Food for the Brain

I've been concentrating lately on posts about food, and it occured to me that we sound like we just eat all the time. Not true. We have lots of other interests too, that's just our most photographable fun thing, this time of year.

This week we got a box full of food for the brain! I have a very kind friend who lives in a Chicago area neighborhood, very urban and busy place, who is a voracious reader. She chooses great books and, although she works way too many hours, still finds time to read 3 or 4 books at a time. A far more dedicated exerciser than I am, she has a book rack on her exercise bike and reads while she gets healthy.

A couple of times a year, she boxes up the ones she's done with and mails them to me. What a joy! We're constant readers here too, and the weekly library trip for books and DVD's is a requirement, but having this box full of almost new books arrive just for us to keep is so exciting! I always open it with a feeling like Christmas morning, because I never know what's inside, and where her roving mind is going to take us now.

I should have taken a picture of the box, showing how carefully she packs this box of goodies to send, but was way too excited to stop at that point. So here's a picture of the latest delivery, ready for us to explore over the weeks ahead. I've already read "Water For Elephants", gobbled it up from one evening to the next morning without stopping other than a few hours to sleep. (Hooray for retirement that lets me just drop everything and do that.) That book was great, and now we've found a whole new author to look up and see what other terrific books Sara Gruen has written.

Thanks Janet, for this terrific gift you've given us. We owe you some blueberries in return. We'll try to make a trip in to deliver them.....if they ever get ripe in this crazy weather.

Garden Bounty-AKA-The Lucky Cook!

It's such a joy to fix dinner these days. First I take the colander and sharp knife out to the garden to see what's ready for us to graze on, then take stock of what we need to go with it, and somehow combine it with a minimum of cooking, and POOF! Magic happens!
The pictures show one night's typical bounty, mixed salad greens, fresh herbs, (basil, parsley, lemon balm and thyme), tiny carrots, green onions and pea pods. All I had to do was add some mushrooms, pasta and a bottle of wine, and don't forget the garlic, there's dinner. AND we had wild black raspberries to go over our vanilla ice cream for dessert.
Today I picked pea pods and green beans to put into the freezer for winter and kept some of those wonderful huge tender romano beans to cook up with a bit of onions and potatoes for dinner.
Things coming on for meals really soon are tomatoes, (not quite ready, but fried and green, soon) Florence Fennel bulbs, potatoes almost ready to dig in the raised beds, lots of carrots, kale, collards, squash, cucumbers, and the melons aren't far behind. And sweet corn! We have 6 ears with silks hanging down. Won't be long now. What a wonderful time of year to be a veggie-saurus.

Our Own 'Shrooms!

Oh, Boy! We do love mushrooms-almost any kind of delicious edible mushrooms, and we're so lucky that we've been able to get them to grow right here on our own little three acres!
We brought home some cauliflower mushrooms that we found elsewhere a few years ago and poured the cleaning water and scraps at the foot of this old elm stump. Last summer Jim spotted the cauliflowers growing here in the ivy, but only after it was too old to eat. This summer he's been watching for them to bloom-and yesterday was the day! Anna helped him pull back the ivy so they could harvest about three pounds of mushroom from this patch. After cleaning, there was enough to fill the dehydrator for mushroom soups and sauces this winter, chop some fine for a pasta sauce with fresh herbs and garlic last night, and enough for at least two more meals in the refrigerator. Good thing it lasts for a while. What a delicious treat!

Greenhouse Progress

It's coming along. There are so many questions you have to settle when working on a project like this, that sometimes things just seem to stop, while we talk it over and research and come up with just the right options.

We finally figured out how to ventilate this greenhouse of ours. The problem is that we're going to try to use it in so many different ways. Spring and Fall, we want to use it to extend the growing season outside, start plants for the summer garden, and grow some late fall salads and things we won't be able to grow outside. During the colder months, we want to let the sun stream in, build up the heat in that space, store it in big water containers, and vent it into the house to heat it. During that time, it'll be too hot in the greenhouse for plants, so we'll have to suspend the growing part.

So whatever we do in the way of ventilation has to accomodate both uses for the space. We finally found a terrific 12" square exhaust fan that can be equipped with a temperature sensor switch, so when we're growing plants, we can vent the excess heat outdoors. When we are using it for heat storage, we can simply turn it off to let the heat build up. Then we found a nice solid core wooden door that Jim could shorten and fit in place. Since it's such a short opening, it had to be just the right kind of door.


