Plants and Dogs

 

 

Charlotte having a good roll in the grass behind the lespedeza

the thistles opened up even quite a bit more than yesterday.  There is a bug visiting the one already...

 cinnamon basil

 Komatsuna mustard

 tulip lilies open in the daytime

 and closed at night and in the early morning

Esme did a virtual 4H camp over Zoom the past week, and I knitted on this blanket some more putting another 8 inches on it.  It is 36" wide.  I also found out that I knit in a mostly 'Portuguese style'.. but before I watched the videos I would have said 'continental' or left handed continental if you'd asked me.  Now though, I'm pretty convinced after comparing more videos.  I had heard of Portuguese knitting but only with beads... never watched an actual knitting with yarn example before.

tangible

It was a bit colder than I liked out there this morning, but the dewdrops were shining very pretty from the rain last night.  The lemon balm (Above) was such a bright bright green I am glad the camera could catch some of it.

The rose bush is putting out its new leaves, transforming red to green.  I caught a nice close-up of it, too, doing its thing.

and one of our resident herd dogs (Sweetie) behind the fence watching the goat trying her very best to eat a Cherokee rose bush, which is behind another fence! (for just that reason).  She is tied up on a long dog lead string that stretches up and down our driveway, allowing her to eat any greens along that pathway.  And I come out with the camera she gets my attention and says 'I can still eat this.  See?'

In the obscure thought category.. I had this memory come back to me today as I walked up to the mailbox to pop an order for seeds into the mailbox.

I remember when I was a child (probably 9 or 10) kneeling down on the board over the creek at Arbo Road, the one that flowed into the Prairie River, and holding a big flat slate rock in the current.  I remember how cold the water was, as cold as the air this morning, and how strong the flow was, pulling against my grip on the rock like a lever.  I remember thinking how very cold it was, and how much of the water had passed by, and how much was still coming downstream.

It was probably thinking of all of those idioms from the farm yesterday - reliving those moments, feeling the place and the grass, the trees and the road in my mind's eye again... It is something I wish I could take pastels or paints to paper and make visible for everyone - but so much of my good memories are tangible, inexplicable almost memories.  It is a feeling of bounded and boundless space meeting and intersecting, the taste of the air and how it changes between sun and shadow, dry grass and moss, the tangy scent of creeping charlie as it is pulled from creeping up the walls, green painted tarpaper rough under fingers, sundried sheets slightly stiff on the line, big yellow basswood leaves flapping in the wind, yet soft and slick at the same time under your fingers, dried leaves brittle and separating into a thousand fragments in your hand...  It is the change in temperature, the feel of old enamel painted metal and rusted red iron  and big flat stones leading to the house and distance looking down the gravel road. 

This is the Cherokee Rose, (Rosa laevigata) that the goat is trying to eat up above.  It will bloom soon in a fragrant profusion of small white flowers with yellow centers.  Here is the Wikipedia link. It says it is actually an invasive species to North America, but brought so long ago, in the 1700s, that it has naturalized across the Southeastern United States.  My husband's family definitely thinks of them as naturalized.  They are popping up in several places in the woods here, and we have let this one continue to grow where it came up and enjoy it every year.  The bees love them, they gather around the flowers as well when they arrive.

Took a mile walk this morning, still in the COVID-19 quarantine.  Our schedules are all off -- I am up at 3 am making soup, Mark is just getting to bed, and Esme won't wake up until 10:30 in the morning.  This is not like us.. but we have about two weeks more until school starts back up.. unless they cancel it for the rest of the year.

I ;am still deemed an 'essential' worker in both of my jobs - postal worker and medical technology service - but the actual hours are few and far between.  I do not see many people.  So, there's that.  I went out to two medical tech jobs the other day and wore gloves for both.  I'm doing what I can for those patients - even though I can't stay entirely at home.

I love the stages of the hickory trees, and the redbuds, and the dogwoods.  The sarvis (serviceberry) trees have finished now with their flowers, falling away to green leaves only.  The dogwoods that are blooming now are a green color and large flowered.  The more delicate white flowered ones will be popping in the woods soon I'm sure.  It seems like it was just a few months ago I was photographing them -- but I know it has been nearly a year.

Time has been so odd this year, even before the coronavirus, with changing jobs and getting through the anxiety of that - then Dad died in October - and I had a lot more anxiety and PTSD type epiphanies.  But  that is a human response, and I am feeling like I've swum to the other side of the shore.

