The Pescetarian and The Pig

2 announcements, actually!

While other people whose blogs I follow are making announcements like being pregnant, moving, and starting their own businesses, mine aren’t quite like that… Not quite at all… But they are life changing (for me), and the first one impacts my readers greatly 🙂

Announcement #1: I got the internet! I realize it seems especially strange that someone who writes a (semi) consistent food blog has just gotten the internet at her house for the first time ever. And I’ve lived here for 4 years. Wow. Yup, I’ve been writing my blog at either my parents’ house or Starbucks allllll this time. But no more! And guess what’s really exciting about that for all of us? That means more posts! Yay! I don’t have to block off time in my week to go seek out the internet and leave poor Cupcake home alone while I write posts…

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A whole lotta photos, April 2012

My "Strawberry Banana" hibiscus tree just started blooming

Red hot pokers

Lavender

Lavender really loves my yard

Jacob's Robe climbing rose

The grapes are doing it again! Turns out the grapes are actually Red Reliance and Concord grapes, not Niagara as the tag had said

Leprechaun nectarines!!!

Dianthus

Such a cool type of verbena

My peach roses are back with a vengeance

Yellow iris at the pond

Purple iris at the pond, this stalk fell during the rain

Peaches

Cuppy is so dirty

Charisma climbing rose. Absolutely gorgeous!

Gillardia

Pomegranate FLOWERS!!!

Apples

Hot pink azaleas

Light pink azaleas

Amethyst Falls Wisteria

Strawberries and impatiens in my hanging baskets

Purple azaleas

Carnations

More apples. Are those worm holes?

Feijoa Guava FLOWER BUDS!!!

Major Wheeler Honesuckle

Don Juan climbing rose

And that’s my flowery update for April, 2012! What’s growing in your garden?

What’s Blooming Spring 2012

The Empress Tree blooms. These blooms are each about 4 inches long!

They almost look like giant Foxgloves...

Or like gigantic wisteria turned upside down...

It doesn't look as impressive in its entirety... But this is the first time it has flowers. I bought it 2 years ago as root stock. It's now about 6 ft. at the tallest point. So pretty!

Weeping Cherry

So lovely

Well, hey there, Little Guy!

I think inchworms are the cutest little things. This guy was swinging in the breeze

I got lazy about taking pics as things bloomed... This is my Leprechaun Nectarine tree... The blooms have fallen off and left the fruiting stems. First year for blooms!

The koi are back to their ravenous ways

The Weeping Redbud tree has the most amazingly colored flowers!

Aren't they just gorgeous?

The fig is off to an early start!

Obligatory pic of Cupcake 🙂 She's getting all of her chins back again...

Perhaps this isn't as exciting to everyone else as it is me... but my Angel Red Pomegranate Tree is showing signs of LIFE! Pomegranates for everyone!

More apple blossoms. This tree has been blooming since January!

I thought the early blooms of the apple tree would all be fails... But look! Little apples already forming!

The Bing Cherry Tree is getting blooms! That would be the first bloom for this tree, too 🙂

The Contorted Filbert Tree is just such a cool tree...

Lovely lavender

The pond is coming alive

Don't know what the heck this is, but it's huge, fuzzy, and looks like it wants to flower. I guess we'll see!

PEACHES! This tree excites me so much

And the flowers are just so pretty!

One of my fruiting pears is blooming for the first time... But its companion tree doesn't seem to be flowering... So I don't believe I will have fruit again this year. But it's still pretty!

I think my Fioja Guava might bloom for the first time this year!

I love when you think something has died and will never come back... and then it DOES! Like this Peony! And there's another one a few feet away!

And the Astilbe... totally thought it was a gonner

A cornflower that Cupcake ate last year. Looks like the roots survived!

I don't think this was meant to come back, but due to the unusually warm winter, looks like it stuck around! And I love it 🙂

I'm so excited for wisteria

Welcome back, Grapes 🙂

Winter Update

Cupcake has become really accustomed to sleeping on the couch…

It’s almost unbelievable how different my yard looks in the winter. And the flooding of the lower yard? Holy bejeebus. I got this lovely wide angle lens for my birthday… It captures the whole yard (and makes it look oddly small!)

