Yukon Gold, wildflowers and baffling squirrels

This morning was a perfect, not too hot day, just right for July tattie liftin'.  Translation:  digging up the Yukon Gold potatoes I grew in a container, from a  potato with eyes.  Typically I get one or two meals of homegrown potatoes from my container efforts, and an unlimited sense of satisfaction from being able to do it. The foliage was starting to yellow, which usually means spuds are up.

A number of our readers have real gardens, or actual land, and probably look affectionately on my tiny little efforts, but I bet they get how thrilling it is to pull out potatoes from the earth.

And I replanted one potato (there are probably other tiny ones I never found) in the hope of a second crop this year.

Meanwhile, back at the feeder, I realized that if squirrels hate the smell of essential lavender oil, and won't go near plants which have it on cotton balls strewn around, or in feeders same thing, that maybe they would be deterred from my feeder with the lavender bunch thing I made.  They have recently discovered the feeder, and one of them cracked the code of how to swarm down the s hooks and knock the feeder off. 

They still can't open it and eat the food, but having the food on the deck puts the birds off, since most of them prefer to feed high off the ground, safer in mid air.  A bird's default safety move is to fly upward.  This is why when you get a wild bird into the house, they bat around at ceiling height, and daren't come down far enough to escape through the doors and windows you've obligingly opened for them. 

So here's the lavender thing in place, and it definitely put off the squirrel who came out to check, ate off the deck then ran.  But it also worried the red bellied woodpecker and the nuthatch, both favorite visitors, who are nervous about this object hanging near the feeder.  I hope they'll get used to it and return to feed. They keep checking but not settling on the feeder.  

I believe birds don't have a great sense of smell, so that's not the problem.  They do get skittish about new objects, though, and want to test and see if they're safe before feeding. They're vulnerable when feeding. 

Since we were the original owners of this property, bought from the builders, and have never sprayed anything, ever, the patio has developed into a miniature nature center. 

I help it along by saving seeds and replanting, from wildflowers I grew years ago, and the cherry branch you see here is a native cherry, growing happily, doubled its size this year, and will give shade soon. And what's left of the old cherry still gives blossom for bees and cherries for the wild birds.  In winter, birds and squirrels also chew on the branches, and if anyone knows why, please tell me.  They specially like the little thorns on the twigs.

We see toads, dragonflies, butterflies, all kinds of birds, as well as pesky chipmunks (they chew through wires and water pipes) and squirrels.  The groundhogs are numerous, but don't get onto the patio, can't climb nor squeeze under the fence.  

And I've observed four different families of wild birds feeding young on the patio.  Downy woodpeckers -- the baby got himself attached to my window screen and couldn't figure out how to get free, so he climbed up to the top, and sort of fell into flight from there-- cardinals, bluejays and starlings.  Oh, and a family of plain old sparrows, where, I noticed it was the male who fed the baby endlessly.

Yesterday I cut back the lavender which had finished blooming, and saved the cuttings for future use in paper making.  Drying out now.  And I collected dead flowers off daylilies, with a view to possible paper making.

All's well with field and fen!
 

Sunday Dinner and progress, and fruit crumble, too

Sunday has become a good cooking day around here, what with the weekly family dinner with HS and all.  

Today was all about roasting vegetables and chicken.  

The vegs are spaghetti squash, tomatoes, another kind of squash and gnocchi, all tossed in olive oil, balsamic vinegar, cumin, turmeric, baharat, and sumac, with kosher salt.  The curry leaves will rest on top as they roast.

A chicken leg each, tossed in breadcrumbs from the remains of the hot biscuits made with red lentils, and various other spices that occurred to me.  They will roast alongside the vegetables.

Then the fruit crumble, a mix of Martha and Rose.  The topping is sort of Martha, except that I used whole wheat with the oats, and added in nutmeg and crushed walnuts.  The fruit is some of that apple supply from the local tree, which reminds me to make applesauce for Tgiving, and prune plums waiting in the freezer for just such a chance to star.  

I added brown sugar (well, white with added molasses) to the plums and salt plus nutmeg, and macerated that for an hour, so that liquid emerged.  Then I did a reduction of the liquid, swirling it around in the pan, no stirring (swirled, not stirred, sounds like a movie star), this being the Rose part, then added in the resulting syrup over the fruit in the dish. I'd been thawing the apples during this procedure, since I'd noticed the plums suddenly looked a lot smaller after macerating and needed some company.

So that's tonight's dinner. With the addition of a terrific hot veggie, no idea what veggie, pickle, my Indian neighbor sent over this morning via husband!  I can taste cumin, coriander, and hot pepper, but I don't know what the veg is, some small sliced green thingy.

They'll get a share of fruit crumble in their near future, I think.

Yesterday was a mad rush of helping next door neighbor take action against squirrels which have invaded our building, inside the skin of the place, inside the soffits, you name it.  He had parts of his ceiling open for electrical work, and parts of the storage area, for a new breaker box, so we urgently set to work to close them.  And that extra insulation material from a couple of my own jobs were just the ticket.  He now has squirrel proofed at least the inside of his house, and has partly insulated the storage area.  Everybody happy, not least me, because the leftover insulation stuff came in handy right when needed.

He found a place in the soffit near the corner of the building where a squirrel sized hole had been evidently gnawed, explaining one of their doorways into the soffit.  Another neighbor said he'd seen a squirrel running up the front of the building yesterday then mysteriously disappearing somehow.  Evidently into the soffit.

 And, at my strong suggestion, since he'd also seen a squirrel in his eaves where he stores stuff -- his dogs detected it -- he invested in a couple of havahart traps, the kind where the animal is caught but unhurt and can be transported to a better location, and he baited and set them up.  And found that these gifted squirrels sprang the trap, and got the bait, from outside the trap.  Nobody caught. 

But since I saw squirrels mating like anything on top of my fence this morning, perhaps we've at least unnerved them into leaving and continuing their wild gyrations outside.

So perhaps it's Gary and Liz 0, squirrels sort of 0, this time. Anyway you can see why I was glad to stay indoors and cook this morning, no climbing up and down and measuring and cutting. Also cooking smells great. 

I wonder if there are any plans afoot for aroma apps?  this one would get my vote.