again.

notes on a life as an acquired taste.

[0ingenting0]

While I put new yellow sticky traps they started to attach. Fine. So you DO exist in abundance, still. I ordered more SF nematodes.

[0ingenting0]

Darn, I forgot the nematodes in the fridge. Long expired by now. Maybe those gnats are the reason?

There are some tomatos in the making, but few. And late.

[0ingenting0]

My cucumber is very decorative albeit not so productive. I had 3 cucumbers so far. Somehow the cucumbers dry out when still very small and I don't understand why.

Decorative tomato cucumber jungle. But no harvest. 🤔

[0ingenting0]

That Piepscat makes me laugh.

He came running with a mouse, bodylanguage excited and proud. 2m in front of the entrance he saw me. Halted his run. Stared at me. And then went "darn, abort mission" and dissected the mouse on the meadow rather than indoors. Good boy. Now, would you pretty pls do the same thing also when I am not there?

[0ingenting0]

Lovely colours. Identification of bumblebee inconclusive and no longer even attempted. They are all cute fuzzy plush balls, who cares what they are called.

[0ingenting0]

I have been photo hunting bumblebees to identify. I didnt catch them all.

By observation I also now know that different species need different plants. I dislike that realization because it means that I need to adjust and differentiate more than I did.

So far I felt good planning my container garden in a way that I had something for all of bumblebees and something for wild bees in bloom throughout the season. I found that well planned. Turns out nope, the bumblebee field needs more differentiating. And the solitary bee department, too. Darn.

Anyway.

This furry fellow is Bombus pascuorum. Before I knew that I called them for "Fahle Hummel" as a madeup name (pale, muted, pallid bumblebee)

The pascuorum disregards most of my flowers and only uses cornflower, leonorus cardiaca, echium vulgare, agastache foeniculum, lamium and ononis spinosa and centaurea species and dipsacus fullonum. That's it, that's where I see it. I am not sure if they would take other things when starving. Internet says it is a generalist, not rare and it should take a lot of other flowers, even asteraceae like my now ample sunflower offer. But it doesn't go on sunflower. Wtf. Its because of this species that I started to wonder if amongst bumblebee species there is more nuance.

This little guy is Bambus lapidarius:

On cornflower. And it likes cornflower a lot. Internet says they are not rare but here they are rarer than the rest. In spring I saw more of them so maybe something happened to the colony that sends their individuals my way. Parasites, raided nests, bumblebees have many problems. Because they are rare now in my garden I am not sure about their preferences. But I don't think I saw them on phacelia. To be continued.

Ok, that's all. Thats actually seriously all the species I can identify for sure because they are coloured distinctively.

All the rest? Oh boy. Look at this.

I showed you the one to the far right and the third from right. The other 2 distinct ones I dont see in my garden.

Now let's look at the problematic first three.

Is the stripe honey yellow or lemon yellow?

Wanna try?

I cant ask them to sit still and pose.

And it gets worse. The devil is in the details. The drawing is schematic and overly clear, as I get told in the fineprint. The fineprint further says: There are regional local colour differences, so even if the schematic says honey yellow in reality it can be anything. It really depends on where on their body the stripe starts and ends, the length of their heads and whatnot.

Different sizes are misleading because you dont know if you are dealing with a worker or a drone or, in early spring, a big queen.

Plus that workers get chimed out in different sizes for different reason of resources and season.

I am lost. For all I know I have all 3 bumblebee species in yellow, white &black- or only one with colour divergence.

I would need a hugely better camera than my phone and a lot of time to even capture them in a way that would work for identification.

And the schematic is not exhaustive. There are more bumblebees- they only show the most common ones. Which is ok because I didnt find any bumblebee that would look vastly different than what the schematic shows.

Except maybe this one:

All black and two times white. Da fuck. I did an image search and got back 4 different species names as possible matches. Even AI is confused. One suggestion was that it wasn't a bumblebee at all but an imposter, a Psithyrus species, a cuckoo bumblebee that doesn't engage in any child rearing but let's other bumblebees do the work. Interesting suggestion but I can't verify.

Same here:

Wtf. Orange white black.

AI is very confused and so am I. It suggested everything from a freak pascuorum, freak lapidarius and ruderarius and sylvarum. The latter 2 are not shown on the schematic above. Or, an imposter bumblebee. Imposters dont need pollen. Pollen is the protein for brood. Imposters dont engage in child rearing. I think it could be an Imposter because the back legs don't feature the pollen collecting structure. Who the heck knows.

At this point I leave the chat.

Turns out bumblebees are far more complicated than I ever thought. Help pls.

[0ingenting0]

That's it. Thats all. Its so small, my garden.

