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Only Tomatoes in the Academic Sense

Would someone please explain to me why, when fresh, local tomatoes are in season and taste amazing any restaurant would use, to quote Garrison Keillor, "those tomatoes they strip mine down in Texas" (see the pitiful white slice, which I removed from a grilled chicken sandwich from Wendy's) rather than a real tomato (see the red slices from one of my garden tomatoes which I used to replace the aforementioned imitation tomato slice)?

I call that very feeble.

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Tree Frog

This little guy was on a patio chair at my sister's house. I moved him to a tree, which is far more suitable to show off his amazing camouflage, don't you think?

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Pears, Plums, and Grapes, Oh My

A half bushel of pears for $8? Yes, thank you very much.

These made some fine jars of halved pears in light syrup, pear jam, carrot cake jam (with carrots from our garden), and ginger pear preserves. All that and I still have a ton left!

And how about some ripe purple plums?

Despite having yellow flesh, the jam made from these plums turns a beautiful violet when you cook the pulp with the skins.

Free grapes? Don't mind if I do.

Gorgeous, aren't they? I wonder if I can get a vine or two to grow from seed in my own yard. We shall see. In the meantime, I wanted these luscious grapes to join cranberries to make some preserves I couldn't wait to try, however I cannot find fresh or frozen cranberries anywhere. *Sad face.*

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Lake Love

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Beautiful or Repulsive?

I have a feeling most of you would say this is repulsive. But somewhere in it, I see a bit of beauty.

Mind you, I wouldn't want to eat this pear that I found on the round at Lake Louise Saturday morning. But I did go back to get my camera to capture this image. What would compel me to do that? It has to be that there is something here that's beautiful. Or at the very least, interesting.

Here's another, albeit much bigger, bug I spied by in the dune grasses by the water. Perhaps he's more to your liking?

Insects are very interesting to me in that they can seem kind of alien and gross, but they are at the same time amazing little machines that are beautiful in their minuscule intricacy.

And, of course, we all find beauty in the shiny silken threads of an orb weaver spider's web.

Can you enjoy the beauty of God's small miracles? Or do they just plain gross you out?

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Little Explorer

Calvin had fun exploring the shoreline of Lake Louise with his cousin Brayden.

He didn't hesitate to pick up the fish skeleton we found and a fantastic stick.

He got to go on two hayrides, one by starlight and the other during the day.

Calvin was so busy during the day, he slept hard all night.

All in all, we had a nice time outside in the chilly northern air and we look forward to next summer when we can come back to one of our very favorite places.

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Fog

Early fall mornings mean mist and fog in low-lying wet places, of which Michigan has a lot. I love early morning drives in the fall, but even better is an early morning on Lake Louise when the camp staff has brought in most of the unsightly water paraphernalia and the lake is still and empty.

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September Wildflowers

While the trees are beginning to think about settling down and most wildflowers have already gone to seed, there are still some showstoppers out there, providing late-season nector for pollinating insects. Here are a few I saw at Lake Louise last weekend.

Many varieties of aster bloom in the fall.

Asters and goldenrod.

It appears that lichen (whch is what this looks like to me) has some form of bloom or way of spreading spores or something. I'll have to do a little research about this. These tiny "flowers" were only about 1 cm tall.

Cardinal flower, like the bird, is named after the robes/hats of Catholic Cardinals.

Fringed Gentian is a true biennial (lives two years, blooming and reproducing only in its second year) and it relies on a mycorrhizal relationship to survive (much like lady slippers) so it should NEVER, EVER, EVER be picked or transplanted. Please!



Close-up of goldenrod (part of the aster family) with a soldier beetle feeding on nectar.



I can't find this in my Michigan wildflower book, but this tiny flower looks a lot like larkspur (bloom and leaves) so I'm guessing it may be in that family.

Another one I can't identify. Very, very small. Maybe the size of a dime. Anyone know what it is?

What is your favorite autumn flower, wild or domestic?

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The Weekend

This is what my dog does to my sister's yard when she watches her for us. I knew she dug up a spot to sit in the cool dirt, but I had no idea it was more than two feet deep. Oops. Thank goodness our yard is full of clay and far more difficult to dig in than my sister's sandy northern Michigan dirt.

We were back up at camp this past weekend for the Fall Retreat. So that's what I'll be talking about most of the week and I have some nice photos coming up for you. That and more canning. I got a bunch more fruit when I was up north because the region my sister lives in is covered with orchards full of almost any kind of fruit you could want: apples, pears, cherries, peaches, nectarines, apricots, and plums. In fact, Michigan is second only to the much larger state of California in the variety of its agriculture.

Also, my dear brother-in-law is growing three varieties of grape so that he can eventually make his own estate wine. (He is also currently building his own skid steer [that's a little bulldozer like a Bobcat] and putting in the stone floor of the hobbit hole he built in his backyard. Talk about a Renaissance Man.) He told me I could take as many as I wanted, so I went out in the pouring rain this morning and took a bag full of grapes. Since I've already made two batches of grape jelly, I'll be scouring canning recipes to see if there's something else I can do with them.

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Forties for Fall

On Labor Day the weather for many of us abruptly changed from summer to autumn. I was thrilled. And then I was sewing.

I've been working on this outfit and have the skirt and blouse done (but you won't see anything until the coat is finished).

But before I could pin the pattern pieces on the fabric for the coat, I found myself using up a bunch of pins and space to start this 1940s pattern.

This was one of the first patterns my eyes gravitated toward when I opened up my goody box and I've been waiting for the right fabric for the view 1 dress. I found some weightier cotton with a bit of stretch, a nice sheen, and a beautiful drape in the red tag sale area at Jo-Ann's about the time I was realizing I really needed more solids in my stash.

It came together rather easily, though I waffled back and forth about the topstitching. On the one hand, I like that detail. On the other, I didn't know if I wanted it to stand out that much. Ultimately I decided to do it in a tone of green that would allow it to add distinction rather than distraction.

I'm pretty happy with the result.

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September Frogs

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Calvin Picks a Carrot

It's been so fun and rewarding to see how involved in and excited about the garden Calvin is. Though we will leave much of the carrot crop in the ground until a freeze, I thought Calvin might like to pick one to see how they were doing. We sowed the tiny seeds of a short and stubby, clay-friendly variety in June. And last night we each had a few carrot sticks cut from Calvin's little harvest.

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Nasturtium

If you can't bring yourself to chomp on such beautiful flowers, you can always add the peppery, lily-pad-shaped leaves to salads. But there's no prettier garnish than one of these blooms.

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