Quarterly Statement: May, June, July 2013

Before an unidentified source robbed the artichoke plants
of their thistley lives, we enjoyed what we didn't think was possible here.

Gallons. 

Occasionally this solitary roadrunner ventures into the Stonefield.

Switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) like we've not seen it yet.

Rio Grande Cichlids (Cichlasoma cyanoguttatum), we still think.
One source says the white head appears only when the fish are spawning.
Right or not, these two were guarding half a gazillion fry.

.

After deer ate a dozen or more chili poblano plants in the garden,
we planted these four in protected pots up on the deck. They, too, were
eaten by agile deer about three weeks after this photo was taken.

Just water.

The velvet ant (Mutillidae), sometimes called a cow killer.
The 3000 species of Mutillidae are actually wingless wasps.

The three most recent additions to the farm.
(Barbados lamb meat is lean and sweet.)

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Lights

Upside-down reflections in the Pool. 

Stand on your head at six-thirty in the late afternoon, and this is how colored lights appear.  

Walk around behind your monitor, look down on the screen, and see the "real" thing.

Panicum virgatum

     Just love grasses. 

     Huge bunches of switchgrass form dense stands along the creek's banks this year.  In the late afternoon and backlit with a summer sun, the long blades glow like a symbol of life.

     Switchgrass, one of our native species of the tallgrass prairies, is sometimes also called tall panic grass, Wobsqua grass, blackbent, tall prairiegrass, wild redtop, or thatchgrass. 

     The name "panic grass" comes from the Middle English "panik," which is ultimately from the Latin "panicum," or "panis," meaning bread.  "Panicum" also can refer to panicle, the botanical term referring to a many-branching inflorescence (the flower-bearing stalks of a plant) or the compound raceme (the elongated cluster of flowers along a common stem) we see among grasses.  And the association with bread comes from all the bread-grains (such as millet) within the genus Panicum.  Some 450 species form this genus.  Millet (Panicum miliaceum) is one of the oldest of the cultivated grains, found to have been grown even in Neolithic times.

     (See the photo of kleingrass for another member of this genus.)
     Below is a stolen picture of the root system of a bunch of switchgrass. For a plant that can grow six or eight feet tall, these are some impressive roots.  Doubtful that our switchgrass produces roots at such depth (but maybe) here among such a wealth of stone.