Flowers, Food and Bugs

This post involves items for the home, related happenings, a bit of cooking and an insect invasion… One issue locally is will the rain ever stop?!  YTD we’ve had more rain than either Seattle Washington or London England…

This year Laurie decided to replace her old clay based planters.  They were falling apart.  She wanted something eye-catching and bright that would last for a while…hence these large yellow pots.  They are filled with a variety of colorful annuals and perennials.  Another advantage is that she found rolling bases for the planters so we can move them as needed due to the weather or just to clean the area around them.

She also bought a hanging planter…which we may not hang.  It is easier to take care of them and they dry out more slowly when they aren’t blowing in the wind.  This flowering plant is one of over 100 species of the genus Portulaca or Purslane.  Purslane is widely consumed as an edible plant although is some areas it is considered to be invasive.  These plants are eaten with great relish by chickens.

Laurie and I love a good sausage gravy over biscuits for breakfast.  In my case, over-easy eggs are a frequent accompaniment.  Good sausage gravy is hard to find in restaurants.  As I noted in an earlier post, Laurie noted a recipe that was published by the Pioneer Woman. The Pioneer Woman – Recipes, Country Life and Style, Entertainment.

In any case, we took Ree Drummond’s recipe and modified it…actually several times.  This time we wanted a double batch of sausage gravy so we doubled up on the sausage.  We prefer Jimmy Dean’s sausage and in this case we used a pound each of Jimmy Dean Hot and Jimmy Dean Regular pork sausage.  I cooked the sausage, breaking it up as I went.  When the sausage is ready, the recipe states that we shouldn’t drain the grease…and we don’t. 

This is the finished sausage gravy in a deep pan.  In the past we’ve made this recipe with all regular sausage, all hot sausage and with varying amounts of milk.  We’ve also made it with half and half milk.

In this instance, with a double batch, we used a half cup of flour, 4 cups of whole milk, a half cup of half and half milk and a bit of salt and pepper. 

Once the sausage is browned, we mixed in the flour, stirring it until the white color of the flour has been blended into the meat.  Then we added the milk, the pepper (leaving out the salt), and continued to cook on medium heat until the mixture began bubbling.  We turned the burner down to low and, stirring occasionally, the gravy thickened.  We poured the gravy into storage containers, freezing one for later and keeping the other one in the refrigerator until its use the following day.

This photo shows the breakfast we enjoyed the next day!  Excellent!  We’ve had good sausage gravy in restaurants a few times over our 45 years together but we’ve never had a better version anywhere else.  Off camera I did sprinkle my breakfast with Tabasco...

The Pioneer Woman specifically states that canned biscuits are not preferred with the gravy.  Actually she states “Never canned biscuits”.  She recommends Pillsbury Grands Frozen biscuits…and that’s what we used in this instance.  They worked well but Larry, aka “Big Dude”, at https://bigdudesramblings.blogspot.com/ had a better idea. 

He purchased a dozen biscuits from Bojangles, a fried chicken chain of fast food restaurants that is primarily located in the southeastern USA.  The company is expanding westward and they currently have over 820 locations.  A quick check on the internet revealed that Bojangles’ biscuits are the highest rated biscuits of any fast food restaurant chain.  To learn more about Bojangles, go to Order Fried Chicken Now | Bojangles.

We do have mac ‘n cheese from time to time.  It’s simple and filling, especially if I have a couple leftover hot dogs to add to it.  During a recent visit to our local Food Lion grocery store, I spotted a vastly different ‘take’ on mac ‘n cheese.  It is Guinness Cracked Black Pepper Mac n’ Cheese and it contains Cabot Farmers Reserve Cheese sauce and radiatore pasta.

This version of mac ‘n cheese definitely imparts that bold and malty flavor found in Guinness stout/beer.  The blend of the Cabot cheese and the malty Guinness flavor was actually quite enjoyable.  Laurie ate her mac ‘n cheese by itself but I accompanied mine with a leftover grilled bacon wrapped sweet Italian sausage.  It was an easy and satisfying meal and we will purchase this mac ‘n cheese outlier again!

FYI, I also found that there is a Guinness Black Truffle Mac ‘n Cheese…and many, many more Guinness related food items.  Learn more at guinness related food products - Search Shopping (bing.com).   

I do have a difficult time telling a hairy woodpecker from a downy woodpecker.  I think that this pair are hairy woodpeckers.  The adult was teaching is offspring how to eat…but from time to time the adult would still feed its fledged offspring.  Hmmm, human adults and teenagers…an interesting comparison.

FYI, hairy woodpeckers can be found all across North America…from Alaska to Newfoundland and as far south as Panama.

We were surprised that the woodpeckers would bother with the feeder giving the abundance of fresh insects available.  Perhaps they were overwhelmed by the millions of eatable insects and they wanted a change of diet.  See below…

Here in Loudon County and in at least 7 other counties here in East Tennessee, Brood XIX cicadas, (aka The Great Southern Brood) began emerging around the second week in May.  This brood has been biding its time and growing underground for the past 13 years.  While the south has annual cicadas as well, the periodic cicadas have those red eyes.  Annual cicadas have green bodies and black eyes.  The brood will be with us until about mid-June.  Laurie captured this photo from the internet.

Luckily we are not located in an area of the USA where the 17-year Brood XIII and the 13-year Brood XIX are emerging at the same time.  While we hear annual cicadas during evenings and at night, these Periodic cicadas make their noise in an effort to attract a mate during the day.  It is a hum…but not as high pitched as the annual cicadas in their personal effort to attract attention.  We also noted that the periodical cicadas seem to stop ‘humming’ when it rains.

As we surveyed our yard we wandered over to the edge of our lot which abuts a wooded lot.  That’s when we spotted these holes.  With only a bit of moss here and there it was easy to see hundreds of holes that our Brood XIX cicadas had emerged from.  It was a bit unnerving actually…

The process begins with mating.  Then the females start to lay eggs by making slits in twigs of woody plants using her knife-like ovipositor.  She lays about 2 dozen eggs in each slit and a single female can lay between 400 to 600 eggs.  The eggs hatch in 6 or 7 weeks.  The nymphs…which are white and ant-like in appearance, drop to the ground and bury in the soil to find suitable roots to feed on.  They suck the sap from the roots but they don’t seem to have a noticeable effect on the trees.

The nymphs burrow from 12 to 18 inches into the soil.  They begin to emerge when the soil beneath to ground reaches a temperature of 64F.  Once the nymphs dig their way up from under the ground, they molt and the adults emerge…taking flight up into the trees.  Note the exoskeletons by some of the cicada’s holes as well as the one shown on the brick wall.  That wall was littered with the remnants of the nymphs.

That’s all for now.  Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave