Vyxxan's Virtual Venture

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Warning:  this post contains graphic images of a praying mantis eating.   Close ups of bugs.

I’ve had LOTS of praying mantis this year.  I don’t remember ever seeing this many anywhere, any time, any year.  I did see a HUGE one last year, I swear it was longer than my size 6 shoe… but I was mowing at the time and it was trying to get out of my way and I was trying to not run over it.

Shoot, at my house I’d be lucky if I’d see a few trying to get in the house in the fall…  like other bugs, they don’t want to freeze when the temps drop.

This evening there was one walking back and forth on the edge of the truck bed that my husband is fixing up.  It kept looking like it wanted to attack us, it would reach as we walked by.  Then it got annoyed and decided to go climb on the roof of the truck, but was having trouble.

Well, I had a brilliant idea.  I’m sitting out there and flies are landing all over me.  Have a beer in my hand and have to keep it covered because of the flies.  So…

Pour a little bit of beer on the truck, move mantis back down there and watch her eat her dinner.  An all you can eat buffet, if you will.  I sat there and watched for a little while before I thought… Camera!  I need my camera!  At this point she was on her 3rd fly….

Anyhoo… here ya go… and I hope you enjoy this as much as I did…

That last photo is a bit blurry…  I’m still having troubles with my camera focusing sometimes.  It sure did all right on those close ups, though!  Zoom function worked well, so I didn’t have to try to get the camera close.

Oh, and just a reminder, clicking on any photo will enlarge it.  These are all set to 1K pixels wide.

Hugs,

Vyx

It’s really amazing…  normally it’s all dead, waiting on autumn rains.  I would have been struggling to keep things alive and probably failing.  I am still having to water some stuff, but I’m no longer worried about our big trees going dead.

This year… well, we got over 5 inches of rain in August.  VERY unusual.  Our hay field which would normally be brown and dry and nothing… is now all green.  I wish I could show you, because it’s incredible.  The johnson grass especially loved the rain.  Grass is taller than I am, and this is September, not May.

I can show you a bit…  the bermuda grass and other grasses aren’t as tall as that johnson grass…. and the johnson grass is mostly up by the house.  Photo from the corner of the dog walking path…

See how tall that grass up by the house  looks?  It IS tall, it’s way taller than I am.  The short stuff is almost knee high…

If/when the guy comes to cut the hay again… he’s gonna get some good hay this time.  We had a thing where this guy would come hay our field and haul it away and we never got anything from it other than it was cut twice a year or so.  For a while they also put chicken litter on it (I’d rather skip that step, thank you… it’s bad enough I have to smell it from the chicken houses to the north as it is).  Anyhow, this year I decided that someone else should cut our hay and sell it for us.  The only thing is that the guy I picked had too much on his plate.  He has a farm, he runs a business… and cutting 160 acres of hay pays a lot better than cutting our 3 or 4 acres.  But he swore he sent someone out… I remember the tractor driving by with the hay mow.  Went and cut someone else, lol!  (we keep forgetting to ask about that…  bet that was a shock for someone)

So, when we’d given up hope, out regular guy came over and asked why we didn’t want him to hay us any more.  I told him because it’s worth a bit of money, even if he does all the work.  I keep it free of thistles and such, and fertilize it.   He should be paying, even if it’s just $5 a bale.  But he was here when it was all brown and dry… No one was expecting another cutting at that time.  We told him if he wanted THAT hay, it was free.  Next time, he’ll have to pay us.  He agreed…  we have good hay with it being mostly bermuda or johnson grass.   In an average year hay runs about $30 to $40 a bale (BIG round bales).  We want what is fair… he does all the work of cutting etc., but it’s OUR hay.   In a bad year for hay, good hay can run $60 a bale.  So, the normal guy agreed to pay us.   He knows how to cut it and when, so this should work out well.

I’d love to show a photo from the house down to the end of the property… only I’d have to stand on the roof now to take that photo.  Not happening.  :)

Still waiting on my muscadines to get ripe…  probably another month before that happens.  Red grapes got picked a bit late, but I still got about a 1/2 gallon.  Those are some sweet grapes…  just pure sugar, eating them is like eating cotton candy.

I’m having a staycation this week…  off from my paying job, lots of work here at home to catch up on.  Maybe a day of fishing during the week, and of course I’m firing up the bbq tomorrow and cooking a huge pork roast.  Low and slow… I’ll let it smoke all day, then cook it even longer wrapped in foil.  As a friend pointed out, I can always freeze the extra.

