Soul of a Morning Glory

Improvised Herb Drying Rack

Today I harvested peppermint, apple mint, lemon balm and alfalfa from my herb garden and collected wild red raspberry leaves from the woods. I also picked some red clover flowers from the meadow surrounding my garden.

This is the third summer we have been in our new home and I finally have my life together enough to dry some herbs for winter teas and herbal remedies. My only problem was where to hang the leafy herbs to dry. My kitchen has a very low ceiling and the one room that would be suitable has way to much direct sunlight. I don't have a rack that would work. After puzzling this over for a while I spotted the broken stepladder that was by the tree house when we moved in. The perfect herb drying rack! I wiped it down and brought it inside.

Drying herbs for tea, cooking, and medicinal use is simple and easy.

Perennial leafy plants are usually best harvested just as the flower buds are starting to open. This is when herbs like mint, thyme, lemon balm, and yarrow, etc are at their peak for flavor and medicinal value. Gather flowers such as calendula and red clover when flowers are fully open but before they they start to fade.

1) Gather the herbs on a clear dry day after the dew has dried. Inspect the leaves for insects, dirt and dead leaves. I pick off any brown leaves, and remove any insects. If there is a small amount of dirt I usually just brush it off. If there is a large amount of dirt that doesn't easily brush off, I usually discard that portion of the plant. I try to avoid washing the leaves if I don't have to as hanging them up wet can lead to mold problems.

2) Bunch the herbs into airy bundles. Air needs to be able to flow to the center of each bundle, otherwise the inner leaves could mold. You should be able to see through your bundle when you hold it up.

3) Hang the bundles to dry in a dry well ventilated place that is out of direct sunlight. Direct sunlight causes the herbs to loose both color and flavor.

4) It will usually take 3-5 days for the herbs to dry. Drying time depends partly on humidity and partly on how much moisture is in the plants.

5) Once the herbs are dry, take them down and put them away as soon as you can. Though having bunches of dried herbs hanging in your kitchen may look pretty and decorative, heat, moisture, light, and air are all working on leaching the color and flavor out of the dried herbs. Also if they stay up too long they will start to collect dust. Gently strip the leaves or flowers off the stems (I usually do this into a large bowl or five gallon bucket). Discard any woody stems.

6) Store in air tight containers away from any heat sources. If you are using glass jars, place them in a dark cupboard or pantry. Heat and light are the enemies of flavor and color.  

This post is part of Garden Life at No Ordinary Homestead and the Barn Hop over at Homestead Revival.

Fairyfly

This little butterfly's wings were never still--sort of like a hummingbird moth, but is it much smaller, maybe an inch long.

Little Blue Star...

Borage is an fuzzy plant with star shaped edible blue flowers. The flowers have a mildly sweet, cucumber like flavor. It is an annual that can easily be grown in the flower or herb garden, or interplanted with vegetables. It will reseed its self every year and also attracts bees and butterflies.

According to this site, it makes a good companion plant for squash, tomatoes, and strawberries. Apparently it even improves the flavor of tomatoes if grown next to them. That is something I did not know. Next year I will plan to transplant volunteer seedlings next to the tomatoes. This year I planted the borage between my rose bushes--that are in a single long row in the vegetable garden.

This post is part of Farmgirl Friday over at Dandelion House.

Goldfinch Nest

At least I am pretty sure it is a goldfinch nest. I didn't see the bird. Goldfinches weave a nest using spiderwebs, pine needles or bark, and the down from the seeds they like to eat. This one seems to be made of thistle down and pine needles and lots of spiderwebs. They nest in late summer when the down is available. The nests are woven so tightly they can hold water. They lay 4-6 bluish-white eggs. It is in a small oak tree, about 5 1/2 feet from the ground.

Getting Ready for Fall in the Garden

You know fall is around the corner when mushrooms start popping up all over the garden.We had a long, hot, dry summer but the last few weeks have been cooler with plenty of rain and grass is green again and I have been spared from the task of watering the garden every other day.

