Today it is a perfect fall day, leaves falling and overcast. The overcast is due to Hurricane Sandy I think. Was checking the hellebores and found lots of masses of edible mushrooms Pear-shaped Puffball(Lycoperdon pyriforme) under the dying hickory tree in the hellebore garden. No I'm not going to eat them, though I am tempted. Went to get the camera and found two lovely camellias in bloom.
Camellia sasanqua 'Pink Butterfly' This is one of my all time favorite camellias, at Duke Gardens they have
two of the near the pond they are 4 ft around and 12 ft tall. Planted in our garden last fall.
Camellia sasanqua 'Pink Butterfly'
Camellia sasanqua 'Moon Festival'
Camellia sasanqua 'Moon Festival' with a Clouded Skipper butterfly!
Camellia sasanqua 'Moon Festival' Planted in our garden last fall, we bought this in Wilmington last fall.
Pear-shaped Puffball(Lycoperdon pyriforme)
Don't call me cross-eyed!! Here is Manny, he was helping me in the yard with the mushrooms.
Manny is a Red Point or Flame Point Siamese cat. When he is bad I call him Manfred. He loves getting on counter tops in the kitchen and scratches the glass doors while standing on his hind legs when he want out or in. Yes we have a pet door Manny, get with the program will you!
That's it for today. I'm going to early vote. And I'm going to be a greeter for the democrats. Please don't forget to vote no matter who you choose.
Hope everyone had a great New Years celebration last night. Ours was quiet, Meg was in bed by 10:15pm. It reached 65 degrees here today and was a beautiful day.
Anyway the bees were happy today bringing in lots of pollen, they acted very elated as you can see in my slow motion video below. I found them nectaring on camellias, helleborus niger and Helleborus foetidus as well as violas and pansies.
Here is two bees on Helleborus foetidus,
at times there were at least 6 bees on this one plant.
This bee is on Helleborus foetidus, this plant will have 40-50 flowers on it, it is just starting right now. You can see the pollen collected and the bees take a long time inside the flower usually several minutes.
This bee is on a viola often called Johnny Jump up. The bees get a quick snack and move on quickly. Pansies and violas will do OK during the winter here and be pulled up when it gets hot at the beginning of May.
Rainbow Carrots Meg picked for our salad tonight.
Edible mushrooms I found today at the local nature park on our walk. These are very large Oyster Mushrooms, saw little ones as well. Given these were at the nature park I did not bring any home for dinner.
An update on my blue bottle collection somewhere around 215 blue bottles right now. The red bottle featured here in my first red bottle, I found it on the last day of 2011. Below is what 140 blue bottles look like.
We have started something new with recycling also. I have a restaurant and a bar saving bottle caps for us. I made my first pick up yesterday, got about 200 caps. The pink Nehi and the pink Mother Earth Brewing coolest. We saw some art made out of bottle caps, using the printed tops for design nailed onto wood, very cool. I have a few photos I'll share here one day. We looked online at youtube and it seems a lot of artists use new bottle caps and glue designs inside them and make jewerly, this is not what we want to do.
Back to fungus, I saw three of these today on a single tree 12 foot up. This was about the size of two grapefruits. I'll be looking for the ID, I think it is one that become permanent.
Here is Grumpy enjoying a sunny warm deck on the first day of 2012.
Today I was walking around the yard and found this morel mushroom by the driveway. If I recall correctly it is the fourth one found here, thought more than twice as big as any we have found
Morel, Morchella deliciosa
You know I have really large hands.
I know these edible mushrooms are more common in the mountains. I looked online and they sell for $155 a pound. Going to eat it as soon I figure out how to cook it.
So far here in the yard we have found three edible (tasty) mushroom species; Golden Chanterelles, Oyster Mushrooms and Morels.
Today while walking the dogs, Meg and I found a small cluster of Chanterelles. These are considered as edible mushrooms in fact rated delicious! We'll have them with dinner tomorrow. If you don't hear from me again they were Jack O lanterns and not Chanterelles. Chanterelle cibarius these are one of the most famous edible mushrooms in the world. And to find them right here in paradise. We have also found a few Morels in the spring and Oyster Mushrooms can be found in large numbers on rotting tulip poplars. They have a slight smell of apricots! Your looking at our harvest below.
