CSA Week 8

I cleared out most of the remains of past shares before I picked up the week 8 haul. Only cucumbers, leeks, onions and garlic were left!

There was another onion in the week 8 share - and a bunch of scallions. It was a second week for tomatoes and continuation of summer squash/cucumbers. Items new this week were thyme, bell pepper and potatoes (purple!). I got three small kohlrabies from the overage table.

And there was a sunflower too! I cut off the stem a bit to fit it into an old wine decanter.

A special treat this morning for breakfast….purple hash browns seasoned with rosemary and scrambled eggs! Yum!

Invasive Plants in my Yard

I’ve been working in my yard between 7 and 8 AM all this week and finally got around to looking more closely at the area at the edge of the yard that blends into the forest. Yikes! The edge has been overrun with invasive plants!

I noticed the wavy leaf basket grass first. It was covering the area. I started pulling out handfuls and noticed other plants underneath --- maybe some of them are natives; I’ll have to go back with a book next time I work in that area. Then I noticed the mile-a-minute; not profuse (yet) but it does live up to its name. I pulled it out too.

Then I saw a pretty little blue flower that I didn’t recognize. I left it and went back later to take a picture so that I could identify it. Aargh! It’s Commelina communis (common names Asiatic Dayflower, mouse ears, dew herb) and it’s an invasive from Asia. That’s one more plant to pull in the area.

Hydrangea

I cut some hydrangea flowers from the bush in my chaos garden yesterday and brought them up to my office in a milk glass vase. I like the hydrangeas on my desktop - the physical rather than the digital one!

I remember taking home-grown hydrangeas to work almost 30 years ago in the same vase. I’d inherited the vase when we bought the house and it was large enough to hold even the largest flowers. The plant was one that produced blue flowers and grew in the shade of American beech and oak trees that towered over the house. It was one of the few times I took flowers into work; they were spectacular visually…and they lasted longer than most flowers.

The pink hydrangea bush that I cut these flowers from was purchased within a year of our moving to our current house almost 20 years ago. They grew well until a year ago when a late spring freeze destroyed almost all the leaf buds….and then the deer decided the plants were well worth eating. This year they seem to be recovering.

My mother likes to bring cut flowers and plants inside to enjoy. She has something just about anywhere that the eye passes frequently. It’s a good idea. During the summer I have enough flowering plants that all I need to do is walk around the yard with some scissors!

Iris Seed Pods

The irises that bloomed profusely near our front door (May 16 post) were fading by the first of June although some of the petals still remained. I snapped most of the spent flowers from the stalks to help the plant send all its energy to increasing the rhizome mass rather than the seed pod….but left a couple for observation.

By mid-June, all the color had faded from the petals even though the dried, twisted petals still topped the green pod forming underneath.

Now - a month later - the pod is beginning to brown. I’ll continue to take pictures as it ripens. The plan it to start a new bed of irises with the seeds and some rhizomes I’ll move from a bed that is becoming overwhelmed with new bushes and mint. I’m going to mark where I plant the seeds so I can observe their progress over the next few years.

CSA Week 7

I have a lot of veggies to eat over the next week - most of the week 5 and 6 share left when I picked up week 7 share. There are going to be two full meals each day that are heavy on veggies (salad or stir fry are my favorite generic recipes to use lots of veggies fast)!

The veggies in the week 7 share include lettuce, leeks, zucchini, cucumbers and onions. There was a choice between carrots, beets, okra, eggplant, or cherry tomatoes; I chose the tomatoes even though I know in a few weeks I’ll probably be overwhelmed by tomatoes and be looking for ways to preserve them to use after the season.

I was also allowed a pick from the overage table and I couldn’t resist picking up a small purple cabbage; I like the additional color it adds to salads.

Returning Home

After being away from about two weeks - it feels very good to be home again.

The trek home began at Love Field (the old Dallas airport that has been renovated and has always been one of Southwest Airline’s hubs). The mural beside the waiting area of the security checkpoint is made of ceramic tile; I barely had time to look at it since I didn’t have to stand in line. Next time I’ll linger and get a good picture.

The airport was more crowded than usual and my flight was delayed by about 30 minutes. Not bad considering the forecast for the afternoon in Baltimore (my destination) was scattered thunderstorms. I used the time to walk around the terminal since travel days always seem to be skewed toward too much sitting. I always pause to look up in the center of the terminal at the ‘cloud’ of flying things (birds, planes, balloons, bees!).