That’s all for tonight…  I’ve gotta run out and grill some burgers quick before chat time!  :)

hugs,

Vyx

I’ve got grapes!  Not a lot, but enough to pick and maybe do something with.

I picked these Wednesday evening.   This is just from one vine planted last year… I have two vines of this variety and  the other vine didn’t do as well.  I didn’t even bother picking the few grapes on the other vine.

Some kind of white table grape… I was going to look up the name, eh.  I have a chart with what grapes I planted where, but I don’t remember what I did with it.  Not on the computer.  Oh well!  White table grape works for me.

The skins are tough, they didn’t pollinate well, and they probably didn’t get enough water.  Some are seedless, but some have seeds, which is weird.  I figure I’ll be cooking them up and putting them through the food mill anyhow, and freezing the juice/pulp for later use.  The flavor is kind of Meh…  they are grapes.

I also took a photo of the vine after I’d scissored most of the grapes off…  It looks pitiful, but that’s partly because of insect damage.

And yes, bermuda grass is right up there, poor grape vines!  There is landscape fabric and 3 inches of mulch under that grass, though… and a soaker hose for water.  I do the best I can with roundup on the grass…  wish the darn stuff would go take over the hay field, bermuda hay is better than “mixed” hay.  Stay away from my plants!

I wasn’t real hot about training the grape vines I bought locally…. I did better training with the muscadines, as they were smaller stems that weren’t all curved and such already.  I figure as long as I prune well in winter I can eventually train the others better.  I hope.  Heck, I know nothing about growing grapes except what I’ve read online and learned the last year or so.

While I was out with the camera I took a photo of some flowers I grew from seed this year.  Milkweed family, I guess.  Common name is Snow on the Mountain.  My friend Jan had some of these last year, and I had to have some too, so I hunted down seeds after she told me the name.  I hope they reseed well, although fighting the bermuda grass like everything else does here… well, it’s iffy.

I love the white and green variations, and so do the butterflies (and some wasps).  They aren’t as big of a draw to butterflies as I thought they would be… the purple flowered weed does much better with that.  I don’t care, I love how they look, they are different!

Along with table grapes I planted some muscadines.  One never grew, that’s why I have 2 of the white grape.  Another one bled to death this year after I pruned it… died all the way back to the root.  But it came back to life!  It sprouted out from way down on the stem and is starting over.

 

Now, it’s not as great as it looks…  all the lower part is the muscadine.  But along that top wire is my RED table grape which was getting 90% of the water this year until I figured out that the soaker hose had a split in it.  The red grape made a LOT of vines, but also some good clumps of grapes.  They aren’t quite ready yet, but that’s a grape thing.  Did you know that grapes don’t all get ripe at the same time?  You’d think they would, but a cluster of grapes are like anything else… some ripen earlier, some later.  You try to pick them when most are ripe.    I’ve tasted the red grapes and they are wonderful…. very flavorful.  Took a photo, too, of course, so you can all see how some are getting ripe and others are not.

Hmm, not such a great photo, but see how some are red on one bunch and another whole bunch hasn’t even started?  These are another locally grown table grape that I should know the name to.  I’ll find that paper or notebook… and then tell ya.  But in the meantime, I can’t wait for the red grapes to get ripe!  LOVELY flavor.  Still that same tough skin, but heck, that’s probably my fault.  I’ll eat some, I’ll cook up the others and mix it with the white grapes and have some strange hybrid jam.

Oh, but wait, there is more!  I said I’m growing muscadines!  The one muscadine that survived set fruit like you wouldn’t believe.  That beer flat of grapes?  That’ll be nothing compared to what I’m going to get from the muscadine.  Let me show you a close up of a cluster…  and the vine is covered with these clusters…

Of course these won’t ripen until really late in the season…  perhaps September or October, I’m not even sure.  I have a freezer for the early stuff, you know me, I don’t can anything in summer if I can help it.  Certainly not jams.  I’ll use up the white grape juice to stretch out the muscadine juice…  but yum yum!  I am really fond of muscadines, the flavor, that is.  They have tough skins like the other grapes I’m growing, so all that I can do is juice them.  Well, I know I’ll eat some, but that’s squish the grape out of the skin into your mouth, and then spit out seeds.  Like eating concords.  :)

Well, that’s all the story tonight… I’ve got grapes.  I apologize for not blogging as much lately…   it’s summer and I like to be outside.

hugs,

Vyx

I know I haven’t been blogging as much lately.  Just too busy and/or tired out to even sit at the computer for more than a few minutes.

