More about blackberries

I showed you the first of the Navaho blackberries about three weeks ago. We'd been harvesting the Araphos for several weeks before and now after 6-7 weeks of harvesting a pint or so a day, we're at the end of it. This is today's harvest! We'll do this two more time at the most and then we're done for the season - but this has been a very satisfying crop. We've had blackberries in cold cereal, blackberries in hot cereal, blackberry pie, blackberry cobbler, and - just blackberries as snacks by themselves. The rate of harvest and the rate of consumption has stayed in sync pretty well - we've got a quart or so in the frig now.

Both of these types of blackberries are thornless and are classified as "erect" in their growth habit. The canes that we've been harvesting from are called "floricanes". They are the second year growth and they will die now that production is over and I'll prune them off. Already growing, and of very large size, are this years' "primocanes". They will bear the fruit next year and I'll be taking care of them now to shape them and encourage more lateral growth to give us even more blackberries next year. We've had a few volunteer plants come up and they'll give us a few blackberries next year but most will come the year after.

In any event - we're going to miss our berries! You ought to consider growing some. You get a lot for what you put into it.

A pleasant and relaxing morning!

Pleasant is a word that's seldom used but was definitely in order today. A morning like this morning is especially welcome this time of the year! Upper seventies and gentle breeze during breakfast on the deck. Usually we have to sit in the deck gazebo and turn on the ceiling fan but today we sat at the other table for after breakfast coffee just because we could. It was so nice I brought my book out after we cleared away the dishes and Glynda came out and played her dulcimer. A bit later we even had "second coffee" and I didn't come in until almost 11:00! You know that feeling when you're on vacation and there's nothing on the agenda for the day - it was sorta like that.

Feral hogs

This is just a picture from the internet but they're very much like the one we saw on the property this morning. On the way to the mailbox we would heard the sound of a hog in the woods very close to the house. I took a few steps down the Green Trail and saw one of these and heard a bunch of them scattering away in the undergrowth. Later in the day we walked the Orange Trail and saw places where they had been digging from one end of the trail to the other. I guess they had moved on to adjoining properties by then because we saw no more of them. But then they could have still been back along the long trail.

Ancestory from Williston, NC

We know our ancestors settled in the area that became known as Williston (the family surname at the time) on the east coast of North Carolina in Cataret County. Here's a photo from 1940 and a little bt of Williston history. The population in 2000 was only 274 and the town has now disappeared from Google map search. Last year I could make a map to Williston. This year the program no longer finds it! It's near the town of Beaufort and the Cape Lookout National Seashore.

1940's left to right Willis Bros potato house, old Lon Willis store, Willis Bros store, post office bldg; Willis Bros clam shucking house; Willis Bros original clam sorting house.

Williston History

Little industry remains in Williston today, but the small waterfront community was once home to several fish houses, boat building operations, stores and even its own school, according to Wayne Willis, a community historian. Like most of the down east communities, Williston was self-sufficient. Residents had only limited need to go into the town of Beaufort. And for those who did, boats were the main mode of transportation through history.

In his DVD “Williston: The First 300 Years,” Mr. Willis said English settlers first came to Williston three centuries ago. “The first white man to own Williston acreage was John Jarrott for whom Jarrett Bay is named,” Mr. Willis said. “John Jarrott received the territory in a land grant from King George I in 1719. John Jarrott passed its ownership on to his sons Abraham and John Jarrott Jr. who sold it to John D. Williston.”

Before the time of machinery or roads life in Williston moved at a snails pace, Mr. Willis said. “Williston folks lived a simple life. They were poor in some ways, but they probably didn’t know it,” he continued. “For the original settlers Williston was a sheltered harbor with a temperate climate. The land would grow a wide variety of vegetables and fruit trees. It had vast tracts of virgin forests teeming with wild game. The early people of Williston thrived on oysters, clams, finfish and fowl they either hunted or raised. Compared to their former homes, Williston was a paradise.”

The most common medium of exchange was bartering, he said, as money was often scarce. Families helped each other, trading crops for fish or home repairs for canned goods from the family kitchen. Many will remember Williston as the home of Elmer Willis, affectionately known as the Clam King who welcomed a variety of governors and dignitaries to the sleepy community for his famous clambakes. While the men handled the business, the fish house was filled with women from the community who spent their days shucking clams, cleaning shrimp and grading fish according to size.

