Tree Frog Bed

A spot of green inside a day lilly attracted my attention and when I looked closer, I found this tree frog nicely nestled in the flower!

Seeds of Spring

Spring has been playing peek-a-boo here in Iowa for several weeks - now we see it and now we don't. Yesterday morning we woke up to an inch of snow on the ground, which, thankfully, was all gone by end of day. But it was such a lovely way to say goodbye to winter. My first pepper seedlings are up - and they are already late, while most of the broccoli and cabbage seeds aren't even started. I pruned fruit trees and grapevines last weekend (also late)and the grapevines are bleeding under today's sunny warmth. But I seem to be marching right in step with Spring this year - a burst of spring-time activity then nothing more for the next week. Or perhaps there is another reason for my tardiness.

Since we've starting fall-planting winter and early spring crops in cold-frames, I don't get the early spring bug to get something in the ground as soon as it there is some chance of the poor things not freezing to death. We have bushels of scrumptiously tender lettuce, or at least we did until someone forgot to open the cold frames one sunny day last week and toasted a bunch of the leaves. There is also spinach that is 6 inches tall already and a lettucy mustard that is growing right out of the top of the cold frame and getting ready to send up a flowering stalk. All this green bounty before even first tip of an asparagus stalk is even thinking of tentatively peaking up out of the mulch. Everyone at work is saying how anxious they are for spring to start. But I feel sort of balanced here on the edge between late winter and early spring - torn between wanting spring to come and savoring the 'its-almost-here' feeling. Just so we are all on the same page - I am not talking about calendar spring - I am talking about the real thing signaled by the feel and smell of the air, the awakening of things green and fragrant and the strength and quality of the sunlight. While I long for it, I also want it to come slowly, because once it really gets going, it goes by so fast. I wish I could 'freeze frame' through spring so I could more thoroughly and deeply enjoy each phase - each blossom and each little leaf breaking bud - before moving to the next frame and the next round of flowers and leaves opening to the world. It all happens so fast and there is so little time to see it, much less fully enjoy each phase. One weekend walk and I can see the trees with a slight greenish hue that signals the opening buds and by next weekend, the trees are a wall of green. Each moment is perfect and beautiful and so fleeting, but the next moment is just as precious and its arrival distracts me from the loss of the previous one. Then suddenly its summer with all of its own vibrant beauty - but oh how I love the progression of spring and how I wish I could hang on and savor each bit of it. So I am content - balanced where I am in enjoyment of springs teasing appearance and dissapearance. But I sure wish I wasn't so far behind in my gardening work!

Cows Producing Human Milk? Really???

This article gives meaning to the recently coined word - Frankenfoods. I mean really?

China Daily March 23, 2011
Genetically modified (GM) dairy products that are similar to human milk will appear on the Chinese market in two years, an expert in biotechnology has predicted.
Li Ning, a scientist from the Chinese Academy of Engineering and director of the State Key Laboratories for AgroBiotechnology at China Agricultural University, said progress in the field is well under way.
Li said Chinese scientists have successfully created a herd of more than 200 cows that is capable of producing milk that contains the characteristics of human milk.
He said the technology is at the cutting edge worldwide and will ensure "healthy protein contained in human milk is affordable for ordinary consumers".

Seeds

Its almost time to start some seeds - which brings to mind just how precious is this natural process of saving seeds from year to year and relying on the abundance in each little seed when it comes time to harvest. A simple process, an centuries-old process, a process we take for granted because it is the very essence of nature's productivity. One that is threatened more and more each day, and as hard as it is for me to imagine that this should be the case, the USDA has triple-slapped me with that reality in the last few weeks. First with the deregulation of alfalfa, followed by sugar beets and then yet another GE corn - this one for ethanol production. I can rant at length at the stupidity of these decisions, produce evidence by the wheelbarrow full of the dangers, lies and greed of the biotech seed companies. But it is is to find this information and very easy to quickly be convinced - but still the GE seeds march into our fields and into our food. But, what really galls me, what scares me more than menacing parades of GE fruits, vegetables, grains and trees is the single-minded underlying goal of these companies - OWNERSHIP OF THE WORLDS FOOD SUPPLY. Yes I am shouting, how can I not? If that doesn't scare the hell out of you, what will? The world's top 3 seed companies (Monsanto, Syngenta, Dupont) already own nearly half of the world's seed supply. Patenting seeds, throwing farmers in jail for saving their own seed, developing GE that spread into non-GE and organic crops and destroy them are all tactics used by these companies to own our food supply. The miracle of the seed is a natural phenonmen and is not to be owned by a company bent on making huge profits. Seeds are owned by us all, they are integral to our lives, health and livelihood. They are not property - they are life encapsulated in a tiny pellet. They can no more be owned than our own human genes can be owned - oops they are patenting these too now. Hold onto to your jeans and genes and to your seeds. Do not, DO NOT give away our futures to Monsanto.

