Category Archives: nature

Grass and turmeric and some same old (sweet) things.

food and cooking, my garden, nature, , , , , , , , , , ,

Today I’m wondering what this grassy “weed” is, along a stretch of path by the creek that didn’t get mown down – yet? It’s very familiar, and I guessed it was rye, but I can’t match it up with anything in Weeds of the West at this stage. Maybe when the seed heads develop, if it is allowed to remain.

The Queen Anne’s Lace that made such a lush display last year was removed on my side of the creek, but there are a couple of plants starting to bloom on this far side:

Thursday I worked in the kitchen and cooked up a storm the whole day long. I hardly did anything else. Every other Thursday my CSA box (farm box) gets delivered, so I had that to deal with. I made some more of the Egg Bhurji, a sort of Indian scramble, and got the flavors closer to my goal. This time I grated fresh turmeric into it because I had it on hand. I had bought the turmeric rhizomes to plant, but there were more of them than I needed for that.

I boiled the quail eggs. They were so darling at every stage, I even had to take pictures of them simmering in the pot. One place I read said to cook them for two minutes, another four minutes, so I think I had them in the pan for about three minutes, and the yolks are soft, but that’s very pretty, too! And they are very tasty. 14 calories and 1.2g protein each.

Last Sunday when I saw them as the love offering on that bench, it was amazing how instantaneous was the progression in my mind to the thought, “I could raise quail!” Ha! I did laugh at myself. It’s not beyond the realm of possibility, and it would be easier than chickens, but I want to get started on raising worms as my next homesteading project.

Now that the temperature has been in the 80’s the sweet peas are exploding; one day I took bouquets to two different neighbors, and the next day I filled two vases for my own house. Soon the stems will be too short to do much with, and I need to take them out anyway, to make room for the butternut squash that I will train up the trellis.

Some pretty blooms in the house are the Nodding Violet or Streptocarpella, a species of Streptocarpus, which a friend and I agreed sounds like a flower to feed a dinosaur with a sore throat. But they don’t make that many flowers that I want to offer them to the sick, so I think I will forget about the dinosaur and just remember Nodding Violet.

Mrs. Bread gave me my first plant, from which I accidentally broke a stem that I rooted into a second plant; I gave that second plant to friend Ann at church.  Then my violet was struck down by cold in the greenhouse one winter’s day, but by then Ann had started a second plant which she gave to me. And that is how we take care of each other and of our Nodding Violets, and how I am learning to just keep them safe in the house. They are nodding “Yes” to that:

And in the back garden, the red California poppies are blooming under the (fruitless) plum trees. Mr. Greenjeans said that the warm weather we had a few months ago confused the plums and made them bloom early; then the frost hit and destroyed the buds. 😦 So he doesn’t have any plums, either. This is the third year for my plums and I ate one last year.

Considering how little attention I have given my strawberries, and the fact that they are old plants, it is a big surprise to me that they are so happy and productive this spring. This morning I picked eight fruits to bring into the house, which might set a record, but that could be because in the past I have eaten them all in the garden.

I hope your June is starting out as happy as mine. ❤

A little mariposa lily gallery.

nature, wildflowers,

When Jody mentioned in a comment here the mariposa (Calochortus) lily that grows on her prairie, it made me look to see which ones I have encountered over the years, farther west. Most of these pictures were taken by my daughter Pippin, but two or three by me. They are so special, I thought I’d put up my small gallery so we can see them all in one place.

Along with mariposas the genus includes globe lilies, fairy lanterns, and others, a total of about 70 species native to North America.

Smokey Mariposa Lily – Calochortus leichtlinii – Lundy Canyon, California
Hairy Mariposa Lily – Calochortus tolmiei – Southern Oregon
Siskiyou County, California
Mt. Diablo, California
Sonoma County, California
Siskiyou County, California

High Sierras, California

Eggs and flowers, and a musing duck.

my garden, nature, , , , , , ,

Where did the creek go? What next?
Those are the big questions I imagined this fellow was musing on as he stood quietly,
webfoot-deep in what so recently was a deep and flowing stream.

I guess it was a combination of our old bones and the chilly and damp weather that seemed to force the dwellers here to use the furnace — in May?? But that was last week, and for Pentecost and Memorial Day, everything changed; the creek is shrinking, the fountain water evaporating daily, and those of us who gathered at the cemetery to pray for those who died in battle were glad to have hats and/or stand in the shade.

The first strawberry turned ripe-red in the middle of the chilly week, and I didn’t anticipate any sweetness, but I took its picture and bit into it — and surprise! It was completely dessert-worthy and perfect.

On my walks to Felafel Cat’s place, which I will walk for the last time as soon as I finish this post, I have seen different plants to study. We had a fortnight lily by our swimming pool for ten years, but that is a thing of the past, so I loved seeing this one reaching over the sidewalk.

All these flowers are nice indeed, but what I really wanted to show you this week, which made a post so urgent, are these quail eggs; they were waiting for us worshipers after Pentecost Liturgy on a bench outside the door of the church, with a sign saying, “Happy Pentecost! Please take and enjoy!” I brought home one of the tidy boxes of a dozen eggs, which I think are one of most beautiful and unusual and springtimey gifts one could ever receive.

Tucked into my purse they traveled quite safely to my refrigerator,
but soon they must be cooked…
I think I’ll boil them so I can eat one at a time and prolong the magic.

Happy Spring to all!

Snowball and I have a glorious history.

my garden, nature,

While I was hiding my splotchy face from public, I pruned my snowball bush. This tree is one of only two plants that remain on the property from when we bought our house in 1990. I enjoyed doing a sort of pictorial historical study as part of composing this post, and will share some pictures from the last ten years, for my own nostalgic reference, I suppose.

This viburnum had not been dealt with thoroughly for a long time! As I squeezed between it and the fence, and maneuvered my loppers between the branches here and there, I recalled similar intimate springtime engagements through the years. We have a long history, Snowball and I, of me trimming and grooming, and him responding ten months later by adorning my garden with a glorious display. I’ve even been given flowers with which to decorate graves at appropriate times.

It took several hours over two days to do a thorough job of thinning the branches evenly, and shortening the whole enough that I can manage it more easily in the future. Now it’s so thin it was hard to get a good picture. I must have removed 80% of the plant mass; the piles of clippings all over the place attest to that. But I bet the flowers will be bigger next year!

I think Alejandro my sometimes landscaper/garden worker will come soon to remove the offending spurge after all, and he should have time to help me clean up the prunings. I don’t mind doing that, either, but I also have books to read and meals to cook and walks to take… I’m satisfied that I was able to do the pruning itself, in a way I don’t think anyone but me has ever done it in the past or would be willing to do it ever. I count myself the most blessed of women to have time and strength, and a garden to work in, where in the back  corner lives an enduring snowball bush!