November 10, 2025-gardening for the resistance

 It is difficult to know what to write. I start to think about flowers and I wonder why? Yesterday our daughter Maggie and I picked up sticks in the garden. There were a lot of them. We sold some jade plants for the foodbanks. I got my hands in the dirt.

This cattleya opened this week.

Actually I moved the cattleya to the living room. In that spot I got this picture without any clutter.

This is another orchid that just started to bloom. It is a catasetum. I think the particular variety is named "after dark." One of its features is that the spike hangs down.

Orchids can keep you going when the outside shuts down. This catasedum will probably stay in bloom for months. The second spike is just getting started. 

Other orchid pictures

This is the plant stand upstairs.

Here is a newly potted orchid called Coelogne viscosa. (Pronounced See-;odge-oh-knee)

Several had grown out of their pots this summer. I repotted them yesterday and used my new rocks. Two plants became seven. That is sort of how repotting goes, if you do not have people right there to take a few.

This a little orchid I have had for 9 years. It has these really tiny flowers that bloom off and on throughout the year.  They have more flowers right after they come in for the winter. This plant gets to be above the kitchen sink with the airplants.

Outside we still have not had the frost. There is not any frost in the ten day forecast,I am selling jade plants,

Here is an updates on the little guy in bud.

 The ornamental kale are looking better each week. 

Other pictures from this weekend.

This is one of the living room crotons in bud.

Julia's recipe

Sesame peanut noodles 

I like a good noodle dish. This is from the NYT, and it is called Takeout-Style Sesame Noodles. There's a back story about an enterprising Chinese restaurateur named Shorty Tang. Earlier, I posted another peanut noodle dish - a recipe from the New Pioneer Co-op. I like the New Pi recipe (Thai Peanut Noodles), but I think I like this one better. Of course, it's fast and highly flavorful. At least in my kitchen, it's a pantry dish - the only thing I had to buy was the noodles. 

The ingredients:

14 oz. shelf-stable soba noodles (see below for comment);

2 tablespoons plus a bit sesame oil;

3-1/2 tablespoons soy sauce;

2 tablespoons rice vinegar;

2 tablespoons tahini;

1 tablespoon peanut butter;

1 tablespoon sugar;

1-1/2 teaspoon smushed garlic;

1 tablespoon grated ginger;

2 teaspoons chile crisp (see below for comment);

some little matchsticks of cucumber; and a handful of lightly salted roasted peanuts.  

The recipe called for "1 lb. noodles, frozen or preferably fresh". Presumably Chinese, but that's not much help for a midwesterner.  The only thing I thought was to find noodles that were not dried. So at the New Pi, I found shelf-stable soba noodles. Not dried. They worked just fine. I think you could use dried noodles, Asian or Italian, but I would not use a pound of dried pasta. I think you would end up with too much. I'd say 1/2 or maybe 3/4 pound of dried noodles. 

As for chile crisp, I always have some on hand. I make it from time to time. and I'm pretty sure the recipe is on the blog. If you don't have chile crisp, use the same amount of garlic-chile paste or chile oil.  

Also, if you have Asian sesame paste rather than tahini, use that. I didn't. 

I started by grating the ginger and smushing the garlic. By the way, I keep my ginger in the freezer. I use ginger from time to time but not all the time. Freezing it keeps it from getting soft or moldy. 

One does, however, need to grate about twice as much as you need because it will melt and shrink in volume. 

I put all of the sauce ingredients (2 tablespoons of sesame oil, the rice vinegar, soy sauce, tahini, peanut butter, sugar, and chile crisp plus the ginger and garlic) into a bowl. I used a whisk to mix the sauce. The tahini and peanut butter took some whisking. 

Here is the bowl with all the sauce ingredients, before whisking. 

I brought a pot of water to a boil and dropped in the noodles. They cooked in less than 5 minutes. Then I drained them.

I dumped the noodles into a serving bowl and added a little sesame oil as clump prevention. 

Then I poured most (but not all) of the sauce over the noodles. And tossed.

I peeled and seeded and sliced up 1/2 of a cucumber. Maybe 1/3 cup of cucumber bits. 

That's my hand sprinkling the dish with peanuts. Compost bowl in the background!

On the table. The contrasts were good - soft noodles, crunchy cucumber and peanuts, kind of spicy sauce.

I had also cooked some green beans. Then I dumped them into the bowl that still held a bit (a couple of tablespoons) of the sauce to give the beans a light coating. 

On the plate. We had plain salmon (baked with a little olive oil, salt and pepper) to contrast with the spicier noodles and green beans. Followed, as usual by salad. And bread pudding for dessert. 

I think both the noodles and the green beans will make a nice lunch. 

Odds and Ends

Swallowtail butterflies and staying in the north. 

I just read about the swallowtail butterfly caterpillar.

Apparently not all butterflies migrate.  The Swallowtail winters over with the assistance of something like antifreeze. 

Here is more information.

https://www.montananaturalist.org/blog-post/how-swallowtail-butterflies-survive-the-winter/

Here are pictures to remind us all of better times.

This last picture is from Maine.

The next four years will be difficult. That could be an understatement. But the clock has started.

With friends and natural beauty we will get through this.

This is a commentary on Micah 6:8.

“Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.”

Philip