Swallowtail Butterfly

 Swallowtail Butterfly feeding on Bee Balm/Monarda

This swallowtail butterfly is enjoying the last of the bee balm's flowers before the next rain shower. The bee balm or monarda has been blooming for a couple of weeks and was a favorite of the bees when it first began blooming. Today this butterfly is all alone feeding on the individual pink flower tubes.

Bee balm is also known as Oswego Tea and is recommended for medicinal uses. WebMD says: People take Oswego tea for digestive disorders including gas. It is also used for fever, spasms, and fluid retention.
Women use Oswego tea for premenstrual symptoms (PMS). Be careful not to confuse Oswego tea with lemon balm, because both are called “bee balm.”

"The Oswego Indians of western New York prepared an herbal tea from dried out fragrant monarda didyma leaves. This was picked up by the early colonial settlers, who used these leaves as a substitute for imported tea, which was in short supply following the Boston Tea Party. The Shakers believed that Oswego tea has the aptitude to treat colds as well as tender throats effectually. On the other hand, some settlers steamed the entire monarda didyma plant and breathed in the vapour to unblock sinuses".
Quote from http://www.herbs2000.com/herbs/herbs_oswego_tea.htm


Bee Balm on the right.

First Tomatoes Despite All The Rain

My garden was pretty soggy yesterday. Fortunately I have raised beds so only the pathways between had any standing water when I checked in the morning. By evening the water had drained. I spent a good hour pulling weeds.

I picked and ate my first tomato, a little St. Nick grape variety. It tasted so good! Like all cherry type tomatoes it has a lot of fruit on every branch. Most of the fruit is still green but I expect by this evening I'll have one or two more grapes tomatoes to enjoy as I work pulling all those weeds that just loved the rain!

Carolina Gold yellow tomato ripening soon.

I buy my tomato plants at Evers Greenhouse in Genntown on Rt. 42, just north of the Walmart. I like Evers for the variety of plants they offer. In past years I've purchased bedding plants and perennials there also.

This year I am trying for the first time Cherokee Purple, German Johnson, Amish Paste  and this little St. Nick grape.  I also purchased several full sized yellow tomatoes called Carolina Gold, a couple of Brandywines and my standby Rutgers. For slicing I got a couple of Burpees Big Boys, always a reliable tomatoes. 

This is the first full sized tomato that is almost ripe. It's suppose to be a Brandywine but the tag says Carolina Gold. There is another Carolina Gold right next to it, so I think I just put the wrong tag out.  You can see it has some damage which is not surprising given the weather we have had. Tomatoes prefer dry conditions.

All together I put out 14 plants representing at least eight varieties. In my opinion, you can never have too many tomatoes.

Lots of Cats Means No Mice or Rats

When you live in the country cats have a way of just showing up. That's how I have eight of them living both inside and outside of the house.  The oldest is a very fat female named Katty Kay. She showed up in the barn sleeping on the tractor seat the fall of 2009. She wasn't fat then but once she was given access to house and food she filled out quickly.


Pippi aka Pipster,  and Pipper he's the main man of the house.

The neighbors gifted me with Pippi and Tigger. There were four kittens all together but only Pipper and Tigger remain.  Tigger took off about this time last year and was gone a good six months. When he came home he was very thin and scared of everything. Now he is very fat and lazy.  He lets Pipper be the man of the house, but can't resist smacking him from time to time. 

Pippi has decided, at least for the time being, to spend his summer sleeping on top of my Boston fern. I have no idea if the fern will survive and he was greatly put out when I came by and watered the plant this afternoon.



Here's Tigger trying to sit on a fence post. He's too fat and falls off.
 

Tigger is obviously worm infested. He has several issues around the problem. I've ground up worm pills and tried to get him to eat them in his cat food. No success. All the cats eat a dry cat food, so they are not used to canned food and don't get too excited about it.
I found some liquid wormer at the feed store. The label says its has a fish flavoring so I bought them some canned sardines.  I divided up the sardines in their eight separate food bowls (yes, they each have his or her own bowl) and poured some of the wormer over the top like a sauce. Most of them ate it. I'm hoping that does the trick for Tig.

Little Joe hangs out on the back porch.