 ...group of golden mushrooms...

 This weekend I spent quite a bit of time in the garden, doing clean up, mulching, and planting seeds. I planted several different kinds of lettuce, spinach, kale, and collards. This fall I want to try row covers to help extend the fall crop into November. I have never done this before so it will be interesting to how it works.

I also thinned the spinach, broccoli raab, and carrots seedlings I planted in early August for fall crops. This is the first year I have tried growing broccoli raab.  My spring crop was a complete failure. In fact most of the spring greens were a complete failure, except for the lettuce. Broccoli raab, spinach, bok choi, and mustard all got a few inches tall then bolted. It was a cold wet spring, weather that these greens usually like, so I was surprised. I'm hoping for better luck this fall!

Broccoli raab seedlings

I dug all the potatoes who's vines had completely died back. This was every thing but the Pontiac red potatoes. The Pontiac reds, which are a late storage potato, still have green leaves, but I pulled one plant anyway just to see what was going on in the ground.

Wow, the one plant had many huge potatoes! I was very impressed. In the photo below are 8 hills of Yukon gold potatoes, and one hill of Pontiac red potatoes. I turned one Pontiac red potato into scalloped potatoes for Saturday dinner.

I prepared the soil where I had dug the potatoes for planting garlic this fall by pulling all the weeds and tilling in a few inches of compost. With any luck I'll get my garlic in the ground next weekend.

For a while a little tiny woodchuck joined me in the garden. Actually, he was right on the edge of the garden, busily munching on clover and alfalfa. I know most people wouldn't consider a woodchuck a pleasant gardening companion, but he was so tiny and cute and has been the first one I've seen since one got locked in our large garage the first week we moved here and destroyed the insulation.



...a lunch of clover and alfalfa...

We may have to do something about him later, but for the moment, I just enjoyed him, and he obviously was delighted with the alfalfa and clover. He keep one eye on me the whole time, he wasn't about to to let that stop him from getting a meal.



It has also been a delight to watch the butterflies, of which we have many. This summer I have learned so many of their names. (I have plenty more to learn, though.) Here a Pearl Crescent pauses for a moment on a blade of grass.



A Pearl Crescent butterfly.

What things are you enjoying in your garden right now?

This post is part of the barn hop over at Homestead Revival.

From the Garden Today...

This what we ate from our garden today...

Spring Treat sweet corn--I got my corn planted late (2nd week of June if I remember correctly), but we've been eating it every day of a week now. Having had sweet corn from farm stands for so long, I had forgotten how good sweet corn is picked minutes before you cook it. Pretty amazing stuff!

Fairy Tale eggplant-- The dainty little eggplants are so sweet and mild that you can eat them raw as you pick them. This is the first eggplant I have successfully grown. I started them from seed in late April. The plants are compact and very productive with many clusters of pretty striped fruit. The main way I have been cooking them is peel them, cut in chunks, then toss with a few drops of olive oil, and broil them for a few minutes in the oven. This will definitely be in my garden next year!

Cherry tomatoes--this has been a bad year for tomatoes. Of course a lot of that is my fault. I got the seeds started very late and used a water washable marker to label them. By the time I realized it, I had a whole bunch of plants that weren't labeled and to complicate the matter, about half the tomato seeds I planted didn't sprout. So now I have a whole lot of cherry tomatoes, but don't which kinds, and very few large tomatoes. In any case, we have been eating cherry tomatoes to our hearts content for the last week or so. I do have some plants that have larger tomatoes, but have only gotten four big tomatoes so far.

Green beans, including Royal Burgundy. These just started coming in from my first planting for green beans. Most of that first planting was killed as seedlings by a maggot that got into the roots. I replanted in the middle of July and the new plants are just starting to bloom and look very healthy.

Tribute strawberries--I dutifully picked all the flowers off the strawberry plants I planted this spring like you are supposed to. However come the end of July you can let your everbearing strawberries start ripening fruit. I have been picking a few cups of berries everyday for the past week.