So dead, right? Makes me want to cry…

But apparently no one told the apple tree that it’s still winter and only the very beginning of February…

Because it is having a jolly blooming time. I’m not sure what’s going on with the weather…. Winter skipped us completely. I remember when I first moved here, though, that it snowed on April 1st. I’m hopeful that we don’t have another frost this year….

Because my apple tree blossoms will be destroyed!

True to form the hellebores are blooming. But at least that’s normal for them to be blooming in the winter! Apple tree, what is going on?!

Sweet Banana Sandwich

Anyway… That’s my February “winter” update.

Summer 2011 In Review

I have been quite neglectful of this blog this summer. The weather got so hot that even Cupcake wasn’t willing to go outside. I would wake up and water the garden each morning out of necessity, but by 7am it was too hot to be out there. Hence the fact that I didn’t spend a ton of time photographing and such. Today is supposed to get up to 85! It’s October for crying out loud! I did get a few photos in, though, so here’s sort of a recap of the summer through photos and video….

At the beginning of the summer, I accidentally over-filled the pond. Cupcake didn’t mind one bit:

The ducks find all ways to get to the tomato plants... sneaky little things!

The zucchini had a prosperous year. Look at the size of that thing after it rained!

Cupcake found the river to be a nice soothing place to cool down

The peach tree put out over 200 peaches this year! I made peach preserves, peach bread, peach cupcakes, peach everything!

The pink Angel's Trumpet put on quite a display

The white Angel's Trumpet got ENORMOUS, but so did the Elephant Ear... and the Elephant ear totally blocked the view!

The Purple Obedient Plant is happily spreading. I started out with only 5 plants 2 summers ago!

I let my lawn go too long without mowing and these beautiful Spider Flowers popped up!

Another surprise addition to the garden was this vine climbing up my fence. Some type of honeysuckle?

That's a happy pig

Beautiful roses bloom again as the weather cools down

Butter and Banana visit Jelly who is inside right now after bumblefoot surgery caused by the simple act of stepping on a rose thorn! Check your ducks' feet regularly

Ichiban, the newest 12 inch addition to the koi pond

I made a succulent garden in my old fishbowl for a new addition to the office garden

Of course, it can’t be forgotten that in August I lost sweet Peanut to an owl attack. I still miss her every day, but am lucky enough to have taken so many photos and videos of her, like Peanut’s Busy Day.

And last, but not least, we have the hilarious antics of Cupcake the pig… She is not “fixed” and when in heat she becomes a desperate girl. When my sister visited on Saturday nothing could keep that pig away!

I promise to take more pictures with my real camera instead of my iPhone in the future!

And if you’re interested in my peach cupcakes recipe, click here: Toffee Peach Cupcakes with Coconut Buttercream Frosting

Lazy Sunday at Woodhouse Farms

I put together this little video. It’s mostly footage from this past Sunday. The animals around here have such a wonderful lazy life 🙂 I did sneak in a couple of shots from the spring that include my dear little Peanut. I hope you enjoy!

Banana Sandwich vs. Koi: Eating Contest

Every time I go to feed the koi, Banana Sandwich jumps in and starts eating all of their food before they can get to it. The other ducks never go after the koi food… I wonder if Banana realizes how expensive it is!

Peanut

it has been a while since I’ve written any entries on this blog. I was hoping to do a garden update soon. Unfortunately the update I have to give is not a good one. This morning my black duck, Peanut, was killed by a large bird of prey. I am unbelievably upset and cannot find anything further to say. I can’t express how much she’ll be missed.

I was JUST admiring my tree when…

Bradford pears are notorious for being weak-limbed trees. I have 2 of them in my yard. The bigger one has been a beautiful tree. Big, a lovely round shape, and it has provided an abundance of shade for my plants, animals, and the river portion of the pond. I had made an out-loud comment to myself yesterday morning about how wonderful I thought that tree was.