I made soup, following my nose.
I'm a champion at thinking up weird combinations in my sleep... woke up and decided to make onion soup at about 3 am.  Then, as I grabbed for ingredients, things fell together to this.  The actual soup looks awful - kind of like the shiitake mushroom tapenade someone once tried to make with me - and it was so awful the cats and dogs wouldn't touch it..  But, this was amazingly good.

Lentil Seaweed Soup with Onion

About 2 to three cups of water
About 2 tbsp olive oil
celery salt, black pepper, garlic powder, ginger powder
1 medium onion, diced small
about 1/2 cup of brown lentils (washed)
1 sheet of Kombui seaweed
2 cubes of chicken boullion
1 packet of miso tofu (red style) soup
Some leftover packets of tofu cubes and green onion flakes from another bag of miso where they come separate from the paste

It started with waking up thinking about onion soup.  I have eaten a couple of cans of French Onion soup the past week and found them very satisfying.  But - looking at the recipes for how to make it from scratch did nothing for me.  It wasn't right for me.  So, this morning I was thinking I would just start with olive oil and onions and see where it took me.

I put in the spices, and then I knew I wanted the brown lentils.  Then the thought filtered in about the bouillon.  After all of that was together and bubbling nicely, the miso soup that came in the mail the other day entered into the edge of my mind and I added that in.  It was when I put the tofu soup packet in that I smelled the little bits of seaweed that are in it, and it made me think - I bought sheets of kombu last year for soba soup making.. which I've only made a couple of times since.  They were still in the cupboard, waiting.  They add a lot of salt, along with the bouillon, so NO need to add any extra.

After I had let that entire combination boil then simmer for an hour or so, I took the stick blender and gave it a few careful pulses.  You could pour the whole thing in a blender and do the same thing.  I am always careful about hot soup - volcanic bursts onto skin if you do it wrong etc.  But a few pulses was all it took to wake up Esme, too - she had slept through our entire conversation about 'soup at 3 am' but the stick blender woke her up.  She came out and looked at it, made some comments about games she had been playing, and went back to bed.

To serve the soup I put in an extra fresh grind of black pepper and a full teaspoon of hot madras curry powder right into my bowl.  It was one of the best things I've eaten in a while - but yes - it LOOKED gross.  Nova dog highly approved when I woke up at 8 am and had more for breakfast.

This camera has better eyes than I do - it almost gets down to the grain of the wood and the 'feather and fur' of each little leaf.

There was an ant crawling in the redbuds, and bees buzzing everywhere.  I couldn't get any of the insects in focus, but I wanted to remember that they were there.  The sun was coming up over the trees behind me and it made the redbud glow.

My right ankle gave out on me, as well, this morning.  It sent me crumping to the ground just like that time I was pregnant with Esme.  I remember that one often because I was so scared for her.  I fall down in this way quite a bit - just the other week in the garden, as well, but that was the time I had to worry for more than myself.  I was also thankful this morning I wasn't carrying the camera yet.  But, because I was now bleeding from my hand and knee - I was even more determined to capture some images of the things that were unique about this morning, the things that turned a walk to the mailbox into an expedition.

The red brown brush beside the road always piques my attention.  I wonder if there are many other people who find it as beautiful as I do.  This, and the red gold grasses bring me back to a time in the field at Arbo Road - standing in the middle of the sky, one tree to my back and a full circle clearing farther than I could run in one breath to all sides.  I was alone with the sky and the tree there.  I spent a lot of time there, far beyond the garden, but not too far Mom couldn't hear me when she yelled.  I sat at the base of that tree and thought about my ancestors, about my future, about the woods around me.  I was a deep little nine year old.. but there was something about that place - something it imbued me with - that comes back to me when I am out in the grasses.  It is one of the reasons I like to drive up by Martin, TN, too - the wide open sky, like an eyeball looking down on me from above, and the grasses, and the trees like eyelashes at the edges, waiting to blink.

Red brown feathers, delicate structures.  They seem to shine almost pink and looking through them is like looking many strings and webworks repeating over and over to infinity.  When it rains, they collect shining drops of water in their branches and intersections.  When it frosts, they collect tiny crystals of ice.

I think I spend more time looking at the tiny bits of plants around me than most people - it is something I find joy in, the changes, the differences, the transformations.

Mark found this out in the driveway yesterday, he says a woodpecker has been hard at work on it.  It was almost hollow inside - insect work that the woodpecker then went after the insects?

I'm sewing up the ends of dischloths, knitting on yet another lap blanket, bright green this time. Our black tortoiseshell Minion is truly enjoying where the pink one ended up I made over the last few months.

