This and That: A Blog

 The weather has been up and down, and that will continue this week.  Nights can be in the 40s, and the days are 70s and 80s, upper 80s by next week.  Still, there are signs of autumn.  Besides flowers and vegetables dying back and the front yard starting to look unkept, the trees are starting to turn at the park. Fungus at the park. Puffballs - one still puffed, one already un-puffed.  I do keep my eyes to the ground while Mickey is sniffing around!  I've torn out three of my four tomatoes.  Sungold (a huge disappointment since it's usually an over-producer),  Pantano Romanesco (did nearly nothing and what it did do got blossom end rot), and Golden King of Siberia , seen below.  Bonny Best is still doing great, big red tomatoes with a good taste! This is Golden King of Siberia .  I don't know exactly what happened.  Maybe a combination of things.  Rain checking, bacterial spot... however, while the other varieties had their...

 Not a lot going on here.  It rained quite a bit for a few days, now it's warming up again. During the rainy period it was quite cold, and I pulled out Mickey's blankie.  Actually, it's "our" blankie, as when it's really cold we share! I scheduled my 'flu and COVID vaccines for Wednesday morning.  If you disagree with vaccines, go away.  Earlier this year I sprinkled a packet of Dollar Tree Wildflower Blend seeds in the "new" daylily bed in the front yard.  I got annuals,  alyssum, Chinese forget-me-not, globe gilia, calendula, and a lot of perennials that don't bloom the first year.  I see blue flax, anise hyssop, coreopsis, coneflower plants, and what looks like penstemon, which isn't one of the listed seeds.    I've sown these before, but this is the first time I got the China asters, an annual kind.  Lots of variety!  The Dollar Tree actually carries nice flower seeds.  I've not tried the vegetables. A few of the ...

 I know I often wonder where the month went, but August really did fly by!   The weather is cooler, with rain expected later this week.  That'll be a change!  Here are some things going on in the garden.   Morning Glories Dragon's Tongue Bush Beans A Recent Harvest Oddly, the usually productive Sungold is not producing many tomatoes this year.  Bonny Best  (a $3 yard sale purchase) is the winner in size, color, and taste.  Dazzler Penstemon Sunsparkler “ Dazzleberry ” Sedum Garlic Chives  I have some daylily divisions given to me by a friend that need to be planted today, either in the ground or in containers for later.  I need to rip out the old rockroses in the front yard (they've gotten too big and are ugly for most of the year), as well as some of the old curb iris that don't looks so nice anymore, which will give me more daylily room. Daylilies are such nice dependable, easy plants.  This will be once the weather ...

 Once again, an assortment of things.  Golden King of Siberia , but the ants got into it, so all I got was a bite in the garden before I threw it out.  It was yellower than this photo looks.  There are more to ripen, just not so big.  I am getting Sungold  cherry tomatoes, and a few small  Pantano Romanesco , with larger ones growing. This small praying mantis ended up on me when I was picking bush beans.  A few days later a smaller brown one did too.  But, I didn't notice until I started to come in and wondered what sort of leaf I had stuck on my shoulder (I could see it out of the corner of my eye!).  I thought it fell off in the house, but it had moved to my other shoulder.  So, I went back outside and had the wise idea to shake out my hair!  If fell off my head and was fine. I like them, they are very beneficial, but not on my head!   At the park I saw these empty bird's nest fungus "nests." And these fungus....

 Yesterday was the big indoor-outdoor flea market at the county fairgrounds. It was definitely not as good as last year .  It looked like a lot fewer sellers for one.  Worse, far fewer sellers of vintage mechandise.    Did see some fun things.  The restroom stall doors all had different quotes! A coffee truck had a beckoning ape. On second thought, it's probably Big Foot.  I only found two items (one was a set, so three if you want to be perfectly accurate).   Each dog has only one hole, and the hole in the bottom is smaller than most shakers.  I find this is totally normal.  Japanese shakers of the 40s and 50s sometimes had a single hole on top if they were to use with a specific spice, and were called "range shakers." Sure, having two with the same number of holes wouldn't help you know what spice they contained.  These are two individual range shakers, not a pair. The bottom holes were engineered for a specific closure, tiny...