Wednesday, June 14, 2006, 19:05
Pests. . .
The rose bugs are here. They've been eating the flowers off my old rosebush by the basement door, and they are eating the flowers off my rugosa roses.
Strangely enough, they don't seem to bother the wild rose flowers too much. They do eat the wild roses, but it doesn't seem to be what they prefer.
I've always just called them "rose bugs" but the proper name is Rose Chafer. And they don't just eat roses. Where infestations are bad, like at the cemetery at our church, they will eat ANYTHING, including the leaves off the lilac bush I planted between the headstones on my mom and dad's graves. Here's what I found out about them.
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Rose Chafer
This fawn-coloured, long-legged beetle usually appears in late May or early June. Adults are about 10 mm in length and are covered with dull yellow hairs. They move sluggishly on the foliage and stems. There is one generation per year. Winters are spent in the larval or grub stage in light, sandy soil. These grubs will feed on the roots of roses and lawn grasses causing serious damage. In the spring, the larvae come to the surface and pupate. The pupal stage takes place in May and lasts about 2 weeks. Adults emerge and feed on flowers, buds, and foliage for 3-6 weeks. They have chewing mouthparts and damaged leaves appear skeletonized. Adults will also attack grapes, berries and other garden flowers. After the feeding period, eggs are laid into the soil where they will hatch in late summer.
Light infestations, which are more likely in the home garden, can be controlled by hand picking and destroying the beetles. Since much of the life cycle is spent at or below the surface of the soil, working the soil can prove effective in control. Cultivating in May will destroy pupae, in July, eggs will be killed, and in the fall, larvae will be destroyed. This pest will not breed in moist soil or shaded areas. Therefore, increasing the amount of shade or adding clover to grass will increase the moisture in the soil and reduce survival of larvae.
Information from this website.
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Well, all-righty then. According to this article, I AM on the right track with watering my rose bushes periodically. And that, of course, is why they are so bad at the cemetery, because the soil is sandy and it has been so dry the last few years.
When I was a little girl, our elderly neighbor, Hannah Paulson (who appears in my books) used to go around with an old coffee can with an inch or two of gasoline in the bottom and pick the bugs off by hand and drop them into the gasoline.
Hannah was the sweetest, nicest lady you would ever want to meet anywhere anytime. Except where the rose bugs were concerned. She was outraged that those nasty rose bugs were eating her roses! When I think back on it now, the roses planted around Hannah's farmhouse were rugosa roses. And of course, the rose bugs were delighted to munch them into nothing. Just like they are delighted to munch my roses into nothing.
Can't they find something else to eat?
Oh, yes, that's right. They DO find other things to eat -- petunias, geraniums, lilac bushes. . .
Fawns! I just went outside to check on Charlie, and I saw a doe with twin fawns running across our hayfield! She stopped in the neighbor's field to let the fawns catch up and to give them a breather, and they ran into the neighbor's woods.
LeAnn R. Ralph
Tuesday, June 13, 2006, 19:24
Like an Angel
I'm in the angel food cake business today. It's Randy's birthday, so I wanted to bake a birthday cake for him. It's been a little while since I've baked an angel food cake from scratch.
Besides, I have been accumulating egg whites over the past two weeks from mixing up kitten formula for the kittens in the barn, and I wanted to make sure I used the egg whites.
Unfortunately, I only have about a half a cup of white sugar on hand. And I'm not planning on going grocery shopping until the end of the week. So, I decided to make the brown sugar version of angel food cake. It's the same basic recipe, but when you use brown sugar, you use a quarter cup less than what the recipes calls for in white sugar.
I've never made a brown sugar angel food cake before, so I'm not sure what it will look like. Probably not much like angel food actually, seeing as a 'real' angel food cake is bright white. I can't call it devil's food cake, either, though, because it certainly won't be as dark as a chocolate cake. I would have to call it something that's in between an angel and a devil.
Wait a minute. Aren't people -- us humans -- we mortals -- aren't we supposed to be somewhere between an angel and a devil? So maybe I could call it People Food Cake. Or Mortal Food Cake. Or maybe, since it's my husband's birthday, Randy Food Cake.
Anyway, I'm glad that I have plenty of powdered sugar on hand. Randy is of the opinion that the frosting is the most important part of the cake. As far as he's concerned, a proper cake is two inches of cake and four inches of frosting.
I don't have *that* much powdered sugar on hand -- so he'll just have to make do with, say, an inch of frosting.
Happy Birthday, Randy!
LeAnn R. Ralph
