And her name is...

Cornelia among the three sisters

 Cornelia! Kudos to my East Coast cousin, Claire, for her sense of humour... and I'll come up with a first prize of sorts. Honourable mention to Suzanne, my simplicity sister, who suggested TIDDA, which means sister in an Australian aboriginal language, and to Eleanor, a friend and faithful reader, who suggested Grandmother Fox, a mythical figure in indigenous stories of Turtle Island.

All three contest entrants will receive an I'm-not-yet-sure-what by mail at some point down the road, when the exact right thing crosses my path. It's out there somewhere!

In the meantime, Cornelia has withstood some pretty heavy rain storms and is doing a fine job of protecting the corn tops, though some of them are a bit worse for sparrow wear. Hopefully we'll have some nice full cobs in about a month's time!

Today's harvest...

The fourth sister...

Yesterday when I went out to water our tomato plants, I realized that the sparrows were eating the tops of the corn plants. Until I figured out what was happening last year, the tops were mostly gone, and I wasn't very happy with the birds. The cobs of corn ended up pretty stunted, too, though they tasted delicious!

So I got creative with some old clothes, a paper bag, and a too small hat and made a fourth sister to stand among the other three sisters that brilliant Indigenous peoples knew all about planting together: corn, beans, and squash. (If you've followed these moodlings you might recall that I've moodled about them before.) I'm curious to see how long it will take for a bird to sit on top of the lady's hat.

Hopefully madame scarecrow will keep this year's planting as the nicest one yet. I did things right this year -- the corn sister got enough of a head start over the squash and bean sisters for all of them to grow well together. Last night we had cheese stuffed fried squash blossoms for supper, yum. And we're looking forward to some good feeds provided by all three sisters, God and weather willing.

One minor problem: I'm not sure what name to give the extra sister in the three sisters' patch. My cousin made me laugh with her scarecrow's name, which echoes a line from Copa Cabana, a Barry Manilow dance tune we liked when we were kids -- "Her name is Lola, she is a scarecrow" ("was a showgirl" is the actual lyric...). 

I'm not that clever... so let's have a Name the Scarecrow Contest. Send me your suggestions, I'll pull one out of a hat, and the winner will receive... I dunno -- a dinner invitation to a harvest supper? A shipment of fresh garden produce in the fall? Some sort of small surprise. Anyway, I'd love to hear from any of my readers who have ideas. You can leave a comment below, or send a quick email to simplemoodler@ gmail.com.