Harvest Monday 9/17/2018

I have been sick this week so I have only picked a couple of days. But still have good stuff coming in!
Check out Happy Acres for this weeks Harvest Monday.

The tomato plants are still producing pretty good. I have been debating pulling them because my storage is full and because the storms snapped all the strings and the plants are laying on the ground making them a tangled mess and hard to get to some of the tomatoes.

 I made a Buffalo Chicken soup this week using a lot of vegetables from the garden, including potatoes, celery, carrots, garlic, and herbs.

 It was pretty yummy.

 So, I cut and dried all these Hydrangea flowers and now I am trying to figure out how I can use them in some fall decorations for my mantle.

 Last week I found two of these caterpillars on my blueberry plants. I decided to put them in the butterfly house to see what they become. They are pretty good at camouflaging themselves!

 And it was a tiny little beauty. I think it is a Blackberry Looper moth. And it sure is pretty and only as big as my finger nail.

Also found this cool walking stick bug on my patio.

 A beautiful Sunrise on Friday morning! No Filter! Amazing isn't it! The sunset that evening looked almost the same!

 So, I have been seeing a lot of Question Mark butterflies in my garden this week. They look VERY similar to the Comma.  Here are the differences in both butterflies I found in my garden this week. The Comma is smaller than the Question Mark. (see details at Butterfliesandmoths.org) It looks very similar on the top of the wings but pretty different underneath. The patterns are different as well as the marking of a question mark or a comma. The tails on the Question Mark are also a little longer,  and the Hook on the upper wing is a little more pronounced. These are both amazingly beautiful butterflies and I am thrilled to have them in my garden. I will do more to attract them earlier next year. Right now they love the sap coming out of the dying sunflowers. So I'll  need to find some plants to produce more sap as they usually only go to flowers if their preferred food sources of sap, poo, and rotting fruit are unavailable.

 A couple weeks ago my sweet Cassie Passed away. She had a tumor and it came on rather suddenly.  We had her for 16 years. She was an awesome cat. But she was getting older and weaker. I was sad to see her go and in a little denial that it would happen.

 Before we knew she was sick, we had already had arrangements to add another baby to our home. He arrived this week.  We named him Jet. While we are sad that one of our babies is gone, we have lots of love to give to this new baby kitty. Cassie will be missed.

 Our house is absolutely busy these days between the garden, new kitties, old kitties and cross country. But I am absolutely so proud of all three of my kids that I can't help but share! What they do is amazing. No other sport is more disciplined and requires so much endurance. It amazes me.
All three of their teams won trophies this past weekend. My third graders team got second, and both (boys and girls) middle shcoolers teams got 1st! None of mine medaled this weekend in the tough competition but two of them scored. (only 5-7 of the top runners score, the lower the better)

2nd place trophy

Girls

Boys

Hope you are having a great garden week!
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