Bolting

Whoa! I really hadn't intended on being away from this space for so long! I guess that's what happens when you go out of town and return exhausted. We journeyed to my home town for a family reunion. After catching up on sleep and all of the tasks around the house that I had let slide, I headed out to the garden only to find a complete jungle mess. Weeds like rain and neglect, I guess.

I missed harvesting one little radish and now he has flowered and will soon go to seed. I'm actually a little excited to practice my seed saving skills.

My bok choy also bolted. We didn't get to enjoy much of this, actually. I harvested a couple of heads, but then we had the slug problem. By the time I got that taken care of it was just too warm for these little guys. As with the radish, I think I'm going to go ahead and let them go to seed and see what happens. Garden experiments galore!

This Moment

In Soulemama's words: {this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see.

Bird's Nest Mushrooms

After all the rain we've had as of late, we had an explosion of these tiny little mushrooms bloom on the mulch by our front door. I almost missed them; they're so tiny (less than a quarter inch across) and they blend right in with the wood chips.

Appropriately, they are called "bird's nest" mushrooms because they look like little nests filled with eggs. The "eggs" (peridioles) are puffball-like packets of spores, which are dislodged by raindrops and use tiny coiled cords to attach themselves to twigs or leaves, or to hitch a ride on a passing animal so they can colonize new areas.

The genus and species name is Cyathus stercoreus. They're very widespread, but rarely seen because they're so tiny and inconspicuous.

There were over one hundred of them and they appeared and disappeared within 24 hours. I feel very fortunate that I noticed them!

Life Finding a Way

Very early this spring, Steve and I planted an apricot tree. I have to admit that I've been reluctant to really put down roots at this house. It's not our "forever" house, but we do plan on being there for the foreseeable future. So, I'm trying to strike a balance between being productive and investing in our current place, with not spending all my time in labors that won't actually bear fruit until we are long gone from this place. Planting this tree was an exercise in the former. I knew when I ordered it that I would probably never eat its fruit. I knew that I would probably never see it grow to its full height when it would provide a shady spot in our lawn for our children to play. But, I wanted to plant a fruit tree. So I did.

It made a noble effort, really it did. There was no green on it when we transplanted it and even though I knew (don't we always "know"?) that I needed to protect its tiny little trunk with something, I failed to do so. The rabbits ignored it for two months until one day when I came home from work and found it gnawed off about 6 inches from the ground. Now, there are plenty of tasty treats in my yard that the bunnies are free to help themselves to. I thought that by offering such, they would leave the things that I want to eat alone. They apparently did not receive the memo. Resigned to my loss, I made plans for pulling out the remaining twig and planting another tree there in the fall when lo and behold the deluge of rain that we've had in the past few weeks caused my little twig to burst forth with some leaves. She may have been set back a bit, but I think she's going to make it. This time, let's hope that I learn from my mistake and actually put up a tree shelter before the bunnies realize what a delicious treat apricot leaves are.

Nesting

It is another wet one here today. It hadn't started raining when I left the house, so I foolishly wore sandals and am paying the price now by sloshing around the office.

It seems that we have another broody little robin.

Steve was able to count 2 eggs in the nest on a rare moment that she flew away, but we can't quite get a full view so there are probably more. This is a different nest than the one that I've shown here before and it's very close to our deck. She looks at us very suspiciously whenever we are out there. This is the third robin's nest that we've found this year. In past years I've found egg shells from orioles, house sparrows, as well as robins. There are 4 barn swallows that seem to be staking out the territory under our second story deck, but no nest as of yet. The more the merrier!

Back in the Saddle

It's been quite a few months since I've had anything on the needles. It felt good to cast on again. The break from the computer was needed to find my motivation, I think. Thank you for that. Although wool isn't exactly what comes to mind when one thinks of June knitting, it's a project I've had on the burner for quite awhile, so I figured it was time to actually start it. And with how slow I go, it makes sense to do fall things now so that I actually have time to finish them.

I hope everyone had a lovely father's day yesterday!

Weekend Review: Wild Comfort by Kathleen Dean Moore

In the collection of short essays, Wild Comfort: The Solace of Nature (2010), Kathleen Dean Moore writes both about immersing herself in nature as well as using the natural world as a metaphor to talk about loss and grief and happiness. In the introduction, the author explains that she had set out to write about joy and how one experiences it, but through the course of doing so, she lost several very close people in a short amount of time. This creates an arc in the collection and guides the division of the writings into three sections: Gladness, Solace, and Courage.

