Irma

Irma was a tropical storm at most by the time it hit northeast GA.  Wind gusts generally in the 50s were the max as far as I know, with a particularly heavy band of wind and rain that moved through generally from about 3:00 pm - 7:00 pm on September 11.  Power outages were severe on the east and northeast side of the city and in the applicable suburbs.

I saw a lot of big trees down.  This area has a lot of oaks of different varieties, and many of them went down.  Pines fell, as well, but that's not a surprise.  The tree above--a chinkapin oak--was one of the larger ones I saw.  In terms of size, the trunk diameter was almost 36 inches where the knots are just below the branches.  That part of the trunk was about 5 feet off the ground when it was standing.

Another area where I saw a number of oaks blown down was a south-facing slope.  The winds were out of the east-northeast, so the wind force would've been generally pushing the trees in a downhill direction.  That seems like a bad mix of position and force, and the end result validates that (though it is also possible that the particular location was hit with wind forces that exceeded those elsewhere).

It's always sad when big trees fall--but given the force that the storm had farther south and the track it took versus what was predicted, it could've been worse.

Persimmons

In grocery stores in the fall, you can sometimes find Asian persimmons.  I've seen them at warehouse clubs, too.  Typically, those are Fuyu persimmons, though there are other varieties.  They're big, sweet, and crunchy.  There's nothing wrong with them, and they can be grown in much of the US, too.

The native variety is similar but different.  It's from the same genus, Diospyros, but it is a different species, virginiana vs. kaki (for the Asian).  American persimmons are small and astringent until ripe; most sites seem to suggest harvesting dropped fruit from the ground rather than trying to pick from the tree.  Persimmons look ripe before they actually are; I tried one years ago  when it was orange, firm, and on the tree.  It did not go well.

American persimmons also typically ripen in late fall.  The unripe one mentioned above was pulled off a tree in November one year.

I do not have any bearing native persimmons, although I have planted a few grafted cultivars.  I do have a friend who has two trees standing side-by-side, male and female (that's convenient).  I was surprised to see persimmons starting to drop early this month.  They looked soft and not firm, so I decided to try one.  It was fine.  The picture above shows some that I picked up the first day.

Since then, they have continued to fall, and are mostly okay.  In my rookie harvesting season, I've concluded that for now, any that have firm spots are probably at least a little astringent.  I haven't had to spit any out, but some have definitely had a bit of residual after-effect.  On the other hand, ones that are turning black or blue are (unsurprisingly) past their prime.

The ground is getting littered with rotting and dessicating persimmons, and they are a hit with nectar-loving insects (bees and butterflies).  They're also forage food for a lot of animals.  The Georgia Forestry Commission sells persimmon seedlings; presumably mostly for hunters who are developing food plots.

Jewel Weed and Bleeding Heart

Jewel weed is a native annual that grows throughout the eastern US.  It likes shady areas and blooms in late summer, starting about mid-August.  The plant pictured here is in a bed adjacent to the sidewalk approaching my front door.  The area is always shady, never getting direct sun.  The jewel weed just showed up one year and I encouraged it. However, I did not water it last summer--a bad drought year--which caused it to largely die off before blooming.  Only a few plants came up this year.

It's rumored to be therapeutic for poison ivy and can be applied after exposure, limiting the allergic reaction.  It often grows in the same areas, since poison ivy is also a shade-loving plant.  I don't have any at the other place, however. I've only seen it growing once out in the woods, on a running trail I used to use. I'm hoping to harvest some seed pods this year from my little stand of it in the suburbs.

Bleeding heart is another native that I have never seen in the wild.  However, long ago I planted some in the same area that has the jewel weed.  Bleeding heart is a perennial and comes up very early in the year, going dormant before the jewel weed comes on strong.  They aren't quite as complementary as crocus and later-blooming perennials like hyacinths, but they can share space without too much trouble.

Bleeding heart crowns can be purchased online and (around here) in big-box stores during winter.   They live a long time, but the ones in the picture no longer look so nice; years of drought with limited watering have caused them to decline.  Even without drought stress, they may eventually decline, anyway.  This picture was shot a few years ago in early May when the stand was about 10 years old.  Replanting would probably be called for at this point.  A few volunteers have sprouted over the years from seed.  I have left them where they sprouted, but I could probably have transplanted them to see how they would do.

Although the plant does well in shade, it does seem to be sensitive to crowding.   There was a large bush in the same area; the bleeding hearts closest to it did not thrive.

Eclipse

I've been in a couple of solar eclipses in my life.  Both times I thought that the early phases--partial blockage of the sun--were almost imperceptible.  As the eclipse progressed, it eventually did look noticeably different--I thought then (20 years ago) and more recently (a couple of weeks ago) that it was like looking through heavily-tinted glass.  The sun was still shining, but it was dim.

These pictures capture what I thought I saw.  The darker was was just under-exposed a couple of stops by me because the camera tried to make the picture look like a normal sunny day.  The darker one is a better rendition of what I was seeing as the eclipse percentage moved higher.

Another thing I noticed this time but that I don't remember during the last eclipse (in 1994) is that the sun provided little warmth after a certain point.  Standing in the sun didn't feel hot, even though it was still relatively bright. Also, the interior of the truck, which was in the sun, wasn't hotter than the outside.

