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We're having another cold and snowy night here at Casa IVG, as we head into the snowiest and coldest week yet of the winter where our forecast high on Thursday is -1 F (and down to -15 F tomorrow night), so it's no surprise I didn't venture out today to get any photos of the snowy carnage around us. Unlikely tomorrow either, but I sure would like to get some shots of those snowy hollies out in the Woodland Garden ... maybe I'll get brave after all ... but then, after another forecast 3-5" of snow tonight (on top of the 7" from Friday and 4" from Monday!) maybe I won't! I will say that if it happens, you'll see it here...!
On cold nights such as these, when blogging inspiration flags and thoughts often turn to food and idle entertainments, I thought I'd venture over to YouTube and see what other Wallace and Gromit videos I could post since I'm still literally buried in snow and work, and definitely bereft of gardening subjects. So tonight's treats naturally deal with meal preparation, à la Wallace and Gromit ... our first Cracking Contraption is called The Autochef, yet another of Wallace's inventions that just doesn't work quite the way it was supposed to:
And, as if the results of that one weren't disastrous enough, in classic Wallace form, never daunted, he and Gromit take it one step further in our next short, The Turbo Diner.
These didn't quite assuage my hunger for warm, cozy comfort foods on a cold and snowy night, but they did make me smile and chuckle.... I hope they will do the same for you, wherever you are, and if you're also currently buried like my other garden blog cohorts (you know who you are Marnie, MMD and Shady!), at least these videos will advance you about another 3 minutes closer to Spring!
Stay warm everyone!!
This past weekend certainly had all the harbingers of fall in sway ... with cool, rainy days and nights, and as we experienced today, some of the very windy, remnants of Ike blew through. I saw on the regional radar last night that a few former outer bands of Ike's stormy weather were actually passing through the SE corner of the state, into Illinois and beyond. I suspect that more than a few midwestern gardeners also noticed these effects as well... Indeed, Fall is creeping quickly on to the gardening scene around Casa IVG, as the rest of this post will show, I hope....
Anyway, as you can now see, the Chrysalis has now been officially vacated ... it must have been sometime Thursday (when last we checked it) overnight or during the day Friday, which was a very rainy day and night here ... in any case we wish her/him well on the journey ahead, and hope s/he comes back next year and brings friends! I guess I know instinctively what's coming ahead in the season, and with the imminent departure of the butterflies, it's near certain proof that it's time to quit boating in denial, and just accept it.
The Praying Mantises are still around and quite visible, especially on the aphid infested Heliopsis (aka: Yellow Rogue) out by the shed. Both Fernymoss and I got shots of this guy at work, but I liked this series that Fernymoss got, so his photos won out. Just a Saturday afternoon session at the Lunch Counter for this lucky Mantis pal of ours ... and most days if we take a good look around, we can usually see this or one of his friends hanging out as well. I hope they do realize that they are the only reason why these Heliopsis haven't been dug/ripped out of the ground by now. Fortunately those aphids don't migrate to our other plants, and we've decided that the Mantises definitely have had something to do with that. Anyway, as most now know, we're tickled to have these guys in the garden ... we think they may be here to stay now that we've two full years of Mantis Guard.... 
Out in the savage back veggie garden, Punkinstein is still running amok and now crawling over the fence we have up to keep the dogs out (it doesn't work well with Pepa!), and into the back yard. They're still blooming prolifically, and are producing a few pumpkins --unless there are some as yet undiscovered ones, which is possible-- but we're assured we'll have at least two small ones ... now the question is whether they will fully ripen to orange by Halloween. We went grocery shopping today and saw they already had pumpkins for sale, but I somehow suspect they came from another place, because I'd find it hard to believe Iowa grown pumpkins would be that ripe already ... anyway, time will tell. Now, what might Pepa be peering through the fencing to see? 
Yep, it's one of Punkinstein's progeny lying just on the other side of the fence, and when I looked at this new one last time, I recall it was about baseball sized, and now look at it! I'm sure they appreciated all the cool, rainy weather we've had for the last week and have really been (literally) soaking it up. Even though the veggie garden has been a savage jungle the last month or so, we're really proud of two of our more unusual growing attempts ... we had several rows of our own, organic corn that gave us several good meals, and now we seem primed to have our own organic Halloween pumpkins as well! The corn stalks are starting to dry on their own, and the few tardive ears that have developed --since we stopped harvesting a week or so ago-- will be shucked and left to whatever critters in the yard may want them. I suspect the tree rats will likely be the recipients, but I wouldn't mind if a raccoon happened through and found them ... one of our mild concerns with the corn was that we'd lose it to raccoons, but if they've been around, they have either been very discreet in thievery or respectful ... in either case, we got a crop out of it, and have even more Halloween decorations drying out back...