Last night we were supposed to get rain. The weather forecast had said rain for days, and it hadn’t happened. I was feeling lazy and I didn’t feel like waking up early to water the garden. So again, I made an audible comment to myself that I hoped it would rain. I hoped it would rain HARD.

Well… I got my wish. There was a storm last night with so much rain my backyard flooded. I was standing in the kitchen when i heard a strange noise… I looked outside and…

😦

Summer is Full of Flowers!

We are currently experiencing a massive heat wave in Charlotte. The weather has been in the mid 90’s all week, which is extremely unusual for this time of year. That is supposed to be the dreaded August weather around here… It’s been so darned hot that my poor ducks have almost been glued to the pond, Cupcake is rolling in mud every chance she gets, and the cats would actually prefer to stay in the house. Cupcake does too, actually… Unfortunately for her, the routine has become go outside, eat some carrots, go potty, roll in mud, get sprayed off with the hose, dry off, come back in the house, nap on the tile. The lives of these animals, I tell ya. What I would give to be one of my ducks and just walk around the yard eating bugs and swimming in the pond all day long…

Anyway, since the weather has been so hot and we have seen very little in the way of rain, I’ve been up early every morning to soak the

The fig tree is coming back from the dead with a vengeance!

plants with water, refilling the pond (the water keeps evaporating so quickly with this heat!), and laying frozen bottles of water in the shade for the ducks to lay on when they’re getting too hot. I bought a drip hose at WalMart which I set up around all of the fruit trees. For the first year or so, you’re supposed to give each tree a slow soaking for an hour every week. This way I can get them all done at thesame time. My pomegranate tree isn’t showing any form of leaf or bloom or anything, but it’s still green inside, so I’m hoping something will happen soon! My Rainier Cherry tree never sprouted anything, and it’s brown inside, so I will be getting a replacement for that one in the fall. My fig tree, which was heavily damaged in the unusually cold winter that we had this year, is recovering with flying colors. It has actually completely surpassed the fig tree at my parents’ house, which had no frost damage on it at all. The only problem is that now it has a funny shape to it, but some artistic pruning can solve that problem.

I have so many pictures to share!!!

The view from my patio couch. My grapes and wisteria are looking beautiful on the pergola. You can see my azaleas and tomato plants in the garden bed on the patio...

Another view from the patio couch. Cupcake is finishing off her sushi, Lemur is watching the ducks by the gate, and all of the ducks are walking in the "creek".

The American "Amethyst Falls" wisteria is on its second round of blooms. It's attracting the bees and it smells amazing!

Impatiens are my favorite for my hanging baskets on the pergola

Purple Reliance grapes are on their way...

Niagara grapes are getting big!

HUGE I tell you!

The tomatoes are really starting to produce! This is a "Big Boy" tomato

These elephant ears are at the top of the waterfall... They're 5 feet tall!

The honeysuckle has been faithfully blooming since March

Landscape garlic... Has such beautiful little flowers and keeps away vampires 😉

My newest addition, Lily of the Nile, is beginning to really bloom

These bright red/orange daylilies really stand out in the garden!

A deep burgundy daylily. What a neat color!

White daylily

A massive creamy daylily

The bee balm is living up to its name

A dragonfly perches by the pond

My charisma climbing rose has little flowers, but so many with such a striking color

My Don Juan climbing rose is blooming beautifully

Even my container flowers are shooting out blooms like crazy

The blue Rose of Sharon bushes are really blooming!

The apples are getting quite large!

The peaches are getting closer and closer to ripeness

The daylily border is blooming in beautiful colors

I have 2 angel trumpet trees this year as well, but they were not blooming yesterday when I took these photos, so I will post some of them later in the summer probably. I love the ever-changing garden!
Also, in case anyone is interested, I had begun writing some recipes on this blog but decided to keep my recipes and my garden separate… So if you’re still interested in reading my recipes and food experimentations, you can view them at my new food blog, The Pescetarian and the Pig