Tummy Thursday: Applesauce

Admittedly, not the most exciting recipe, but it’s the time…

This year is the first one where we’re getting apples from our trees, or at least one tree. The whole thing looked quite ridiculously kitschy in summer, like my garden was trying to mock my disdain for people like Kincaid by throwing this at me.

Apple tree with white flowers underneath

Lovely, right? The pic doesn’t even get how violently bright everything was.
© Giliell

Now the apples are getting ripe and some are falling down, the ones not yet ripe enough to pass on to neighbours and family, so on Sunday I went to pic them up. I gave up when my basket was getting too heavy to lift and I wasn’t even halfway done. The next hour and half Mr and i spent together peeling and cutting apples and we reminded me of my grandparents, but in a good way. See, they were from a time where making your own preserves was a matter of survival, and even though those times were long gone during my childhood, they kept it up for as long as they could. And actually, the work was nice. It wasn’t very demanding physically or intellectually, but we were grounded to the kitchen table without any media and could just spend the time talking about this and that.

Applesauce:

Peel and cut apples

Microwave with some cane sugar

Add cinamon

Bowl full of applesauce

Nomnomnom
©Giliell

Optional: Have a very nice neighbour who makes you potato pancakes.

small potato pancakes

She’s 89 years old, by the way.
The neighbour, not the pancakes.
©Giliell

 

Jack’s Walk

As usual, I’m late to the party. I know that Spider Week at Affinity is over, but Jack and I went to Terracotta Park for our walk today and we came across a lovely big web that I wanted to share. If you want to see the long legged beauty who did all the intricate work it’s under the fold.

©voyager, all rights reserved

[Read more…]

Harakka Island – Chapter 5

 

It’s time for another chapter in Ice Swimmer’s series Harakka – an Island. Thanks again Ice Swimmer. Now, take us away…

 

Chapter 5 – On the Way to the Top of the Island

 

Fireweed behind the laboratory, ©Ice Swimmer, all rights reserved

We come back from the shore and take a closer look at the fireweed behind the Artists’ Building, the former laboratory. [Read more…]

Wot Lives in the Bog

Second in this series from rq are plants growing in a bog. I hope she did not get too wet trying to get these pictures for us. They are beautiful and they do illustrate the biodiversity of an acidic bog nicely. There is even a predator here, hidden bellow the fold.

©rq, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

Possibly a plant from the Cyperaceae family

Calluna vulgaris

Calluna vulgaris

Vaccinium vitis-idaea L

Vaccinium vitis-idaea L

[Read more…]

Jack’s Walk

©voyager, all rights reserved

It was raining this morning so Jack and I went to Terracotta Park, hoping the canopy would help keep us dry. It did, more or less, but we still came home with wet hair and feet. Oh well, it was a good excuse to make hot chocolate, curl up together on the sofa and share a few maple cookies.

Tree Tuesday

Our tree this week comes from the down under part of the planet courtesy of Lofty who says:

The Dwarf Peach tree is just over 2 metres tall after 25 years with us, and is now putting on a beautiful feast for the honey bees. Just about every other bush or tree on the property tries to overpower it, but we don’t let them. The coming storm will probably strip off many of the blooms so I had to get a picture today in between gathering clouds.

What a glorious tree. The flowers are such a pretty pink and there are so many of them, I hope the coming storm won’t cause too much damage.Thanks so much for sharing, Lofty

 

Dwarf peach tree, ©Lofty all rights reserved

 

Floral detail, dwarf peach tree, ©Lofty all rights reserved

Wot Lives in the Goldenrod

rq has sent us a little series about various flowers and their residents. First one is goldenrod, and it looks like  Solidago canadensis, which is quite common throughout Europe. Sadly this beautiful plant is not only strong allergen in the late summer, here it is also an invasive weed that is damaging the environment by outcompeting local species and creating essentialy monocultures in places.

But enough with being a killjoy – they are beautiful and that is important here and now.

©rq, all rights reserved, click for full size.

Anatomy Atlas Part 22 – Eye

For humans the eyes are probably one of the most important senses. They are definitively for me, so two years ago when a willow twig slashed me across one eye the pain was a mere secondary concern to the fear that an infection might cost me the whole eye. I did not hesitate and immediately sought medical help, got antibiotics and atropine and the eye healed in just a few weeks. Ever since then I am wearing eye protection when pruning willows, in addition to all the other jobs I am used to do so.

Description of an unpleasant  and cringe-worthy incident follows.

©Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

Incidentally just a few days ago I had a short conversation with the cleaning lady at our lab about this. I have made some mess that I did not manage to clean up before she arrived to mop the floors and I was apologizing to her for this. Her response was that it is her job to clean the floors and mine was that I know but that is no reason for me to do her job unnecessarily harder by not sweeping the aluminum shavings after I am done. After which she remarked in a passing that her former boyfriend was drilling aluminium when doing some renovations, he was too macho to wear an eye protection and got an aluminium shaving in one eye. And after that he was too macho to go to the doctor immediately, saying “it will rot away”.  And it did. With the whole eyeball. She finished “now he has one glass eye, and I have found myself a better man.”.

An example of how toxic masculinity is harmful, if I ever saw one.

Most people know at least something about the eye anatomy I guess, but I would bet most people do not know about the muscles musculus obliquus bulbi superior and musculus obliquus bulbi inferior.

These muscles can rotate the eyeball slightly around the front-back axis. Why is this? you might ask.

Generally the muscles around the eye, when you are looking at something, try to keep the picture you see static and at the center of focus, even when you move. So when you look at your monitor right now and tilt your head to left and back, your eye bulbs will rotate in the sockets in such a way as to keep the light falling on the same parts of retina throughout. That is also one of the reasons why human eyes cannot “pan” like a camera, but always skip from point to point.

It was explained to us that the purpose of this is to save the brain from getting overloaded with constantly changing stimuli. When the eye is fixed, it delivers constant signal to the brain from most of the retina, and the brain then can concentrate only on that which is really important – i.e. that which changes on its own.

I do not have the knowledge to challenge this notion, but I must say that the brain-software that keeps the eye focused and immobile relatively to the thing we are looking at must be pretty impressive too, with all those feedback loops reacting so quickly as they do.

Jack’s Walk

Sumac flower, ©voyager, all rights reserved

This is sumac and it grows wild just about everywhere in this part of the world. It fills the ditches lining our highways and roads and it’s a nuisance plant in gardens. It’s very hardy and once it gets growing it’s hard to stop. We had one park itself right next to the foundation of our house a few years ago and we just can’t get rid of it. Every year we cut it down only to find it sprouting again in a few weeks. We tried to dig it out once, but the roots were too plentiful and too deep and the next year it popped up again. I poured bleach on it one year and watched it die back and then watched it grow back the following year. As I said, very hardy. Despite my dislike for the sumac living at my house, I do think it’s a pretty plant and enjoy seeing them when driving. In the fall the leaves turn beautiful bright colours, mostly red, but with touches of yellow and orange. It’s one of the first plants to get its autumn colour on and it’s a sure sign that the big trees will be changing colour soon.