I was delayed a little when I arrived in Baltimore. It always seems to take a long time for the checked luggage to arrive at the carousels. Then there was a huge crowd at the pickup lanes just outside. While my husband fixed dinner - I did the first load of laundry.

I went to bed at ‘east coast bedtime’ rather than ‘central’ and was surprised how easily I slept. I got up a little later the next morning - determined to go through 2 CSA shares that my husband had picked up but not eaten while I was away. I made good use of my food processor to make fruit beety, shred carrots and kohlrabi, and make squash hummus before noon along with a trip to the grocery store and another load of laundry.

By the time I picked up the CSA share - less than 24 hours after returning home - I was beginning to feel like I was almost back to ‘normal’ for being at home!

CSA Week 6

I am going to have a lot of veggies to process or eat when I get home next week. My husband picked up the week 5 share last week and the majority is still in one crisper of the refrigerator. It’s a good thing my refrigerator has two large crispers since the second one is now filled with the week 6 share from the Gorman Farms CSA share.

This week we got beets (I’ll make fruit beety as soon as I get home), leeks, onions, carrots, yellow squash, cucumbers, green beans (he put them in a mesh bag, and purple basil. He realized that I had green basil growing in a pot on our deck so when he had to choose between green and purple --- he picked the purple.

There was a cut sunflower as part of the share this week too!

I can hardly wait to pick up next week’s share since the ‘overage table’ has been started since I have been away - and is a new feature of the CSA this year.

CSA Week 5

The remnants of the week 4 Gorman Farms CSA share traveled from Maryland to Texas in an ice chest (a two day road trip). The only portions left are a few carrots and a cucumber!

It has been hot and wet in Maryland recently so the veggies are abundant…and the CSA share is full of variety:

• Leafy greens like lettuce, kale, collard greens, kohlrabi greens, carrots tops, cabbage
• Roots like carrots, kohlrabi, onions and garlic
• Cool cucumbers.

The only downside is that I am in Texas and my husband picked up our share this week. How much will still be good by the time I get home.

Zentangle® - June 2015

June is my fifth month of ‘a Zentangle a day! Early in month I decided to put the tiles from previous months under the plastic on breakfast table (like I do with Christmas cards every year in December). The arrangement will have to become more ordered when I put the June tiles in the same location. I am already thinking of other locations I could display them this same way.

I started using markers and pencils to add color to some of my tiles. Most of the time the old style - black in on neutral card stock - appeals to me the most.

I do still have some teal card stock left and I may buy some more of it…or maybe an assortment of bright colored card stock. I realized that I should put the boxes of old business cards that I accumulated over the years to Zentangle use too; they will always be the smallest tiles.

I made two in a row that I really like - the one on the upper left and then the next one to the right. I was thinking ‘beads’ when I made the first one and decided the second one was ‘medusa’ as I added the tentacles near the end.

My favorite from the collection below is the on the lower left. I used markers that had miraculously not dried out that my daughter left behind (they are probably over 10 years old!).

I get ideas for patterns in all sorts of places. They pop up everywhere: hotel bedspreads and carpets, antique furniture, and pottery! Sometimes I start with a pattern from TanglePatterns but most of the time I do deviate in some way….or surround it with something completely different.

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The Zentangle® Method is an easy-to-learn, relaxing, and fun way to create beautiful images by drawing structured patterns. It was created by Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas. "Zentangle" is a registered trademark of Zentangle, Inc. Learn more at zentangle.com.

CSA Week 4

I still had some of the week 3 share from the Gorman Farm CSA on Wednesday when I went to pick up the week 4 share. I managed finish everything except some frozen fruit beety by noon Thursday. Week 4 included beets, kohlrabi, Napa cabbage, zucchini, cucumbers, radicchio and carrots. I decided that when there is a choice of veggies - I’ll always choose the ones I haven’t had yet this season. This week the choices was to pick two from four: chard, kale, Napa cabbage and radicchio…and I made the new rule on the spot to pick the cabbage and radicchio.

I am going to make zucchini hummus with the first of this squash of the season. The beets (without their leaves), kohlrabi and carrots will keep longer so I’ll eat the other veggies first. The two crispers in my refrigerator were very full on Wednesday afternoon but they are already less cramped with two days of meals heavy on veggies.

