Summer Fruits and Flowers & Ukulele Update

Despite the brutal heat wave, nature continues her eternal cycles.  Late in the day, when the yard is in shade, is when I enjoy getting outdoors and enjoying the display. Our plums are beginning to ripen.  We’ve already picked half a dozen.  Soon we’ll have more than we know what to do with! The figs, [...]

Roses, Antique Mall, Wild Strawberries & the Uke

Not only were my Mother’s Day roses beautiful, but they also have that sweet, old time rose fragrance.  I bury my nose in them every time I pass them.  I think these were the prettiest roses I’ve ever received.  They were beautiful before they opened, but I like them even better now. After my dental [...]

Wild Edible Plants & Tulip Trees

I walked down our dirt (gravel) road today to deliver an Easter basket to my neighbor.  Just that short distance provided me with a treasure trove of interesting (to me) photos. The wild blueberries have appeared!  It won’t be long until blueberry dessert time! I also found a rare (in this area) Solomon’s Seal.  A [...]

Lunch with the Girls, Bracken Fiddleheads & Luna Moth

Yesterday I met with friends at the Square in Carrollton.  We had such a wonderful time together.   We did decide that we are going to have to do it a lot more often. After I got home, Ron and I went out to dinner, then shopping.  I found three beautiful blouses at Goody’s.  Very unusual [...]

Nature’s Splendor at Home

I have been pretty down lately trying to figure out how to get a new camper this year, and finally coming to terms with the fact that I will have to rebuild the old one.  But getting outside and seeing what is going on as nature shows off her spring productions really helps lift my [...]

Spring Gems in the Woods

Today was another chilly, windy day.  We walked through the woods and found the usual unbroken brown landscape.  But when we got back to camp, the sun was low in the sky and illuminated something I had missed before.  Behind the skeleton of a shrub still clinging to some of its brown leaves was this [...]

Wild Chanterelle Article Published

Associated Content just published my mushroom article. It’s here if you are interested in how to find and identify wild chanterelles. But you’ll have to wait for warm weather. 

Hen of the Woods (Maitake) “Bacon”

I’ve been working dried maitake mushrooms into our menu lately for their awesome medicinal properties. I reconstitute them for 20 minutes in warm water, then use the tough stalks to make broth, and the more tender tips in other recipes. The broth is great for cooking brown rice in and for making gravy.  The mushroom [...]

A New Bolete

  The first picture is a little fuzzy due to condensation on the lens.  Coming from an air conditioned house into 90+ degree muggy temperatures will do that.  The lemon yellow pore surface and the creamy white heavily indented stalk stumped me.  I went through all my books and spent a couple of days on [...]

The Boletes are Coming

These are the first boletes that appear in my yard each summer.  The bad news is that they are always immediately parasitized by a mold that I have tentatively identified as Hypomyces chrysospermus. The mold starts on the bottom on the pore surface around the stalk, then spreads until the mushroom is completely disfigured.  And [...]

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