Though this is anything but a 'fall' flower, the abundance of fiery orange certainly suggests (ok, it screams) autumn hues. Both 'Sun Showers' and 'Erin Rachel' (more on them in another post) were blooming abundantly this weekend, and both of us ended up taking very similar shots of them (though independently of each other!), and we both focused on getting close ups of this particular bud, with another open bloom in the background. Both sets turned out pretty well, but I selected this one from Fernymoss' because I liked the detail and the overall composition ... aren't those buds as delectable as the open flowers? I have to say, 'Sun Showers' is the most spectacular tropical hibiscus I've ever owned (even when pitted against the double blooming red Chinese one I had through college and grad school), and it was worth every bit of its high end price of $45! You can bet we'll be pampering these two more this winter to keep them happy, and even perhaps blooming! Anyway, such vibrant orange leads to thinking of Halloween, which then leads to thinking of Halloween themed colors, such as black....
While I was out looking for the Chrysalis yesterday, I spotted this spider working her web in the vicinity of the now-voided chrysalis ... I can't provide a positive ID on her, but she looks a lot like that one I posted a while back (the one who was carrying her little ones). In any case, when I shot her, she was pretty mellow (Fernymoss tried later and scared her a bit), so I was able to get up fairly close. Hmm, spiders, fall, black after orange ... there is definitely a fall trend going on here.
As the garden winds down, inevitably, there are still bright spots to be seen, mostly among the remaining annuals you'll see over the coming days ... some of the perennials (namely the Ligularia dentata) are still in full swing --yay Toad Lilies! Yay Queen Rudbeckia!-- but the general trend is definitely on the winding down side of the cycle. I picked a few tomatoes yesterday and they're ripening much too slowly with this recent cool weather, but are still tasting pretty good ... my miserable peppers are now rebounding (too little, too late), but I still hold out few hopes to see much from them. So we were blessed by the garden gods in some respects and eh, slighted in others? Such is the gardening cycle we play every year ... we play with what we're dealt, and given the unusual nature of this particular summer, I think we still came out pretty well, all things considered. At this point, we're still pretty pleased, despite the onslaught of weeds this wet summer brought upon us....
I'm sure no one saw this coming ... Halloween Full Bore is nearly upon us here at Casa IVG. As long time readers already know, this is our big decorating event of the year (aside from Christmas blogging). While we were out shopping today, we made one of our periodic trips to Big Lots, one of those stores we like to check out every couple of months or so, just to see what they have ... and where we can often pick up many grocery items we'd pay more for at the regular places.
Of course, they had all their Halloween regalia on display, but aside from the usual items astute Halloween shoppers see, this particular item, 'Mr. Foggy, Mist Making Skull,' caught my eye, imagination and $20. It's actually a quite fun --and different-- Halloween decoration that does something ... it produces ample water vapor illuminated by interior LEDs. So I thought I'd include this short video just for fun ... I think you'll get an idea of what it does, even from this rudimentary set up. What we really intend to do with it is a bit more thematic ... some gravel, rocks, bones and other items placed around it. But I couldn't resist showing it off as it gave one of its début performances. After a while, it actually makes a nice, quiet gurgling ambient sound, but what you'll hear most prominently is the sound of Rolly panting in the background ... this recent weather with so much humidity in the air hasn't been kind to either humans or animals, but it too will pass soon...Update on other matters: In case anyone was wondering what I was up to this weekend, other than neglecting the blog, I was very much involved with searching out and testing various programs to produce the Urban Oasis Calendar 2009. After upgrading to the most recent version of my photo editing software, I realized that it really lacks the capabilities to produce the kind of calendar we want to do, so I went hunting on the tubes to see what I could find that would do what we want to do. After testing out about a dozen or so programs (all rejected for one reason or another), I've almost come to a decision, and it may be a somewhat costly one, but still ... We want to produce a quality product we can proudly give our friends and family.
At this point, I still have a couple of other programs I want to check out, but I'm tending toward the higher end (e.g. expensive) solution offered by SmartDraw. It has the kind of ultimate hands on control of all options of the calendar I want to be able to manipulate, but it comes at a price ($99.00 US) ... we'll see what wins out, but at any rate I wanted to say that we're working on the calendar in the background, and it's pretty certain that it will happen eventually (I'd like to have it wrapped by mid-November). Fernymoss has been busy of late compiling some really cool and helpful enviro-friendly tips about pest control and other topics ... we'll also be including all the usual (and unusual) holidays, as well as the moon phases, and even more that Fernymoss will probably contribute. We've got the basic layout (depending on the software I choose) established at this point, and some preliminary photos have been identified, so it's just a matter of time ... and software chosen to do the job! I'll keep you updated....