I don't have animals and didn't really notice anything different, with one exception:  Once it got very dark, a dusk-singing cicada let loose and started singing.  On a normal day, they only start singing in twilight once it is fairly dark (still during civil twilight, but not immediately after the sun sets).

A Bad Day for a Cicada

Early August is high time for cicadas--numerous species are in the trees singing with abandon every day from early morning until dusk.  Cicadas in distress have a non-melodic buzzing that is very noticeable.  Usually when I hear it, it means a cicada is trying to escape a bird.  Recently, I heard it nearby and low--on the ground.  It turned out the cicada was being stung by a wasp.  The wasp's markings don't match those of the cicada killer.  Someone later suggested that it was a European hornet, and that seems to fit.  The European hornet is an insect feeder, so the cicada still met a very bad end.  Early August is, according to one study, prime time for cicada mortality at the hands of cicada killers (though I don't know if it'd be earlier or later in Georgia vs. West Virginia).  I did know someone who lived in a neighborhood with a lot of them, and they were very apparent in August, flying low over the grass.

It's also prime time for spiders.  There are a few large types in Georgia; one that I'm seeing a lot of right now are argiopes; last year I saw one near where this one was located.  This year there are four, probably descendants of last year's spider.  One has an egg sac in a pretty exposed location.

The day after I shot the one hornet dispatching the cicada, I saw another one robbing the web of one of the spiders.  This is mentioned in the Wikipedia entry for the hornet...the spider did not react while this all was going on.  I apologize for the poor focus; it was shot with my phone and with the full sun it was hard to see the screen.  I also didn't want to get all that close.

Obviously, there's a nest somewhere nearby.

The Kudzu Is Blooming

This is another post that's behind the times: kudzu has been blooming for a month.  My understanding is that it doesn't seed itself that well, spreading mostly by runners, but it does definitely bloom.  The flowers are not that apparent when looking at a kudzu patch, but there are plenty of flower stalks hiding under the leaves.

As flowers go, they're not unattractive.  They also have a pronounced grape-like scent that's strong.  There's a recipe for kudzu blossom jelly that I haven't tried and (at least this year) won't, but it is definitely intriguing...
 

Reflections on Canning

I don't remember exactly what year I started canning.  I think it was about 2008 or so, maybe a year or two earlier.  As I have probably mentioned before, initially it was motivated at least partly by the need to find ways to preserve my peach harvest.  Blueberries in quantity would come later.  I probably started doing pickles either the first or second year, too, both sweet and dill, using cucumbers from my garden.

However, I also initially canned some fruit I bought for practice--blackberries, cherries (bing and Queen Anne), and maybe some blueberries from the store, too.  I wasn't a big fan of the canned black- and blueberries.  However, I wanted to experiment to get the hang of how to do the various steps.

The first session did not go particularly well.  It ended up about like this picture, with me frazzled, every pot in the house dirty, late at night, with very little to show for it at the end of it all.  I also had a lot of trouble (in the first batch) with tightening the bands enough before things went into the canner. Books suggest not tightening them too much, but that guidance can leave them too loose.  Much of my syrup boiled out of the jars in that first load, tinting the water in the canner.

Overall, it was disappointing and I was wondering if there was any future for me in canning.  I also was worried in the early days if I was going to poison myself if I had a jar with some of the brine gone.  I'm pretty over that now, but still test the pH of a lot of my batches of various things.

It took a very long time (on a per-batch basis) to process a canner load of anything.  I usually planned on it taking about four hours, and sometimes it took more time.  Partly, I had inferior tools and techniques.  For example, I cut each cherry by hand in half with a knife, split it, then removed the pit from one half.  There are cherry pitters (Lehman's sells three, and Pleasant Hill Grain has one).  They probably would've turned a 45-minute tedious task into about 10 minutes of comparative ease.  I was also very slow with packing the jars.

I'm still relatively slow.  I try to pack them carefully for a few reasons.  First, if they are randomly filled with lots of airspace, I'll use up all my brine or syrup before the batch is done and will have to do more on the fly, which is always a pain.  That might cause problems if it's syrup that is not naturally acidic (though this is only theoretical; I've never observed it in something that I actually canned).  Last, as I have noted before, more than once, I can't get as much into jars as the recipes generally suggest.  So I try to do my best so I don't have lots o' jars with little content.

However, over time things have gotten better.  My last effort with peach preserves only took about two and a half hours.  I routinely assume about three hours now, and sometimes the sessions are even shorter.  I usually aim to do a full canner load (and have done that from the beginning--though for some things, like peach butter, it's invariably less).  It's more efficient that way.  At all costs I like to avoid having one or two jars too many, although that happens sometimes, requiring a second session (if I was into this on an industrial scale, I'd be canning all day or even using something like the monstrous 15-quart canner Lehman's sells--hopefully out on a portable propane cookstove outside rather than in my kitchen in July or August).  As it is, I can more than I can use in a year.  I give quite a few jars of preserves and other products to friends.

I still haven't pressure canned anything, although I have an All-American canner for it.  And I'm sure there are people who'd still consider me a complete neophyte after less than 10 years.  But it's going better and I've learned a lot and am more efficient now.  However, I have also noticed that there are lessons I have to re-learn each season.

So if you're new to canning and feeling like the woman in the cartoon above, it really does get better.