Deals, Harvests & Recipes

Hello, friends.  Last week, I met an old co-worker for lunch.  While in that town, I stopped at the discount store, and picked up three bags of items for $12.  Favorite finds were organic peanut butter 36 0z/$1.49, and this solar light $1.49, which I thought would be great to carry in the skoolie, for nights outside.  I charged it, and it works great.  I weed-whacked under the mulberry, and placed tarps bought at Dollar Tree underneath, for cleaner berries.  I've seen others do this with persimmons, and have been wanting to try it with these.  The birds and McNibs are beating me to many of them, but I'm getting a good handful a day.  I tried them in a salad one night, but you really couldn't tell they were there, so I'm pondering other uses besides freezing them, and fruit salads.  I may make a syrup with them, and put a splash in water, for summer drinking.  They're one of my favorite tasting berries.  A turkey and two poults flew off, after we surprised them on our walking path one evening.  I'm always happy to know they're around.  

This photo is of the pond garden.  You can see some of  the fence extensions we put up, and "flags" to alert the deer and birds they were there.  There are potatoes straight ahead, garlic and onions to their left, sweet potatoes, melons and winter squash to the right.  We try to put things that don't need daily attention in this garden, as it's farther from the house.  Batches of hummingbird food and cashew parmesan were made.  J turned the outdoor shower on for the season. I took photos, and added this procedure to my home systems book.  Shortly after the shower became operational, both pups got their first "bath" of the year, using homemade dog soap.  I gathered flowers for a bouquet.  The first chanterelle was harvested, thanks to J's good eye while mowing.  I've been seeing tiny ones, but none large enough to harvest, until this one.  I harvested peas, asparagus, lettuce, onions, mulberries, mache, basil, oregano, arugula, broccoli, a sprig of lambs quarter, and dandelion greens and catbrier tips for the pups.

Over the weekend, I made two kinds of potato salad and cabbage slaw for our dinner.  Summer salads have been somewhat of a challenge for me, since I can't have mayo or vinegar now, but I'm happy with both recipes I tried (here's the potato salad).  I made J the same salads I used to make us.  We were both happy.  Which reminds me, Daisy of Maple Hill 101 asked for the GF pizza crust recipe I use last week.  It's my favorite of the ones I've tried.  It's the Minimalist Baker's recipe here.  We've got tiny squash and cucumbers, so it shouldn't be much longer before we'll be harvesting them.  All the summer/winter clothes were switched around in my closet, to see and reach them more easily.  Baskets of nettles and oregano were harvested for drying.  When I went to help J with something, under the carport, I saw a dove fly off a nest, which had two eggs in it.  It put the eeks on some of what he planned on doing, but at least there's never a shortage of other things to do around here.  Wishing you and yours a lovely Memorial Day.