Ummm...NO!

   I am all for trying new foods.  I really don't care what it is, if it is deemed edible, I shall at least give it a fair trial.  That does not mean I will like it but I shall try it..and try it several times.  No problems.  Still, there is a limit.  Some things are just not meant to be thrown together and called food.  Some ingredients just do not go together well and that can throw a person off of the dish.  I know.  I tried.  I did not find a certain recipe palatable.  In fact, I found it rather disgusting.  So...I asked Son to taste what I made.  He had about the same reaction.  This was not for us.

  Darling Daughter is a vegan so I am always on the lookout for tasty recipes that I can cook when she is here.  If something sounds like it has a good chance of being delicious, I will do a test run of the recipe.  Most turn out pretty decent.  Then there was this recipe for vegan "cheese sauce".  The reviews on the website all professed to how delightful this was.  I was stoked!  I needed to try this since I am a huge fan of anything cheesy.  I gathered the ingredients and followed the step by step directions.  Wow!  This really looked good!  The color was nice.  The texture was...ok.  Maybe the reviews were spot on!  Nope.

  My first taste of my non-cheese cheese sauce told me to ditch that recipe and never try again.  Son agreed.  This was not even a close imitation of cheese sauce.  Ummm...NO!  Just no.  The search will continue but I refuse to make this again.  (And, no, I will not share  the recipe nor website.  I am sure the person meant well by sharing their recipe and I am sure it is probably just my taste buds that found it to be not the best.  Just a hint...too much nutritional yeast can ruin a good recipe and this called for a LOT!)

Good old college try!

  It is easy to be misled by those who think they are authorities on just about everything.  A few years back, a tree bloomed in the swamp behind the house.  A new pathway had just been cleared when the blooms were discovered so the tree was left intact.  Somewhere in the back of my mind, I remembered that there was a so-called botanist that was a family member.  Aha!  A botanist should definitely be able to identify a tree by photos of the leaves, bark and bloom.  Throw in the location, the soil conditions and time of blooming and it should be an easy task.  My "botanist" friend eagerly gave me an identity and I accepted it as fact.  Big mistake!  Apparently botanists are not always correct but, for years, I firmly believed the answer given.  The tree sat with the misnomer of "Virginia Sweetspire".  

  Now just through browsing the Internet for the identity of yet another tree, I stumbled across my "fake" sweetspire!  It is not sweetspire at all!  The tree in question now has an accurate name strictly due to the Mississippi State University website.  I suppose I should have known from the get-go that a Mississippi university would know far better about the trees in the state than some out-of-state botanist.  (In all fairness here, perhaps my friend just glanced at the photos and took a wild guess as he did not wish to delve into a tree not native to his area.  Understandable, I guess...maybe.  But I sure wish he would have just said that he did not know instead of giving me false information.)

  The true identity of my tree is Swamp Cyrilla!  I am just about as happy as a honeybee in a daisy garden with that news!  Swamp Cyrilla is an attractive tree sort of on the smallish side but it drapes beautifully over the path.  It has the long, dangling racemes that are creamy white and are obviously highly addictive for bees!  Thousands of honeybees were buzzing the blooms today and according to the MSU website, the honey made from nectar of the Swamp Cyrilla is exceptional.  I guess I need to find that beehive!  Still, it confuses me how a botanist can be oh, so wrong about a tree when they have access to the material needed to make an identity.  I do believe I shall stick with the university's information if I need another tree's name.

Oh, so close!

  Today, I headed to the garden to plant okra.  I had one spot left to dig a single row so that was going to have to do for the moment.  A few steps after entering the garden gate, something bright caught my eye.  Of course, I whipped the camera in action and proceeded to photograph a critter in the middle of the pathway.  Since I had broken my glasses a few days back, I thought I had found a lovely moth!  In fact, the colors were so similar to the Scarlet-bodied Wasp Moth, I figured that the thing was another critter that would not do major damage in the garden.  Wow.  Was I wrong!  Without those spectacles, I making a huge mistake.

  The critter that I so patiently photographed was the bane of most gardeners (at least those who refuse to douse their plants with harmful chemicals!).  The "pretty" critter was a moth alright but not the one I thought.  I had just spent ten minutes photographing a Squash Vine Borer Moth!!!!  Yep!  This was one of those critters that insists on laying its eggs inside the stalk of squash plants.  There, the egg hatches and the larva munches on the inside of the stalk while being hidden away from all predators.  Ugh!.  And to think...I just lifted the critter up and put it on the jasmine vine!

Scarlet-bodied Wasp Moth

Squash Vine Borer Moth

  After the photo session, I realized my mistake.  Looking at the photos, I could clearly see the critter was not one that I wanted in the garden.  Out I raced to hunt down that Squash Vine Borer Moth!  I searched and searched the jasmine vine to no avail.  I was just about to resign to the fact that there would be no healthy squash plants after today when I spied that critter on a rose bush!  

  I am happy to say that at least one Squash Vine Borer Moth will not be laying eggs in the garden.  Goodbye, Garden Pest!  Your mimicking trick did not work this time!  Those fuzzy legs gave away your true identity!  (Just so you will know, folks, under those top wings, the Squash Vine Borer Moth has the clear "window-pane" wings like the other moth.  Blue thorax and fuzzy back legs...dead giveaway!....Oh, and make sure to have glasses handy if you wear them!)