Fairy butterfly then seed geekery

 Our fairy butterfly ready to grant wishes last night going to the Halloween movie event.

We have a Halloween school party tomorrow - I'm not sure if she is wearing the same general outfit or if she wants to change it up... she gets home in an hour or so, will talk to her about it.  She was in quite the surly mood last night and an 'interesting' mood this morning... we'll see.

And now, the seed geekery.  Beans and corn.  If you've had enough of this in past years - turn your eyes away now, or just glance at the pictures for the eye candy effect, and run away from the type ;)  I won't subject you to all the measurements and notebook scrawls - but they happened, this morning, while Esme was at school and I was finally feeling in the right frame of brain to 'obsess' in a constructive way.

Not counting what I documented in August  - this is the corn crop for the entire year.  It's not much, volume wise.. yes?  But the genetics are what I'm after, and the eventual hardiness for our soil and climate.  I also would like to choose for the easiest shelling type that has dried under our 'natural' conditions well.  Eventually, it will be excellent for animal feed, although I ended up with mainly popcorn types coming through in the end.

Types represented and mixed this year:
White Cherokee Eagle corn (dent type)
Mandan Bride (I don't see it - know it was there.. but it didn't dominate anything)
Smoke Signals popcorn
Japonica popcorn
Hopi Pink popcorn
Glass Gem popcorn
Peaches and Cream sweet corn (it mixed with one of the popcorns and is represented)

The dried beans from the year, not counting the small white ones - don't know what they are!  They were climbing another tree by the other fence where I had only planted Good Mother Stallards, and are obviously not those!

Blue Black Shackamaxon : planted in Location A and B, in location A it was easy to see that they all came out exactly as expected.  Ate a lot of these as string beans with the Providers.

Tennessee Greasy beans : white beans with black spots that were planted in Location B, climbed eight foot tree opposite of the beans mentioned above.   Some came out like the Hopi with c-shaped streaks (these may be Rattlesnake beans actually...I 'lost them' in the same location), some came out black like shackamaxon mixed with them in same location, a few variants between.  So really, this one is a tossup again like last year.. I should just be tracking what I planted instead of trying to give it a name!

Hopi String Beans : planted in Location A all came out white with black streaks

Bosnian : separate tin of seed elsewhere, might have been one planted here

others planted but not representing above:
Good Mother Stallard - did not produce or are mixed in and I can't tell
Kenearly bush yellow-eyes : did not produce, bush bean so it can't be the progenitor of above...
Mayflower : grew just a few then died
Provider :ate almost all that we got...maybe one or two seeds got saved a while back
Yellow Golden Wax :ate what we got, then it died....

 Two odd but distinct variations in the pile

Where did they come from - what are they?  Are they just oddball genetics in the original set?

 The ones on the left were grown last year as 'Tennessee Greasy Beans' but had come out white with black spots and streaks.  Now after being stored in glass for the year dry.. they are orange with black spots.  The Bosnian, on the right, which I expected to turn orange with age, are nowhere near that color.

A look at the whipporwill cowpea crop alongside the other beans
Mark didn't want me to plant them this next year - there were SO many of them, and there were ants on them when he went to pick them at the end.. but so productive, how can I not plant them?  I ate several bowls worth this summer and there was just always some there if it was needed, or dried to seed if I didn't get to them.  As a 'survival' food, this one really takes the cake as a no-brainer to plant.

When your Puppy Eats your Swing, you Improvise

Loula the puppy ate the seat off of our tree swing. Actually, she just chewed it from the super-strong woven straps it was on and carried it away. But, Esme has not let that stop her from making use of the leftover straps. She was proud to show me what she has been doing with those arm muscles...







I think she might have a career in gymnastics ;) just kidding. I was in it as a kid and was quite impressive at the uneven bars.



What actually impressed me the most was not her setting this all up herself in front of me to show me her trick - but the way she grasped both straps in her hands and 'walked' her fingers up until she had a good foot of each strap below her hands - she took a long and deliberate time doing this and looking at the ground before she actually made her jump. She was calculating her distance and arc by experience - if I grab this much strap I won't hit the ground when I swing. Now that's some thought process kid!



note: also, I find balloon strings wrapped around everything lately. I blow them up for her (helium tank left over from a birthday two years ago!) and give her one every once in a while. While she has not learned to tie knots she has figured out that if you wrap the string around something about fifteen times it tends to stay put - and our porch, the swing straps, even the refrigerator door have been 'hit' by balloon wrappings lately. I found one balloon with the string stuck in the kitchen cupboard door the other day - because she didn't want it getting away from her while she played with something else for a while.


purple silks on the field corn


the west field

The drought has taken a big bite out of both of my experimental corn fields this year. This field has only gotten about three feet tall but there are some very small ears still happening in there. I guess it would be important to keep seed from this just for drought tolerance. The purple silks on a few of them interest me - is it the genetics, or the 'hot' acidity of the soil? I planted mostly black and blue kernel corn here to see what would happen. Now that I'm on vacation I am making sure it is getting some extra water to do what it can. Read up on it - purple silks means a phosphate deficiency. I can solve that with a little epsom salts - already have some from the cucumbers last year.


sad little main garden

This is the 'main garden' after the drought and all of the clearing out of things that had died. I have replanted some things but it will be hard going with the hot dry weather we are still having (although there were rains a week or so ago). Still, there are bees and butterflies and hummingbirds and goldfinches enjoying the sunflowers, zinnias and bean flowers. And at that, it is still worthwhile even if the new plantings do not do much. Planted experimental field corn plot #2 yesterday in front of the sunflowers. Beans coming up everywhere from last week - corn coming up.... pulling in sunflower heads to dry every few days and getting nearly an entire quart jar of dried black seed already. The lemon sunflowers have a strange blue-gray tinge to them which keeps them separate from the other - there is maybe a small relish jar half full of those seeds.


lemon sunflower head