Sweet Potato Time in Utley

The two weeks before Thanksgiving is Sweet Potato harvest time in Utley and Elgin, Bastrop County,Texas. The deeps sands found in numerous locations make this one of the few vegetables that can thrive through the summer. The other commercial crops being Okra, Watermelons,Cucumbers (some years) and Cantaloupe, But Sweet Potato is King here, Once this was big peanut country, but only a few people grow them anymore. They drain the soil of nutrients leaving the sandy soil "dead" if those nutrients are not replaced. There are a variety of winter greens that grow excellently with normal winter and rain.  Those include, kale, mustard, turnip, collard, cilantro and green onions but these are usually found in the farmers markets vs. the big chains....Some citrus also makes it through to local markets but most of that comes from further south due to the frost potential.  Pears and the very few peaches grown here are long gone with the pears done by early Sept. And of course there are the Figs and Pecans...This is a bumper year for pecans that are falling in abundance now.  Black walnuts grow wild but there is little demand for those or the hog nut hickory here.  A real October treat is fragile and very sweet native Texas Black Persimmon which is found no where else in the world and defies cultivation...I will do a special blog on that soon.  They do not last long as once they ripen and turn black every creature in the woods is after them.  Pepper, tomatoes and blackberries also are easily grown but usually are found in the kitchen or at farmer's markets...While not a edible vegetable, some folks are successful with growing a wide range of gourds including bird house gourds....My soil is not up to snuff for these.

Like the local sausage no better sweet potato can be found in the state it is said. The sugar content is high and these yams lack the stringiness of those frequently brought in from elsewhere.

It is hard locally to even give them away during the holiday season here as the tubers will be harvested until Christmas, I was recently at a local grocery store and they were 9 cents a pound but typically the HEB chains sells them for .17 during the short harvest season. Yellow onions are affordable again as well. However folks from all over come to buy them by the case and it is not uncommon to see highway vendors set up on highway intersections with their stacks of boxes. What I am curious about is whether feral hogs pose a problem to the potato farmers here. I have heard no complaints but I have no spoken much with the farmers about that.

There are a lot of recipes for sweet potatoes online...I recently found one for fried sweet potato cakes that will just knock your socks off...Experiment and get while they still smell of earth.   And check out this article from "Nutrition" magazine


http://picasaweb.google.com/BrushFreeman/STater#5542172054006894066

Utley Nov. 19, Owling and enjoying a good smoke.

  Well, so it went.  I had what I hoped would be a nice camp fire lined up outside but after lighting it up tonight, discovered that drought kilt Cedar Elm is not the best choice of fuel for that purpose…I remembered that then, almost as bad as willow on the old fishing trips to Granger and Lake Sommerville…….…As everyone  knows, no matter where you sit around a campfire, the smoke will follow you and Cedar Elm makes a ton of smoke and seems to be especially fond of people……We shortly were literally “cured”.  But it burnt well and a lot of those little brown stink bugs left the ship so to speak as things got hot.

  The results for our Long-eared Owl efforts were mixed.  Nothing replied to  recordings close by, that we heard or saw, but at 9:07 there were four  “Who” notes from well down the hill, fairly distant,  spaced about 3 seconds apart…And then no more…We were to busy chatting at the time as well……No total agreement was reached on the culprit and none of  us know the calls well other than via the online recordings provided by the folks  on Texbirds .…I lean toward LEOW however…….Anyway we left the smoke and walked down to the road hoping for more calls…Walking down the road under a bright moon we attracted the attention of a few dogs.   The road is only about a mile and a third long but I swear there must be 12-15 dogs on it because once we got  greetings from  two we soon had dogs as far as we could hear  along the road wishing to make our acquaintance as well…It was aggravating but the dogs here are just not used to people walking this dead end road at night…Doing their jobs well I guess….We heard no owls before returning to the property….. just the dogs and a loud diesel pickup which slowed  enough to only coat us lightly with caliche dust as it passed..

  We heard the whistling wings of a Woodcock as we walked up the road to the cabin.

  Had moderately good looks at a Screech Owl  I whistled in, heard 2 Barred Owls down on Wilbarger Creek and bless it’s soul, a Barn Owl called twice despite the bright moon though it was not seen…Strangely no Great  Horneds were heard.

Raccoons quarreled in the woods, an Armadillo shuffled thru the leaves,  a rooster crowed and a donkey brayed (I reckon fired up by the dogs).  A possum was on the porch when we returned eating sweet potato skins and some stuff the cat did not want and clattering about with an oily sardine can, blissfully and completely ignorant of our presence…..

