Beans, collards, butterfly, Texas mallow

We've had a couple of light frosts, but my butter beans were protected by the limbs on the apple tree.  I thought it was pretty neat to pick butter beans on November 5.  I shelled out a generous 3/4 cup from this little dab right here that darling husband will enjoy for lunch tomorrow.
I also picked a few leaves off the collard plants.  I like to pick a few leaves at the time and eat them while they are young and tender.

 

Meanwhile, the butterflies are enjoying the season's last blooms. I saw a monarch the other day.  As soon as I fetched my camera, it decided to fly higher and higher up into a pine tree.  I was surprised to see it go that high. I took my camera back inside.  When I came back out, I looked up into the pine to see if I could see it.  Nope. Then I looked and saw it was right under my nose.  We played a little cat and mouse. I gave up that day, but I did manage to get a shot the next day of the monarch in the same vicinity.  Not a very good shot--this butterfly was not one to pose for me.

 

The Texas mallow has bloomed very well this year.  The camera picked up the sun shining through the blossom, making it look like it has yellow, but it really doesn't.  For some reason this camera just can't handle the scarlet color of these blooms. These blooms are great for the hummingbirds.

 

We'll probably get another frost tonight.  The beans and the mallow won't like it, but the collards will only be improved by it.

 

 

Random October pictures

October is surely one of the prettiest months.  Here are some random pictures.

More shiitakes

When we got the rain from Hurricane Hermine, I got a flush of mushrooms on my log.  Now it is fruiting again thanks to the rain from Hurricane Matthew.
What kind of dish should I make?

The pansy bed

Nearly every year I plant some pansies in the fall.  I always think of the poem my grandmother wrote in memory of my aunt who was killed in a car wreck.  Shortly before her death, my aunt had said, "We could have gone for pansies today."  The pansy bed was never to be, and my grandmother's poem was an appeal to Jesus to let my aunt tend the pansies in heaven.
Many years have passed, and I am now almost as old as my aunt was when she passed away.  I reflect on life and its twists and turns.  I'll plant pansies as long as I can.
Here is the little patch of Panolas I planted last Thursday.  It was nice to have my own compost for mulching.  I hope they can hang in there this week for some record high temperatures for October in central NC.

Mockingbird political debate

If you've done much backyard bird watching, you've probably seen mockingbirds engage in this behavior.  I'm guessing they may be vying for winter feeding territories, but I really don't know.  When my son was young, he said they were having a political debate.  Kids say the cutest things.

(By the way, this is the first time I've tried to post a video to my blog from my hard drive.  I attempted several times before it actually posted.  Let me know if you are able to view the video, which is only about a half minute video.  Thanks.)



One of my Leylands came down

Darling husband was up early this morning, blithely going about his way, stepping on a toad on the sidewalk (which I had the privilege of scooping up and discarding) and going to church to put on a pot of coffee for a service that had been canceled.  I had managed to go back to sleep when the phone rang with a robocall letting me know church was canceled due to power outages and downed power lines.  Something about that is just off--a person could sleep in because church was canceled except for that annoying telephone call to say church was canceled.
After I dutifully called darling husband to let him know church was canceled, I opened up the back door to let the threshold dry out where some rain had seeped in yesterday.  That's when I noticed some green foliage where it shouldn't have been.  It was interesting that in the millisecond before I realized what had happened that I had a positive emotional reaction to all the greenery!  Of course, it took less than a second to realize a tree was down.  It was one we had planted a little over 20 years ago.  I remember when we first planted that row of Leylands.  A few times we would arrive home to find the wind had blown them over.  I mulched them with the white gravel the previous owners had put around the foundation shrubs.  The gravel weighted down the rootballs enough to hold the trees up.  Well, this tree has blown over again, but on a much bigger scale. 

There will be no uprighting it with gravel this time, just lots of clean up.  I guess darling husband will eventually find out this tree is down after he's surveyed the rest of the county.

Hurricane Matthew

North Carolina has been getting pummeled with rain and wind from Hurricane Matthew today.  We've been fortunate not to have lost power here.  Our house is in the low spot in our subdivision, so we always get flooded in heavy rains.
Darling son is house sitting, but when I called to check on him today, he seemed content to hunker down where he was.
Darling husband is more like a caged lion.  He usually wants to go see for himself if things are as bad as the newscasters are reporting.  Fortunately he contented himself to staying in the yard and copying the reporters on TV.

 

A motor home that I've never seen here in the neighborhood parked at the edge of our yard today.  I assumed they were trying to find a place to ride out the storm.  (But who knows?)

 

I walked around the yard and looked at the "river" flowing through.

 

 I found a mushroom that looked like a gargantuan daisy.

 

Here is a shot of the backyard.



My few collard plants are windblown and flooded.

All in all, not too bad here on our property, relatively speaking.