Olio

You may be wondering why I titled this week's column as I did. I could have used a number of synonyms (assortment, conglomerate, hodgepodge, jumble, medley) but then I wouldn't have the built-in rather lame joke about olio not equaling oleo. One is based off the thick Spanish stew made of meats and veggies while the other refers to the various fats and oils used to make fake butter. This week's scribblings are neither a thick stew nor a fat fake. So, on to my hodgepodge:

First, I'd like to report that the injured fawn, after an absence of several days while I feared the worst, has returned to our yard. She still has some dried blood and ruffled, messy fur on her neck (left side, near the joint of her jaw and ear), but otherwise appears to be as healthy as her compatriots. We also had a new buck show up on Saturday. He's still young and rather thin, but is sporting a better set of antlers (two or three point - do you count the tiny points at the very front?) than Stub has managed to grow. He may or may not be interested in the female fawns. All he did was eat grass and lilac branches while near the others.

Better yet, the pair of magpies appear to have decided our yard is great and have moved in. They're drinking from my birdbath now that the snow has melted. They also allowed me to shoot a short video of them. That video, as well as some footage of the new buck, will be available on my Facebook page for my friends' viewing pleasure. Of course, friends are also free to scroll on by.

I ran out of room last week so now I'm going to extol the wonders of ghost pumpkins. They are compact and delicious. I had a single starter pot of those as well as a single starter pot of regular, large, orange pumpkins this summer. While I only netted three large pumpkins, the ghost pumpkin produced a dozen small white fruits. Of those, one was taste-tested by a curious deer who must not have liked it as only the one large bite was taken. Another was tested by what I assume were voles. It was severely gnawed upon. One of my crookneck squash was hollowed out from underneath. It looked great on top, but that was definitely a false front.

My neighbor had told me years ago that squash tended to mold easily, and if you wanted to store them for a longer time, you should give them a weak bleach bath. With the evidence of rodents in the garden in mind, those ghosts got that treatment. While they're not huge in size, their flavor certainly is. I learned from Rachel Ray that the easiest way to open a winter squash (or pumpkin) is to carefully (mind your fingers!) weld a large, heavy-duty knife, and to whack it with a hammer. I do this on the kitchen floor, on top of a kitchen towel, so that all the other items on the counter don't jump about. I zapped my first one in the microwave. The seeds were saved to toast. I had taco meat with the attending accouterments on my pumpkin. Dennis, of course, declined the pumpkin base. He'll eat pumpkin, of course, but only if it's in pie form.

Since I said you might get more plant info. than you knew you wanted (or needed), I'll offer this: succulents, when they don't get enough light, will bolt upright and get extremely leggy. They stretch out so that each leaf can gather more of the limited light available. The only way to cure it, once it's bolted, is to cut it apart and re-propagate it. Each set of leaves will form a new plant. And you should make sure the new babies get plenty of light. There's lots of info on propagating succulents online. They're typically easy to work with.