Olio

*** edited to include photos ***

Of note:

1. Two new denim potholders in the works. I just need to bind them.

2. New prayer shawl slowly getting done. It will contain the leftovers of all the Lion Homespun yarn that I own.

3. 'N' of GAIN found morel mushrooms in our yard! we've never seen them in our yard. ever. ten years. never seen before. Story: he's mowing the backyard. he makes one pass along the fence, shuts the mower off, and runs through the house looking for me, (I'm in the front yard.) yelling for me to come quick. everyone is in alarm but me (I can't hear him since i'm in the front yard), thinking that something is wrong. 'g' of gain thinks maybe he injured his foot. 'a' of gain thinks he ran over a branch that we missed during yard clean-up and broke the mower. mr. gain has no idea what is going on, but it must be bad -- you don't want to hear your child to say anything like 'come quick' when he's running the mower. by the time N gets to me, he says, 'I found morel mushrooms! Come look!' Three big ones, in our backyard. They were too old to eat, but oh so cool to find.

4. We have a yellow bee-eating bird in our yard. Flycatcher is my guess, but I see no wing bars or eye ring. it's odd. In this photo, it's sitting on the wooden fence.

5. The bees are doing well. a little burr comb, but very manageable. no scale, no mites (as thought earlier).

6. plantings are doing well. I moved lilacs from the homeplace to the front and back yards, thinned lamb's ear (stachys 'big ears') and moved to the mailbox (a school bus hit the neighbor's mailbox last year), and thinned the daylilies and moved to pots. so far, all the bulbs I bought from the Botanical Center last fall have come up, except the fall blooming crocuses. irises from friends and family are just beginning to bloom. *** update: the lilacs in the front yard are being eaten by a rabbit. I wasn't sure that I wanted in the front anyway. ***

7. My baby turns 15 this week! Here she is with her bees. She also ate the first strawberry of the season this afternoon. We will be flush with berries. Currently they are difficult to harvest, so we're looking for a tiller so we can move them to be more practically placed in the yard.


I have no idea what the deal is with the keyboard and mouse tonight, so if there are letters missing or improperly cased or in the middle of a random word, I blame the hardware. I'm just too fast for everything to keep up with me.

Honey and Mud

"A" of GAIN put her first honey harvest in jars this evening. It tastes great and she is very proud. Beekeeping has been a mostly positive experience, and we've gotten signs that others will start beekeeping now that she has knowledge and can serve as a mentoring resource.

"G" of GAIN has been asking for wattle for a month. Since we are currently studying the explorers (Columbus Day, you know), wattle and daub have not been topics of conversation. He must be remembering his free readings that started during his preschool days.

We've checked our willow sources and the trees just are not ready to give to him yet. When I cut down all the suckers from our apple tree a couple days ago, he used them to start a wattle and daub wall for his tree house. Today, he and "I" made the daub. It looks really good. Their clothes, not too bad.

Home grown

Yumminess in a bowl, just picked, and sitting on my lap. Our kids are home grown. So is some of our food. My salads are. Karen had a very thought provoking post in her blog about cooking a meal from local food weekly. Check it out.

Our dessert was home grown strawberry shortcake. All 6 cups of sliced strawberries came from A's garden. That was the only local ingredient, so we made a feeble attempt at "one local meal." I'll think more about the idea before planning future meals.

"A" has had these plants for perhaps seven years, and this is the first time they have produced a measurable quantity. We still have berries left over, and I even gave a pint to my sister when I visited her this morning.

Why are there plenty of strawberries this year? "A" thought there could be two reasons. First, most of the black eyed susans are gone. We gave a bunch of them away over the last two years. They could have been competing with the berry plants. Second, I sprinkled worm castings over everything early this spring. We had a lot of castings from the worms that I got in August 2007 from Arpeggio Farms in Mingo. You can see me crafting the worm bin -- aeration holes. The weather is also probably a factor, and so are the bees.

Ah, the bees. "A" crafted a beehive and got some honeybees on scholarship this year. We are pretty happy with them. Except when they drink the antifreeze that splashed on the neighbor's deck from his overwintered swimming pool pipes. They are fun to watch.

I also wanted to applaud the volunteers in my garden this year -- I spotted two leaf lettuces, two potato plants and one tomato plant. Thank you very much. I'll be busy Saturday with Home Learning Resources. If you can stop and say hello, please do. We can talk about gardening, crafting, or home learning!