Twelve Spotted Lady Beetle

First of all, click the pic to blow it up.   This is one cute bug. 

Her first name is hilarious:  Coleomegilla maculata.  It always reminds me of gorillas - you know.. Magilla Gorilla.    Right?  Which is funny.   Because it's a tiny little bug.   Right?   Gorillas...bugs...

You're not laughing.

Whatever.   ....    Anyway.

These guys eat lots of bad bugs and bad bug eggs, so you want them in your garden.  

Last Hurrah July 20% Off Coupon

As a last hurrah to my Big Birthday Month Blog Celebration, and because I wish  I were still 20 instead of ....something else, and as thanks to you for helping make this a great celebration, today you can use a coupon code to get 20% off your purchase of $20 or more at my yarn Etsy shop:  www.robinjedmundson.etsy.com.  This is the shop where I sell my hand-dyed yarn, roving, and spinning batts.

Use this coupon code:   TheBig20 

I hope your summer continues to be wonderful and full of creative energy!

Butterflies

K2 is very patient with the camera and she waited a while for these butterflies to settle so she could snap the pics.

This is a Great Spangled Frittilary on one of our naturalized echinaceas.   Pretty.

This looks like a dark version of a tiger swallowtail knee deep in one of our hosta flowers.   I rescued a few of these hostas from a property where they were being mowed down and over the years they have multiplied.  And multiplied.   The flower stalks are about three feet high and the butterflies, hummingbirds and bees cannot get enough of them.   The nectar must be really terrific.

Squash Update

So the truth is that I'm kind of in love with squash plants.  I love the way the bees buzz all over them.  I love the flowers, I love the fruit, I love the vines.  They crawl all over the garden and we have to leap frog over a lot of them but I don't care.   They make me happy.

This is winter squash Black Futsu with yesterday's flower, today's flower and tomorrow's from right to left.   It made me laugh. 

This is a baby Queensland Blue [left] and a baby Golden Hubbard [right].   They're a bit bigger than your fist in this pic, but they'll get a LOT bigger before they're done.   The QB will turn a lovely blue gray and the GH will turn a screaming traffic cone orange when they're ripe. 

And as always, I let a couple of  volunteer mystery squash stay this year.   This one is nice and smooth and regular and pretty pale.   Maybe another batch of the little white pumpkins that seem to volunteer so well in the chicken dirt?    I hope so - they make adorable decorations. 

Newest Queen

We checked on the bees from the bee removal that we did in town and found a big gorgeous queen with a terrific laying pattern.   It's a small but productive and happy hive so far.    Plus, they were nice and calm. 

Here's a pic of a frame of brood with the queen on it.   You can see capped brood and older larvae that are almost ready to be capped.   The queen is out in the open, easily visible.   Can you see her?  Click the pic to biggify it.

Nasturtiums

I love nasturtiums [pronounced nas-TER-shums].

I love the yellow ones and the orange ones and the dark dark red ones.   I like the regular leaves and the dark leaves and the spotty leaves.

I like them viney and I like them short.  I like them planted with sweet potato vines.


And they're good on salads.   They have a peppery zing, so be prepared.

Wash the leaves and flowers carefully and toss them on a sandwich.

Or mix up some cream cheese with enough sour cream or yogurt to make it easily spreadable and pipe it inside the flowers for a summer appetizer.

Mmmm.

Squash Bugs

These are squash bug eggs.  Here is a pic of the hatched out adult buggers.   You don't want them to hatch out though.

We are very vigilant about checking the backs [and sometimes tops....and on occasion stems] of each squash leaf for these eggs.  When we find them, we pinch them off and squash them, put them in water and feed them to the chickens.  

The lighter golden they are, the fresher they are.   The darker they are, the closer to hatching they are.  

Check your plants every few [FEW!] days and you'll be able to control them.

Grass

We have a lot of grass here.   Not because we're native prairie, we're not.   When left to itself, this land reverts to woodland.

Well, first it reverts to brambleland, and then it reverts to woodland. 

But because the land was cleared to make room for farming and cattle, and farmers wanted hay, they planted grass.   It's pretty grass, too.

This is one of my favorites - Eastern bottlebrush grass  [Elymus hystrix].   It looks like fireworks.

This is another one we see out here - Orchardgrass [Dactylis glomerata].   It grows all over the US.

