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Category Archives: Life at Home
Peach
Walking around the garden in the evening is such a pleasure. Seeing the May blossoms change into fruit by July is amazing. It looks like we will have a good crop of peach this year. Click on the image for a larger view.
Double Rainbow
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Walls of Green
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June Forest
It was cool and windy yesterday. Click on the image for a larger view.
Oak Apple Gall
While clearing up some low hanging limbs on one of our oak trees, I found this under a leaf—an oak apple gall. The gall is created by a tiny wasp of the Cynipidae family that lays its egg in a young oak leaf. The secretions from the egg cause the leaf to mutate and create this structure—humans are not the first to experiment with genetic engineering. If you open the gall up, you will find a small center capsule that holds the larvae and is suspended by filaments stretching out to the thick walls of the gall. The wasp will emerge later in the summer. This gall is about an inch in diameter. Click on the image for a larger view.
Blackberry in Bloom
Our fruit plants are going through their annual flowering cycle. At the beginning of May, our wild plum was in bloom. The middle of may brought the blossoms out in our apple and peach trees. Now our blackberry canes are blossoming. These are in our field, but the blackberry under our forest canopy are also out. Click on the image for a larger view.
Celebrating Spring Revisited
At the end of April, I was so excited about the arrival of spring. The flora was returning and the weather was warm. A month later, the forest is a rich mass of green. Oddly enough, in winter, the forest is spacious and full of light, yet there is an absence of life. Now, it is dark and closed, but full of the vitality. Click on the image for a different view.
Peach in Bloom
May is such a dynamic time of year. Flowers seems to be taking over the whole world. We planted two Red Haven peach tress. Those too are in bloom. They are young trees and we have harvested only a few fruit in the previous years. Perhaps this year we will get more. Click on the image for a larger view.
Apples in Bloom
Our apple trees are in bloom. We have several varieties, but the blossoms are surprisingly similar—the foliage has greater variety. These particular blossoms are on a tree we call Midori-chan. Click on the image for a larger view.
