Hello world!

I explored the Pittsburgh Botanic Garden for the first time this weekend: it was lovely! The space felt like a calming nature preserve. There were a number of beautiful flowers, vegetables and lots of butterflies! If you get the opportunity, swing by. The photo above was taken in a place called Bookworm Glen. At the gift shop, I picked up materials for a new hobby form of photography: cyanotype. I’m really looking forward to collecting acorns, leaves, flower petals and the like for cyanotypes.

🔖 My Favorite Stuff from the Internet This Week

🌱 Gardening

It’s been a bit of an emotional week in the garden. The final sunflower bloomed.

What an Autumn Beauty!

More than half of the sunflowers have been chopped down for harvesting by this point. I focus more on preserving flower heads and collecting seeds than I do on watering and tending to living sunflowers. It’s profoundly sad that I’m on the back half of this year’s sunflower cycle. This year’s flowering phase yielded stunning and stately blooms that I am incredibly proud to have grown from tiny seed to mature flowers on stalks that reach far above my head.

I racked up two ruby-throated hummingbird sightings and a visit from a monarch butterfly this week. Butterflies seem to love Tithonias and I’m very happy with how well the Tithonias are doing. (They bloomed later than the sunflowers and I anticipate they’ll continue blooming for a few more weeks.)

I’m planning to grow milkweed in containers to provide for future generations of butterflies. I didn’t realize how heavily the monarch butterfly relies on milkweed: it’s the only plant they eat. Coastal Georgia Botanical Gardens has a great article about this at The Connection Between Milkweed and Monarch Butterflies. I’ll be focusing on sourcing native milkweed from a local nursery with resources like Plants for Monarchs. I plant put them in containers and overwinter them in the garage.

🐦‍⬛ Birding

I had two new species of birds at my feeders this week! I discovered a large Mourning Dove atop the window feeder and I saw a super cute Black-capped Chickadee at the smart feeder! All the standard favorites were also on display. The American Goldfinches have been helpful for identifying sunflowers with seeds that are ready for harvesting.

🎤 Stand-Up Comedy

I saw James Austin Johnson at Bottlerocket Social Hall on Saturday and he was ✨ awesome ✨. I haven’t been to a ton of comedy shows but very well might have been my absolute favorite. The openers (including Pittsburgh local Joe Kwaczala were really good. I wasn’t just counting down the time until JAJ took the stage.

📘 Reading

I have an absolute doorstop on my ‘currently reading’ list thanks to the latest book club selection:

Les Misérables by Victor Hugo, translation by Christine Donougher

I’m only a few chapters in but it’s absolutely lovely so far!

🎮 Gaming

I found the purrfect mobile game for me: Meow Tower: Nonogram (Offline) - Apps on Google Play

This game combines my interest in puzzles like nonograms with my love of cats. I’ve rather enjoyed it all week; that’s much longer than most mobile games I bother to try.

Thanks!

— Brie

033: Hand-harvest