This is Nodding foxtail grass - Setaria faberi.  I've seen it called Japanese bristlegrass, too.  Turns out there are a lot of 'foxtail' grasses out there - about a dozen different genuses [geni?] with many different species in each.  

Our cats LOVE this grass and we often pick it to bring inside for them to chase around.   They love it as much as catnip. 

Daylily Morning

One of the things I love about daylilies [Hemerocalis sp.] is that first thing in the morning, just as they open, you can see yesterday's spent flower, today's opening flower, and tomorrow's bud.   All at one time.  

Plum Bounty

Our lovely neighbors' plum tree was plum full of plums this year and they shared the bounty with us.   He estimated that the tree had about 150 lbs of fruit on it total - the limbs were bent to the ground - loaded with fruit.

They are small, red plums - sweet flesh and tart skins.   Delicious!!

We did what our neighbors did - washed and cut them in half, removed the seed and then packed them in ziplock bags to freeze.   We did 2 cup quantities so they'd be easy to use for smoothies, pies, crisps and jam later.

Here's a tip for quick processing.   Use a grapefruit spoon to quickly get the seed out of the fruit.   We set up a short assembly line with one person cutting the plums in half and putting the half with the seed in another bowl.   The second [and third] person took the seeds out with a grapefruit spoon.   The work moves fast and we did two or three gallons at a time in short order. 

Here's a good recipe for Plum Jam.  Oh, and then there's plum sauce.    I also love plums mixed with pears in jam.   And crisps.

Mmmmm.

Jam Book Giveaway - Winners!!

UPDATE:   Correction on the autocorrected email address to me that the computer thought it knew better than I did.... Should be  robin at morenna dot com.   

Stupid computers.

Thanks to everyone who entered the giveaway!  It was fun seeing what your favorite jams are.  

The three winners of a free copy of  A Simple Jar of Jam  were chosen by random.org from all of the comments left on the blog, facebook, twitter, and google+



One came from the blog comments:   

• Christopher July 18, 2013 at 1:32 PM  "Blackberry for sure...seedless or seeded doesn't matter!"

And two from facebook comments:

• D. Chad Johnson "Peach!"
• Valerie Smith "seville orange marmalade .. hope it counts"  Marmalade definitely counts!

Winners please email me [robin at morenna dot com] and I'll email your copy of the book to you right away.   [It's a 7.7M file.] 

Enjoy the season!

Wonky Comb

Bees will  do what bees will do.    They're 'supposed' to be building straight comb along the frame.

Ha!

These guys built crooked and started 4 combs on this one frame.

This is a comb from another hive.   It's straight, but upside down. 

Crazy bees.

I cut out the wonky comb in the first hive to get them going straight.  Next time I checked, they had built crooked again - only three combs instead of four.  That's progress, but still..... This time I left it.   It's in a super that'll be harvested and crushed, so who cares.   It's not worth the aggravation to me or the bees now. 

The upside down comb I left.   It's an inefficient way to construct comb and the bees know it.  Last time I peeked, they had corrected and were happily building the right way. 

Quiet Misty Mornings

Lily was out and about with the camera early one morning recently.

She loves to walk the woods on misty, foggy mornings.  Our woods get even more dark and mysterious in the mist and fog.  












On this particular morning everything was drippy with dew. 
















She said the spiderwebs were like strings of pearls.

Magical.

Wild Petunia

This is our wild petunia - I think it's either Ruellia strepens or Ruellia pedunculata [which is more southern. We'd be at the edge of it's range.] It's the smooth version.  There's a hairy version, too [R.caroliniensis] but I've never seen that here.

It blooms in June along the roadsides and in fields.   The flowers are shy and hide just below the tops of the grass.  The plants around here have pairs of blooms.  The foliage turns yellow in the fall. 

Red Raspberry Nectarine Jam

I adore raspberry jam. 

I don't even mind the seeds. 

Then last year, I layered some red raspberry jam with some white nectarine jam and it was heaven in a jar.    When I tried to process the jars for canning after I layered the jam, the layers all boiled together and I ended up with mixed Red Raspberry-White Nectarine Jam.    Which was 7th Heaven in a jar.

So this year I made some of that stuff on purpose.  You have to make some, too.   You'll love it.   [You can use regular nectarines instead of white ones and it'll be just as tasty.]

