Harvest, Mantis and Stone House

Yesterday I cleaned up the yard and garden a bit, between running errands. So I figured it was way past time to dig the potatoes.

Here are some of the last of the tomatoes, still pretty tasty. The green beans are our first Kentucky Wonders, tasty but nothing as good as a fresh yellow wax bean. The peppers are sweet peppers we grew from seed, likely more than a dozen ready to harvest in the garden right now.

Meg planted two kinds of potatoes, these were the strangest ones harvested, you will not find them in the store like this.

In all I think we grew 20 pounds of potatoes, you can see what I dug up yesterday, others have been dug before on a need to eat basis. The over size cukes were found in the potato patch from seeds that sprouted from last years crop. On the seat is also our largest potato. No not mini potatoes, just small ones.

The bee hive has been very busy with bees bringing in pollen like crazy. I found this Chinese Praying Mantis hoping to grab a meal. Once I put the camera close to her(it is a female) she was more interested in me, not the bees. I went out at dusk and she was still on the hive. See those razor sharp "teeth" on the middle of the femur on her fore legs these are called spiked forelegs raptorial legs. I found on once ripping apart a hummingbird with those raptorial legs.

Here is the Riggsbee Stone House Meg and I looked at on Saturday to possibly purchase. It was built in 1921 and is on The National Historic Registry. Rumor has it was a moon shiners house, the upstiars has hidden room for storing shine in. The price was a bit more than we could round up unless we sold our house first. The kitchen was in need of new cabinets. The first floor had a gravity toilet (cheap reproduction and claw-foot tub with an awful cheap fixture. The upstairs bathrooms were next to each other and on one end of the house the master bedroom was on the other end.

All this native quartz rock was everywhere on the 2 acres. A 16 inch perimeter rock wall needing minor repair, several walk under quartz arches (Karen!!), 2 defunct fountains and a defunct quartz rock pool. Mature trees like American Walnut, Maginolia Grandiflora, Pecan and Tulip Poplars. The gardens in the day must have been really something. 

The Night Blooming Cereus set a record the other night with 9 blooms I think you can see all of them in this photo.

My bees are non stop bringing in pollen! I looked in the top of the hive today and the new super is just full of bees drawing wax. Really looking forward to my next inspection next week. I have ordered a Small Hive Beetle Trap I talked to another beekeeper at the club dinner the other night and she has been using them with great results. Having a bit of shade around you hive makes beetles more of a problem. 

Oh and the garden. This morning I planted Rainbow Blend Carrots, Gourmet Lettuce Mix and Lacinato Kale in the cold frame. No it is not covered yet. Last night we visited the local nursery/farm at the bottom of the hill, I bought 4 different ferns and we were given a nice beauty berry bush.

Bee inspection/Cicada Killer

The garden is parched right now, the rains expected over the weekend were nearly bust for us, perhaps 1/8 inch of rain. Raleigh got 4.31 inches on Saturday with several bands moving through on Sunday as well. Chapel Hill got 2 inches in a short time, I saw puddles in the pavement there today, bands also passed through Chapel Hill and north of us on Sunday. The weatherman now says we have an 2 inch deficit for rain this year. Considering all the rain that missed us I'd say our garden has a 7 inch deficit. The only good news on the rain front here is we might have collected 50 gallons of water for the rain totes, still could save another 450 gallons if we got a good rain.

It had been 5 weeks since I looked into the beehive, the last time was when I added the new brood box. The new brood box is doing real good, all the frames have drawn comb on them. Several frames are close to filled up with brood and honey. No pests seen thus far! I had a few bees that seemed annoyed with me, one crawled on my knee where I got stung once before and today I did not get stung, so far one sting is all I have gotten at the hive.

I did not look into the lower box, there we a lot of bees in there and it was in the lower 90s so I left them be. Not sure how to take the boxes apart without killing too many bees that get on the bottom of the top box and top of the lower box, guess I'll learn that in time.

Here is one of the new brood box frames, it is doing nicely. You have capped brood in the center and the bees at top right are in the process of capping honey.

These photos above and below show what I believe is brood about to be capped, you can see the white larva in those protruding cells. If I'm wrong about these about to be capped please let me know, I might have pulled the caps off pulling the frame out, not too certain.  The larva is white and looks healthy to me.

Below the bees are working on a circular section of cells, not sure what they were doing?

On Sunday we had an Eastern Cicada Killer, Sphecius speciosus flying around the yard, not sure if we have had them here before. Cicada Killers are huge wasps up to 2 inches long (5cm), they capture cicadas, some twice their own body weight and bring them to a burrow in the ground and feed them to their larva. I said bring them, they can usually fly down with cicadas from trees, but because of the weight they can not fly up with them, it is interesting to observe.The camera was not handy went I saw it.

This morning I found this preying mantis that have killed this Annual Cicada and was having it for breakfast. Yes mantises can be cicada killers. I have seen mantises with bees, butterflies, dragonflies and a hummingbird. Back in 2004 when I was tagging Monarchs on the Eastern Shore of Virginia I found Monarchs in the clutches of mantises quite often, even a Monarch I had banded the day before.

Black Widow in the Laundry Room!!

