Random Thoughts While Walking and Veggies, Veggies, Veggies

The other day as I was walking I was thinking about the Emerald Ash Borer and the devastating effects it has had on the woodlands in our area. Almost all ash trees are dead, or almost dead. Everywhere I walk there are dead ash trees, some homeowners have three or four in their front yards, all dead, others are seen in the woods all dead, it is sad.  As I walked I started to wonder about the Emerald Ash Borer, not a native of North America, it arrived from Asia probably in a shipment of wood and started affecting trees in the NE and quickly spread westward.  My thoughts were along this line, what happens to the Emerald Ash Borer (EAB) when there are no more ash trees? Does the EAB die off? Can Ash trees be reintroduced? Does the EAB adapt to destroying a different tree variety? After I puzzled about the EAB I started thinking about Dutch Elm Disease (DED).  Growing up in England in the seventies we heard a lot about DED, it destroyed pretty much all of the elm trees, again I am not sure if once it ran its course elm trees could be reintroduced, or if the disease was in fact part of the trees DNA?  I don't know much about DED except it destroyed a lot trees just as the EAB is doing right now.  

Well after my rather gloomy thoughts about the destruction of trees I was amused by the "LOST BLACK COW" signs that appeared over night and were stapled to telegraph poles every half mile or so, they brought a smile to my face.

This morning we had a new Farmers Market open in Fort Wayne. The market is indoors and will occur monthly on the first Saturday, October through March, it is hosted at our local Minor League Baseball Park, a nice use of a facility that perhaps doesn't get much use through the winter. I purchased some nice veggies, a couple different varieties of eggplant (aubergine), an acorn squash, my new most favorite vegetable KALE, spinach, an "asian" blend of green leafy stuff for stir fry, and some dried mint for tea. My only non-veggie purchase was an amazingly aromatic bar of lavender soap - boy does it smell truly wonderful. I enjoyed the market, the produce was super-duper fresh, priced reasonably and the vendors were very friendly and willing to share their story and their excitement about organic farming!!

When we returned from the farmers market it was time to head out and bring in the last of our garden produce as tonight we have a "FREEZE WARNING"!  I had the boys pop on their mud boots, and found each of them a woolly hat to wear and we headed off to the gardens.  We picked tomatoes, peppers, onions, and salvaged some cabbage.  The boys helped pick a lot of peppers and then started digging for treasure and there was great excitement when a large rock was found.  Next we took some ruined cabbages to the chicken run for the hens to enjoy.  It was chilly outside, about forty-eight degrees, but fun to be out and about and we enjoyed watching our grandsons enjoy the great outdoors.

Henry finds some "treasure"

The last of the watermelons and cantaloupe (YUMMY - I have eaten a lot of melon lately) 

Patrick struggling with an over grown cabbage, he was on his way to feed it to the  hens.

An abundance of peppers.

More tomatoes. Nothing quite like a fresh picked tomato - heavenly!

Look what we found in the cabbage patch - Baby Charlie!!