October 8, 2023- On the road

        We are somewhere else. There is the ocean, and the beach. And seafood, seagulls. a few mosquitos and no one we know. There are also a few ghosts of people we used to know. 

We are in Chincoteague, the town where my father was born. We are here until tomorrow, when we fly to Maine. We have visited here almost every year since 1974. That is a long time. (We missed two COVID years.) There have been many changes over the years. A new bridge. A new waterslide. Some things remain the same: the seafood restaurant we go to on our first night, the seafood store where we always buy our flounder and scallops. Other businesses come and go. Some things like the crepe myrtle in the back yard, just get bigger.

Before we left Iowa there were special treats in the garden.

In this somewhat abbreviated blog post, I will show you a few.

But first let me tell you about last week's voting. The choice was the violet with ruffles. 

This week there were two gems in the garden.

I will show you pictures. No poll this week. That would be done on the home computer. I would like to hear from you without your vote. Please make comments or return an email. It is helpful to know that any of you are out there.

This is a cattleya orchid called Arctic Snow. I have had it for a number of years. I divided it last year. Now I have 3-4 of these beauties. This particular plant had been in bud for quite some time. It finally opened.

The second gem was the Night Blooming Cereus. I had three plants with a total of 14 buds. The first bloomed the night before we left. That was Wednesday night. (We left for the airport at 4:30 Thursday morning-thank you Maggie for the ride.)

5 flowers bloomed that night. The rest bloomed the next night.

This first picture was about 8:45 pm, Wednesday evening. The flower was not fully open.

This was about 30 minutes later.

Ten minutes later you had full bloom.

This next picture is from neighbor Jim. He took this picture early on Friday morning. There was a larger bloom at that time.

In the summer the flowers are finished by dawn. With much shorter days in late September or October the flowers last into the early morning. I do believe this year was the first year there had been flowers in October. The very end of September had been the latest before this year.

Jim walks his grandchildren to school each day, walking by the garden. I had pointed out the buds and all of them had been watching for the flowers to open. The grandchildren were interested in the buds, since they were so different.

Jim tells me they ran down to the yard Friday morning and were not disappointed.

That interest and enthusiasm of children is one of the reasons I garden. 

We are someplace different. I should comment about the flowers here.

I love lantana. We have observed some of the biggest plants here I have ever seen. It took a while for the term "perennial" to occur to me. Sure enough, lantana is a perennial here. Hence the plants that are 6 feet high.

This next picture is a plant called Ruella. We have admired it over the years in Chincoteague. It blooms this time of year here. We have also heard it called Mexican petunia or Britton's petunia.

Apparently it is a perennial in zone 7, which I guess is what it is here.

Reblooming Iris are the same in any zone. They really are nice, whereever they are.

Julia's recipe

Another summer pasta salad

Here is one more summer salad using farmers market produce: corn and tomatoes and basil. The recipe comes from a cookbook called Raising the Salad Bar by Catherine Walthers. Maggie bought it for Philip some years ago. He makes a great salad, and he is always looking for new ideas, as am I. This is a main dish salad, although it was good as a side with salmon. 

The ingredients:

1 lb. penne (I actually only ended up using 1/2 of the cooked pasta);

1-1/2 cups corn kernels;

2 cups cherry tomatoes;

8 oz. of tiny mozzarella balls;

zest of 1 lemon;

1 tablespoon olive oil; and

some salt.

For the dressing:

3 tablespoons lemon juice;

1 tablespoon wine vinegar;

1/2 (heaping) teaspoon smushed garlic;

1/3 cup olive oil; and

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt.

I started by cooking the penne in salted water - probably about 1-1/2 teaspoon salt in the water. 

The recipe assumed I'd be using uncooked corn and so advised to add the corn kernels to the pot of cooking penne about 2 minutes from the end of cooking. 

I was using corn that I had bought (a dozen ears) on Saturday at the farmers market. I always cook all of the corn at once (by putting the shucked ears into a giant pot of boiling water and then turning the water off - the corn cooks perfectly). I freeze some and set some aside for corn salad or for dishes like this. 

If you are using uncooked kernels, cook them. Or use leftovers like I did. 

And I grated the lemon, put the zest aside and juiced the lemon. I put the lemon juice in a little jar.

Then I put the corn in the serving dish...

followed by the cherry tomatoes which I cut in half. 

I smushed the garlic.

Then I added the mozzarella, also cut in half. 

I drained the penne and put it back in the pot and added the tablespoon of olive oil. 

On mature reflection, I thought the entire pound of penne was too much so I used half of it. 

I think the proportion of pasta to the other ingredients in the final dish is better using less pasta.  

I added the penne and mixed it all up. 

And I added the dressing and mixed some more. 

Lastly I tore the basil up into smaller pieces and sprinkled it over the top and stirred it up. 

And here it is on the table. We had it with salmon and salad and melon. 

This recipe, even using less pasta, makes a very big salad. I think it would be good to take to a neighborhood potluck or family reunion or back-to-school night. Or to feed a bunch of hungry folks who turn up at your house.

As with pasta salads in general, it holds up well and tastes good the next day.

                                                          Odds and Ends

Julia finished one of her knitting projects before we left. These are hats off to some winter clothing distribution. They do make a wonderful presentation.

Flamingos were reported at Chincoteague in the last week. I had read about them being sighted in New York or New Jersey. I guess they were blown north in one of those two big storms in the last month. We will watch for them but really. It appears that the term for a group of flamingos is a "flamboyance." For those of you who care, he past tense of flamingo is "flaminwent."

We have left Iowa with many plants still outside. The frost will wait for our return. 

The bots are gone. I guess they decided there were more interesting places to watch.

The world is a mess. More people are fighting and dying. Governments cannot seem to function, and when they do, their decisions are not very nice.

We do appreciate that the federal government stayed open. At least for another month.

Pray for peace. Pray for reconcilliation. 

We will send you news and pictures next week from Maine.

Philip