 Today I dug the first Pontiac Red potatoes. My goodness, these potatoes are huge and very productive. One plant gave me almost half a bucket of very large potatoes. The potato in the picture below is sitting in the one and a half quart casserole dish I make scalloped potatoes in. Once it was peeled and sliced and used in my scalloped potato recipe, it filled the entire pan.

Here is my recipe:

Scalloped Potatoes

1 VERY large (or four or so normal sized) potatoes, sliced

1 medium onion, cut in thin slices

1/2 cup ham cut in small pieces

1 tablespoon butter

2 cups milk

2 tablespoons flour

salt and pepper to taste

Layer half the sliced potatoes in a 1 1/2 quart casserole dish, then layer the ham and onion slices, then cover with the remaining potato slices.

Heat 1 3/4 cups of the milk in a pan. Combine the flour and the remaining 1/4 cup of milk. When the milk in the pan is simmering, add the flour and milk mixture and stir until it is thickened. Add butter, and salt and pepper to taste.  Pour over the potatoes in the casserole dish. Cover and bake at 350 F for about 40 minutes or until the potatoes are tender.

What are you eating from your garden today?

This post is part of Farmgirl Friday at Dandelion House and Garden Life over at No Ordinary Homestead.

Swallowtail Butterfly

I'm assuming this is a Eastern Tiger Swallowtail. Though after I googled for photos of Swallowtails, I am a little confused. I didn't realize there are so many different kinds of swallowtail butterflies, and that Eastern Tiger Swallowtails themselves can look very different from each other.

Daughter of Patriarchy

Don't fall in love with a daughter of patriarchy.
She is not free,
her heart is not hers to give away.

Secret kisses stolen
in the darkness of the night.
In your arms it felt so right.
Two hearts that ached to be together,
but a universe apart,
two worlds that could not be reconciled.

Don't fall in love, don't fall in love
with a daughter of patriarchy.
She is not free, she is not free.

Though it was too late for you and me,
In the end, it was in part,
your love that set me free.
It was the beginning of chipping away the wall
that held me prisoner and causing it to crack and fall.
Your love is part of who I am.

Don't fall in love with a daughter of patriarchy.
She is not free,
her heart is not hers to give away.


Me at age 24.


I wrote the above poem recently with no intention of sharing it on this blog.

I have been wanting to write a little more about my past, and perhaps occasionally incorporate some of my memories from growing up on a  into my blog posts. It is still hard for me to separate growing up in a Christian patriarchal family (a negative thing) with growing up  living simply (a positive thing.).

Up until recently I didn't talk much about my past. When I left my parents home 11 years ago, I had a strong desire not to be defined by my parents or by the way I grew up anymore. I knew I needed to learn who I was and figure out how to be my own person. For another thing, it literally took me years to make much sense of my growing up years. I grew up "Little House on the Prairie" style complete with long dresses and tiny log cabins. On the surface my big family with lots of brothers and sisters looked serene and perfect. Underneath the surface though there runs the threads of a darker story.

That darker story is that of the spiritual and emotional abuse that comes with adhering rigidly to Christian Patriarchy...a belief system where daughters are only valued for how they relate to the men who have authority over them. A belief system that can lead to deep depression, self hatred, and despair in the wives and daughters who are oppressed by it.

For years I thought I was the only one who felt this way. I blamed the somewhat unique way I grew for the way I felt. When I discovered No Longer Quivering and Quivering Daughters a few years ago, I breathed a deep sigh of relief and realized I was not alone. I could relate in some way to every survivors story and realized that homesteading in and of itself was not the problem.

The past year or so, I have become more comfortable with my past. It is part of what makes me the person who I am today, but I am learning to no longer let it define me. I am learning to embrace the good things that my parents taught me and reject the harmful.
 
I actually had a relatively happy childhood, and it wasn't until I was in my teens and early twenties that the confines of patriarchy begin to suffocate me. The last few years I lived with my family, I felt like I was in a prison I could not escape from. It was difficult and scary for me to walk away from the safety of everything I knew, into a completely foreign world.

