Harvesting the Kieffer Pears

It's not much of a harvest this year.  But one of my pear trees bloomed, and I was surprised to see that some fruit actually developed.  I've mentioned before that there was an old Kieffer tree at my new house.  The tree did produce some pears, but also had a huge poison ivy vine thoroughly embedded in it, and I cut it down.

Now I have planted two more.  They have virtues--although they aren't the first choice for fresh eating, they do can well and make nice preserves.  They also dehydrate well.  Prime time for Kieffers in north Georgia seems to be late August / early September.  I may have been jumping the gun a little bit, but I went ahead and pulled mine just after mid-August.

I haven't actually cut into them yet, so don't know if I have curculio issues--they got no Surround or other preventive treatment, and I also did not do anything for fire blight.  I had some of that on both apple and pear trees.  It was very minor on this Kieffer.  That is one of the virtues of the Kieffer pear; it is not particularly susceptible to fire blight.

I didn't get much off the tree this year. I will probably just dehydrate them...or I may re-assess and make some preserves.

Mushrooms

I have some interesting mushrooms at the front of the driveway.  This has been a pretty soggy August (over seven inches of rain so far), and that has inspired some mushrooms to sprout.  It usually happens sometime during the summer in this general location.

The orange ones are pretty colorful.

Like most mushrooms, they don't last long, just a few days before the color fades and they release their spores.  The orange ones have been expanding in recent years.  There used to be just one spot where they popped up; now they are in a few places.  The front of the driveway is dirt, gravel, and clay, but there's a lot of pine straw, as you can see; there are several very large old pine trees there that shed liberally.  It is pretty shaded for all but a couple of hours each day, so if any area is damp, that one will be.

They first emerge looking like this:

But then soon expand. The next day, the above mushrooms looked like this.

When a rain hits, they start to dissolve away.

The above pictures are from the original area where they appeared.
 
I also have some puffballs:

And these look different...though I don't know enough about mushrooms to say:

Up closer to the house, there's this specimen:

It looks a mushroom that has mold growing on it--but all of the examples look the same, so maybe it's what this particular type looks like normally.  There is a brain mushroom, aka false morel; this isn't that. That being said, it looks like a brain to me.  It's a little longer-lasting than the red ones above.


I have zero interest in trying to determine if these are edible. For example, the orange ones might  be Russula emetica, a species that likes to hang out with pine trees, or it might not--Wikipedia notes there are "over 100 red-capped Russula species worldwide." Wiki further notes that R. emetica is toxic; it can be made edible through pickling or boiling, but consumption isn't recommended.  No worries here. Wild mushrooms are not an area I ever plan to explore.  But they're interesting nonetheless.

Muscadines and Figs

For the first time, I'm getting some muscadines.  I've planted six vines (two had to be replanted when the first died).  They have been in the ground for almost three years now, but this will be the first year I'll get more than one or two grapes per plant.  The biggest crop this year is on my Ison vine, and it is the one that is ripening first:

It's only going to be big compared to previous years.  The Ison looks like it has a couple of pounds' worth on it.  The Late Fry has maybe one pound; some of the others have a couple of grapes as in previous years.

I've also picked some figs.  I have yet to get a single fig off of a plant installed by me--actually, I have yet to have one planted by me live very long, a story for another day--but there's an old fig tree planted by the previous owner that I'm getting some off of this year.  There were two originally, but ambrosia beetles attacked one and I took it out.  The other one has probably been producing every year, but I haven't gotten many off of it--as I'm learning, the ripe ones are quickly attacked by wasps, ants, and June bugs.

The harvest from the fig tree is likewise pretty modest--there are many more that are too high for me to reach or that have ripened and been turned into bug food--but it's nice to have some (I got more than the picture shows; that's just one days' worth).  I'm going to guess it's a Celeste fig, but that's only a guess.

I also have apples and pears pending...

Brooding Chicks

I finally pulled the trigger on chickens.  They are available in feed stores and Tractor Supply in the spring (and sometimes other times), but the assortment is variable, changing day to day.  This spring, Tractor Supply had straight run Lavender Orpingtons one day; the next day it was Rhode Island Red pullets.  So I ordered online.

They arrived May 4.  I intended to get two males and six females, all Barred Rock.  I wanted about one male, four females going forward, and ordered extra to cover for losses.  I think I actually got Barred Rock pullets and Cuckoo Maran cockerels; two immediately looked different and had different leg banding.

One of the suspected Others is sort of at the lower edge of the group in this picture.  The males had a lot more yellow on them initially.

The overly-yellow individual also distinguished himself starting on about Day 2--it became pretty clear he was the dominant one in the group.  They all clustered under the heat plate (which worked very well; my house was cold in early May) and surged out as a group periodically to drink and eat. The yellow-ish one would lead the group out from under the plate most of the time.

As those who have raised chickens know, the cute puffball stage only lasts about a week.  They soon began adding a few feathers.

And within a couple of weeks they started to look pretty ragged.

I kept them inside for about five weeks.  After that time they were getting crowded in the stock tank and were trying to fly around, which wasn't working well: I built a screened cover for the top (much needed). Also much needed was the domed cover for the warming plate; if I hadn't had it the top would've been a bit soiled.  Actually, more than a bit.

I had also heard that brooding chicks caused a lot of dust.  For the first week, there was no problem.  Then, as the pictures show, their feet started to grow, outpacing their bodies.  They also started to scratch enthusiastically.  That kicked up dust.  It soon became epic, Dust-Bowl-like dust.

As the top picture shows, I gave them some chick grit. They may not have needed it with the starter crumbels, but they were very interested in it and ate a lot.  They soon started to try to stand in the little container and kick it out; I would find a lot in the bottom when I swapped out the shavings.

By early June they were largely feathered; it was largely warm, and they largely needed to be out in the yard.  So they went.  Despite my fears of neonatal death, all survived the first few weeks.

They're now basically full-grown; the above picture is from late July--they were about 12 weeks old.  They may still add some size but are pretty huge now.  The breed difference is apparent in the picture:  one of the males is on the left.

I have them in a mobile coop, AKA chicken tractor.  So far I haven't used them for any clearing/tilling duties, but that will be coming soon.  I didn't put my garden in this year because in the March/April time frame I was building the tractor on weekends.  It didn't take as much time as that suggests, but I needed help for some things and mostly only worked on it on Saturday afternoons.  At any rate, I'm going to let them clear, till, and fertilize my garden space for next spring.  They should enjoy that.

Poor Judgement by a Toad

I have toads in my yard near my back door.  I actually ran over one with the truck when backing out a few months ago, but otherwise I see them frequently when walking the dog early in the morning.  After a recent heavy rain, I saw the picture below in the suddenly-full plant saucers.

Apparently the toad was ready to lay eggs and the full saucers looked like a reasonable body of water to do so in.  There really isn't any other water nearby.  However, my plant saucers are in no way viable nurseries for tadpoles.  Alas.

In the absence of any still bodies of water--I actually don't know where the nearest one is--any toads that wander into my back yard have few options for spawning.