    Had a black light out for bugs, but it only drew in a handful of moths of the dull sort.

   I was stingy and did not want to burn good seasoned oak for a campfire on the return and since we already smelled like walking ash trays and cigar butts , I threw some more old Cedar Elm on the coals which I needed to be rid of anyway, plus some large chunks of bamboo , some 2+ inches in dia, for  the “fireworks”  which surprised all, even me on such a quiet night….I was worried it might alarm the neighbors, it was so loud…… …….Laundry tomorrow for sure.

Cockroach Parasitoid; The Ensign wasp

This interesting wasp is an Ensign Wasp one of the members of the Evaniidae family. Quoting my efriend Roy " They are parasitoids of cockroach oothecae [egg cases] . Not really uncommon but, are still really neat wasps nonetheless." This individual was photographed in Port O'Connor on August 23, 2010 as it was on a door. This individual was ~1.5 cm long.

Thanks Roy, Linda and others for your comments.

Spitting Spider (Scytodes atlacoya)

A common yet new described species found widely in Texas. From Allen Dean, " The scytodids in Texas are now known thanks to the revision of the Scytodes in Mexico that appeared several years ago. This species appears to be
Scytodes atlacoya that was newly described, I have found it to be the most common and widespread in Texas."

Spitting Spiders are known for their interesting hunting and method of subduing prey and perhaps deterring predators. They eject a mixture of silk, toxin and adhesive from greatly enlarged venom glands which quickly ensnares and subdues insects and spiders which make up most of it's prey.

Spitting Spiders build no webs to entrap prey and usually no web of any kind is found associated with the, This individual to the right is only about the size of a nickel but they can be considerably larger in the tropical species.

An interesting paper on these odd animals can be found at HTTP://www.americananachnology.org/joa_free_v33_ni/arac-033-01-0007.pdf I obtained some of the above introduction to this species from this website.

Beaded Lacewing..Delicate pollen grazer

      I rarely find these delicate little insects some know as Beaded Lacewings (Genus Lomamyia) and when I do they are usually in the large fragrant blooms of the Jimson Weed (a Datura) after a hot summer day.  Grazers of pollen they are and perhaps pollinators as well.  

I have watched the blooms for a summer specimen for several weeks and found this, my first of the year, just last night.  Last year during a horrific drought they actually seemed more common

The biology of these small insects actually belies their delicate grace as pollen fairy-like grazers.  From Dr. James Adams of Dalton State College, I was provided the some cool info.  He said " Berothid have a very unusual larval stage, in which the larvae are predaceous termite and ant nests.  The first instar is highly mobile, either crawling into nests or latching onto potential hosts for a ride.  Once inside the brood chambers, successive engorge themselves on the brood and are barely capable of any movement.  They pupate in place and escape the nest upon eclosion."

  I have never seen this but would sure like to see one just before it pupates. 

  At least in the case of termites, for the purposes of man, it must be considered  a beneficial insect, I suppose.  Regardless, finding one of these on a late balmy summer eve, with the heavy scent of Datura rising to meet you,  is one of those  

magical moments in the night that perhaps inspired so many Eighteenth and Nineteenth century naturalists, never mind the poets who wrote of fairies and other fair garden fantasies things so many years ago.  Truth of the matter is these beings still exist but sadly the distractions of this century has put them back into mythical gardens and lost memories.  Especially so for today's youth.

Thanks to Roy, James, Barbara and Kevin that added to this blog. Four photos from Utley, Texas taken Aug. 15,  2010 on the 

right.

Brush Freeman

Freeman Birding/ Banding 1938

Dad always had a love of birds in general which was passed down to his sons. He was an active member of FFA in the 20's-30's and the small population of birder's before WWII.... Here is an example of how the message was spread back in the day. In this case by him. This article is from 1938 reviewing one of his talks.

I mentioned this to Byron Stone yesterday and found one of the articles my brother had sent today. so thought I would put it up.

Just a brief post to get it out and done with .

Bedbugs

  I thought this was interesting.  From the NYTs yesterday.   Mike Quinn passed it along to me.

This Bedbug’s Life

By MAY BERENBAUM

Published: August 7, 2010

Istvan Banyai

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  Times Topic: Bedbugs

I had been a professor of entomology for 15 years before I saw my first live bedbug. It crawled out of a plastic film canister that had been mailed to me by a distraught student in the Boston area who had no idea what it was. I was so thrilled to see a live bedbug, I showed it off to every graduate student I ran into that day: Cimex lectularius — a small, flat, wingless, brown ectoparasite that hides in cracks and crevices in human dwellings and emerges under cover of darkness to feast on human blood.

