September 15, 2019-Celebrate trees

Yesterday, Saturday, was a clean up day in the garden. We had two thunderstorms this past week. It was pick-up-sticks day.
The storms did give us nice rains. I have not had to water for quite some time.

Then there are the leaves. They have started coming down.
We have these wonderful mature trees in the yard. They were all mature trees when we moved here 36 years ago.
I have been thinking about trees more this week, having just finished reading the book "The Overstory." Let me show you some pictures.

There is an elm tree in the front parkway.  It is one of the original elms, from a time when Elm trees lined the streets.

 Elm Tree

This the view of the trees from down the street. The Elm is on the right. The Linden, looking actually a little taller, is on the left.
Our house is between those two trees. You can't see the house for the trees.












This picture on the right is looking at the Elm tree from the side of our house.



















It twists and turns more than the other trees.
If you notice in the picture from down the street, it actually reaches across the street, way up high.












                                  Here is another picture of just the                                         Elm tree.













There many squirrels in all the trees. We see their acrobatics in the Elm tree, from our bedroom window.

 Black Walnut Tree

We then have a Black Walnut tree in the front yard. It supports the hanging plants. It supposedly is a little toxic to plants. I have not found it that difficult to grow things, including hosta, right at its base.











I love the pictures looking up.














The Walnut tree is the home to the ropes that give us orchid cactus in the summer and sometimes pumpkins in the winter.

I try to get the hanging plants out on their ropes as soon as there are leaves for a certain amount of shade. Unfortunately the Walnut trees is very late to put out its leaves. The only tree that is later is the Sycamore.





This picture, looking towards the front yard, allows you to see both the Walnut and Elm trees.

Linden Tree

In the side yard, there is this quite tall Linden tree. If you look at the picture at the top from a block away it appears the tallest of all the trees.





The Linden tree dwarfs the house.













The Linden and the Sycamore grow together, in the back/side yard, much the way the Elm tree and the Walnut meet in the front yard.


















Here is that picture looking up.

Sycamore Tree

In the middle of the back yard is the Sycamore tree. It is sometimes called a Plane tree. An arborist we knew once called it a "dirty" tree. It does drop various body parts at various times. There is a point in August when it seems to shed its skin, dropping bark all over the place. And branches and twigs which snag in other trees. And leaves.





The bark turns white as it ascends to the sky.

Buckeye Tree

Finally there is the Buckeye tree. You know Buckeyes? As in Ohio State? Well this tree is the first to drop its leaves. They actually are mostly half gone. There are still plenty of buckeye nuts  in the tree, to rain upon visitors when the wind picks up. We do have a few children that now go to school through the back yard, mostly looking for buckeyes.





You can see the Buckeye tree thinning.
You can also see the power lines. The Buckeye is the one tree in the group that has to worry about the wire protection crews. They come through Iowa City, like they must many places, and really are hard on the trees.

















In this shot you can see more sky than you would have a month ago.











While I am on the inventory I should mention the smaller trees. There are crabapples, white and pink. They all must be 50 years old at this point. The pink ones along the street are nearing their end.
I am replacing those trees with little dogwoods. So far there are two that are doing well, and one that will need to be replaced. It did not make it through the polar vortex from last winter.

There is also the pink dogwood by the house, which was a birthday present for Julia perhaps 30 years ago. It has reached up to the second floor and now can support some hanging orchids in the summer.

There is also a regular Maple tree planted near the Elm tree, in the parkway.



This little tree was already planted when we arrived. We figure it was planted when they thought the Elm tree would die of the Dutch elm disease.
Needless to say Maple trees are mostly not an understory tree. It has survived for 40 years but is rather short.








There were some flowers this week.



After what seemed like a long wait this lovely white cattleya orchid finally bloomed last Sunday.
It is called Arctic Star Snow Queen.
It was rewarded by being able to come inside for the rest of the week. That way it avoided the storms that showed up several times this past week.





Here it is, all nice and sheltered.





Japanese Anemones




This variety started to bloom this week.














So did this white one.

















This is the pink kind that has been blooming for weeks.
