And, as I've said before, if anyone would like to nominate particular pictures they've liked over this year, feel free to point them out in the comments ... we've got each month mapped out provisionally, but are certainly still open to suggestions. Depending on what software I eventually choose, we can probably include multiple images on certain pages (cover, interior page, back cover), so if anyone has any favorites, let us know!
Mantis Watch continues here at Casa IVG, and here are some of today's results! We (separately) found both green and brown Mantises lurking around today in the back garden. Fernymoss captured this one on the Phlox Paniculata in the savage back corner of the garden, most likely guarding and feasting on the numerous insects that must be skulking around in this most uncontrolled corner of our gardens. Interestingly, we've been wondering if we have two species here, one green and one brown, or whether the green eventually morph into brown, but no matter what, we're still happy they're established inhabitants of the garden (as I've no doubt noted before). So ... we wish them well, to live long and prosper, and above all, send forth their progeny next year!
Below, you can watch a brief video of how this one was spending his time observing the observer early this evening....
And here's one final shot of him surveying his Phloxy domain for food ... happy feasting our friend! And here's a video I took about an hour earlier of one of the green Mantises still hanging out on the Heliopsis (aka: Yellow Rogue) growing out by the decrepit shed. Though most of this video is in pretty decent focus, there are a few blurry moments as he was buffeted about a bit by the breeze, but it didn't need extensive editing (unlike those I took last week). Here he's just going about his business, as (if you turn up the volume) you can hear the sound of someone playing the bagpipes up the street to the north of our house. At first, we weren't sure if it was just someone playing music loudly, but when we heard people clapping, we concluded that we have a bagpipe player in the neighborhood. How cool is that? Who knew? (My favorite line from Transformers, by the way!) A nice touch to this (relatively sedate) short video, I thought....
Finally, here's a close up of a caterpillar who was doing whatever it does on an adjoining flower to the Mantis ... Fernymoss has already consulted his field guides and hasn't found out what this is yet, so if anyone can ID it, please let us know. If you look closely at this shot (click through, as always), you can see one of the red aphids lurking on this flower as well ... and as I noted in a previous post, I think this is what is attracting the Mantises to this weedy marauder in our garden. Rest assured, if not for the Mantises' preference for hanging out here, these would have been pulled a while back, but they escape, merely because they are apparently a Mantis magnet, due to their pests!
So there you have it for Sunday at Casa IVG ... lots of life going on out back, when one takes the time to really observe it. We thought it was a particularly rewarding afternoon ourselves, and the early evening temperatures were delightful for this part of late Summer. We couldn't have asked for much better! Today life was good in the garden....
This is dedicated to all those garden bloggers out there who are needing rain right now. As I reported in an earlier post, we got a good amount of rain Thursday night, and tonight, shortly after 9:00 p.m. we had our very own light and sound show going on outside of us. And, since I'd been itching to try out the video on the S700, though knowing little what to do other than get it recording, lol. I didn't realize at first just how much time I had to record, because at 640 x 480, I have about 37 minutes available! I took almost 8 minutes of footage, then decided to see what I had ... then I had to figure out how to edit it down to a manageable size, which took me a while, but I think I did manage to assemble about a 2.5 min clip that gives a sense of what the storm was like. This one lasted well over an hour and really flooded the intersection and street, but fortunately, it hasn't come close enough to flood the basement again. And last I checked a while ago, it was still dry down there, so another bullet dodged this time around.
Mind you, it's far from pro quality and it is a thunderstorm after dark, but with some nice flashes, thunder and rain ambient sound .... Honestly, I was just wanting some ambient footage, though the intersection was flooding (as it always seems to do with these type storms) and hapless idiots were stalling out trying to drive through the water... again ... At about 1:37 or so, you can see one fool who did manage to make it through driving by, but they were coming from uphill on our street, rather than trying to make it coming downhill to the intersection on Woodland, the truly fatal error. Fernymoss also took about 6.5 minutes of video as well, but he thought my first effort was best, because it pulled in a lot more of the ambient sound and lightning. So anyway, here it is, An Iowa July Thunderstorm. Enjoy, rain deprived gardeners ... I wish I could send this your way in a more concrete form, but this is as good as I've got tonight!
