This is, by far, my favorite image taken on the farm this August. This little beauty not only let me photograph them, but sat while I got my good camera, so I didn’t have to settle for phone snapshots. What a gorgeous animal, and at their scale, a formidable predator. I’m so proud that our farm gives animals like this a place to thrive and hunt and, hopefully, make more mantises.
Of course, it wouldn’t be August in western Oregon without blackberries. This was a great year for the plumpest, sweetest and sourest, most delicious invasive species in the West. As we constantly work to control these brambles, which can absolutely spread and choke out other life, we also will never stop enjoying their bounty. If you can’t beat them, eat them.
A bunch of dead plants. How exciting. Real National Geographic stuff there, eh? But to me, this is gorgeous. This is the first-ever buckwheat for the farm, grown and cut and killed for mulch on a bed that will host either garlic or potatoes next. It’s not my favorite cover crop, but it has advantages, such as quickly maturing flowers that feed pollinators in the summer. I’ll keep working on it as a cover crop option, but for a first effort, I’m really happy with the biomass and nectar it added to the system, with very little input of work. Win win.
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