Non-native

A pollinating drone fly

This fly, while important for pollination, is probably not native. I won't know until its identity is confirmed. It's my first fly of the season and I was happy to find it. It's been so cold and windy at my house that I have barely seen anything fly or creep about.

I was not as happy to find it on cow parsley (Anthriscus sylvestris). So we have a non-native fly pollinating a non-native, invasive plant in these photos. 

Anthriscus sylvestris

I'm going to have to stop getting exercised over non-natives. They are here to stay and I have no power over them. I'm going to sit back and simply enjoy the show. The cow parsley (also called wild chervil) is part of the carrot family. Those are the plants that black swallowtails love. I can't find a definitive answer on whether they use this one as a host plant. Cow parsley is invasive and quarantined by many states, so I can't plant it for butterflies. It will probably show up in the ditch in the road sooner or later because snow plows are one of the best spreaders of seed out there.

I will visit these plants as often as I can over the season to see if I can find any caterpillars.

_/\_/\_

Preserving

Spaghetti Sauce

Our first garden in Vermont was successful. Before the blight hit in September, we got enough tomatoes to can quarts of spaghetti sauce and tomatoes. We had over a couple of hundred pounds of cucumbers and made sweet relish, bread and butter pickles and dill pickles.

Making pickles.

With all of the apples and chokecherries, John made apple, cherry, and apple-cherry jelly.

John had planted a lot of squash seeds that he brought from New Hampshire. The trouble was, he had no idea what they were. They turned out to be Red Kuri squash, which I now like better than butternut. It is sweeter and more solid than butternut. It makes terrific pies. John processed and froze so much squash that we had to get another huge chest freezer!

Red Kuri squash on the vine.

A Drone Fly (Eristalis tenax) on a squash leaf.

Bumblebees would often pile up six deep in a squash blossom.

I never did take photos of the apple sauce, apples, pies and cider that John preserved. But I do know that he made over 20 gallons of cider! It was a very fruitful harvest!

_/\_/\_