Dean Moore has a masterful grasp of language, which she uses in her poetic descriptions of the natural world, her natural encounters, and her personal experiences. She is subtle and avoids the cliches that one might expect in a book that pairs nature with grief. Several times I found myself thinking that I was reading a straightforward description of nature, but then she would ever so slightly lift up the layers and allow me to see that she was also describing an emotional state. I found her writing to be incredibly sober and profound. It was an eloquent expression of coping that I found comforting in thinking about my own encounters with grief. This is a book that I would gladly share with anyone dealing with loss.

Turning the Computer Off

I'll be away from this space for a couple of days. Just a brief break, really. I'll be back with a Weekend Review. I hope you all have a lovely rest of the week!

Bloomin' Carrots

Thank you all so much for your kind anniversary wishes. The story of our wedding is one of my favorite ones to tell because it just makes me so happy. As I was flipping through our wedding photos, looking for one for yesterday's post, I was struck by just how much our backyard has changed. The open expanse of lawn was perfect for an impromtu wedding, but I have spent the past two years trying my darnedest to dig up that lawn.

The previous owners had a dog kennel in the backyard, the "floor" of which was made up of concrete pavers. The grass under them was already dead, so I thought it would be a good place to start my garden that first summer. We dumped a truck load of compost on it, planted your basic garden fare and called it a season. This summer, part of that space was devoted to fall plantings of wheat and garlic and part I've just let grow wild. It's been amazing to see the diversity of plants that have spontaneously appeared. I'm sure a combination of seeds in the compost, stowaways in the hostas and ferns that I transplanted, and native seeds lying dormant and just waiting for a chance to grow have combined to give me quite the interesting little habitat. Someday soon I want to check out some prairie plant identification books from the library and see just what I've got there. But, poking out of the middle of all that are last year's carrots.

I'm really interested in saving seeds. I bought a copy of Seed to Seed, but have been too intimidated to read it yet. My little carrots, however, are giving me the push that I need. Carrots are biennials, meaning that they take two full growing seasons to go to seed. We eat them after their first season, so I had never seen a carrot flower before. All of the research that I did online claimed that carrots were the hardest to save seeds from in my zone because it's supposed to be too cold for them to survive over the winter. People advised digging them up, packing them in sand and storing them in a root cellar before replanting them the following spring. This didn't exactly inspire me. But, luckily, the carrots and Steve decided to help me along. Back in December-ish, I sent Steve out to dig up the last of our carrots before the ground froze solid. He didn't tell me this, but about half a dozen of them broke off and he just left them in the ground. This spring they have grown like crazy! They're almost 5 feet tall and have the most delicate little white flowers. I've read that the seeds are actually covered with little spiky hooks that are polished off of the carrot seeds that we buy in the store. I can't wait to see them and next year, to plant my first batch of my "own" carrots.

2 down, 67 to go

As it also does for so many others, June brings my wedding anniversary. It was two years ago that Steve and I tied the knot, although nature seemed to be determined to prevent this from happening.

Photo by Lisa Peperkorn

This is the chapel where we were supposed to exchange our vows. To the right, is the sandbag wall built to hold back the increasingly flooded river. Yes, during the floods of 2008, the Iowa River crested on my wedding day.

The Monday prior to our Saturday date, I got a phone call from our caterer (who was also the same person in charge of renting us the chapel and the reception space next door) and she assured me that everything was going to be just fine. The water would rise, sure, but it couldn't get that bad, could it? By Wednesday, she had called back and in as cheerful of a voice as she could muster, told me that my wedding had been moved to a hotel across town. This was fine; I kept my cool, although the idea of getting married in a hotel ballroom made me incredibly sad. By Thursday our officiant (and good friend) had moved in with us because her apartment had flooded. By Friday morning, the caterer called again to tell me that the hotel, too, had taken on water. We'd get all of our money back, but we were without a venue and a caterer. I joked with Steve that we should just go to the courthouse and get it over with. It was Friday the 13th after all. It seemed fitting.

Photo by Lisa Peperkorn

But, we had around 60 people in town, hoping for a wedding and we don't like to disappoint. If you look at the picture above and you use your imagination to subtract 20 feet of water, you would see the little jetty poking out onto the river where Steve proposed. This is on the opposite bank as the chapel on the day of our wedding.

Lucky (?) for us, we had just closed on our house purchase the week before and it was nowhere near the river. We hadn't unpacked, so the place was empty, and it had a huge backyard. That was it. We'd have the wedding at our house and wing it. The rehearsal dinner was just a dinner and we went to bed that night still not really having any of the logistics figured out. I woke up at 5 the next morning and got to work. We didn't yet own a lawnmower and there were several weeks of June growth, so I found a lawn mowing service that was willing to come over with absolutely no notice. My florist, whose store is, you guessed it, right on the river, was the only one who saw all this coming and became my white knight. She had moved all of my flowers out of her shop earlier in the week, so at least I would have a bouquet. She called in some favors around town and got us 75 chairs and some long tables. She had her daughter take care of all the food, which ended up being cold cut sandwiches and some delicious salads.

