Wild Creatures and Succulent Plants

As I was moving four bleeding heart plants from the backyard to the frontyard (and turning them into seven plants), I found a weird looking thing in the ground under each plant. I then had to poke at it with my gloved hand, wondering if it was alive. When it twitched, I knew the answer was Yes! After my internal freaking out subsided, I went on an internet search to determine what it was.

I figured it was a chrysalis of some sort, and with Eric's help and that of What's that Bug?, we narrowed it down to images like this and decided it was the pupa of a hummingbird moth. Yeah, click on that first link and TRY not to get the heebie jeebies! (I don't recommend doing this while having lunch.) Now imagine if you poked that pupa and it moved. Aiee! Since I know that I do have hummingbird moths all summer, I'm certain that's what it is. The pupa didn't have a "horn" on it, so I'm pretty certain it isn't a tomato hornworm pupa. It might be a Nessus or a Clearwing. Who knows?!

I've also been visited by raccoons, now that I have a feeder filled with sunflower seeds outside. The first day after I filled it, I found that they'd taken the feeder and the hook straight out of the tree I'd had it in originally and dragged the feeder over by the deck. I decided the feeder would be safer from Masked Bandits if I put it on the deck, so I put it right next to the back door. Wouldn't you know it? The very next morning that thing was on the deck with the bottom pulled off and all the seeds gone. Now I've taken to bringing it in at night, when I take my plants in (It's still not warm enough at night to leave my tomato plants out...yet.). Last night, at only 9 pm, I went to go check on the feeder. Domino was sitting by the door and hissed as I walked up...but not at me. Outside, the feeder was swinging, as if something had just been there, trying to get some seeds. I walked further onto the deck and saw a big old raccoon scampering across the yard.

So now I have to bring the feeder in at sunset, I think.

Right after bringing the feeder in, I went around front to go get the mail and saw a hummingbird moth! On my new honeysuckle!

Honeysuckle 'Scentsation' (Lonicera periclymenum)

Honeysuckle sans hummingbird moth. It was nighttime and I had no camera. Sorry!

So far, this honeysuckle is standing up to its name! It has a fantastic fragrance and is just covered in blooms. I'm likin' it!

While I was admiring the moth, the raccoon came clambering over the low wall to my backyard and ran into the open space across the street. No snacks for you, buddy!

Little bugger.

I know he'll be back. And he'll probably bring friends. ACK!

Still no hummingbirds to be found in my yard, but it's just a matter of time before I run across them, I'm sure.s

As I mentioned previously, I'm on a succulent bender. Here's proof of how bad it's gotten this year:

One giant pot that started with a set of 5 plants I bought at the DBG annual plant sale and then added to it with my cuttings from last year's selection of plants and a handful of new purchases.

Monster succulent pot. This this is about 24" across. It's on wheels. And no, I don't know how I'll store it indoors in the winter! That's a problem for October!

Top (starting at the 12 noon position): Perle von Nurnberg cutting, Adromishus 'Key Lime Pie' cutting, Ech. agavoides cutting, Sedum globosum 'Old Man Bones', a pair of Ech. 'Lucita' cuttings under the Aeonium arboreum atropurpureum (DBG), a plant that was listed as one thing (Echeveria 'Dondo') that I'm certain it is NOT, but I haven't figured out what it IS. If you know, let me know. Pachyphytum? Pachyveria? It was cute, so I bought it. Crassula perforata 'String of Buttons' (DBG), Echeveria or Sempervivum of unknown name (from The Mecca aka Paulino Gardens), but it's kinda fuzzy all over with pointed tips that are edged in red. Above that is Sedum 'Burrito', a plant claiming to be 'Perle von Nurnberg' (DBG), but I'm not so certain (but maybe it was just attenuating?), then Portulacaria afra variegata (DBG) and in the very center Graptoveria 'Fred Ives' (DBG). The five from DBG were in a "DIY container garden" bag together.

I had to search all over the web to find the name of the one in the center and decided that I went from being on a bender to be obsessed with these new plants. And that I wanted even more of them! So many varieties! So little space inside for overwintering!

Another plant I'd picked up from the DBG sale, this time it was an unusual sempervivum 'Heimlich'.

The question is: will it overwinter in this pot outdoors and survive?

An odd echeveria (Berkeley?) that grabbed my eye in the store and wanted to come home with me, where it would be better taken care of.

Echeveria gibbiflora hybrid

I put it in the unused bonsai pot I've had sitting around for years. I killed that bonsai long, long ago. I'm hoping the frilly echeveria will survive longer!

A trio of plants that just looked so good together that I couldn't resist getting them and jamming them in a pot together. I think this may be my favorite pot.

Top: Senecio serpens 'Blue Chalk Sticks'. Right: Pachyveria glauca 'Little Jewel'. Left: Sedum spathulifolium 'Capo Blanco'.

I shall name it Little Blue. Or George. Always good for a plant name.

Last year's plants just barely survived their overwintering indoors in my garden window. They look really awful, but we'll see how they do over the course of the summer.

Top (starting from 12 o'clock position): 'Perle von Nurnberg', 'Christmas Cheer', plush plant (sunburned), Crassula nudicalus (purple in the sun), Cocoon plant, Key Lime Pie, Burrito, and in the middle Echeveria agavoides. Sand courtesy of Logan Sand Flinger.