 Every daughter of patriarchy has her own story. Homesteading and growing up in a patriarchal family affected each of my siblings in different ways. I would not presume to speak for any of them. Honestly, because of my compliant personality and because I truly did love most of the things about  growing up the way I did, I think I had it easier in a lot of ways than some of my siblings did. I missed out on a lot of the emotional abuse that some of them suffered. Even so it wasn't always easy.


This post is part of Imperfect Prose.

Dewdrop Curtain

Mother Nature
 awoke at dawn
 she threw back her silver curtain
and let the sunrise in

Rooster Dilemma

Sometimes I wish I had paid more attention to our flock of chickens when I was growing up. They were just part of life--I remember chasing them out the garden, collecting eggs, lots of chicken droppings in inconvenient places, and eating them when they got old. I don't remember much about dynamics in the chicken coop.

(The rooster with his hens.)

As a result, I'm completely at loss when the sweet black australorp rooster that I hand picked to keep out of seven roosters, suddenly decided to grow up and  misbehave. I'm sure he is just being a rooster, but my gosh, he couldn't be more obnoxious! (Yes, seven of these 12 chicks turned out to be roosters--I was hoping for six hens, but ended up with five.)

 In addition to the five little hens that were part of the dozen chicks I bought this spring, I have three older hens, who I raised from chicks 3 years ago. This rooster has no interest what so ever in the young hens. Given the opportunity, he spends all day chasing and mating with the older hens. The older hens hate this and act like they are deathly afraid of him, and it it is also tearing out their back feathers and bloodying their combs. With winter approaching, it is important that the hens be in the best health possible so they can overwinter well.

(My california whites--these were my illegal back yard hens when I still lived in the city.)

I leave the laying hens in the coop until after they have laid their eggs for the day. When the hens are cooped up, the rooster literally spends hours pacing back and forth in front of the coop, trying to get in. He is clearly upset by not being able to get at the older hens.

(Waiting for the older hens to be let out of the coop.)

The last few days I have been grabbing the rooster when I let the young hens out of the coop in the morning and locking him up in solitary confinement. I hate locking a chicken up. It is so against the nature of a chicken to be in a cage. They are made to hunt for bugs, take dust bathes, and to run around in the sunshine and fresh air. It seems positively cruel to keep one locked up most of the day. The older hens do go to  bed about an hour earlier than that the young hens, so I am able to let him out for a little while at the end of the day.

Interestingly, the younger hens all hang around the cage with rooster when they are out. This is actually a good thing. The australorps are diggers unlike the California whites and can quickly do a lot of damage in the garden...so confining the rooster seems to limit how far his flock of hens goes.

(Locked up in solitary confinement for multiple counts of rape.)

I'm linking this post to the Barn Hop over at Homestead Revival. For those of you who have a flock of hens with a rooster, what is your experience? I have read that you really need six hens to one rooster.  I have 9 hens all together. Once the 5 young ones are mature (they should start laying in October) will this rooster be less obnoxious  toward the older hens?  Other than this one problem, he seems to be a pretty decent rooster. I don't want to give him away if I don't have too, but at the same time, I want to make sure my flock of hens stay strong and healthy.

I'm wondering if a banty rooster would be the way to go...(thinking ahead for next spring.)?

Waiting for a princess...

...and the magical kiss that will turn him into a prince....

The Ultimate Play Tree

A cascade of branches sweep the ground., hiding an interior that is....

...a play set with jungle gym and twisted monkey bars...

a place for the imagination to run wide...a place to sit and dream...

a place to climb to the skies and explore the stars...

It is an European Weeping Beech and is hardy in zones 4 to 7...and is now on the top of my list of trees to plant on our 13 acres.  I'm wondering why I've never seen one before. My brother who is as interested in plants as I am, had never seen one either. As you may tell from the photos we both were completely enamored with this beautiful tree. How did we manage to get through childhood with out this tree?