Red Raspberry-White Nectarine Jam
www.rurification.com

1 cup cold water
2 cups peeled, chopped nectarines
2 cups red raspberries [fresh or frozen]
4 tablespoons low sugar pectin
2 cups sugar

Mix the cold water, pectin and fruit in a pot.   Mix well to dissolve the pectin.  Bring to boil.  Stir constantly until it reaches a hard rolling boil that you can't stir down.   Boil 2 minutes.   Add sugar, stirring well.   Bring back to hard rolling boil.  Boil for 1 minute.  Ladle into jars.

Yield:  2 1/2 pints. 

Note:   This jam tends to be soft.  If you want a firm jam, use 4-6 tablespoons of pectin.

Want all of these recipes in one handy doc?   Check out my ebook, A Simple Jar of Jam:180+ recipes & variations for jam using low sugar pectin.  [Preview link over on my sidebar, right.]   You'll love it!

Jam Book Giveaway!

This is the Big Birthday Week and to celebrate, I'm giving away 3 copies of this terrific ebook all about making jam with low sugar pectin.

You might recognize it.  I wrote it myself!  [It's a really good book!]

It's a collection of the jam recipes [and marmalade recipes, and sauce recipes and marinade recipes and glaze recipes...] from the first couple of years of the blog.  Plus, there are sections on troubleshooting runny jam to firm it up, lists of high pectin and low pectin fruit, a whole section on why low-sugar pectin is my pectin of choice [including comparisons of different brands of pectin, etc.], and even a section on how to get that sugar burn off your nice Le Creuset pot.

It's an ebook - 7.7M interactive PDF file, which means you can click on stuff in the Table of Contents and Index and go right to that page in the book.   Handy!!   Plus, you can add your own bookmarks to make it even easier to zip around to your favorite recipes.

You can access the book in Adobe, iBook, and Kindle.  It works best in Adobe and iBook, so you can use it on your phone, or ipad, or laptop, or desktop computers. [Kindle lets you read PDFs, but they are not interactive.]

I know you'll want to look inside so take a look at the preview!  Check out that Table of Contents and then skim on over to the Tips list in the Index.    You need this book. 

To win a copy of A Simple Jar of Jam, leave a comment on the blog or facebook, or Google +, or Twitter telling me what your favorite kind of jam is. 

Giveaway ends at midnight EDT on Sunday, July 21, 2013.   Watch the blog next week to claim your prize.  I'll email you the file as soon as I get your email address.

Lady's Bedstraw - An Herb to Know

Years ago I collected herbs in the garden.  Then this one tried to take over.  So I dug it up and planted it on a hill where it had to compete with grass and brambles.   It's still happy, but we're not in danger of it singing, 'Feed me, Seymour!'

It's lady's bedstraw, Galium verum.  It's a dual duty herb, used as a natural flea repellent and as a dye plant. 

It has tall beautiful, honey scented flowers - 24-30" tall depending on how happy it is.   The roots form a dense creeping mat and the leaves are a spiky version of typical galium leaves. 

It was dried and stuffed into mattresses traditionally, hence the common name - Lady's Bedstraw.    

This is one natural dye we never tried to use because it's a bit seasonal.   The roots have to be dug up at just the right time for the best color.  Then they have to be chopped finely. Here's a great write up from someone who has tried it.

Local Dinosaurs

This is a five-lined skink.  The Latin name makes me laugh:  Plestiodon fasciatus.   It sounds like a dinosaur.

I love these little guys.   They hang out on the deck and the stoop outside the studio door sunning themselves.  

They're shy and only come out if you're sitting very still for a long time [reading a book].   I caught this one on camera through the studio door window where I had been sitting still talking on the phone.   It hid when I leaned back to get the camera but I was patient and it came out again. 

The very young ones have black bodies with white stripes and very long electric blue tails.   It's spectacular.    

The adults are all bronzy gold.   This one is half bronze, half blue-ish.  This is the sub-adult stage.

Adult males have very orange red chins during breeding season and they often lose their stripes.   See this post from Naturespeak for some great pics of an adult male.

Adult females usually keep some lighter stripes.

 

Here's a better pic of that tail.   It'll come off and wiggle around by itself if a predator attacks.  Another shorter tail will grow back.   This one is a short one - this lizard is a survivor.

Crochet Shawl Kit Giveaway Winner!