But I’ve got lots of random things to share, starting with Milo the cat.  He’s a boy cat, and disappeared a few months ago.  I didn’t realize at the time that the Momma cats had run him and Tonic off.  Figured it out when Tonic came home and got beat up for trying to come to the porch to eat food.  Tonic shows up every day at dinner time, but won’t come to the porch, he’s a wimp after being beat up by the girls.

So, when I had all the cats given rabies shots, Milo was the only one I couldn’t find.  Tonic got to go for a ride to the vet a week later, but while Milo was here later that day that the vet was here, I haven’t seen him since.

He turned up yesterday evening.  At first I thought he was his sister Lionel, but he wouldn’t come to the porch.  So I went out to see this stranger cat, and of course I recognized him.  He’s not skinny like he’s been living wild, he evidently found a place to live that gives him food.  Starved for affection, though.  So much that he was almost a pest.  Not shy at all today, came right up on the porch to claim his share of the kibble.

Tonight  he’s growling and hissing at all the strangers.  The strangers are kittens that he’s never met before.  It’s interesting to watch… his interactions with the adult cats is like, okay, I remember you.  No growling or hissing going on much, unless he starts it because he’s startled.   With the kittens he’s totally uncool, however.  I had to give him a little snick on the head a couple times and tell him NO!  It’s so odd… he is following little dog Rita around trying to love on her, but hissing and growling at little kittens who are just curious.  I hope he gets over it, otherwise the grown up cats will run him off again.  Hopefully I can get him neutered before he runs off again…

On to other stuff… Yesterday Ron took the cover off of the generator.  I posted pix of the nice cover I made and then dyed.  It fits pretty well, but some kitten thinks that it’s a good sub for a litter box to crap on the fabric they can pull down.  (if I knew which kitten that was…grrr!)  So, it needed cleaning, and Ron went and pulled it off.  He’s doing a bit more around here, as he can, still pretty weak but he tries to help me.

Well, underneath that nice fabric cover on the top of the generator was a HUGE snake!  Just a common black snake, about 5 ft long or so.  Took me a while to get a good look at it’s face and underside to identify it  In the meantime we are both freaking out…  I’m running out to the cellar for a rake and cultivator and shovel… and Ron is going in the house for his gun.  I don’t like to kill snakes, but I know how Ron feels about them.  I brought pronged long handled tools to try to grab the snake out and move it off the porch.  It doesn’t belong on the porch,  there is no food for snakes (unless they eat kittens).

So, I tried to snag the snake out, and it wasn’t going.  Hanging on, moving around, but not down to the porch just coiling up better underneath the gas tank of the generator.  Nice handy little shelf there for it.

Ron got brave.  He moved the generator around until he could unlock the chain holding it to the porch, then moved it out to where we could start it up.  He actually used the rake handle to push the start button… it was that close to the snake.

Still, the snake wasn’t going anywhere.  It can see us, and it doesn’t want to get out there where it’s vulnerable.  Especially after I’ve been poking and prodding at it, and one of the cats had a go at it, too.

Ron got a heater to plug in and put the generator under load.  I plugged it in, I’m not that afraid of snakes.  :)   The engine sound changes and makes a big racket and more vibration when under load, and that did the trick.  Within a minute the snake was looking for a way down and get outta there.  We watched it slither down and then almost come back towards us, but I got between it and hiding places.  It went out in the yard, first under Ron’s car and then towards the flower bed.  We actually watched it go in through a crawlspace vent to under the house.  Ron would have been happier if he was allowed to shoot it, but I won’t let him shoot harmless snakes.  This is the second snake we’ve seen go under the house… a king snake slithered under a few weeks ago while we were watching.  (cats were molesting it, and I scared them off with a broom)

More random stuff…  People in the area actually have tomatoes getting ripe.  Not us, though.  I planted at the right time, but then it rained and rained and rained.  I never got out and rototilled this year… I think the best weekend for that was back in February when I planted turnips and radishes.  So, I had grass and weeds around my tomatoes but was keeping them mowed down.  Not good enough.  I finally got out there and put the soaker hose down and the black plastic that I use to keep the weeds away.  It’s only been a week and I see a big improvement.  We probably won’t get a lot of tomatoes this year… it’s already too hot to set fruit… but if I can keep the plants alive it’s like a really late start and we’ll have tomatoes late into the fall.  Oh, I also put in 2 new plants last week.  I’m sure I can buy good tomatoes at the farmers market… but so far I’m not missing them.  I’ve had LOTS of turnips…  so many that I had to throw some away.  The turnip row is still chock full of turnips and I’ve actually mowed over them now.  You’d think they’d be soft from not enough water, or getting tough… but no, they are fine.  Dang strange… I thought they would have bolted by now like the radishes did.  I don’t know turnips that well, though… this is the first time I’ve grown them!  I love raw turnips like I do the first radishes in the spring.  Yummy!   Well, until you go out and pull a grocery sack full and don’t even make a dent.  LOL!  I don’t eat turnip greens, but I love a good crisp tender turnip raw or cooked.  I’m sorry I didn’t get more veggies in this year… but time has been limited for me.  It’s not too late for some things… I could plant squash.  But that means either digging or getting the tiller out, plus more plastic mulch down for weeds, another soaker hose… and I don’t seem to have the time or energy.