Photos taken on our trip to the Hidden Lake Gardens last weekend.

On Beauty...

In my work I witness people and moments of beauty

that inspire and fill me with awe

hardship and sickness like a refining fire 

can bring what is most beautiful to the surface

a woman with tired face and kind eyes,

caring for a husband with dementia

and a father with metastasized cancer

gentle, caring, loving, giving, true selflessness

a husband and wife in their 90's

still as much in love as the day they wed

her eyes light up with joy

when he comes in from running errands

the tenderness of a son

 as he lovingly cares for his frail mother

tending to her most basic needs

with gentleness and deep respect

I am honored and privileged to be

a small part of these people's lives

and hope that I bring a small measure

of beauty and hope into their lives as well

This post is part of five minute Friday over at Gypsy Mama and Imperfect Prose.

A Day Among the Butterflies

Today was perfect--sunny, 72 degrees, breezy, and to top it off, I didn't have to work. I stayed home and spent the day barefoot among the flowers and butterflies. We have more butterflies on our property than I have seen anywhere--and the odd thing is, I don't have that many flowers planted yet.

One of my goals for this summer is to photograph and identify as many butterflies as I can.  Thanks to friends who have identified photos I've been  posting on facebook, I have more than doubled my butterfly knowledge in the past week or so. However this yellow butterfly has eluded identification so I am hoping one of my blog readers will be able to identify it for us:

It is sitting on the tip of my thumb and is about an inch and half or so across. I haven't seen very many of these, but the ones that I did see all have similar markings. They seem to like the tansy flowers.

(Edited to add--Laura at Forest Walk Art indentified the yellow "butterfly". It is acutally a moth--a False Crocus Geometer (Xanthotype urticaria). Thanks Laura!)

The next butterfly is a Variegated Fritillary--this is a bit smaller than a monarch. I haven't seen many of these around.

Pearl Crescent--this is a smaller butterfly, about an inch across. We have dozens of these little butterflies.

Side view of a Pearl Crescent. This one is actually dead and is being eaten by a very strange looking bug.

Milbert's Tortoiseshell--there were dozens of these on my butterfly bush today.

Side view of a Milbert's Tortoiseshell.

Cabbage butterfly--one of the few butterflies I already knew. The little green caterpillars that you see on cabbage and broccoli turn into this lovely white butterfly. The caterpillars do some damage to crops, but I pick them off the food crops and plant extra kale in the flower beds so that I have plenty of the butterflies to enjoy. This is our most abundant butterfly and often I can count 40-50 in the yard at one time.

I also got to see more buckeyes and red spotted purple butterflies, as well as monarchs, and swallowtails (both black and tiger) and several other butterflies I don't yet know the names of.

Katydid and Daylily

A few days ago, this katydid sat all day in this daylily.

I went out the next morning, and she was still there, but this time sitting on top the wilted flower.

.Later in the day, another flower opened, and she made that one her new home.

Apparently katydids love eating daylilies. You can see the white spots on the flower where she has been nibbling. I don't see katydids that often. so I don't mind sharing these blooms with this one.

Tiny Toadstool Trio

I have been doing a Facebook photo challenge, where you take a photo a day and post it to Facebook. I didn't realize it would be so hard to take at least one half way decent or creative photo every single day. Some days I end up with a bunch of less then perfect or blurry photos and at the end of the day I'm trying to figure out how to fix at least one to make it worthy of being posted. I have only the simplest of photo editing software--I pretty much can only edit contrast and highlights, and can do some sharpening as well as adjust saturation. 

The best of today's photos is a very blurry photo of a group of cute little mushrooms that I found growing in my garden mulch. With editing contrast and highlights multiple times and playing with the sharpening feature I think I finally made the photo look like it was meant to be softly blurry and almost like a painting.