Then for just pleasant fresh air, I found a tiny double glazed window with a screen at a garage sale that will simply open and close. We hope to put a small table and chairs in the greenhouse to enjoy a relaxing place in the sun, too. We sure do plan to get a lot of use out of this little space. The pictures show, the used bricks stacked up in front of the greenhouse, ready to pave the floor and store the heat from the sun when in place. Jim's putting the final touches on installing the tiny window, and you can see the door in place in the other end. The roof is covered, insulated and even reflective foil in place.



Next to come are the end walls, then the floor has to be dug up to add the river stone and bricks, then the polycarbonate for the clear front. Whew! How long do we have until Fall?

Gaining More Sunlight

We took down a big tree yesterday. Now this isn't something we do a lot, but 40 years ago, there were way too many trees planted too close together and sometimes, you just have to open up a space. There was one tree that was so crowded it was leaning way off to the side to reach for some sunlight, and squashing the trees next to it. It was becoming a jungle out there!

So after discussing it thoroughly, Jim got out the trusty chain saw and down it came-just as he predicted, safely and without damaging anything but two small branches in the arborvitae.

Together we stacked the small branches for burning and then stood back to admire the sunlight streaming through that open space we'd made. We love the trees here, but sometimes they're just too thick. We might even get some grass to grow back there now, it could happen!

WE counted the rings on the cut surface and it looks like it was planted about 40 years ago, shortly before we bought the place and moved in. Notice the two lines of sap running down the trunk? Amazing to see how quickly that accumulated.

Cool Evening Fire

It was cool the other night, and a fire after dinner felt good. It was so pretty, and as we sat with our feet, in warm sox, propped up and we sipped our after dinner wine and nibbled our cheese, we talked about how good our lifes are these days. I thought how it was a shame that we couldn't see this beauty any other day.

Here's my best effort, several pictures of the fire morphed into an active gif. Well...it didn't work. But it is a pretty picture of a fire, isn't it?

Early Morning Garden Goodies

The best thing about going away on a trip is how terrific home looks when you return. It was so hot in Tennessee this weekend, that I realized summer was here in ernest and I need to plan better when and how I do the regular chores.

So early this morning, with just a cup of coffee to brace me for the day, I got out to the garden to pull some weeds in one of the pea patches. We planted the garden this year in small plots, with small bits of things growing in a patch or a raised bed, hopefully to discourage pests, with lots of marigolds spotted everywhere and herbs scattered around.

After weeding the pea row by the north fence this morning, I ripped up an old dish towel and tied a lot of tomatoes to the fence to get them out of the dirt, pulled weeds from around the potatoes, and brought out a bowl to harvest a handful of edible pod peas for tonight's dinner, as well as a handful of tiny carrot thinnings for a salad.

I think tonight we'll have a fresh kale and potato soup, as well as a big salad with bibb lettuce, tiny carrot and pea pods, with a fresh sour cream dressing.

The vegetable spaghetti squash is blooming well, and four of the tomato plants have small tomatoes on them. All the tomatoes are blooming, and it's going to be a bumper year for them. The garlic looks good too. All the lettuces are growing great, and the romaine is curling into vertical heads, the bibb are growing faster than we can keep up with them. The Florence Fennel is broadening into those bulbs that taste so good to roast for a side dish for dinner, but it'll be a while before they're ready. In the meantime, the thinnings from them make a great addition to the salads too.

Something got into the strawberries last night. There aren't a lot of them, and the scarecrow sprinkler usually scares away the rabbits or raccoons. I forgot to turn it on last night, so they took advantage. Everything's coming along well. Following this are pictures of the progress.

Family Reunion-What a wonderful time!

I've always loved family reunions. Something about knowing that all these people were family always gave me a marvelous feeling of connectedness, even when I was at that teen-age time of rebelliosness. I was lucky that there were a bunch of us cousins at about the same age, so that as my interests changed, I could always find someone to talk to.

Through the years, as the venerable elders passed on, we sort of lost that closeness and didn't have our annual reunions for many years. A few years back, we started an email newsletter. There are about 30 addresses on the list and sometime during the week, an average of 7 to 10 of them send in a note. Each Sunday morning, I compile them into one email, including any pictures they want to send along, and send it out to everyone.

