We thought we were going to have a bit of male to female ratio problem when we noticed that two of the ducks had started ganging up on the third....perhaps the odd man out? The two in the foreground were chasing the one in the background (thus it's distance from the other two)...then again, the other day, the one in the background chased the closest one out of the pool. Hmmm.

Soooo....have you ever wondered how to tell a male duck from a female duck?
Here's how:


Now confirmed: there are definitely three sets of tail feathers that all look kinda like this. All males.

So much for duck eggs for a while.

This is the only perennial still standing in our flowerbed. (Well, that and the random Oregano plant in the flowerbed.) We planted it this summer, and everything else---I think there's a Black-Eyed Susan, and maybe a Shasta Daisy with a few hostas--has been eaten pretty much down to the ground (hard tell when they're mere shadows of their former selves...). We did get three or four flowers off of the Black-Eyed Susan, but sheesh.

So yes, I definitely want one maybe two more 'Autumn Joy' sedums.

And does anyone else know what's deer-proof? Or even deer-resistant??

Today is normally Pizza Friday here on Five Wooded Acres. That's been temporarily suspended due to crazy amounts of eggs in our fridge....any takers? Seriously, we've been getting 4-5 eggs a day for the past 4 days and it's starting to catch up to us....help! (That one on the left was laid today--somebody took a peck out of it)


So today we decided to make something using eggs for dinner. Pretty simple really. First you saute some peppers, onions, and crumbled prosciutto (ham would be good too, I'm sure) in some olive oil. Add whatever seasonings suit your fancy.....


Then you beat 6 eggs, and 1 cup of milk together in a bowl.


Add the sauteed veggies to a pie plate (make sure to drain the oil off first!), then pour the egg mixture over it. We added some parmesan cheese to the top too.


Bake at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for approximately 30-40 minutes, or until the center is puffed and a knife inserted one inch from the center (not exactly the center--that's supposed to still be soft) comes out clean.

Living where we do, a lot of our property qualifies as an "edge." An "edge" is where the woods meet a field or cleared area. Our front yard, back yard, the side of our driveway, the powerline cut, all of these are "edges".....and "edge" areas are more susceptible to invasive species. The natives just can't compete. These disturbed-from-their-natural-state areas don't grow grass naturally...they would be harboring flowers, ferns and native grasses...on their way to reforming into woods...but we keep them mowed (tick control, house access, and a place to put the veggie garden) which makes them fair game for fast-growing plants (especially given the shady conditions...next to the woods remember). And so, along with Tree of Heaven, which adores such conditions, we find the majority of our grass is, in fact, not grass, but Japanese Stiltgrass. Great for erosion control, if you like to look on the bright side, but quite invasive. And the bane of our vegetable garden this year.


Japanese Stiltgrass, according to the National Park Service website, is also known as Nepalese Browntop. It's considered an annual grass--germinates in the spring, and can get up to 3 feet tall (yep that would be what happened with the veggie garden. It only took 2 weeks and that stuff was TALL.) It gets that tall when it's producing it's flowers, which it does in late summer (excuse me..achoo..).


Japanese Stiltgrass is particularly well-adapted to low-light conditions and deer don't like to eat it...instead they prefer to eat the natives that are already trying to compete with it. Great. Oh, and "Stiltgrass appears to prefer moist, acidic to neutral soils that are high in nitrogen." Yes, you do get that, living in the woods...

So what're we gonna do? Well, we're gonna try and solarize the veggie garden this winter, and remember next year to keep the grass cut shorter---so the danged stuff can't go to seed.....Any other tips?

I love African Violets--what's not to like here? Low-maintenance, evergreen, and pretty little flowers. On Sunday, I re-potted my African Violets (all were gifts -- two of them were from S. -- and now I have even more: they have multiplied thanks to S's grandmother. I've never been able to get one to root from a leaf cutting, although I hear it's quite easy...she got two of them to.) They were due for a re-potting, the soil was depleted and the pots were too small---conveniently, the previous owners of our house left some lovely pots for us when they moved out (of course I told them that we would love to take them off their hands and no, no, please don't throw them out :-) Some of those turned out to be the right size, so I used them rather than some of our own stash of plant pots....I do think I want to find one glazed in the same style as the others for that one pot on the left (nice pattern, but just doesn't scream 'African Violet' to me, ya know?). There were some lovely brown ones at our local home improvement store but we were in a hurry, (when are we not, at that store?) so I didn't have a chance to get one. I think next time when I re-pot them I will, though, for a full matched set.

At that same small zoo that I mentioned before, they had some huge tortoises. And apparently these guys are spunkier then you would think....while we were there, we observed that one was hanging out a lot near the edge of its fenced area....then this:


And this......


It's hard to get these guys to go where they should....! (Notice that same tree in the above and below photos? They're very fast for their size...)


They finally got him back in....carried him and lured him with a peach half. Then they chained the damaged fence back together. The really great part? He staged another jailbreak as we were leaving.....must've been something in the air...

We ran out of tomato sauce in the middle of the week...sooo it's a white pizza this week with homegrown tomatoes, mozzarella and prosciutto.