Saturday Gardening, Puttering and Adventure Thread, September 17

Hi, everybody! How is summer treating your garden?

Don in Kansas posted this photo of a red, red, red. red, red orchid. RED. Go to his site and click on the photo for even better color.

In the post below, there are some summertime blues, including perennial flax, just when we need them. The family cat enjoyed napping on this plant.

And another red flower that might be easier for more people to grow than the orchid. Heat tolerant:

Edible Gardening/Putting Things By

A bleg based on last week's post:

Black JEM refers to "jars of pesto". If that person has a secret to canning their pesto, do you think they would share? I've frozen my pesto in various forms and accomplished nothing more than wasting ingredients. I would offer a trade for the information or just the gratitude of a grateful gardener. Thanks! Becky, crazy pesto lady

NEWS

The USDA wants you to register your garden. Creepy or not?

Have you ever seen a commercial carrot harvester? Does it give you any ideas for home harvesting?

And now I know ...... 🙃

Harvesting Carrots pic.twitter.com/w1awYFyE2O

— skg802 (@SEK1331) September 12, 2022

Ah, Nature

Hi KT,

On my Sunday walk, I felt something on my hand. I brought it up to look, and this little fellow had apparently decided he'd had enough of flying for the moment. He was nice enough to let me take a few pictures.

He stayed on my hand for at least half a mile, before deciding that I wasn't much for conversation and flying off.

Or perhaps...as you can see, his proboscis was extended the entire time. Maybe he decided I had bad taste? ("Hey, little fellow, wanna watch Psycho Goreman?")

I'm not sure what kind he was, perhaps the Horde can shed some light.

Thank you for the weekend threads!

BeckoningChasm

Identity?

Driving home from work last night, I saw this juvenile Redtail hawk sitting on the cistern(?) lid between me and my neighbor's house. A little odd, especially as he didn't react much when I stopped and took photos from a fairly short distance.

Long story short, he was in the yard all day the day before, and hadn't moved for several hours after I saw him, so my wife walked in front of him to distract him, while I snuck up from behind to grab him and put him in a dog kennel. Seemed like a good idea, until it worked flawlessly, and I'm right behind a hawk that seems to have no idea I'm there...how hard do I grab it? How much is it going to jump and freak out when I do?

The answer was: not at all. I grabbed him fairly gently, and he just slowly turned his head and looked at me. No struggle, no bite, just a gentle toss into the kennel, where he didn't really move, headfirst in the corner.

We brought him to a local vet that works with SOAR (https://soarraptors.org/), an Iowa group that rehabilitates mostly injured raptors and other birds of prey. Didn't seem injured, just very underweight, so maybe he wasn't hunting well and was starving. Many years ago, I participated in a carp fishing tournament, and all the carp were donated to soar to feed bald eagles and ospreys. Pretty neat.

Grimmy

Wow.

Adventure

Visiting the Mendocino coast in august, there are these gorgeous amaryllis belladonna everywhere! A truly spectacular flower.

Keena

Spectacular!

Hope everyone has a nice weekend.

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Week in Review

What has changed since last week's thread? Gardening, Puttering and Adventure Thread, September 10

Any thoughts or questions?

I closed the comments on this post so you wouldn't get banned for commenting on a week-old post, but don't try it anyway.

posted by K.T. at 01:29 PM

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