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.

More crazy plant saga

A few days ago a new fruit appeared on my alien plant. This one is different from the others - this one is round. That's when I noticed a variation in the leaf size and shape.

The leaves are distinctly different yet everything growing here is from a single root. Hybrid plants can often produce fruit from one of its ancestral plants. Everyday I go out there to see what else this vine has for me. If I save seeds from any of these fruits I may even get something slightly different again. All part of gardening fun.

Crazy garden spider

I'm always amazed at the species of insects and arachnids in this part of the world. Today I found this gorgeous garden spider - one I have never seen before. She sits in my blueberry bush and performed a nice dance for this video in catching a smallish gnat.

Up close, and from underneath her she is brightly colored. Reds and yellows with some brown and black stripes. She is quick. Her size in diameter including her legs is about the size of a penny.

Most garden spiders we see here are the yellow and black ones that are 3 times bigger than this one, and those make new webs every single day from a tree branch across to another point - sometimes to the ground or across the patio. Those spiders keep me in the house after dusk in late summer, as I hate walking through their giant webs. Last year one of those webs caught a hummingbird I had to rescue.  Those are powerful webs to say the least.

This spider does not make such a large and sticky web. This is more a true garden spider - at least, I hope it is because its red color always puts me on alert. I really don't want this one getting on me, but she is lovely to look at. It's the most beautiful spider I have seen here so far. I hope to see many more.


UPDATE:  I just received a message from SpiderID.com where I posted this photo. Apparently this is a rare spider most often seen in the eastern US, nearly always in August.  Also found down into Central America. It's called Arrow shaped micrathena, scientific name is Micrathena sagittata.  It is part of the Orb Weaver family. 

Augie's annual bath and shave

Augie was overdue for a shave, but the summer has been so cool it has been OK.  This weekend it starts to warm up the 100+ temps again, and his thick triple coat was not healthy. I didn't want to see him get heat stroke (yeah, dogs get this, too!).   So, he went to the groomer.

It took both Michelle and me to get him into the back of the car.  He howled all the way to Dickson.  He was there 4 hours. When I picked him up, the two attendants could not get him out of the cage so called me in to help. I had to drag him out and it took two of us to push and haul him into the car once again.

It's such an ordeal to get him in the car, I decided to take him straight to the vet for shots, which were also overdue. He got coddled and poked and babied, and by the end he was HAPPY to get into the car one more time. It took to of us to push him all the way TO the car but once there he got into the back seat by himself - first time ever!

The minute he got home he took a good long soak in the pond. Then he and Hamilton went at it for the next 45 minutes. Ham just KNEW this was not his friend Augie. Didn't smell right, definitely didn't look right. Hamilton would not even let Augie go out to see the goats till he knew it was for sure his friend.

Everything is back to normal now.  Just in time for the heat.

Crazy squash plant

Every day someone else stops by here and is confused by my squash. Delivery people, mail carriers, politicians and neighbors come by and want to know what it is. Larger than any squash any of them have seen, they just scratch their heads and exclaim and leave shaking their heads.

I think I found it. After searching blogs and garden pictures I think I discovered it; this plant looks closest to a winter squash called Stripetti. It's a cross between a Spaghetti and Delicata squash.

I stopped trying to keep it from growing through the fence. Now I have a hammock for one and may just let the other go and see what happens. Right now the largest one is about 15" long. And almost that big around.

It's one plant and it is taking over the yard. It's fun to watch how fast these things double and triple in size. I am anxious to taste them and to see how many I actually get.

The sound of silence

This is what solitude sounds like where we live. Pitch dark. 10:45 pm. Aug 1.

Tonight’s dinner.

Harvest from today. I could not eat it all.  The potatoes came from one old one Michelle found in her cabinet. The harvest from that one potato is about 25. This is my first picked butternut squash.