It is morel season here… And YUM.
The iris are still showing off.
Minnie has been finding good spots on cushions.
May 2023 Iris, phlox, and morel mushrooms
Food
June 2022 more new blooms
The garden is in that late June state when things change every day.
This calendula self seeded from last year, and I am very glad to see it.
The strawberries are very tasty despite being small.
The feverfew is in full bloom. It is such a delicate looking bloom on such a hardy plant.
November 2021 birds and a morning moon
The herbs are still holding up in the midst of the beginnings of brown. I made lentils and beets with fresh mint and was delighted to still have fresh mint to use in it.
The birds were having a lovely time in the trees and bushes and a morning moon was particularly lovely.
The pair of cardinals have been around quite a bit. And they are lovely. Such a great splash of red.
And here is a lovely picture of Cara, just to round things out.
September 2021 herbs, dried tomatoes, and handsome cats
I had a lovely puttering day yesterday picking herbs, doing laundry, and putting tomatoes in the oven. The kitties were enjoying the day too. And I managed to cut the lawn in the back garden; I will take some pictures of that since it looks lovely and green with the recent rain and cooler weather.
The herbs are doing well –I try to pick a batch at the beginning of the year to dry but some of them are better now, thyme for example.
I had thought to have it be a game –how many of these herbs can you identify? Turns out (after seeing these pictures) that the game will have more to do with seeing past these not-very-good images. There are six different herbs here, but I think one might be completely at the bottom of the pile.
Mostly I try for the leathery consistency in the sun dried tomatoes (that I do in the oven), but invariably some of them end up totally stiff and dried –rattling around like dice on the tray. Turns out they are delicious crumbled into/ onto various things. My mother makes a fantastic herb mix that includes very-dried crumbled tomatoes –it is great in olive oil for bread dipping, on scrambled eggs, and sprinkled on popcorn. It has herbs and dried garlic in it too.
Above is Martin Frobisher, looking handsome. And below are a few pictures of Cousin; he was in a posing mood.
September 2021 potatoes, cooler weather, and Vlad
It has been feeling very cool in the night and dewy and cool in the morning. And last evening I dug a few potatoes for my dinner. They are really lovely and yummy.
And the apples picked last weekend are ripening nicely. I’ve been eating some but they aren’t quite where they should be for nice eating.
I had just cleaned all these chair cushions and stacked them up –and here is Vlad doing his Princess-and-the-Pea.
September 2021 more of the canning and a bell pepper
This picture shows the grand results of the canning. My mother brought peaches, peach jam, and peach salsa. The peach salsa is on the very top and the peaches and peach jam are on the left and right. I canned sweet pickle relish (top left) and bread and butter pickles (upper right, next to the peach jam) before my mother arrived.
In the upper left of this picture, these two 1/2 pint jars are tomato salsa and the red onions in honey. The dill spears are sitting on top of a jar of dill chips. And the green beans are on top of the very obvious bottom row jar of corn.
There are canned beans across the bottom row that are a little less obvious. At the far right is a jar of black beans and on the left, red beans and pinto beans. I usually put in jars of dry beans if there is a space in the canner but I also sometimes do whole batches of canned beans as I really like having them ready to eat.
The canned tomatoes are topped off with a jar of tomato sauce –such a lovely red. The apples under the peach salsa have already made an appearance, I have high hopes for that sweet pickle relish.
And my mother also brought canned cherries, which we forgot to get into this picture, but I will put up a picture of those at some point.
And, just to top things off, here is a picture of a bell pepper in my garden.
September 2021 red onions and honey and happy kitties
We tried a recipe we haven’t tried before and I think it will be really yummy.
And here are two happy kittens after I finally stopped disturbing them with my lawn mowing.
September 2021 corn and apples
The canning has been roaring along; I had already canned some corn earlier but we did four dozen more ears of corn. Lovely, lovely yummy corn. The apples are canned very simply –a light syrup of sugar and water and no spices. They are really tasty apples and I think they will be great in oatmeal or made into an apple crisp.
Loads more things happening… more pictures soon….
August 2021 tomatoes and roses
It is the very end of august and the tomatoes are really starting to come on now. I had lovely tomato sandwiches –sliced tomatoes on toast with mayonnaise. And the roses are having another round of blooms. This white bush rose is really blooming and the pink rose in the front has new flowers.
August 2021 Kitties, Amaranth, and Tomatoes
That might be the perfect August trio: kitties lounging on grass in the heat, amaranth getting top heavy with its reddish purple heads, and the lush, unbeatable tomatoes.
Above is Martin Frobisher (here is a post on his naming) and below is Sidney.
The crunchy grass is also a part of August. Below is Tiglet, being busy as he usually is.
He did stop to have a look, and below is just so you don’t miss the Tiglet / Tiger staring out of those eyes. This throwback to a wild look is particularly amusing with him because is the sweetest softest cat.
These cherokee purple tomatoes are an heirloom variety (what a friend in London tells me is called heritage there). They are so beautiful and flavorful and a distinctive flavor. I like the flavor a lot –but the color is what really gets me. The greener ones here are not quite ripe. Yum.
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