summertime….

…and the livin' is easy -- don't know about the fish swmmin' or the height of the cotton they don't grow in Denton County any more, but the Doak Orchards "Bowie Peaches Guy" is back on station in the corner of the bowling alley parking lot across from the mall, and summer is oh-FEE-shully here! Last year the late freeze did in their crop, and it was terrible. They had east Texas peaches at the farmers' market; they were good, but not the same.

Summertime flowers at the Ridge - the bull-nettles and spiderwort are gone and the black-eyed susans are passing. The tall yellow evening primrose is beginning to make a show. And there's a lot of horsemint this year. It will be showy for a long time.

But the speckled, creamy blossoms that the bees love, hiding under the bracts, will be gone I think by early July.


Got critters. Lots of birds, of  course. Mammals - I saw the gray fox a few weeks ago, first time in years. I came downstairs after I heard a metallic rattle in the front yard the other night, to find a 'coon that had failed to get into the birdfeeder, hoovering up the sunflower seeds underneath it. I see a cottontail in the lane often, especially down in the woods near the mailbox. And one night I slowly followed a young 'possum up the lane for a lo-o-ong way, till it finally went off into the grass to one side.

 This lizard was on the outside of the upstairs porch screen last week. Clearly it has never lost a tail to a cat.



The grasshoppers are very numerous, hopping up in front of the car in clouds, even when I seem to be travelling on a bare dirt section of the lane. They have been getting noticeably bigger the last couple of weeks. Today I photographed some that were posing on the windshield.

yay, bees!

Today was a picture-perfect January day, from the point of view of a beekeeper. Temperature in the low sixties, sunny, no wind to speak of. Ben headed out to the Ridge around two to do some work, and gave me a ride.

I lugged the cedar bench over by the front hive, though as it turned out, I did not remove any frames and didn't really need it. Kay and I had left four frames in the top box of three. The first, in the center with open space in front of it, had an overgrown lump of comb projecting into the space, and some stored honey. The next was quite heavy and pretty full. The third had some honey, and the fourth, by the hive wall, had not very much. I was able to look down at the frames in the second box, and I could see quite a lot of capped honey and bees. So I concluded it was doing OK.

In the backyard the hive also has three medium boxes, ten-frame rather than eight. The top - the cut-down deep with silver paint from my first hive, contains 9 frames. I recall that some were just empty frames in October. Not so now. The first is an almost completely built comb, with the inner side capped with honey. The second was HEAVY -- full of honey on both sides. On the other (east) side of the hive, the situation was about the same, not quite as much honey. I tried to look down to the frames below, and could see capped honey and bees down there too.

If there is a day even warmer next month, I will try to get the boxes apart and see what's happening on the brood frames. Need to make sure there's room for the queen to lay down there. If there is brood, I may need to feed some pollen substitute. Also I am concerned that the back hive still may have an empty box on the first floor.

The winter honeysuckle is beginning to bloom, and a few bees are working it. But what is the source of all that honey they have capped since October?

bee banquet and a bit of rain

Monday was the CCHBA Christmas banquet. Mucho good food as usual. Kay and I shared a table with about half of the Pettibon family -- 11 kids. My good gracious!!

Turned out that my close-up from the inspection of the new hive on May 20 produced not only the October calendar picture, of bees on an almost-completely-capped frame, but also #3 in the photo contest. And even some money, Tom Siep says, but he forgot the awards, so I'll find out what in January.

OCTOBER CALENDAR PHOTO

I used my new frame grip to lift and hold the frames with just the left hand, so I could snap a close-up with the right. (No glove, but that worked OK, the bees weren't buzzy - hard not to get sticky on the camera though.) The back-lit appearance is genuine -- I was facing south from behind the hive, so the sun was behind the frame, lighting up the honey.


There is another spatter of rain that I hear as I write, at ten pm. We have had light rain for much of the day. First rain in weeks.

Tomorrow, or maybe later because Stephen forgot and double-scheduled himself, he and I will get out to the Ridge. I think he will start by sanding the closet floor and painting the closet, so I can get the Elfa shelves and the clothes into the closet and then see how much material I can fit into the craft room. Aiming to have him do about 6-8 days work, and get myself moved back in January! Much longer, and I will grow root here. It's been seven months.

winter weather!

Saturday was a splendid, cloudless, windless day in the fifties. Eddie and Stephen refilled my woodshed.






I took a walk in the west forty and photographed grasses and tracks by the pond.













Overnight it started raining. Sunday morning was a steady cold drizzle. Feline disgust.