Yesterday when Meg got up she found a Black Widow spider in the laundry room. They are common around here though we have never found any in the house, likely came in on the recycling bin. I removed him and let it go outside. Many of you might ask why I did not kill it? As a nature photographer nature might never be interfered with, it is my way. BTW Black Widows are poisonous but not much of a threat when they are minding to their business and you are minding your own business.

We built 3 make shift cold frames on Sunday. One of CPVC piping that is light and 30" x 96". Another was the freebee one we used 4 old window sashes placed on left over concrete blocks (Swiss Chard). The last one I used some leftover 2 x 8s and bought 7 pieces of 1/2" PVC pipe and 24 conduit straps, it ended up being 6' x 10' and about 5 foot tall. All the plastic was left overs from handyman projects too!

It was dark by the time we finished building cold frames so I do not have any photos of them yet.

Everyday for the past four days we had seen this Chinese Praying Mantis on the screens of our porch.

The art studio tour was fun! I bought an original water color of a Trout Lily, it was small 5 x 7. Realized today that my avatar is of a Trout Lily... 

Given I'm on the new mac the work flow for creating photos until I get it figured out it terribly slow. Trying Gimp it seems ok but finding the image to put in it in Iphoto with 400 other images pretty well sucks. at this point.

Coastal NC Wildflowers

Last Sunday my friends and I did the Southport Butterfly Count. With exception of the Cloudless Sulphurs flying everywhere it was as quoted "Never seen so many great butterfly wildflowers with so few butterflies, surely it could not be worse". Anyway 4 parties managed to get 42 species (my group two weeks earlier got 44 species in Durham).

We were assigned the Boiling Springs Lakes area. never been there before. My take was the developers created all these lots and the roads to go with them and most were not sold. So we drove down abandoned roads that lead nowhere. I was driving and saw these White Fringed Orchids and we stopped to check them out. 

 White Fringed Orchid

Platanthera blephariglottis (Habenaria blephariglottis) As we (4 of us) were photographing these orchids Will noticed we were nearly stepping on Venus Flytraps!

I've only seen Venus Flytrap, Dionaea muscipula a few times in the 25 years I have lived in NC.
This one has a grasshopper it caught! I'm sure most of you know that is a carnivorous plant that catches and digests animal prey—mostly insects and arachnids.

These plants were growing quite well in a boggy spot on one of the Boiling Springs Lakes lots with a for sale sign in front of it. Back in 1992 it was determined  that only 35,800 Venus Flytraps  remaining in nature as they are found growing native in only 2 counties in NC and one county in SC. Back then it was also estimated that 3-6 million plants were growing in cultivation though.

Lots of baby plants growing under the bigger plant. Notice the stalk from the flower, I have seen these in bud but not in flower.

Loblolly-bay, Gordonia lasianthus
These plants are rarely seen in bloom so we were delighted to find this fragrant fresh bloom. Thanks to Will Cook for knowing what is was, he is an expert on woody plants. It is related to the camellia so I was thrilled to get a photo.

Meadow Beauty, Rhexia alifanus We saw lots of of Meadow Beauties. I keyed this out in Radford, according to Radford's there are 5 different meadow beauties in the area we were in.

Rattlebush, Daubentonia punicea
This was new for me or I was having a senior moment! I found on the web that this plant is toxic to humans and that you can by this invasive plant for your garden, duh!! Below is the seed pods which will turn dark brown very quickly.

2+ days of rain

Getting pretty tired of the rain here. Not sure how much we have got but the pond has came up a foot! The canoe was well out of the water and now it is in the water. The pond was pretty low. The only time is 12 years here in paradise the pond overflowed its banks was during what was left of Hurricane Bob.

Good news is we have had no real damage here. One of Meg's wind chimes was destroyed by the wind and being fairly old to start with. The satellite TV has been out of service more than it has been in service. Meg thinks the old wasp nest covering up part of the satelite reciever might have something to do with it. I thought TV was supposed to get better in the digital age?

Things I have to do?
Put in the new light fixture in the dining room. Done
New van tires put on. Done
Plant 3 Camellias. Not today!
Plant a zillion spring bulbs. Not today
Install these two 12 foot bow shaped 4 x 6s that I got for half price for a new curved garden bed. Not today
Start digging footers for a gazebo next to a pond over the feeder creek. NOT TODAY.
Start a big deck and porch job in Chapel Hill. Not today.
Take out 6 yogurt tubs of compost. Someone get my jacket and waders.
Make Bran scones with golden raisins. OK there we go I have something to do.
Meg wants me to clean the house! We have 2 dogs and 2 cats, I clean it they make it a mess everytime they go outside and come back in. It is so bad out there I have to walk the dogs to get them to venture out enough to go the the bathroom.

Our Christmas cactus have started to bloom

Forgot to mention on Sunday I found two huge Chinese Praying Mantises on out house and deck, both females and not 6 foot apart. I have much better photo of mantises, note the long shadows, never seen them this late in the year.


I have been productive on another front. My other blog The Liberal Handyman which have been invisible for sometime is now brand new on Worldpress. Been tinkering with the features and learning Worldpress. See http://liberalhandyman.wordpress.com/