[0ingenting0]

Pollen powdered bees.

One is apis melifera, a domesticated honey bee raiding my flowers to give honey to someone else but me and taking my sparce container garden resources away from the wild pollinators that I actually would like to support. I could be persuaded to like them more if I actually got a jar of honey but bee keepers just let their bees profit from everybody's gardens and never pay any honey back.

One is a wild bee. I prefer wild bees here.

Can you tell which is which?

[0ingenting0]

Last year I had snapdragons and it was my second year with snapdragons and little cicada and little beetles ate them all in both years. Those cicada bastards ate tunnels into the leaves and the beetle bastards ate the flower buds before they ever opened.

So I stopped having snapdragons. No snap drsgons this year, or so I thought.

Today I saw this little self seeded one. And no cicada and no beetle. Wtf. Also, look, the flowers are larger than the plant!

I leave it be, obviously. It can stay.

[0ingenting0]

Its Sunday, it's comfy light sweater weather and a bit of rain. The Pieps just caught a mouse and had the intention to bring it indoors but changed his mind when he saw me guarding the entrance.

The Panda went for a short morning patrol but decided quickly that my bed was the best space for this sunday morning.

I pet them and asked them if they were happy. I think they have a good life. They are both grooming themselves now. At least they are responsible for their personal hygiene. Seems like I am responsible for all the rest of hygiene.

This sunday is about cleaning. Later. I still want a moment to summon my motivation.

[0ingenting0]

Last night after work I just wanted an hour of resting my ears on the pillow- and woke up at around midnight. I was angry at myself and went out for a cig. There was the panda. Pieps had settled indoors even if I had forgotten to close the cat flap, I had never planned to sleep all these hours. But the panda was outside. So I sat and smoked my cig and the panda did panda business. Then he came and said hi, brushed along my legs. I cuddled him. He allowed it and purred. I finished my cig, got up and when I walked indoors the panda followed. Just like that. No further discussions with the panda about safety and the outdoors at night not being safe with an arsehole cat around and martens and foxes. He walked indoors with me.

The panda now starts to be an affectionate guy. I sometimes think that he stays out late only to make me come and give him an extra invitation to pretty please come indoors. As some sort of special moment that makes him feel being cared for.

I went back to bed because what else was there to do at midnight in the dark. If I didnt live under the same roof as tenants I might have vacuumed or whatever, but I can't make noise after 22:00. Surprisingly, I slept another 8h straight. How is that even possible? The panda slept beside me and the Pieps on my feet. Usual constellation.

Now it's 08:08 and it's time to do stuff. Vacuuming and yardwork and the usual.

[nosimpincurly]

You’re not depressed. You just need $250,000 in your bank account.

[0ingenting0]

Not bad. Plum fill doesn't run, taste is good.

Edited to add: That was a really good lunch. Microwaved filled bell peppers, cucumber salad with yoghurt dill dressing and dessert. I sit here smiling from ear to ear so maybe it was actually worth it. Maybe. Even though, there are in fact faster cakes out there.

Together with the realization that healthy foods demands homecooking and no way around it, with the realization that healthy doesnt need to mean 100% but that 80/20 is fine and room for cake exists ...and with what I learned in Italy about sitting down to eat and appreciating food and how happy good food makes me?

These lunches really make my days. Smiling from ear to ear. And not heavy, not sluggish, because adequate portion size and also, 80% of the time no cake/heavy things. But even today I don't feel like a food coma nap. Everything is perfect, I am left wanting for nothing. Except maybe an espresso but thats a hard one to pack for lunch.

[0ingenting0]

My prunus cerasifera nigra broke in the wind, maybe due to the heavy load it carried. Or maybe the neighbor who hates that tree helped. I dont know.

This shrub usually gets planted as an ornamental but it does carry plums and they are quite tasty. But the plums on mine weren't ripe yet. They would have needed another week or two. I still saved some bowls worth of the plums when I made a clean cut where it broke.

Sour still, only a hint of the sweet it actually gets. So I knew that I couldn't do the classic plum things with them. I decided for a cake that asks to bring the plums to boil and add starch to thicken, as a fill into a shortbread crust. Classic pie of sorts. Bringing them to boil and using them as goop instead of individual fruit allows for adding sugar to top up the sweet they lack.

Classic plum cake requires ripe sweet plums as you spread the halves raw as they are. Mine were too sour for that.

Shortcrust pie dough is basically butter. Buttercoated flour. The only reason why I even dared now in July with 26 degrees Celsius in my kitchen was my new teensy freezer. Because there is no way to handle that dough in warm ambient temperature, butter turns too soft. Impossible to work with that dough- unless you have a freezer to cool it down again between every step and even right before baking.