That was in 1995, and none of my students had laid eyes on Cimex lectularius either. A century ago, bedbugs were ubiquitous in New York — so much so that their presence in an apartment wasn’t considered sufficient legal cause for withholding rent. Bedbugs, one judge remarked in an early 20th century lawsuit against a landlord, “can be dealt with by the tenant by processes known to all housewives.” But with the midcentury advent of synthetic organic insecticides, these insects all but vanished from urban landscapes (and pretty much every other kind of landscape) in North America.

My Bostonian bug turned out to be one of many on the forefront of an unprecedented resurgence. Global travelers now bring in a steady supply from around the world, inconspicuously undeclared in checked bags and carry-on luggage. Today, bedbugs have been found in all 50 states, as well as Guam, Puerto Rico and American Samoa, and bedbug-related calls to pest control operators are escalating at a fantastic rate. From June 2009 to June 2010, there were more than 31,000 calls in New York City alone.

Now, bedbug-related lawsuits can lead to thousands of dollars in punitive damages for mental anguish, embarrassment or humiliation.

Everywhere New Yorkers go — theaters, stores, offices, schools, trains, ships, hospitals — bedbugs go, too, hidden in folds of clothing, bags, backpacks and purses. Getting rid of them has become more than any housewife could ever be expected to handle. Even professional pest control operators are struggling to keep up, because bedbugs have become, for the most part, resistant to the old pesticides that once were so effective, and relatively few viable chemical alternatives exist.

We reserve a special kind of enmity for bedbugs because, though humans generally do not like being anywhere other than at the pinnacle of a food chain, there is a particular horror associated with being consumed while relatively helpless, asleep in what should be the security of one’s own bed (or chair or couch). With bedbugs, it’s personal — unlike cockroaches, ants, silverfish and other vermin that are attracted to our possessions, bedbugs are after us. And they’re remarkably adept at circumventing our defenses: They not only attack while we sleep, but they also inject anesthetics, so as not to awaken us, and anticoagulants, so that in every 10-minute feeding they can suck in two to three times their weight in clot-free blood.

Bedbugs win neither praise for their sophisticated technique, nor very much respect for the fact that they don’t carry diseases, as most bloodsucking human ectoparasites do. Although their bites can cause unrelieved itchiness, bedbugs take only blood and leave no pathogens behind. In contrast, lice spread typhus; mosquitoes carry the viruses that cause yellow fever, dengue, encephalitis and West Nile disease; ticks transmit the Lyme disease bacterium; and fleas can bring the bacterium that causes plague.

But lack of involvement in spreading disease is hardly an endearing attribute. In fact, precious few aspects of bedbug biology are endearing. They don’t build their own houses or care for their young, and their sexual practices are bizarre even by insect standards: Because the female bedbug has no genital opening, the male inseminates her by using his hardened, sharpened genitalia to punch a hole through her abdomen. With no elaborate courtship ritual, males in a frenzied pursuit of sexual congress often blunder into and puncture the bodies of other males, occasionally inflicting fatal wounds.

To top it off, almost every aspect of bedbug behavior is mediated by airborne odorants, almost all of which are, when detected, repulsive to humans.

What, if anything, is there to like about a bedbug? They certainly like us; we probably have no greater admirers in the insect world. They like the way we live, unlike most vertebrates, in permanent homes. (Bats and birds, which also build homes, are hosts to several of the bedbug’s close relatives.) Bedbugs do not discriminate among humans on the basis of race, creed or socioeconomic status, and they’re happy with almost any interior decorating style; they are as happy in a French provincial nook as they are in a contemporary cranny. The bugs’ climate preferences are essentially an exact match to our own, and a small wingless creature couldn’t ask for a better traveling companion — airlines have opened a world of possibilities for a species that can’t get very far on its own six legs.

Perhaps the one good thing about bedbugs is that they provide a rare point of agreement that transcends race, religion, culture, nationality, tax bracket and party. It may be one of the few remaining universal truths — urban or rural, red state or blue, everyone agrees it would be great if bedbugs would disappear once more.

May Berenbaum, the head of the entomology department at the University of Illinois, is the author of “The Earwig’s Tail: A Modern Bestiary of Multi-Legged Legends.”