Time to re-focus - SEVEN years later

 This is my own media journal - my blog - which I stopped writing on 6 1/2 years ago! I stopped writing here because things got so busy, and I just didn't have time or energy to keep it up. Plus I thought it didn't much matter to anyone - except that it DID matter to me. Over the past 7 years I have gone back to this blog to find out when something happened, look at my old memories, and every time those notes I recorded made me smile.  So it's time to pick this back up, because I love my life and lots of things have changed.

So, I'm going to be adding a few posts to update some of those years and bring things a little bit up-to-date. I know I'll be glad later.

Holiday Birthday

 Every year for my birthday for the past few years, the kids have taken me to Gaylord to see all the holiday decorations. It's my favorite place to go during the holidays, but pictures never do justice to how gorgeous all the decorations are.  

They have a cute little holiday land for kids, too, that was really great this year. We rode the train, road the river boat, and walked around to every themed room. My favorite is always the garden room but they all look fabulous.

Thank you for another great holiday birthday!

Chilly days and no power

 Living in rural areas can be a real adventure some days. November isn't usually super cold, but this past weekend we had a deep chill, quite a bit below normal, and then the power went out. 

No matter. I had a nice time lighting candles and cuddling with my furry friends. 

Pancake, my couch dog, 35 lb

Piper, my tv room cuddler

Sassy, with me since 2009

Halloween weekend

Half marathon in the morning. Trunk and treat in the evening. Middle of the day Included fish tacos and a nice long nap.

Happy Halloween

trunk or treat after church

Wenceslaus square

So pretty and perfect weather.

Dinner under Charles Bridge

Prague. What a wonderful old city.

it's Spaghetti!

So our mystery plant did end up being a Stripetti - if you remember, that's a hybrid cross between a Spaghetti squash and a Delicatta squash.  Stripetti are supposed to have better flavor and store better/longer than a traditional spaghetti squash.

So, first I cut it open, and was surprised, it was not as difficult to cut as a traditional Spaghetti or even a Butternut.

First I cut it open and scraped out the seeds. I am saving these for next year!

Then I put them on a tray and sprinkled a few drops of avocado oil inside the bowl of the squash, and dropped in some diced onions. Garlic would have been nice, too, but I was hurrying.

After it came out of the oven I scraped out each half and filled two big containers full of the spaghetti strands. Not to mention what I ate along the way. I love this with just a little salt, nothing else!! Margaret likes it with Sauce!

I took a gamble on whether it was ripe or not, but I decided this is the oldest one on the vine, and the deepest in color.  And it was perfect.  There are 5 more of these out there on the one vine, more being generated every day.

Clavate Tortoise beetle.

We have the most interesting insects here. This little creature was just sitting on a leaf in my garden. A see-through outer body and distinctive markings made it quick for BugGuide to identify.

These beetles eat plant foliage like caterpillars. They especially like sweet potato vine which I have an abundance of.

Aug harvest.

Autumn is already showing its colors as well as giving its fall harvest. The first Stripetti squash and the last eggplant. Plus an abundance of banana peppers. I like the peppers before they turn red and lose their crispness.

Big salad for dinner tonight.

Caterpillar day

Every day I go out to inspect my garden multiple times a day. Morning, mid morning, mid day, and always in the evening. Yesterday about mid day I was standing out there looking at things and listening and I heard this faint sound of something dropping on to paper.

I always put cardboard on area I want to keep the weeds down. I usually cover it with mulch but my newest cardboard only went down a couple of days ago. That's where I heard that sound.

When I inspected closer I noticed what looked like insect poop. You know it once you've seen it and I've seen plenty. I followed it up and found, hidden underneath the potato leaves, these lovely white caterpillars.

As I turned over every leaf I found more than 2 dozen of these newly hatched fur-bugs. They were defoliating my potatoes so I pulled them off and put them in my insect hatchery.

Today they were happy to be fed. Many caterpillars eat only the plant they hatch on, such as the monarch caterpillar. Some of these, I fear, only want my potatoes, while the tan colored ones did not seem to mind being fed poplar leaves from a young seedling I had.

I thought the kids would enjoy and learn from watching caterpillars form the chrysalis then hatch in a couple of weeks. When food runs low they will make their cocoon. It should take 2-3 weeks after that for them to emerge. I hope I am here to see some of them hatch and fly away.