About 11am or so it changed to heavy sleet and then snow, which came pouring down in thick huge flakes. Within half an hour the ground was covered. I refilled the bird-feeder and enjoyed watching much activity.


I think I counted nine male cardinals at once, certainly eight. The two towhees are here, and white-throats and Harris sparrows.








Early Monday morning I saw a kinglet sitting on the top of the fan housing outside the upstairs landing window, fluffed out round. What do they EAT? I put out a suet-cake, but it has been in the freezer for a very long time, and I haven’t seen anyone interested in at.

I have burned up a good deal of the guys’ work.

mystery tree (solved)

Last May, when I was taking pictures of the wonderful vine(s) of dewberries I found under the oak halfway to the gate, I discovered a little tree that I didn’t recognize, next to and among the dewberries, with small white flowers in clusters. Of course I tried to make it out to be a persimmon tree, but it wouldn’t go there. Then I more or less forgot about it.

Last Sunday (January2), as I set off for a walk, I thought of it, and went to see what sort of fruit it had made, if any remained on the branches. There were a few last hangers-on of black berries. I photographed the twigs and berries, and tried to key the tree out in the Key to Families in the Flora of North Central Texas. No luck. In frustration I wrote to Becky Bender and Mike Mizell.

Becky replied that it was probably a Carolina Buckthorn, Frangula caroliniana . Sure enough, it fits that description to a T, as well as matching the photos produced by Google image. So there is a nice new species for the Ridge. But I STILL can’t get it to the Rhamnaceae in the family key!

winter, but sunny

I had a nice fire last night as temps went down into the thirties. 8 smallish logs (most 3-4”, one 6” or more) lasted about 4 hours. Agate was happy in my lap for much of the time; Alabaster was off somewhere else. I missed Tut, curled up sleepily watchful on the futon couch.

This morning, clear and sunny, it was just under freezing at 7:30, so I didn’t bother to go look for frost-flower sculptures. The forecast was 27°, and I had the herb bed all covered up again. The rest of the week is just supposed to be in the low to middle thirties, so I will uncover it and water and let it get acclimated to winter.

With the sun shining it’s up to 40° by just after 9:00am.

10:30 - 50° - went on walk. First down to persimmons to nail down ID of second one. Got a twig off it and the one I found with fruit, and the leaf-scars and buds are identical. Need to bring binoculars to see if that is a last persimmon up high in the larger one.

Walked from tank down through path in woods and then back on the lane. Tried to go through the old broken white gate, but it has shifted so that its chain is too tight to open.

Something is happening at the gas-well site. Couldn’t make out if they had a folded-up crane, ar if maybe they have brought back a derrick that’s still on the truck. Later - looks like they are putting up a derrick again. Hmmmm.

Found several persimmon seeds in the lane sand near the house, where I have evidently driven over a seed-laden scat.

Bee notes: By 10:30 it was fifty; by noon a bit over sixty. Bees coming and going, bringing in a good bit of orange and dirty-white pollen. I assume this is from the eleagnus, still perfuming the air and buzzing with bees, and the remnant of scarlet sage in the corner of the yard under the hackberry, which seem to have been protected from outer-space cold so far and still have quite a few scattered blooms. A few days ago these pollens were in the minority as about five out of six loads seemed to be golden yellow, the last of the broomweed and maybe other comps. They are about all gone now.

persimmon trees and briar patches

I was questioned about how I could walk into a briar patch dense enough to hide a persimmon tree. The answer is, it depends on the briars, and the way in which the tree is hidden. In the north pasture at the Ridge there has always been a central patch of woods, referred to by Isabel as the persimmon grove. I have known for some time of a group of persimmon trees on the east (upper) side of the trees, though in the main, the grove is hackberry, ash, oak, plum, etc. But these known 'simmon trees are all male, and thus non-bearing.




In the last three decades or so, the pasture was invaded by blackberries, to where the western half got to be almost solid with them. In the nineties, Nolan fought his little old tractor through and made a path near the west fence, which I kept open for several seasons, but of late it became solid briarpatch again. Between the central grove and the west fence, scattered among the brambles, are a good many smallish trees that like damper conditions, as this is where the drainage runs. Besides the other species mentioned, there are willow, cottonwood, pecan -- none very large except for the huge pecan in the northwest corner, Pines from the Holmans’ property are moving in at the southwest corner.

In the spring of 2009, Eddie and Stephen performed herculean labors and mowed down almost all of the blackberries on the west side, leaving a crunchy, spiky “mulch” some inches thick of chopped up half-inch canes. That was a very dry year, and there was very little regrowth except in the southwest corner, nearest the tank. This spring, they fairly easily re-mowed it, except in that same corner, where standing water (it was a VERY wet spring) defeated them.