Plants Talk Back, A bit of whimsy!

You guys keep watch while I try to catch this fly.

Double your pleasure, double your fun....

Hey buddy, yeah you, over here...

Open wide and say ahhhh..

The devil you say!

French kiss anyone?

"Just me and my shaaa-dow..."

You're getting sleepy, sleepy...

I'm melting, melting ....

Go ahead, touch it. What are you waiting for?

I flit, I float, I fly..

Stop looking at me!

Come right in said the spider to the fly.

3-2-1 -- Ignition -- Blast off!

Favorite Asparagus Bake

A favorite spring meal for us is asparagus bake served with brown rice or potatoes.

Start with around a pound of asparagus, washed and trimmed. It's nice if all the pieces are around the same size and thickness, which is easy to do when buying it from a market. But from the garden, you use what ya got and that's OK!

Arrange asparagus in a baking dish and drizzle 2 tablespoons of olive oil over the top, then sprinkle 1/2 cup of onion soup and dip mix over the oil and asparagus. I utilize a totally natural brand of onion mix which comes in bulk 1# bags from Frontier Co-op in natural or certified organic versions.

Sprinkle 1/2 cup of mozzarella cheese (or more if you prefer) over the asparagus and bake at 375 degrees for about 15 minutes or until the cheese is browned. (We prefer our asparagus stay a little crunchy but if you like it all nice and soft, lower the heat and bake longer.)



Doesn't that look yummy? As a side dish, it serves 4 to 6 or as a main dish with a grain or potatoes, it serves 3 to 4.

Morels and Spring in the Woods

We moved to our 40 acres of woods, creek and bottom ground and hills in the fall and the following Spring we headed hopefully into the woods in search of morel mushrooms. We were ectastic to find some growing on an East facing slope - and now, years later we still hunt that same slope in honor of those first mushrooms even though the ecology of that area has changed and we have found nary a one there for years. We've have poor years, good years and great years - defined as finding so many that we had to both share with family and dry a winter's supply and we ran out of ways to fix them that we hadn't already gotten our fill of. But no matter the year, it is always heavenly searching the woods in the Spring - for us mid-to late April, usually finishing around mother's day.

Mayapple in bloom. When we moved to was to become WishSong Farm, cattle had been grazing it so many of the native wild plants were scarce. We now have huge patches of mayapple or what we, as kids, called umbrella plants.

A wild geranium.

Maidenhair fern with a geranium flowers poking its little head through the fronds of the fern.

This is an orchis, a wild orchid that I see more and more of every year. They are still a special treat every time I find them. They usually bloom right at the height of mushroom season.

A jack in the pulpit flower, not quite open yet. These are usually in the moister, low-lying areas of the woods with lots of shade.

The soft greens of the woods when the leaf buds are open but the leaves are still small always has a bit of fairyland feel for me.


Finally, I find a morel playing hide and seek under a mayapple leaf.

Four of us seached up and down hills for hours to find just this few. A cold dry spring and no mushrooms until these few. By the time we finally had the rain, the vegetation was so tall that if they were out there they were hard to find. My brother-in-law Dale timed his retirement just so he could drive up and hunt mushrooms. While the lack of morels this season was a dissapointment, what we did find made good eatin and we had lots of fun hunting.

Traditional way to eat mushrooms in our area is to bread them in egg and cracker crumbs and fry with lots of butter. I used to like them this way but as we started finding large batches of them ourselves, I experimented with cooking them other ways and today, this is my least favorite way to eat them.




Top 5 ways to eat morels in our household.

1. Morel pizza layered with lots and lots of shrooms. Heavenly!
2. Pasta prima vera with mushrooms and asparagus (which is in season at the same time and pairs beautifully with morels).
3. Asparagus and morel stir-fy.
4. Quiche with - you guessed it, morels and asparagus.
5. Grilled - the large ones cut in half grill up quite tasty. Naturally we grill some asparagus alongside.