By far the cutest of the eight is Little Joe. He is one of two black and white tuxedo kitties and he is very playful.  Joe arrived two years ago courtesy of a little wild mama cat who spent the winter on the back porch and deposited a litter of kittens in the barn.  When it was time to wean them she brought them to the porch. Three of the four have become real pets, but the fourth remains at least partly wild. He is a grey tabby tuxedo and I call him Matisse.  He won't let me any where near him most days, though at present he's a sleep behind the couch in the living room. He's the only one who uses his voice to tell me he wants to go in or out of the house.  The others use their claws on the screen door.

Joe tried to get my attention.

Both Little Joe and the other black and white kitty which I named Zeke, love to hang out on the back porch either sleeping on the porch furniture or in a nice soft cat bed.  One of their favorite things to do is to lay on their backs or sides and pull themselves up and down the porch via the bottom of the porch furniture. If I'm sitting on the porch and they want my attention they pull themselves from chair to chair until they reach me. Then they make a big play for me to pet them and scratch their jaws.  If I ignore them they bite my toes!  I guess cats are the same the world over. I think everyone I know has cats who display the same behavior.  

The main advantage of having so many cats is that I no longer have any mice around the house (never have had them in the house so far) and especially no rats in the barn.  Time was, when we only had one cat whose name was Walter that we had rats all over the barns. They were not the least bit afraid of us and ran around the barn at will. .  Sometimes I would find three or four dead rats in the cattle's water tanks. They were their for the grains spills from when we fed the cattle.  Cattle love to take a big mouth full of grain then put their heads up, close their eyes and munch on the grain while bits of it drips from the sides of their mouths. Cattle are very messy eaters.  I still feed grain, though not as much as I used to, but there are no rats on the property at this time.  Decapitated mice show up on the back porch a couple of times a week, but no rats. Cats are a good thing on a farm.



Wild Elderberries Are Good For You

You may have noticed the elderberries blooming this last few weeks.  They like to sprout in fence rows - probably because birds sit on the fences



Elderberies in bloom. From All About Thyme.com
 

eating the berries and "depositing" the seeds.  They are a very pretty sweet, scented tall bush with  white flowers that produce little dark purple juicy berries. The flowers and the berries are both used for wine, jams etc.

The International Herb Society has proclaimed the Elder or Elderberry to be the Herb of the Year for 2013.  The honor was given to the Elderberry this year for its use as a medicinal herb.  Elder has always had some known medicinal value, but apparently the scientific community is finding many new good uses for the plant.  Elderberry is one of those things in nature that we think of as a wild flower but in fact its really good for us!

The National Gardening Association at http://www.garden.org/ediblelandscaping/?page=july_elderberry has this to say:

Elderberries are one of the easiest and most versatile shrubs to grow in your edible landscape. These Central European and North American natives are often found growing wild along roadsides, forest edges, and abandoned fields.
The prize for growing elderberries is the fragrant, edible flowers and the delicious fruits. The dark purple berries contain vitamins A and B, and more vitamin C than oranges. They are also high in cancer-fighting antioxidants. In fact, elderberry fruits have historically been used to treat many ailments, such as respiratory problems, colds, and flus. Plus, they are tasty when used in juices, jellies, jams, teas, pies, and wine. You can use the umbrella-shaped, elderberry blossoms for making a delicious fritters or even champagne (see recipe in this issue). And if you don't want to eat the berries, the birds certainly will love them. 

Not only do elderberries produce attractive 8- to 10-inch-diameter white flowers and clusters of small, dark purple fruits, there are newer varieties on the market that have colorful leaves, too. These varieties of elderberry were bred for the ornamental characteristics, but still produce useful flowers and fruits. They make great shrubs for a foundation planting or in a mixed perennial flower border.

  'Black Beauty' elderberry combines the easy-to-grow qualities of wild elderberries with handsome black foliage and attractive pink flowers.

Cool and Overcast and Just Right for Gardening

Because GMEG Jealousy had her calf right on time, I had this morning free to work in my garden. Trying to keep everything as organic as possible is truly a challenge this year.  We've had ideal growing temperatures and lots of rain and everything is growing well, especially the weeds.  Some days it seems like all I do is pull weeds. And the really big ones like the iron weed is gimungus already. I can't pull those, I have to chop them down and dig out the roots!

Veronica, day lilies, coral bells, roses, dead nettle and bee balm in a border.

Pretty little pink coral bells.