Wheatland Gallery

There is an exhibit gallery next door to Wheatland - in the same building as LancasterHistory.org . The furniture displayed was similar to some seen at Winterthur - and in Wheatland itself - but it was easier to photograph because of the lighting in the gallery.

The entry contains a very large white a blue basin with herons (1). There were displays of sturdy pottery (2), desks with small draws and slots(3), a collection of chairs (lots of sizes) with designs painted on their backs (4 and 5), and small carved decorations on cabinets(6).  I like the little chairs the best. There was a loveseat for small children…or maybe dolls as well.

I like the painted decorations - particularly on objects that were used all the time - not just for special occasions. Or course - the ones in this gallery must have been valued enough by someone to keep them for many years.

Ten Days of Little Celebrations - June 2015

Noticing something worth celebration each day is an easy thing for me to do. The habit of writing it down reminds me to be grateful for these and a myriad of other things in my life. Here are my top 10 for the earlier days of June 2015 (actually there are a few more than 10 listed below…it has been a month full of celebrations!).

I’ve been doing some traveling the past few weeks: two one-night-away trips and half-day jaunts.

Winterthur (Delaware) was overwhelming in many ways. I did the Introductory tour and Antiques and Architecture tour --- which is almost too much for one day! But the walk back to the visitor’s center through the woodland garden is soothing. It is a place to celebrate. I am prompted to read the biography Henry Francis DuPont that I’ve had in my ‘to read’ pile for the past few months - and celebrate Winterthur again as I savor the book.

Wheatland (Lancaster PA) was a place I had touring more than 20 years ago but I enjoyed much more than I expected to this time - both the house and grounds. By the time we headed home I was celebrating the place. Maybe it was because I was early enough to get a private tour. The guide was excellent. The highpoint may have been seeing how hooped skirts compressed to go upstairs!

Centennial Park was one of the ways I celebrated being home again. The walk around the lake on a summer morning is good exercise and another opportunity to photograph milkweed.

Maymont (Richmond VA) my favorite ‘golden age mansion’ …. better than anything in Newport RI because the house and furnishings were left intact when donated to the city of Richmond. The tour guide was knowledgeable and photography was allowed. It appealed to me that the house was lived in except for the hottest months of the year rather than being used for 6-8 weeks only like many of the mansions in Newport. I’ll do a complete post about Maymont in a week or so. Maymont is a celebration of tangible history!

Monticello (Charlottesville VA) is a place I’ve been every few years since we moved to the east coast in 1983. There are always a lot of people and the foundation has evolved to handle the crowds. We made reservations for the ‘Behind the Scenes’ and it was well worth it; the renovation and furnishing of the upstairs rooms were just finished in May! During the tour, I celebrated that some of the spaces had been furnished to allow for sitting (after more than an hour of walking around the house!) but now I celebrate that every time I got to Monticello I notice something I did not  before - sometimes on my own and sometimes prompted by a tour guide. I plan to post about the Monticello experience in a week or so.

Brookside is always worth a walk around. It is a good celebration close to home. Pictures are coming soon in another post.

Thrift stores celebrations are always about the serendipity of finding something great at a low price. In June I went twice. The first time I only found blouses….the second time skirts. And several ‘match’!

Gorman Farms CSA started their season this month. It is a weekly celebration of fresh produce….as long as I don’t feel overwhelmed by the bounty. So far - I am just barely keeping up (although there is some fruit beety in the freezer).

A mouth guard may not be something to celebrate but my new one is more flexible than my old one…it’s sparklingly free of deposits. Overall - I celebrate that a mouth guard enables me to sleep better!

A new hot water heater was installed in our house this month. The old one had started to leak after 24 years. I celebrated that we discovered it almost immediately, that it didn’t leak fast enough to get anything in the basement wet, and that we were never without hot water!

Master Naturalist activity was very high at the beginning of the month: the annual conference and the last few elementary school field trips. Both were celebratory crescendos to the spring season activities. I am taking a ‘vacation’ until mid-July when I’m signed up to help with summer camps.

CSA Week 3

I had no trouble using up everything from the week 2 share from the CSA with a house guest here for most of the week. The last to be eaten was the lettuce - we ate big salads with it just before we went to pick up the week 3 share from the Gorman Farm CSA.

It was another good one: (starting at the left in the picture) beets, broccoli, scallions, dandelion greens, garlic scapes, and arugula.  