I would never have tried to walk into the remnants of the original head-high thicket! I’m not sure even rabbits can fit into that. But the regrowth area looks deceptively possible to move through. NOT. Sunday afternoon I mowed a section by the female persimmon tree, and the contrast between the mowed part and the remainder makes it more clear how much of a thicket it really is.





Besides the scrawny little persimmon tree in the center of this picture, I also found a few more, based on the bark appearance. One of them appeared to have a single little round fruit hanging on a branch, way up where I couldn’t really see for sure what it was. It was a tree about twice the size of the one that I’m certain of.

So. Persimmons of both sexes now definitely go on the species list. Also Bidens frondosa, seeds of which I picked up LIBERAL-
LY in my socks.

muggy ugh

Oh, ugh. Sunset, overcast, 85°, and 63% humidity. The AC is not on because it isn't hot enough,and the room fan is just circulating the fug. I think I'll go adjust the thermostat, and electric bill and global warming be hanged! Weather says that areas that had rain are in the 70s, but we didn't. Weather, weather every where, and not a drop to fall.

Actually today it seemed fairly cool, in the afternoon. I believe it must have been raining up on Mingo Road, or Aubrey, or somewhere. I walked to Point Bank, and there were noticeable northeasterly cool breezes.

Walking that mile and a quarter was no problem. The second one, on the way BACK, did wear me out, especially that hill at the end. Stopping when you are only half way to tired is always the problem. Besides, I needed to go to Point Bank to put in a check for Crispin.

Yesterday Eddie and Stephen put in 4-1/2 hours clearing the sides of the lane at the Ridge -- the lower half is looking quite inviting. They were able to cut the dead tree at the kink in the road. Meanwhile, I excavated the herb bed from the Johnson grass that was threatening to overwhelm it.

I took some more pictures of the progress on the honey frames. Or make that non-progress. They don't look any more capped than last week, and they almost look as though the bees have been eating all the honey out of some spots. Sigh. Won't be a harvest at this rate. John tell me the rule of thumb is that you can harvest when they are three-quarters capped. I sent him this picture, and he said it was a beautiful frame of honey. Now all they have to do is FINISH it!

They continue to bring in lots of pollen. I got some video of that that I hope to get on Youtube or Fileden soon.

Ugh. Wrists are sweating all over the laptop. Off to set the AC lower.

summer's b-a-a-ack

End of the rains, and days near 100°, nights upper seventies for the foreseeable future. The last rains were Friday and Saturday, as a stalled-out front at the Red River stirred up some instability to dump a few more thunderstorms out of the soaked atmosphere. Kieren was hammered as he came north from Dallas Friday afternoon, then we had a mild drizzle most of Friday night, and two heavy thunderstorms on Saturday. Sunday however was clear and sunny; the cooler cloudy days gone.

The Ridge rain gauge had 0.6" Friday afternoon, and then over Saturday it collected 2.3" more, for a total of something like nine inches over the two weeks. Sycamore Street's gauge Friday night was 1.8", but I brought it inside to read Friday night and didn't get it back out, so Saturday's storms were unmeasured. While there was more rain in town in several storms the last few days, overall there was less, maybe 6".

Yesterday Eddie and Steven worked around the house and yard at the Ridge. Both screen porches are now largely cleared of the enveloping jungle of creeper, hackberry, and mimosa, and the screen fixed.

I went through the hive (with video). The queen is continuing to lay; there is some uncapped brood and quite a bit of capped on several of the brood frames. But there doesn't seem to be much for all those bees to bring in, even with the rains. The newer super has just maybe three lightly-drawn-out frames, and there is no further progress in the upper super. I saw no pollen arriving, but maybe they gather some earlier in the day. I gave them a pint of syrup with a couple drops of lemon-grass oil to see what would happen.

As I was watching the bees in the late afternoon, I heard a mockingbird do a chuck-will's-widow call, very well too, it fooled me for a moment. He also rendered cardinal calls and song, carolina wren, house wren, and I don't know what else.

A tiny clicky noise made me look up. On a bare peach twig 3-4 feet over my head was a dragonfly. He perched there, then made little circuits, just a 4' circle or maybe figure-eight, and back to the perch, for a long time. I looked him up; he's a Widow Skimmer. This picture is very close to his appearance, though the species seems variable in wing pattern and body color.

yep, fifth snow

From around six until perhaps midnight last Saturday, it snowed. There was a moderate northwest wind in the early evening, picking up to a real gale overnight, so the snow was tightly plastered to the north sides of trunks. A few trees, like these, ended up looking like birches.