A waterlily finally bloomed this week. That was right before the raccoons got in the pond trying to catch the fish.













Here is a bougainvillea flower.
The three plants are doing well. This red one is blooming, but only along the tips of the branches.












Here is a clump of fall crocus that grew during the week.







What a great group shot.




For your real color fix this week, here are a few zinnias.



















 Here is a short video with Starry Night Hibiscus.

Julia's recipe

Barbecue Sauce

Here is the link to all Julia's recipes that have appeared on the blog. Really- all of them since she started posting several years ago.
https://mearskitchen.wordpress.com/

As I have probably mentioned, I do not have a history with BBQ. Greeks grill things, sometimes on a spit over an open fire, but no tomato-y sauce.  I am not sure Germans or Hungarians or Poles even grill. However, in recent years, I have come around on BBQ, thanks to Mrs. Pavelka's pork and a slow-cooker. We have bought half of a pig from Mrs. Pavelka on two occasions, and we end up with lots of bacon and pork chops and sausage. We also get some ribs and some paving-brick-sized packages labeled "pork roast" or "fresh ham roast." These roasts are bone-in pieces of front or back leg, and they benefit from long slow low cooking. Which is what happens in a slow cooker. When we slow-cook roasts, we end up with tender meat (and easy-to-remove bones) which we chop up and serve as pulled pork (more accurately chopped pork) sandwiches. With our own BBQ sauce. Recently we slow-cooked ribs and served them with sauce too. I know there are BBQ sauces out there in commerce, but why not make your own? It tastes great, uses pretty standard ingredients and keep almost indefinitely in the refrigerator. This recipe is a slightly tinkered-with recipe from the Cook's Illustrated's cookbook.



Here are the ingredients: 1 onion (more on this later); 1/4 cup water; 1 teaspoon smushed garlic; 1 cup ketchup; 2 tablespoons cider vinegar (any vinegar, really); 2 tablespoons worcestershire sauce; 2 tablespoons dijon mustard (any mustard will do); 5 tablespoons molasses; 1 teaspoon tabasco (or other hot sauce); 2 tablespoons regular oil; 1 teaspoon chili powder; 1/4 teaspoon black pepper and 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper.






The only odd step is the first. I cleaned and cut up the onion. I put the chunks into the food processor along with the1/4 cup of water. I zizzed it up and then poured the onion slush into a strainer with a measuring cup underneath. The goal is to have 1/2 onion juice. I came up a little short, so I added a bit more water to the strainer. You want onion-y liquid.

You can discard the solids. Or use them in something else. Philip's eggplant salad. Or spaghetti sauce or added to a rice dish at the beginning - when you add the stock or other liquid.

Next I got out a medium bowl and measured in the onion juice, ketchup, vinegar, mustard, worcestershire sauce, molasses, tabasco and black pepper. I whisked that up.



Next, I measured the oil into a saucepan. When the oil had heated up (on medium-high heat), I added the chili powder, cayenne pepper and garlic. As soon as I could smell the garlic (which was about 30 seconds), I poured the ketchup mixture in and scraped all the sticky parts into the saucepan from the bowl. Everybody in. 







I whisked and then brought the mixture to a boil. At that point, I turned it down and let it simmer for 25 minutes. I let it cool down to room temperature before we ate it.












And here it is slathered all over some very tender ribs. We also had corn on the cob (it's still summer here in terms of sweet corn) and German potato salad. And a green salad, of course. And, as I recall, some kind of pie.

We put the rest of the sauce in a canning jar with a tight-fitting lid - we had about 2 cups of extra sauce. It will live happily in the refrigerator until the next pork adventure. Or maybe on hamburgers or meat loaf instead of ketchup.

Odds and Ends

The City has published the Leaf sucking schedule for the fall.
This tells you when the City's big vacuum cleaner will come around and suck up the leaves you have piled up for them on the curb.
It is always a challenge to find which zone we are in.





More rain and wind last night.
Picking up sticks will just have to start all over again.

Many Night Blooming Cereus should bloom this week.

Better times are coming, even if we have to go through another winter to get there.
Philip