When I got the produce home - I cooked the beets (setting the leaves and stems aside) immediately in water laced with raspberry vinegar. While they were cooking I rinsed everything (including the beet greens) and stored everything in 2 plastic bins that fit neatly into the crispers; that will shorten the prep for meals. I started the prep for making fruit beety (getting out the food processor, cutting up oranges). By that time the beets were done and I quickly peeled them and cut them into chunks before processing them with all the other ingredients to make fruit beety. After packing individual servings of the confection - I rewarded myself with fruit beety with coconut on top.

Deck Garden - June 2015

Mid - June - and the garden is mostly green. The only plant that is blooming so far is one of the purple pea vines. It is climbing on the peacock pot sticker that the gold finches like to perch on.

There are buds on some of the other plants. By July there should be more color.

I am enjoying the greens at the moment.

Some purple basil came up in the pot that I planted some seeds from a packet that was over 5 years old. More of the seeds were viable than I anticipated! I’ve been pulling seedlings to use in salads so that there will be a mix of green and purple basil leaves in plants that have enough room to grow.

The mint in the turtle sandbox is root bound and can’t seem to grow any more around the edge. I’ll give it a through trim at some point then churn up the sandy soil and start over. There is a very thick mat of stems entwined over the surface so I’ll start the churn with long handled pruners!

I’ve already harvested some of the red potatoes (posted about it here) but there are several more plants from those same sprouted potatoes. My plan is to harvest when any of the potatoes peek above the soil. The pots are probably not large enough to get an outstanding crop….but maybe over the course of the summer they will all yield a serving!  The lighter green leaves of the celery that sprouted in the kitchen window sill is a nice contrast to the the darker greens of other plants.

I was trying to use old seed so I probably have cucumbers in some of the pots too. There were a few seeds left from last year and the cucumbers did well as ‘spillers’ in many of the pots. Thrillers will be whatever is not green. I am anticipating zinnias and sunflowers but there could be some other flowers too from seeds in the soil from last year. July will tell! RIght now i am enjoying the delicate red in the stems of last December's poinsetta!

CSA Week 2

The week 1 produce I got from the Gorman Farm CSA was almost used up by the end of the week. A few garlic scapes and part of the lettuce was all that was left by the time I went to pick up the week 2 veggies! I have become a huge fan of spinach salads (so much so that I didn’t cook any of the spinach in last week’s share). I like it with fruit and marmalade/olive oil dressing. This past week I combined spinach with:

• Strawberries and carrots
• Apple and peanuts and savoy cabbage
• Apple and almonds

Now for week 2 - Yum! The medium share this week included: Chard, Kale, Lettuce, Scallions and Spinach. I see salads, kale chips, and stir fries in my future! I used most of the kale for chips ---- made right after I picked up the new share to help clear the crisper a little.

Summer Wardrobe

I’m putting the last of my cool weather clothes away for the season! The warm days are welcome and I am enjoying the roominess of my closest. Summer clothes take up less space that the winter ones. As I made the transition a few clothes went into the 'give away' pile.

My favorite clothes for the summer are skirts and tops…flip flops for shoes. That’s what I’ll be wearing at least half the time! If I buy anything new this summer it will probably be another skirt or two from the thrift store.

If I am working outside in the yard, I have long pants, a light weight long sleeved shirt, and an old pair of hiking boots….and a hat. That minimizes sunscreen, bug bites (including ticks) and plant based skin irritations (poison ivy is the worst). Of course - sometimes it will be too hot for my preferred yard work clothes - so I’ll revert to shorts and a t-shirt supplemented with sunscreen, bug spray and gloves that some up as far as possible on my forearm! I’ll have to make sure I am not in an area with poison ivy too.

For hiking and the days I’ll be with elementary school aged day campers - my plan is to wear light weight pants and T-shirts with hiking boots/Keen sandals and a hat. I’ll have to remember the sunscreen (replenished during the day).

That leaves some things in my closet that I probably won’t wear very much:

Capris and shorts

So many T-shirts that I will never wear them out.

I’ve gotten rid of some that have collected over the years already. More may go into the 'give away' pile at the end of this summer.

Now I am ready for summer - at least from a clothes perspective.

Woodland Gardening

Last week I attended at session on Woodland Gardening at the Maryland Master Naturalist Annual Conference….which influenced my observations during a walk at Centennial Lake this past weekend.

The idea of woodland gardening is to create outdoor spaces that mimic woodlands. My planting the sassafras and spice bush in the back of my yard - moving the forest further into my ‘yard’ by another 3 feet - was my first attempt at it but I’m already thinking about my next project and looking at woodlands for ideas.