Thanks to everyone who entered last week's giveaway of a crochet shawl kit.  I let random.org draw the number of the winning comment and the winner is #8 -

Jessica Madsen "I am definitely partial to the blues! I love both Nepeta and the Cool Water colorways! My favorite summer project has been volunteering in the textile studio at Conner Prairie. I weave things there that I don't regularly put on the loom at home--dimity in 20/2 (or finer!) cotton and huck lace in linen."

Congratulations, Jessica!    Email me [robin at morenna dot com] and let me know what color kit you want and I'll get it right out to you. 

Sweet Pea Buds

Pretty.  

Sweet peas [Lathyrus odoratus] grow wild around here on the roadsides.   They are annuals - which means they bloom their hearts out this year and set lots of seed, which falls to the ground and starts new plants next year.  

They look so pretty next to a big colony of the native orange daylilies. 

Nectarine Jam

Nectarines are so pretty.

On the outside.

On the inside they're sort of boring, and beige.

I'm not all that into beige jam.   It's a personal failing.

It's a failing because beige jams are really good.  Apple Pear Maple Jam is beige and it's really fabulous.   Pear Ginger Jam is beige and it's really good.  So is Pear Nutmeg Vanilla Jam.  And Pear Maple Jam.  And Pear Plum Vanilla Jam [My favorite!].  And Pear Brown Sugar Cardamom Jam.

So you see, my bias against beige jam is totally unfounded.

Which is why I suck it up and make a batch or two of plain nectarine jam every year so we can have it on ice cream.   And waffles.  And pancakes.   And the occasional piece of toast.

Nectarine Jam
www.rurification.com

4 cups peeled, chopped nectarines [4-6 nectarines.  Or so.]
1 cup water
4 tablespoons low sugar pectin
2 cups sugar

Mix the water, pectin and fruit in a pot.   Mix well to dissolve the pectin.  Bring to boil.  Stir constantly until it reaches a hard rolling boil that you can't stir down.   Boil 1 minutes.   Add sugar, stirring well.   Bring back to hard rolling boil.  Boil for 1 minute.  Ladle into jars.

Yield: 2 1/2 pints. 

Want all these beige jam recipes in one handy doc?   Check out my ebook, A Simple Jar of Jam:180+ recipes & variations for jam using low sugar pectin.  [Preview link over on my sidebar, right.]

Ironwood Trees

I grew up in northern Indiana in a lovely house on Ironwood Rd. but I never saw an ironwood tree until we moved to this place.

Our woods are full of them.  Carpinus caroliniana.  They're also called blue beech and hornbeam trees.  They love deep moist soil along creeks and swamps.  

The wood is hard and the trunks of young trees look like muscles.   They're sort of hexagonal in places.   Very cool.   [And hard to photograph, so sorry there's no pic.]

But they have very interesting catkins, too.   Catkins are what you call those droopy tree flowers.  

These look like little lanterns when the sun hits them.   If I were crafty, I'd make little lanterns like these to go over twinkle lights.  How cool would that be?!

I'm not convinced that these catkins are from the  Carpinus caroliniana. Usually those have a thumb that sticks off the top of each petal and they turn brown faster.   These leaves are right, but the trunk is more beech like and less muscle-y than true ironwoods.   

If anyone can identify, shout out in the comments.

Jam Filled Cupcakes

This is another one of those terrific Things To Do With a Jar of Jam that I've been collecting.   [Stay tuned - it'll be a book next year!]

Use jam as a cupcake filling.  It couldn't be easier!

Step 1.  Make cupcakes.   You can use a mix.   It'll take 5 minutes to get them in the oven. 

Step 2.  After they're baked and cooled, use a knife to cut off a bit of the top and scoop out some of the insides.   Kids love doing that.  Save the tops, but let the kids eat the insides.

Step 3.  Open a jar of jam and spoon the jam inside the cupcakes.

Step 4.  Replace the tops and frost.    It's easiest to pipe the frosting on because the loose tops tend to wiggle when you're frosting with a knife.   You don't need a fancy piping unit either.   Just put the frosting in a ziplock or sandwich bag and cut one of the bottom corners off.   Pipe the frosting out of the cut end.  