While it was strenuous for every member of the family, it was a good, honest life, Mr. Willis said. And life continues much the same today. Roads and bridges may have connected the community to the outside world, and money may change hands for provisions as needed, but life in Williston is as relaxed as it was during its humble beginnings.

By Amanda Dagnino for the Carteret County News-Times

Adult content post!

Oops - too late. You've already seen the picture! Shadow's been taking care of us recently. She likes to put her kill on the door mat. This morning we were greeted with this one when we went out to the deck for breakfast. It was dead but she was playing with it like it wasn't! She's left us mice, a rat head, frogs, lizards, a mole, a flying squirrel, and other goodies too enticing to mention. Birds? She knows she dare not bring one of those around although we've found their remains in the carport and shop!

Butterfly and bumble bees

A couple butterfly shots this morning. When I first walked out, the humidity fogged up the lens coming from the house and made an interesting effect in some of the shots. The butterfly alone is one of those. Then he flew to a clump of flowers already occupied by some bees.

Posts on Google

I'm an old timer. It hasn't been that long ago that it was a real effort to get a page listed on a search engine. I remember having to enter meta tags, contacting a search engine to request that they look for you, and then waiting weeks to get listed - hoping the "crawler" would pick you up. I posted a comment the other day after noting that Google had picked up a post and had it listed in less than an hour. I checked yesterdays' post after fifteen minutes and it was already listed. After entering today's post, I went straight to Google and entered the title on the advanced search and hit the reload key every thirty seconds. It appeared at four and a half minutes. That's fast!

A million Texas "likes" on Facebook? Almost!

Have you seen this Facebook page? 26 of my friends have. That leaves about 80 of you that haven't - and it's closing in on the million now. The screen print shows 930,000 - 70, 000 to go. The average daily over the last few weeks has been about 755. That means we'll hit the million mark the first week of September if the rate stays the same.

Japanese Painted Fern

I came to appreciate the Japanese Painted Fern several years ago on a visit to Clark Gardens near Mineral Wells. I learned about the Oak Leaf Hydranga at the same time and have a couple of those near the pond. They both provide color in a shade environment. The Oak Leaf Hydranga actually has nice, long life blossoms but the Japanese Painted Fern adds color with it's silver and purple foliage. We have several of those in the "Springy Chair Garden" and they come back nicely ever year. This year is about their 4th year and their 3rd year with regular watering and care and they are healthy, growing well, and even seem to have stronger colors. Being in an area with other very green ferns they take on a starring role and we've added a few Coral Bells to pick-up of the purple. (We also transplanted a couple Netted Chain Ferns to this area. They grow wild on the property and there is a big area filled with them down near the East Bridge.) But the post is about the Japanese Painted Fern and if I'm going to be a Master Gardener and talk about plants like these I need to learn to use adjectives like "lovely"!

Blackberries

We've got two varieties of blackberries - Arapaho and Navajo. We've been harvesting a pint or so a day from one of them for several weeks now and the other will be harvesting soon. They're especially good right off of the vine when they're just a little warm from the sunshine!

Found this on the internet - gotta post it!

Facebook and the page "Irving Texas, Hey I grew up there" has brought back some old memories recently, a few contacts with old friends, and a link to this picture (and others). It's my fourth grade class - Mrs. Powell's class. I'm second row from the back on the far right side and I'm sitting next to Lois Copeland which was an envied place to be at the time. However, my true love was Pat Rogers! She's the one on the second row with her arms folded - towards the center of the picture. "Her hair hung down in ringlets" - but then you probably don't remember the song that had that in the lyrics. Pat lived in the neighborhood a couple blocks away and for several years she was my partner in the square dance group that met at our house on Third Street. A few years later she was adopted by her new father, her last name changed to Robinson, and she moved away and out of my life forever! The guy sitting on the other side of Lois was named Forrest Weaver and we called him "Woody". There's a pharmacy in Tyler named "Woody Weaver's Pharmacy". I keep telling myself to stop in there someday - it's not a common name.

(Just a warning - I've been thinking about documenting some of that early life in the 40's and 50's in Irving so you might see some more posts like this before too long.)

One more thing under the category of "how do they do that?". It's about an hour since I published this post. I've been doing a few Google searches on things that appear in the post. In this short time, in the Google searches I'm getting hits on my post. In less than an hour Google has found my post and has it indexed in many ways and is returning it in searches. How do they do that?

Another Winnsboro happening!!!

This is the Winnsboro shopping cart drill team! Click here for the video!