Here's a picture of the flower border I had planned to extend all along the drive that runs in front of the house. This is as far as I've gone with it in 12 years of planning.  The bee balm is blooming on the right and the day lilies are just starting.  My favorite is a coral bell that has been blooming since May. Tigger is finding the flower bed useful.

I was at the Rural King on Friday and they had all their plants on sale half price. I found a nice azalea bush for $7.50! One of my foundation azaleas in the front of the house had died last year so this looked like a good replacement. When I got it home and read the tag more closely its says the bush will be eight feet tall and eight feed wide eventually. It also says its only cold hardy to 20 degrees F. I'm going to plant it at the back of this bit of border in a vacant spot and see what happens. This area is protected by the house and has an eastern exposure. We'll see if it likes our cold Ohio winters.  I'm still wondering why Rural King was selling it here!

Suppose to be a Moonglow pear tree.

 Three years ago I bought two pear trees from Big Lots.  I think I paid $10.00 each for them.  This one pictured is suppose to be a Moonglow pear, the other is an Anjou.  I always thought fruit trees took at least five years to bear so I was thrilled when the Moonglow not only bloomed but set fruit!  There are just five pears on the tree and I am very hopeful that I'll get to eat all five. The Anjou didn't bloom.

I'm not sure if this is actually a Moonglow.  I thought they were a yellow pear and these have a lot of red on them.  This must also be a dwarf, not a semi-dwarf as I the Anjou seems to be.  I guess I can't complain for $10, and the pears look really nice.

There are wild pears and ornamental pears pretty near this guy. I'm not sure how that has affected it, but some tree pollinated it so time will tell what how the fruit turns out.

Supposed to be a Gala apple with the asparagus gone to flower in the background.

I planted a Gala apple from one of the nursery catalogs at the back of the garden about five years ago. The original tree trunk died and a new one sprouted, above the graft line, I'm pretty sure.  Last year the tree had one apple and it didn't hang on very long.  This year the tree has quite a few apples and it looks like they might make it until fall.  They look like they might even be Galas.  This tree would have been pollinated by the wild apples in the pastures, so anything is possible I guess.  I noticed this evening that little tiny black flies were all over the fruit.  I'll have to figure that out and put up some sticky traps. The flies are damaging the fruit and I'd like to have at least one or two apples to eat. 

Marigolds and mint with some tiny sweet marjorum plants.
 

This year I've been collecting stones from the pastures with an idea of building stone walls for my raised beds.  As you can see the gorund ivy is taking over.  I spend an hour or more every few days pulling ground ivy from around my raised beds. The stuff has taken over the grass and I'm not sure what to do about it, organically.  I could spray it all with Weed Be Gone herbicide, but I don't want to spray any poison so close to my food plants.  I guess I need to do some serious research before the whole lawn is nothing but ground ivy.

Calving Update

GMEG Jealousy and her new son born early July 1, 2013

My good red purebred Limousin cow, GMEG Jealousy calved right on time very early this morning.  She had a nice sized black bull calf, my first bull for the year and my last calf due this spring.

Big sister BTAP Zooey is a little put out. She was pretty excited when mama cow let down her milk and was down on her knees trying to nurse.  She seems content to give over to the new little brother, but she's still staying close to the cow. That's the back half of Zooey on the right hand side of this picture.

Lady's bull calf by BTAP Thor. He was born March 19, 2013

The old crippled Angus cow Lady calved March 19.  Here is a picture of her fine big Lim-Flex bull calf. He's Thor's first son and he is a whopper! 

We were not thinking at all this winter and didn't tag the calves when we had the chance.  Now we are not sure who is who, except for Lady's bull calf who stands head and shoulders above every one else.

We have 14 calves,  eight of which are bulls.  Some are by BTAP Thor and some by HSF InFocus (Bobby) and four are from AI sires.  All the March calves are Thor's except Samantha. She is by Bobby. The May/June and July calves could be either Thor or Bobby.  This new calf of Jealousy's could be Bobby's because its black and although Thor's father was a homozygous black bull, and Thor is black, his grandmother on his mother's side was a red cow.  Jealousy has been bred to black bulls in the past and has produced red calves from them.  Last year she was bred to a homo black bull so her calf was black.  It's possible that this new calf is Bobby's because its black. Bobby is a purebred Black Angus bull and should through only black calves on Limousin cows.