A Dinner fit for a Registered Dietitian

One of the wonderful things about blogging are the many new people and places it brings into our lives. This evening we finally had friends I met through this blog over to our home for dinner. Diana and her husband are the garlic farmers I bought my new varieties of garlic from last fall. I found her blog three years ago when I was googling for information about raising chickens in the city. Once we realized we both lived in the same city we arranged to meet, once for coffee. Two years ago we both bought property out in the country. The first thing she and and her husband did with their new land was get the soil ready for garlic beds to be planted that fall.  Last year I visited her new garlic farm and bought some of her garlic.

Diana is a registered dietitian and a cancer survivor who has written a book and regularly give lectures related to nutrition and cancer. I must admit I woke up this morning suddenly feeling very self conscious about what I was thinking about cooking for dinner. (I need not have worried though--with a garden full of fresh vegetables, it would have been very difficult to go wrong!)

So what does one make for a dinner when a registered dietitian is coming?

I started with a basket full of vegetables picked fresh from the garden...summer cabbage, carrots, onions, patty pan squash, green peppers, and new potatoes:

The cabbage, carrots, and the smallest onion were turned into coleslaw.

The patty pan squash, peppers, and onions were marinated with portabella mushrooms, olive oil and garlic and a splash of apple cider vinegar, then roasted until just tender.

I tossed the new potatoes with olive oil, sea salt, and fresh rosemary then roasted them until tender. .

This was all served with pecan encrusted tilapia fish fillets--a simple, but very delicious baked fish recipe.  

Pecan Encrusted Fish Fillets

4 mild fish fillets ( I use pollack or tilapia)

1/2 cup chopped pecans

1/3 cup Parmesan cheese

1/4 cup fresh parsley or celery (finely chopped)

3 T lemon juice

1 T olive oil

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Combine cheese, pecans, parsley, olive oil, and 2 T lemon juice.

Place fish in a single layer in a baking dish and spread with pecan mixture. Drizzle with remaining lemon juice.

Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until fish flakes with a fork

The meal was topped off with some local raspberry wine made by Sandhill Crane Vineyards, and a blueberry pie, baked with berries my brother and I picked a few days ago at a local blueberry farm.

This post is part of Farmgirl Friday over at Dandelion House.

Hosta Garden At Hidden Lake Gardens

 One of my brothers is visiting me for a few days. As he loves plants too, we took the opportunity to finally go visit Hidden Lake Gardens, which is about an hour from where I live. Hidden Lake Gardens is 200 acres of beautifully maintained gardens, hiking trails, nature areas with meadows and forest, scenic winding paved roads, and a conservatory. There are all kinds of rare plants and trees and everything is tagged. It is the kind of place where you need to bring a notebook and take notes so you can remember what you need to buy later to plant in your own garden.

I thought we had given ourselves plenty of time to explore the many gardens. As it turned out, we were barely at the first garden, the Hosta Garden, for more than 5 minutes when my brother turned to me and said, "How long did you say we are going to be here? We need at least three days."

To which I replied, "We will be lucky if we get beyond this hosta garden at all today."

(We did manage to see more than just the hosta garden, but not much more!)

The hosta garden was full of hostas of many different sizes, textures, and colors. I knew that there are hundreds of different kinds of hostas, but have never seen so many in one place. The thing that amazed me is that  a garden planted 90% with just one type of plant worked---the garden wasn't just educational, it was  a work of beauty.

The entrance of the hosta garden has several mini varieties that are barely more than a few inches tall.



A little stream runs through the garden and adds to the charm. (It is hard to see in my photo unfortunately.)

This one was my favorite for the flowers. It is called "Tosana" and its abundant delicately striped flowers rise tall above short green leaves.

This one is my favorite for a combination of foliage and flowers. "Joseph" is a medium size compact plant with with luxurious pink flowers and glossy green leaves.

My favorite for foliage alone (it was hard to pick a favorite!) has got to "Silver Threads and Golden Needles". The gold and green are brilliant in the shade.

And finally a favorite place for wedding photos in the garden....

Some day I would love to have a garden much like this one. One can always dream!

(Next Hidden Lakes Garden blog post: The Ultimate Playhouse Tree!)