The fruit trees were all in pretty full bloom, peach and Chickasaw plum, with the Mexican plum getting started. I was quite worried for the crop, as the temperature got down to at least 28°. These Mexican plum flowers, like many, have a hood of snow.











These are the little plum-thicket bush plums (these on the tank dam). The flowers are about half as big as those on the Mexican plum trees. The stamens are fewer, with colorful orange pollen.





At the tank gate, the wet soil had melted most of the snow as it landed. Larger white areas are snow; the little white dots are fallen plum and pear petals. The petals are often referred to poetically as covering the ground like snow, but not usually beside snow.


In the backyard the peaches were pink mists within the snow in the cloudy dawn. But to my pleased surprise, in the early afternoon when the temperature had gotten up to nearly 40° and the snow was about gone, the peach flowers were still just as pink, with no brown edges. Seems like all the pistils made it through just fine. Peach pies and plum jelly after all!


And it's been extremely interesting to experience all these different varieties of snowfall, in one weird winter. But really, enough is enough. These pictures were taken on March 21, "the first day of spring," and we had better not have a sixth snow.

Just sayin'.

pictures of little plants

This is a very image-heavy post, already out-of-date, because I took the photos a week ago, and spring is springing apace! Click on any photo for an enlarged view.

This Jackson Pollack-like closeup of the budding plum thicket shows only buds; now it's in bloom. In this photo it is still a complex mass of gray twigs, bearing pale green blobs of buds.



Walking down the lane, I observed that the sporophyte generation of the local bryophytes is about mature.
The mosses and liverworts have to do their genetic recombination at a time when the sperm can swim through the surface moisture on the plant to get to the archegonia structures where the egg cells are -- no bees to carry pollen for them! So this cycle definitely cannot happen in July -- late winter is their time.

Now the gametes have met and fused, the diploid spore-producing part of the life cycle has grown, and the spores are about to be released to drift to a new potential home.



Water on the plant surfaces has actually not been a problem this season. The greenish spot in the left center of this view of the wet, privet/greenbriery thicket by the pot-holey lane, when examined closely, is a puddle full of filamentous algae. This shows that it has beet continuously wet for a long time. Where'd the algae come from? Beats me. I'm not an expert on the drought-survival strategies of the local algae.

A few days after this picture was taken, this submerged green patch of algae had multiplied its mass and floated up to make a bubbly mat on the surface.



Poking up through the dry oak leaves by the lane in the low woods are the first leaves of the white violets. Amy tells me today that the plants I sent to her in Houston are beginning to bloom, and are sturdy plants with a dozen leaves or more. This one has a ways to go — I believe it has five little leaves so far. Isabel always looked for them by her birthday, March 27, in Cooke County; here they are usually in bloom by mid-March. Not this year, though, I don't think.
[edit — 25 March — three or four plants have flowers]


Here is the runoff water merrily trickling around, over, and through the old cookstove "erosion control." More non-vascular plants are evident, though I haven't worked my way through the privet and briers to get a close look.


I have noticed several of these bright orange fungi on dead twigs on the woods floor recently. Several lichens are also evident here.


And finally I saw some actual flowers on the walk, these tiny bluets. I need to look them up; I think they are an introduced "weed," not a native. But anyway they have flowers, which I was longing to see.

the fourth snow!

Many years we have no particular wintry precipitation - maybe a couple hours of sleet, or more damaging, freezing rain that coats branches and wires with a beautiful crystal coat that they can't support. But this winter it has been snow, more snow than in decades.

The Christmas Eve blizzard was mean. Fierce north wind and temperatures rapidly dropping through the twenties. But last Thursday it snowed from before dawn till after dark with very little wind, and a steady temperature of about 33°, dropping to 30° or so through the night. You could tramp in it for hours with soaked feet and not feel particularly cold.

I happened to spend it at the Ridge. I went out to feed Buddy, and managed to get the car halfway down the hill when all I meant to do was turn around. So, since I had food and fuel, and the cats were all safely inside back in town, I settled in to enjoy it. Took lots of pictures!








The lack of wind and the wetness of the snow meant that huge globs of it clung to the tiniest supports. A branched twig would accumulate a fist-sized clump, until one last flake too many would send it plunging.






The birds were really mobbing the sunflower seeds. Cardinals, towhees, Harris' sparrows, white-throats, a brown thrasher, and even a mockingbird.

Snow days can be great.

More pictures in my Facebook album.