It's a great way to add some easy zing to plain cupcakes.  Try these combinations:

Chocolate cupcakes:  Cherry Jam, Orange Marmalade, Pear Ginger Jam, Raspberry Jam
Spice Cake cupcakes:  Peach Jam, Pear Jam, Apple Maple Jam, Spiced Pear Jam
Cherry cupcakes:  any kind of Berry Jam
Carrot Cake cupcakes:  Orange Marmalade, Pear Ginger Jam

Butterfly Surprise

Yesterday just after sun-up Lily and I noticed this butterfly emerging from its chrysalis in the grass just outside the veg garden.  

Great way to start the morning.

Giveaway - Crochet Shawl Kit

It's time for another July Celebration Giveaway!  

This giveaway is especially for my readers who love yarn.   I'm offering one of my hand dyed yarn kits that includes 4 skeins of gorgeous hand dyed cotton yarn [More than 1000 yds total] and a pattern for this beautiful crocheted ripple shawl.   It works up fast and easy.  [If you don't crochet, you can knit a simple ripple using large needles and you're good to go!]

This is a perfect summer project for traveling.  The finished shawl is light and lacy and good for summer evenings and air conditioned restaurants.






Winner gets her/his choice of these colors:

Nepeta works up like an impressionist painting.  Think Monet's garden.

These are the blues and lavenders of Cool Water.  [My personal favorite!]

And for those of you who prefer warmer colors, I've got a kit in all the tonal shades of Golden Sands.







To enter, leave a comment on the blog before midnight, Sunday, July 14th, 2013 [EDT].   Tell me what your favorite summer projects are.

[Giveaway open to residents of the US only.  Please watch the blog and contact me immediately if you are the winner.  Prizes must be claimed within one month.]

Cherry Orange Jam

Today I have a brand new jam recipe for you guys - just because I love you.

Cherry Orange Jam isn't really a marmalade, but it looks a bit like one.  It's a terrific blend of flavors and it makes a beautiful red jam.

Everyone knows that red jam is the best jam.

This recipe uses whole oranges.   It's easier if you can find very clean seedless oranges so all you have to do is wash them well and slice them up.
 

Cherry Orange Jam
www.rurification.com

2 whole oranges
4 cups pitted sour cherries
1/2 cup - 1 cup of water or juice if necessary for dry fruit
4 tablespoons low-sugar pectin
4 cups sugar

Wash the oranges very well.  Cut them in half from north pole to south pole.  Slice each half into thin slices parallel with the equator.  They'll look like sunbursts.  [I love that.]  Cut the sunbursts into 3-4 wedges that will be comfortable to eat in your jam.  Combine the orange wedges, cherries, water/juice and pectin in a big pot.    Bring to hard boil.  [A hard boil is one you can't stir down.]   Stir constantly and boil hard for 1 minute.    Add sugar.   Stir well and return to hard boil.   Stir constantly and boil hard for 1 minute.  Ladle into jars.  Cap with clean lids and rings.

Yield: 4.5 pints

Another Great Blog

One of my readers [Thanks, Karen!] put me onto another terrific blog: The Nerdy Farmwife.

Here's her latest post on using calendula flowers in tea, with 14 uses for that tea.  It's a wonderful post.  http://thenerdyfarmwife.com/14-uses-for-calendula-tea/

Check out the site - she's an amazing amateur herbalist with a lot of creative things to do with herbs. 

Thank You Coupon!

Because you guys are terrific and because we all need a little something special that won't break the bank, I'm giving my blog readers 10% off everything they purchase from my Etsy shops from now until the end of July.

Cool, huh!!

If you're interested in hand-dyed yarns and rovings and spindles and towels, check out our yarn shop: www.robinjedmundson.etsy.com.

If you're interested in my ebook and what the kids have been making, head on over to the Rurification Etsy Shop:  www.rurification.etsy.com. 

Here's the coupon code:  ILoveMyBlogReaders

Happy shopping!    And thank you so very much for helping support this site and our family business.

Winner! Handwoven Towel

Thanks very much to those of you who read the blog regularly and who stopped in to enter the Handwoven Towel Giveaway last week.

Random.org picked comment #10 from Lanette, who said this about celebrating the 4th:

Lanette  July 5, 2013 at 7:53 AM

We are homebodies. We usually grill out and then watch the fireworks on tv... the older I get, the more I hate being in crowds with obnoxious people!

Lanette, please email me with your mailing address and I'll get your towel right out to you!