Tuesday, 22 September 2009
The tomato plants are doing their darnedest to soak up all this rain. As a result the wee tomatoes are splitting their skins, like this pear tomato specimen.
Finally, the rains are clearing and I have seen patches of dry blacktop in the street!
Saturday, 19 September 2009
Only careful scrutiny of last week’s red okra photo would reveal the delicate, pale yellow blooms the plants sport. Here’s a close-up. With fly.
Thursday, 17 September 2009
View toward the street.
View from opposite direction….
All the rain last night transformed the majestic pokeweed (aka poke salad, Phytolacca americana) specimen that’s growing right next to the oak stump from a looming canopy above to the tragic fallen biomass, shown right. I assume the weight of the water shattered the main branching junction, but perhaps it was windy enough that that was a factor (wind, shiver…)….
You may remember (okay, vaguely) this photo (follow the link) from early April of the young shoot part of this plant’s history….
We all pretty much agreed that this had to be the largest pokeweed plant we’ve seen. The stem is big enough to merit being referred to as a trunk, I think. I ought to get out and measure it….
The birds have been stealing the berries as they get ripe from the tips of the clusters inward (upward?—no longer!). The downside of feeding the birds is that they scatter the seeds, and, voila!, next year we may have a huge crop of pokeweed in this neighborhood!
Wednesday, 16 September 2009
Yeah, we call this a canna lily, but apparently it’s not really a lily (Lilium family), but is related botanically to ginger and bananas…and canna is from the Celtic word for cane/reed.
Rain off and on all day, and I neglected to scoot out for a walk during any of the breaks. Thus, I bring you a photo from the other day, when it was sunny and pleasant….
In fact, right now we’re under a red blob on the weather maps and it’s pouring….
Should you be interested in real content, visit Terminus 2.0, where Rebecca writes about speaking to Jimmy Carter today…. Carter likes the word “vituperative*.”
* Apple dictionary = “bitter and abusive.” Good word.
Saturday, 12 September 2009
Very tall red okra (Abelmoschus esculentus) with very, very long pods—up to 10 inches or so! I didn’t know there was red okra. I didn’t know okra got this tall! I didn’t know okra pods got this big!
Over in Piedmont Park is a small vegetable garden, labeled “Community Garden,” located on perhaps the best soil in the park. Until today, we’d only seen the Community walking by. This morning several adults had about two dozen youngsters gathered outside the garden doing some lessons, it seemed to me. I will find out next time I walk by if they also did weeding, harvesting, etc.
We also toured the booths at the Atlanta Arts Festival, but didn’t spend any money though I was tempted by the pottery of Ken Jensen of St. Augustine. We took samples of several flavors of Lärabars, an energy bar with only a few ingredients, all with names you’d recognize, and no soy or chemicals. I had never tried them before. I’ve only sampled the Key Lime flavor so far, and it was tasty, but fairly high calorie for the volume—which would be most excellent for backpackers.
Friday, 11 September 2009
As near as I can tell, this is a golden rain tree (Koelreuteria paniculata), an Asian import favored by some landscapers due to these glorious flowers.
This week we’ve watched various contractors prepare Piedmont Park for this weekend’s event: the Atlanta Arts Festival (no pets). In fact, you can see one of the white tents that are now ubiquitous at such events at the far left of this photo….
I hope the weather smooths out; this morning we walked among intermittent drops, and it’s still overcast.
Thursday, 10 September 2009
The other day I mentioned that we have a reasonably prolific pear tomato. Yesterday I mused about anthropomophizing in my interior landscape.
These trends continue today…
Perhaps I’m simple, but this sure looks like a golden pear tomato cowboy to me. Jaunty and all.
Like the green hat?
Let’s see, I was going to post a picture of a wood duck, in profile, nicely sunlit, taken down at the park. But.
But the camera or the customized photo transfer software/script captured the pictures and put them, um, nowhere. The Guru is standing by to tweak the problem. When we do the next download.
In the meantime, he’s distracted me by noting this brand new camera from Canon, the PowerShot SX20 IS, which sounds pretty cool. Of course, our current camera is mighty cool; it’s a Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS3 we bought earlier this year.
Wednesday, 9 September 2009
We’ve had enough precip that we’re experiencing another crop of fungi. These two are crowding each other, inspiring anthropomorphized captions in my head….
Monday, 7 September 2009
In honor of the 52nd Annual Bridge Walk* today, we perambulated to Piedmont Park and made enough circuits and detours to approximate (exceed, actually) the five miles it takes to cross the Mackinac Bridge.
* Note: playing tag (?) while on the Bridge Walk is not permitted. We didn’t play tag either.
Sunday, 6 September 2009
Soon after I took yesterday’s picture, the pumpkin vine* transported to the compost pile next door. Today’s picture, incidentally, is from a year ago exactly—’tis the season?—and is not of the fruit of that vine, which seems to have been sterile.
NB: The squash/pumpkin genus is Cucurbita, and Cucurbitas are native to the New World.