Besides that , more soup, maybe a bit more work in the garden.  It is supposed to rain today so I don't think it is right to put the seedlings out to day.. but it is so warm it is almost there.

We also finally downloaded the game GardenPaws, and it is very sweet.  Esme and I have been exploring that new world and discovering all of the creative things to do in it.

Garden day

 The bleeding heart root has taken very well

 Mikey's canataloupe grown from seed is doing well

 Chickens in the playpen 6 foot by 6 foot we made from PVC and wire

 Little Dark Galaxy tomato seedlings have made it through the adjustment period.

 This is Gwen's cabbage, planted here by Mikey.  It is getting big enough to eat birds!

 The lambs ear has tiny purple flowers.  We didn't even know it had flowers!  We were all a little urprised.

 

Esme proud of her lambs ear plant, standing in front of the shade garden

 Liatris coming up

 Asparagus

 Onions

 Out in the heat talking about weeds and chickens

 Purlsane and petunias

 Miss Irene in her sun hat

 The double tiger lilies are starting to bud to make blooms

 A tomato budding out

 

The tomatoes and peppers and two new places I planted pole beans

Esme and Grandma looking at the things in the raised bed

ma belle fille de minuit

 ma belle fille de minuit

"my beautiful midnight girl"

Our cat Minion laying claim to my lawn chair because it matches her eyes 

and she uses it more than I do.

 And I caught a big lazy bee wandering around my nasturtiums.. well he was flying low and slow, but he was definitely into every flower he could find, so maybe 'lazy' isn't the right word.. he was taking his time but he was on the ball.. heh

I so love the nasturtiums this year.. they haven't grown well in the past, but this year they are making up for it.

I got a cucumber, a tomato, a small green pepper and some beans today - blended them all up with some mayo into a salad to eat with tortillas and cheese today at lunch.

Flowers and egg noodles

Nasturtiums, zinnias and a marigold in the garden

 

Making egg noodles

The flower garden I started a few months ago is starting to produce some very pretty blooms worthy of cutting and bringing in to a vase.  The other flowers - dianthus, and verbena, are not cutting flowers but they are pretty, too.  I've reached level 11 in the French program I'm working  in (Duolingo), and a twelve day streak, which is really good.  Mark pointed out some Italian sausage (the kind with the fennel) in the store today, and I bought some and an orange pepper to make a meal for Esme.  I ended up making egg noodles again for the first time since I was Esme's age or younger.. it was pretty much a success.  I'd like to try again tomorrow or at least during my vacation and try to make them much thinner.  They would be even better cut thin.

Garden walk and bean journal

  

I'll  post the  pictures of the entire garden - and after that it is mostly just pictures of bean cultivars that we are growing - for me, for later.  As you can see our tomato plants (Grown from seed) are really taking off.  There are some tiny tomatoes growing already - but we're not sure if they are 'good fruit' yet.. we have yet to see. There is one in the middle that is a yellow Banana Legs tomato, and the rest are either Principe Borghese or Black Krim.

 

Over to the right of those square pavers are a few more yellow tomato seedlings that may or may not make it.  I need to find somewhere to put the eggplant seedlings as they are just about ready - but I probably need to dust those as in recent years they get eaten up so quickly.

Corn and sunflowers from the back of the garden. 

Black Eyed Peas (just one set of many) growing out by the ends of the corn rows.

A little 'sweat bee' pollinator having great fun on the corn tassels on the Mandan Bride corn.

I'm uncertain, but the purple tassels and the fact they are tasseling so early (just this back row) might mean there wasn't enough nutrients in the soil for them there... this is the row of Indian Corn I had planted, and all of the rest are Peaches and Creme sweet corn.

The feral carrot from last year I left among the perennials to capture what a 'common carrot' looked like in bloom.  As they are biennials this is not something that is normally seen - but they are just like the Queen Anne's Lace flowers taht grow all over the woods - only, culinary type (ie: not poison)

I think Jackson Wonder bush lima beans are very pretty when they begin to grow.

The Hyacinth bean (ornamental) is also quite pretty - it is growing up in a place near the sweet peas.

 Shackamaxon beans climbing up very high - and Rattlesnake beans to the right of them.

These are the strange white climber I got out of the tree last year and couldn't identify.  They are climbing up the front side of the fence and seem well ready to grab on and go up.  The pods were streaked yellowish with purple stripes.

Ireland creek Annie bush beans by the cucumbers

Bosnian beans by the peas

I planted black calypso beans in front of the Cherokee wax beans... and one Polestar ornamental runner bean by the hyacinth beans.