I feel sure there was more stuff I was going to write about tonight, but I went and got some wasabi peas to snack on and I think my brain is clouded now with the distraction of that wonderful flavor.  Sometimes a bit hot, clean your sinuses out hot… but I’ve always liked that flavor.  I vote for wasabi over jalapenos or other hot peppers any day.  Probably why I love spicy turnips and radishes, too.

until next time…

Hugs,

Vyx

A couple of weeks ago I had a slice of cake.  I never eat cake, I don’t care for it… but I know other people love cake and that was pretty darn good cake, even for someone who isn’t a fan of cake.

So, I decided to hunt down the recipe for it, and make it for my BBQ party I had last weekend.   My sister Valerie ended up making the cake for me, and we modified the frosting recipe quite a bit.

This was in Family Circle, but it’s been modified and I’m too lazy tonight to look up the link.  The original recipe makes WAY too much frosting for the cake, so I’ve cut it back a bit.  I hope I’ve got the proportions right… (edit: no I did NOT!  Please see below!!!!)

 

Tiramisu Bundt Cake

1 box french vanilla cake mix

1 pint coffee ice cream, thawed and melted

3 eggs

Heat oven to 350 degrees F.  Coat bundt pan with shortening and flour, or use a baking spray (not a cooking spray).

With a mixer, beat the cake mix, eggs and melted ice cream on low until blended.  Beat  2 more minutes on medium.  Pour into prepared pan and bake for 35 to 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into center comes out clean.

Cool on wire rack for 20 min, then invert onto a plate to cool completely.  (put in fridge when cool enough)

Frosting:  MAJOR EDIT HERE! I messed up when typing this up, as the recipe made so much extra frosting. I was trying to even things out, and ended up totally messing up the proportions and measurements.

4 oz cream cheese, softened

4 oz sour cream    This is too much.  Halving the recipe would make this be 1 oz.  2 oz. would probably be okay, though.

4 oz butter, softened   I also messed up here. 3 tablespoons is what the original recipe called for.   Probably 2 tablespoons would work well.  I’d taste the mixture before adding anything else to it…

1.5 teaspoons instant coffee dissolved in 1.5 teaspoons of hot water and cooled

1.5 cups powdered sugar, maybe more, up to 2 cups.  Maybe less.  Start with 1 cup and work your way up.

In a large bowl beat cream cheese, sour cream and butter until light and creamy.  Add in the dissolved coffee and start adding powdered sugar.  Frosting should be fairly thick, but not lumpy.  Chill until ready to frost the cake.  The original recipe made twice as much frosting as needed, and this is a rich frosting for a rich cake.

When the frosting is chilled and thickened more, spread on the sides and top of cake.  If too thick, thin slightly with a teaspoon or more of water.  If you cook, you know how to do this.

Garnish the top of the frosting with cocoa powder.  Just a sprinkle through a small sieve.

Put the frosted cake into the fridge to chill, and store in the fridge after that.

Makes about 16 servings.  And probably extra frosting even if I’ve cut some ingredients back.

Ron said that this is the best cake he’s ever had.  We had 1/2 of the cake left after the BBQ party, and I was going to take it to work to share… until Ron had a slice.  We had a big lot of frosting left in the mixing bowl, and I was going to dump that out… he said NO, it’s wonderful frosting.  So, this cake and frosting definitely has his approval.  :)

My sister did a lovely job with the frosting, too… a bundt cake is hard to frost, but she managed to make the frosting dribble just right and look elegant.  I would have just slapped it on however.  Val also is the one who said the frosting needed more coffee flavor, so she changed the 2 tablespoons of coffee liqueur to adding the instant coffee.  I think it still had the coffee liqueur in it, but had almost no coffee flavor.  That’s why the frosting recipe at this point is iffy and may need tweaking.  I’ll have to make it again to define amounts… and I don’t usually eat cake.  :)

 

Enjoy…

hugs,

Vyx