Weird Fusion

Beautiful day here...warm, indian summer afternoon. Golden light filtering through golden leaves.  The capris and flip flops come back out, briefly. But just this weekend we had a hard frost.  I covered the peppers, but their tops got bitten back anyhow.  The grass is now almost completely brown.  With the help of my mom, who was visiting, I unpotted and stowed the banana trees, the bromeliads, a few others.  I have more tropicals to move inside.  Why do I always put this off?  I know it will frost more and more frequently now until mild days like this are just a memory.  I don't dread the winter, but at this stage of my life, there is something in me that wants to prolong summer--and maybe that is as much a metaphor as anything else.

In the kitchen tonight, I have put together quite an eclectic supper.  I am a firm believer in using up what's on hand and in season, and what was on hand this evening was quite diverse. Tonight's menu includes :
collard greens-- harvested, with permission, from a friend's flower pots at school.  She was growing them outside her office.  I've never been a big eater of collards, though I should be.  I grew up way down south and then spent my early married years in eastern North Carolina where they actually make cornbread and collard sandwiches. 
turnips--cubed and carmelized.  Why don't we eat more turnips (I mean the root part) in the south?  They are a perfectly agreeable vegetable. These grew happily in my friend's pots and now are simmering in one of mine.
Cajun rice and sausage--Had a pound of sausage.  Always have rice, an onion. Peppers, both hot and sweet from the garden. But I lacked the red beans that would have gone well in it.  Still filling and good.

A Tale of Two Critters

A couple of nights ago, we lost one of the male ducks to some kind of predator.  My research into the way the drake met his end revealed that our culprit was either a possum or a raccoon.  We haven't seen any raccoons around the house, but several possums visit nightly, waddle onto the front porch and consume whatever is left of the cat food.  We can hear them crunching and usually turn on the light to identify which of the several ones around has come to dinner. Silky?  Blacky? Stubby?   But I digress...

I was not happy about the loss of the drake and was totally unwilling to lose another.  The ducks are really close to the house, the idea being to deter predators.  I turned on the outside light and tried to keep watch.  Indeed a possum did show up just after dark, but all he was eating was leftover duck food.  I ran him off.

Last night, I sat in the den with one ear cocked.  I'd moved the duck food hoping the possums would stay away, but then just after dark again, I heard a duck in distress.  I flew out the side door, down the steps, tripped over the garden fence, lost my reading glasses and confronted an awful sight.  A possum, finding no leftover duck food to munch, was chewing on the duck's leg instead!  I flapped my arms at him and he reluctantly let go and backed off.  My yelling brought my husband and daughter.  Hubby volunteered to either shoot or remove the varmint, but I know he didn't really want to have to shoot it.  I was torn.  "He's a duck killer!  He should be shot...Oh, just catch him and get him out of here." 

He was fairly easily cornered in the duck shelter and transported out of the pen by the tail.  We depositied him into an empty bucket with a tight lid.  We were in the process of deporting him a couple of miles down the road when we had to swerve to miss a small round feathery orb in the road.

"Was that an owl?  I think that was a screech,"  my husband said backing up the truck.  He hopped out and by the light of the headlights rescued the stunned bird, placing him in yet another bucket with a lid that I had in the truck.  (Which just goes to show you can never really have too many buckets).  The bird flapped around in his bucket while we went on to the release site and let the surprisingly calm, duck-killing possum free. I hope no one around there has ducks.

Back home we opened the bucket and removed the screech owl with gloved hands.  They can deliver quite a hurt with claws and beak.  This one was fairly calm and probably a little dazed. We are guessing he was bumped by a car.  After taking photos and dubbing him Owl Gore, we left him on the porch with the bucket on it's side as shelter.  We kept an eye on him for a couple of hours, but sometime around 10:30 he must have gotten his wits about him and flew off into the October night. At least we hope that is what happened and that he didn't become the latest victim of the killer possums.

The chewed duck is recovering.

Owl Gore

Today From The Porch

It's good to live in the mountains...especially in October.

Preparing for First Frost

I thought we were temporarily out of harm's way.  I thought that the night to fear frost during this, our first dip into fall's chill, had passed and we were safe.  I thought wrong.  I just checked the weather and, indeed, we are under a frost advisory tonight.  Maybe it will. Maybe it won't, but I was out the door to the garden in a flash, picking off peppers and spreading out remay frost blankets "just in case".
What a beautiful weekend it has been.  If it frosts now, who could complain?  We have enjoyed an abundant summer garden.  A promising fall garden is in the ground and growing.  We may lose peppers, basil, a few tired tomatoes, but the lettuce and peas love the cool weather. And we gain cooler temps, radiant trees, apple cider and pumpkins in the bargain.   One pleasure gives way to another. Most likely this will be a false alarm, or the a frost so slight that the thin "blanket" will protect and the plants will live on a few more weeks.  It is three good weeks shy of our "average" frost date.  At any rate, I have done my best by the peppers and tomatoes.



My not-so-scary scarecrow watches over the fall garden...mostly for artistic effect

Rescued peppers

Romaine and brussel sprouts well underway

My garden dons an early halloween costume--a ghostly cloak of Remay which I save and use as many years as possible