At the very least, I learned a lot about succulents and how much they need to me keep them in pots I can easily manage indoors over the winter. Not that it stops me from creating a 24" monster in the summer, but still!

I blame Gayla from You Grow Girl! for piqueing my interest in succulents. I think it may have been this post here that did me in. That's a good lookin' plant.

Now if only the night time temps would pick up, I could start planting out my tomatoes and peppers! Maybe I'll give them a test run tonight....

Really Slow Food

You may or may not know about the Slow Food Movement in the US (and around the globe -it started in Italy), but we seem to be setting a record in our house. A few days ago, we had a "freezer incident" that touched off a flurry of cooking.

One of us [Cough! Not me! Cough!] didn't check to make sure the freezer door was all the way shut. The food in it slowly defrosted until we found it, freaked out appropriately (My quarter cow! My ten chickens! Aiee!) and then went into Food Triage. Which food did we think was most at risk? Everything on the door. On the door were a few steaks, a couple of tenderloins and...a beef brisket.

What to do with beef brisket in summer? Brisket is mostly a winter food. Also, brisket isn't the kind of meat you can just toss on the grill and have it be fabulous. It needs to cook slowly in order for the meat to become tender. And this isn't just any old summer either, but a record-making heat wave summer. Ack! Quickly flipping through a few cookbooks, we decided we wanted Corned Beef for a fantastic Corned Beef Hash (So far away from the stuff in the can it is mind blowing!) recipe we made in the spring. However, you may not realize it, but corned beef is most often available around St. Patrick's Day and is very hard to find after that time of year. So if we want corned beef, we'd have to make it. From scratch.

That's when we found out there were several steps involved in what we wanted to do as follows: brisket --> brining/pickling --> corned beef --> final recipe.

Oh and that brining/pickling step? Seven days. Seven.

Being insane, this didn't stop us.

Today is Day Seven. The brisket has been removed from its pickling brine, boiled (Oy! The English and the boiling of meat!) and is now roasting in the oven.

It's one hundred degrees outside. We're roasting brisket in the oven.

And this isn't even the final step; this is just the mid-way point in our plans. First we'll eat this for dinner and then take the leftovers and make the hash tomorrow.

I think the heat* has addled our brains.

Hash browns, at last!

* And the lack of sleep. The twins are waking twice a night again. ARGH!

88 Degrees

Inside. The. House.

Something is Wrong with our air-conditioning.

It was 98 degrees outside today. Gaaaah! (Melting! I'm melting!)

Eric is troubleshooting. Let us hope it is a cheap/simple fix.

You know it's Colorado when...

Yesterday it was 74 degrees out. Eric and Caitlin were outside for awhile, manning the Girl Scout cookie booth, hawkin' cookies on the unsuspecting shoppers around them.

Today?

Blizzard.

We are the poster child for Global Climate Change.

52 inches in 48 hours

No, it's not some miraculous dieting product that you can find on late night television. Instead, it is the amount of snow that dropped on my MIL, keeping her away from her only son on his 40th birthday.

Trooper that she is, she tried to come anyway, but turned back when things looked really ugly.

To help you visualize it:

Snowed in. Photo by Grammy.

Another way of looking at it is this: you could drop Caitlin into the snowbank and if she sank to the bottom, there'd be 7 inches from the top of her head to the top of the snowbank.

That's deep!

We're sorry they're not here, but we're glad everyone's safe at home.

It's...raining

This is Colorado! We don't "do" rain!

Apparently someone forgot to tell the weather forecasters that, though, because it's raining like mad. Thunder, a little lightening and it's been going on for what feels like ages. Meaning, longer than 10 minutes.

Colorado is (normally) an arid plain state. We don't have humidity and we don't do rainfall in appreciable amounts (10-14" per year, people!). Today, I think it's trying to meet its quota for either the year or at least half of it. It started raining last night, eased up a bit this morning and now is going full tilt.

Why should you care?

Because it means mom and Eric can't put my plants in the ground!

Oh, wait, that's why I care.

Hmm. Nevermind! Carry on, citizen.

70.5 hours, 1 pre-op appointment, a non-stress test and 1 operation left. Not that we're counting or anything. Heh!

The wind in the trees

Last night we had a really powerful wind storm. I've no idea just how fast it was going, but reports were between 55 and 100 mph. In my backyard it was crazy - the trees were whipping all over, branches were breaking and flinging themselves into my yard from the neighbors trees and I was frantically taking my flats of plants off the table and putting them on the deck.

I've never been so grateful for having removed my 3 weedy trees as I was last night. All around town today there are trees ripped out of the ground, split in half (or thirds or quarters...), or shoved over really hard, yet still in the ground. Their death will be slower than those that got ripped out, but unless someone comes and resets them, they're goners. In my yard, instead of what we would have normally faced with the weedy trees, we just have a few smaller branches (4') here and there from the trees next door. Wow! My fuchsia, that I'd hung from the branch of one of my ash trees got whipped around and around, but never fell or ripped the plant out of the pot.

Eric went out and removed the umbrella entirely, just in case it was likely to catch more wind, in it's strapped down state and take the table with it (again). I think I lost a few plants, but not a lot of them - some had the vegetative growth ripped right off. Ah well.

Eric even made a video of it. I'll see if he can post it later.