubarb pie for my neighbor Al who is looking after the chickens while Dennis is away.


So far I've never met a person who doesn't love pie.