Useful Osage Orange

 I've been collecting the balls dropped from my trees.

Left in buckets over the winter, the fruit renders down into a slurry.

This slurry can eventually be poured into a shallow trench to get new seedlings.

I spotted the original fruit beside the road in town, stopped and grabbed a few.

I originally hoped to use them as posts.

They're kinda slow-growing here in the sand.

The small-diameter trunks are useful at my house.

Here's an axe with a new handle.

Buncha tool handles previously posted last January.

Mulberry makes a faster-growing post.

This mulberry log has been air-curing for a few months, hopefully be light enough to deal with soon.

When I install them fresh, it's a job, they're heavy as anything.

You know, a discussion about above bodark fruit (Maclura pomifera) hardly seems complete without a mention of their extinct seed dispersers.

There was an article written about the trees that remember the mammoths that I found interesting enough to search for more information.

I discovered Connie Barlow's book "Ghosts of Evolution". Which I found to be extremely compelling.

Apparently she's progressed from writing about plants that have lost their animal seed dispersers to attempting to save plants in danger of extinction due to Anthropogenic climate change.

That seems like a neat idea. Extinction is forever. Seems stupid to allow these human-caused extinction events to continue without making some effort to slow down the losses.

End of July

I'm eating these cushaw squash as fast as I pick them.

I think they taste like taters, but they require very little cooking!

Pretty important in this heat.

If I cube some pre-cooked rotisserie chicken, and cube some of the cushaw squash, add in a can of corn, a slice of onion and a bit of hot pepper, I can have a nice soup in the time it takes to cook up a pot of ramen noodles.

I'm eating these beige punkins too, but they aren't as good as the cushaw.

The cherry laurel that I moved last winter are being browsed by the deer.

Prolly need to try agin with tomato cages.

Armadillo number 17 so far this year!

Aralia spinosa with pollinators.

Round pears. I've been eating for a couple weeks, very sweet.

Snake-cotton (Froelichia floridana) next to the drive, absolutely spectacular this year!

 

Late Spring

 Squash beetle (Epilachna borealis) New to me, seeing this in town as well as at my patch.

Also, finding the regular squash bugs, catch and squish.

Lambsquarter and Florida stachys tubers. I'm getting a lot of lambsquarter tips, but due to the early spring heat and drought, the stachys tubers are a good bit of work to locate.

Mullien in the garden.

A caged paw paw, started from seed last Spring, set out last Autumn.

More paw paw seedlings.

Last year, I planted some pawpaw seed without stratification, as well as some where I pierced the seed coat first. The ones that were pierced came up right away and I set out in the Autumn. The ones w/o stratification? Took an extra year to come up.

Butterfly weed.

I put up a fence to prevent the deer from browsing it. Hoping for some seeds.

Buckeye butterfly laying eggs on bracted plantain (Plantago aristata).

Climbing beans (trail of tears) and black-eyed susans (rudbeckia hirta)

Scuppernong grape seedlings. 

Armadillo in a trap, 10 so far this Spring.

March Butterflies!

 

A buckeye butterfly visiting the crucifer flowers.

Black swallowtail visiting the columbines.

And the plum blossoms.

The plum flowers were a big draw, tiger swallowtail & zebra swallowtail.

Tiger swallowtail appears to be laying eggs on black cherry.

The previous day, I'd researched the black cherry, learning that it was a host for them. Pretty timely!

I've just finished reading Doug Tallamy's FAQ book. Highly recommend!

One thought on the above book, Irony?

 Someone asked about wood eating bugs, asking whether they cared about native types vs exotics, and Tallamy's response included this nugget. 

"Mulberry trees have yellow interior wood, and something nasty is making it yellow. I cut down a mulberry tree 23 years ago, and most of it is still lying where it fell, not rotted or eaten!"

He seemed to think that was a negative.

Some of us grow mulberry because of it's rot resistance. 

This is a desirable attribute. I originally planted mulberry for future fence posts. 

Of course, the berries are nice to get as well.

 

The American Holly berries are finally ripe!

4 birds in pic...

The Cedar waxwings have finally decided that these holly berries are ready. The tree is so tall that I can't see the birds until after I take a picture and examine it on the computer!

The holly tree.

Not seeing the other birds yet.

With berry

Mid-flight!

Bird scaping the Garden

Last year, I cut down several cherry laurel trees. I felt like my garden was getting overrun.

Seems like the wrong thing to do now.

So cute!

3 cedar waxwings in the cherry laurel.

4 waxwings and robin

Cardinal

 I'm moving some seedlings to the fence line. I don't know if they'll do well there; other trees I've moved to the perimeter have died. Still seems like a good spot if I can discover plants that will tolerate the conditions.

I have several hollies that I keep eyes on, but the birds haven't yet decided the berries are ready.

 

American Lady

 This American Lady butterfly came out with the warmer temps this last week.

It got me researching the difference between this one and the painted lady.

Seems there's a white dot on an orange bar that the painted lady doesn't have, which doesn't seem real noticeable when they're out in the garden. Otherwise, count the eyespots.

The missouri prairie foundation explains with pictures

There are other differences. 

In 2016, I posted several pictures of the American lady depositing eggs on cudweed

The painted lady uses thistle as a host plant. Unfortunately, I can't seem to keep thistles growing in my sandhill garden. I had a nice patch one time, back in 2013. I can't recall caterpillars on the thistles.