We share the big news, births, family crises, unfortunate losses, and the funny thing your grandkid said last week, but we also share the small gossipy things that you tell your next door neighbor. This has brought us back together as a family and our annual reunions are now going strong again. We met last weekend at an amazing house full of love in Tennessee and shared a whole weekend of fun. There were lots of kids again, and they had a ball in two small wading pools out in the driveway, staying wet to beat the heat. Us older ones stayed mostly inside to swap stories and snuggle the babies. What a great time. I feel so lucky to be a part of such a marvelous family. The following pictures are of the oldest, youngest, kids in the pool, all the little girls and all the little boys. It was a great time.

Just Beautiful!

Sometimes it’s best to just let the pictures speak for themselves. Following are: the view outside my office window, and just one of the crazy new kittens, peonies, wild roses and mock orange. This place is just beautiful this time of year!

The quilt at the bottom was a gift for my niece on her high-school graduation. It was my first, and a huge job. I may make another someday-waaaaay off in the future.

Everything's Coming Up Salads!

This is the time of year when we are in a race to keep up with the green and growing things in the garden, so we eat salads daily. Big heaps of green salads, salads with hot wilting bacon dressings, taco salads with beans added, and chicken salads with scraps of leftover chicken.

I always try to space out the plantings, then somehow they all come ripe at the same time! We're not complaining though, it's all delicious and so very good for us.

The garden's going gangbusters this year, with everything planned, the raised beds to make it easier to just scratch up the soil, work in a little new compost and slip those seeds in. We added soaker hoses all through the beds this time, but with the semi-regular rains, we've only needed to turn them on a few times. Anna's strawberries will be ready this week.

Speaking of rain, Anna had a ball with the rain this week. She just had to get out in it with her boots to try to stomp the puddles dry!


The potatoes are coming up beautifully green, just needing a side dressing of compost to help out as soon as I can get out there to do it.
The tomatoes are just great, and beginning to bloom. We planted them along the fence this year, so as they reach up, we'll just tie them to the fence for support and they should do very well. The herbs are planted in between the tomatoes. Hopefully their strong odor will confuse the bugs and keep the tomatoes safe, as well as being handy to harvest together for fall soups and sauces.

A Very Good Two Days!

Boy, life sure does change fast. Here I was, all down in the dumps over too much rain, then the sun came out and everything was better. Two warm days in a row, no rain, so we could get busy outside and get things done, and what a difference. It's been quite an adventure the past few days. First, we've been looking for some aged used bricks to lay as the floor for our greenhouse, and came across them just sitting by the side of the road with a sign on them at a neighbor's place, AND they were just what we wanted, AND at a great price, AND he realized that we don't have a truck and would have to make many trips in our car to pick them up, so offered to bring them on a trailer for us to unload and he'll pick the trailer up later. What a guy! We were so pleased with them, and Jim worked for hours to stack them by the greenhouse ready to lay in place when he gets the floor ready.

Then, our Momma Cat brought her two newest babies out to meet us, and Anna promptly fell in love. Andy even popped them into his pocket, where they snuggled down and got all cozy. Anna spent the whole next day snuggling those kittens, one at a time, until one bit her finger, so she reluctantly let them be with their Mom for a while.

So we were working around the place, when I heard the bees buzzing really loud, and realized that they were in the process of swarming. At least once a year, usually in the spring, the beehive will get crowded, make a new queen, and the old one will take part of the hive and move out to find a new home.

If you're clever, and we weren't, you set up a trap hive, to keep them home and you then have an additional beehive. Because we didn't, we had to watch as they poured out of the hive, rose up into the air in a big cloud, then finally settled nearby in a big clump on a branch. They rested there for about an hour, until their scouts came back with news of a new location to move to, and then the whole bunch rose up and moved off, never to be seen again. It's a fascinating process to watch, and since the bees are very placid at that time, you can stand close and watch the whole thing, without fear of being stung, as long as you're careful.Then the next day they did it again! This time it was a smaller group, but they repeated the whole process. We called our beekeeper friend, but he wasn't able to get here in time to catch them, so those bees were lost to us. We're planning to get another hive and keep close, just in case they ever do it again, we'll be ready.The garden is doing well, and today while Jim mowed the grass, I spent time thinning and transplanting the florence fennel, weeding several beds, and mulching more paths and the edge of the tomato and herb bed. It's looking great, and we ate our first salad of the year of our own greens, radishes and green onions for dinner tonight. Terrific stuff. Life is very good.

Yuck!

It's a dark, dank, dreary, dismal rainy nasty day. While the birds like this fresh water in the birdbath, it's not a good day today for arthritic oldsters, or kids who want to play outside. A hot cup of tea, good book and a warm fire sound like a plan for the rest of the day.