The talk presented some principles of woodland gardening and I noticed examples of these in my walk:

Distill the essence of the forest. One ‘essence’ that I find awe inspiring is the view upward. It would take a long time to create such a few in a garden. I will be content with the wall of green where the forest begins toward the back of my yard.

Celebrate light. I noticed light that filtered through the trees to the woodland floor

And highlighted leaves of the trees from above.

Sculpt with layers…which means mimicking or allowing succession to take place.I noticed that the park maintenance was not cutting as much of the grassy area around the lake - letting a meadow develop. There was a lot more milkweed in the park than in previous years which bodes well for any Monarch Butterflies in the area.

Integrate woodland textures. There are redbuds planned along some of the walkways at the edge of the forest. Their heart shaped leaves and bean-like seed pods are like a gateway to the larger trees in the forest.

Red Potato Harvest

Last February some small red potatoes sprouted before we could eat them. I decided to cut them into pieces and root them in a shallow tray in front of a kitchen window along with the stubs of celery stalks. In February - any green plants were welcome relief from the white snow on the ground outside the window!

The potatoes did very well; their roots formed a dense mat in the tray and I planted them in some pots on our deck in late April. The plants grew rapidly - making large leaves and stems. Last week when I was watering all the pots (before the rains came), I noticed that one of the pots had what looked like a good sized potato peeking through the soil. Yesterday I ‘harvested’ the potatoes from the pot. There were 4 of them - a small serving. That's a pretty good crop considering they have only been in the dirt for about 6 weeks. The potatoes were all very close to the surface. None of the other plants have visible potatoes yet so I will let them continue growing…and next time I’ll plant the potatoes in bigger pots! 

CSA Week 1

Hurray for the first week of the Gorman Farm CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) yesterday! We had ‘special’ distributions of strawberries and lettuce the past few weeks but this was the first week of the normal variety of veggies. I have a medium share this year just as I did in 2014 and am looking forward to the fresh veggies every week.

This time of year - there are lots of shades of green except for the strawberries! I put them in the middle in the picture below. Going clockwise from just above the strawberries, there is 1/2 pound of spinach stuffed into a plastic bag, collard greens held together with a rubber band, lettuce, 1/2 pound of garlic scapes, tatsoi and pac choi. I already had a wonderful stir fry seasoned with garlic scapes and some of the other veggies.

A few days ago I was talking to my daughter about what we would miss the most if we moved from where we live now (she in Arizona and me in Maryland) and we agreed that our CSAs would be high on the list. 

Gleanings of the Week Ending May 30, 2015

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Quiz: Can you tell these 16 cities by their skylines? -  I got 12 of the 16!

The Great Tuskers of Matusadona - Matusadona National Park in northern Zimbabwe….with lots of elephants and an organized anti-poaching group that (so far) appears to be sustaining the park wildlife.

Supreme Crispy Quinoa Vegetable Burgers - I don’t think I would actually eat this on a bun - since I general decide that I don’t like buns well enough to justify the calories. But I am always on the lookout for other ways to use quinoa since its nutritional profile is so terrific (and it tastes food too)…definitely worth the calories.

An El Nino connection to the floods in Oklahoma and Texas? - Map and narrative about El Nino and its impact on US weather patterns (using recent weather as an example).

These Are the Most Distinctive Popular Foods in Every State - Does it make sense for your state? Crab Cakes is listed for Maryland and that sounds about right.

See This Baby Flamingo Take Its First Few Steps - I knew that baby flamingoes were white (had picked up that bit of trivia somewhere along the line) but I hadn’t ever seen one. I was surprised at how big its legs were. The adult flamingoes seem very attentive to the baby too.

Insane Solar Jobs Boom About To Get $32 Million More Insane - Renewable energy stretching toward the goal of becoming competitive with fossil fuels.

There are No Shortcuts to Birding Nirvana - I was surprised that the Merlin app (from The Cornell Lab of Ornithology) was not mentioned. Maybe because it only includes 400 North American birds. It has the advantage that it is very easy to use even for new birders. I like it.

Designed for the Future: Practical Ideas for a Sustainable World - Take a look at the gallery (link below the picture). These are structures that exist - not drawings or plans.

Hidden Lead in Your Home - It isn’t just old lead pain on walls…there are more sources.