Just... I couldn't fit a 19cm springform bottom dough circle into my teensy freezer. It needs to lie flat.

So I had to make 6 small miniature pies. I can fit 12cm cut out dough circles into my freezer lying flat.

Looking good.

But oh boy, 6 small ones increases the work load times 6.

Because with fruit filling the bottom can get unevenly done and so I had to blind bake 6 with beans in them. But blind baking with beans works a lot better if you don't have to pluck out every bean one by one. So I had to craft 6 baking paper bottoms and rims to put in between dough and beans.

And like, only dressing the forms with dough x6. Roll out dough between 2 sheets of baking paper, cut out 3 circles. Remove dough in between the circles and Done, dough too warm to handle. Cut the paper the dough circles stick to and into the freezer as they stick, paper snd all. Rest of dough as a ball back into the freezer. Wait. Try again. Roll out, cut 3 circles, cut paper around circles, freezer. Same again for the rim. Assembly into the springform is only possible when really chilled.

It took the whole fucking day today. I had prepared the dough last night and de-stoned the plums last night, too. Total workload for 6 mini pies is more than a whole fucking day.

Worth it? Not sure. Taste will tell.

I have more plums that I don't know what to do with. I wish I had a large freezer, not just 31 liters. I will try to cook up a second batch and add a bit of sugar and hopefully manage to freeze the plum goop in the shape of a convenient block to tetris with.

My apartment is too small. I really really wish I had space for a large freezer.

I will take 2 of them to work with me tomorrow to share with my coworkers. And whipped cream, too. I know already that they won't like it. I have brought cake before. I am not a pro baker or cook. personally I like most of my own food but I am kind of used to it. My coworkers are used to industrial stuff. Like, I will love the real vanilla in the dough and for them it will be lacking because the strong industrial artificial vanilla isn't there. As an example. Obviously my cake is made with real butter. And real cinnamon in the crumbs, not cassia. And obviously my cake looks, uhm, rustic and not perfect. Or I don't actually know why they don't like my food, but they don't. But they like cake generally, the ready bought stuff from the supermarket.

I just cross my fingers that I got the starch /juice ratio right and that the fill doesn't run when cut open.

One I will gift to my neighbor who fixed my brakes on my car and made my car fit to pass "TÜV" exam. (Every 2 years every car has to pass a technical inspection to be legally allowed on the road).

The rest, let's see.

[0ingenting0]

Can someone please enlighten me how my coworkers can play such games for hours and hours on end until the phone battery dies?

Why aren't they bored out of their minds???

[0ingenting0]

All good with both cats, I worried without reason.

[0ingenting0]

So at late o'clock I wanted to summon cats and nobody showed. Not even the Pieps and he always shows-unless there was an attack pr something. I started to worry and walked around and searched. And then the pieps manifested, out of breath and far too stressed and so I really worried. I examined him, no injuries. But pieps would be stressed even if he wasn't the victim of an attack himself, like, even if he only was a witness this time. For all I know the panda may have been the one who got attacked this time.

I put the Pieps indoors and left again searching for the panda and no Panda anywhere. I walked to all his places and didnt find him. And while I walked wind started and lightning in a distance and the twilight sky darkened and turned black. I made summoning noises against the wind and no panda at all.

Ran home when the first heavy drops fell. Found a frightened to death Pieps urgently in need of reassurance and company.

Sat down with him, downregulated my breathing and told him everything will be alright, just a thunderstorm. He relaxed. Thus we sat for a while indoors in the dark with cracked open windows to let in the cool air.

When the thunderstorm sounded like further away I found a snack for the Pieps and snacks helped with thunderstorm fear.

But the panda is still missing, potentially injured and I will search more when the thunderstorm passed us. I worry.

Now sirens. The fire brigade summons the volunteers, something must have happened that requires them. Thats how it works here in the villages, every little village has a volunteer fire brigade and every fireman has a pager but there is also a siren. The fire brigade that gets manned by payed people, the professional one, is further away in the City. They cooperate for larger things. Technically I could join the volunteer fire brigade but I dont want to. Just saying, its everybody and their mother who meet once a week, train and drink beer.

Panda is still missing.

00:51 Edited to add: panda is home. Went searching and found him. Didnt recognize him at first. Like, yes I recognized his meow when he answered my call. But not the cat in the rain. All his fluffy fur was wet and glued to his body and he looked so small that I didnt recognize him. Small and forlorn panda and I was allowed to carry him home. He is too wet and dirty for me to examine him for bite wounds just yet. But he looks ok and was very hungry. Purred all the way home in my arms. Purring now, too. What happened, Panda?