Our families quickly divided and conquered. Steve drove to the far edge of town to a printing shop that hadn't moved all its paper to higher ground in order to print our programs. My dad and brother-in-law cleaned up the yard. My mom made a mad dash to Hobby Lobby to rent an arch and other basic "wedding" type things while my in-laws-to-be took care of the booze. It was a group effort, in every sense of the word. And to be perfectly honest, I wouldn't have changed a thing. I learned what it really takes to have a wedding and, as I'm finding out, a marriage. We had a community that was willing to come to our aid and support us, even when I'm sure they had their own homes and businesses to worry about. We had the grace to take it all in stride; to continue to laugh and live in the moment and have a wonderful time. We had the important stuff: love, family, and each other. And that's all we really needed.

Photo by Bobby Marshall

Tofu Miso Soup

About six years ago, I shared an apartment, officially, with one good friend and unofficially with a second, who spent every night at our place after she was hit by a truck while riding her bicycle. I think it was the combination of limited mobility with our inherent awesomeness that made it hard for her to return to her own place. But, she was incredibly smart and funny, so we never really minded the extra tenent. On an oppressively hot and muggy day, we were desperate for air conditioning and decided that the little sushi place across town sounded like a good escape. I let her do the ordering. It was all so new and intimidating to me. I'd had sushi before (if you count California rolls), but had never had the confidence to explore the menu. Miso, tempura, sashimi; these were foreign and mysterious words to me and I had no idea what delicious adventure that I was embarking upon. The miso was so warm and comforting. Not exactly salty, but wonderfully savory. It became something that I craved and looked forward to whenever we went out for Japanese. It wasn't until this weekend that I had the courage to try making it at home. The mirin and miso paste I was able to find at my co-op, but for the dashi I had to venture out to the Asian market. All I was able to find was an instant dried version to which one adds water. Knowing nothing about dashi, I don't know where this stands on any sort of quality meter, but it worked fine for me. I altered this recipe from its printed version to fit what we had on hand (I had to use the chard from my garden!) and added noodles to make it a bit heartier.

Tomato and Tofu Miso Soup

Adapted from Fresh by Michele Cranston

4 C. dashi stock

2 tsp. mirin

 4 TBS. white miso paste

1 TBS. grated fresh ginger

4 tomatoes

8 oz. firm tofu

1 bunch swiss chard leaves, sliced into ribbons

1 TBS. soy sauce

3 oz. udon noodles

In a saucepan, bring the dashi stock, mirin, white miso paste, and ginger to a boil and then reduce the heat to a gentle simmer.

Slice the tomatoes in half and squeeze to remove the seeds. Dice the flesh and add to broth, simmering for 5 minutes.

Add the udon noodles, simmer for an additional 5 minutes.

Add the chard leaves, tofu, and soy sauce and cook until leaves are just wilted, about 1 minute.

I like to eat this with chopsticks and lots of slurping. Makes 3 large, or 4 average sized portions.

Weekend Review: Deep Economy by Bill McKibben

In all of the sustainability-type books that I've read, none of them really directly tackle the economy; what role it has played in our current environmental situation and what needs to change to make a better future. So I had high hopes for Bill McKibben's Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future (2007). While I wasn't blown away by this book, I did appreciate that it approached the climate crises from a different perspective. I found it to be somewhat meandering. He seemed to lack focus and a certain directness in his writing, but I think his assessment of the situation is right on, as are his suggestions for the future: a smaller, more localized economic system that focuses on building community, rather than building wealth.

McKibben provides us with a very brief economic history that explains how unrestrained growth became the mantra of The United States. He stops; however, to ask exactly what we as individuals and as communities are getting out of all of that growth. He points out that while the GNP goes up and up and up, the median wage in the US has been stagnant for 30 years. Not only is growth not making the majority of us wealthy, new research shows that growth also does not necessarily make us happier. More and more Americans are dissatisfied with their jobs and unhappy in their marriages. This is due in large part to the fact that we are very lonely because we don't need each other for anything anymore. If we have enough money, we can buy everything that we need and we can totally isolate ourselves from one another. We are all strangers with no social ties to maintain. This is a novel situation for humankind. Never before have we not needed our neighbors.

He also explores the obvious environmental consequences of this system. By substituting oil for people, we've destroyed the ecological balance that makes life on this planet possible. Not only do we have environmental pollution when "something goes wrong" (i.e. the oil spill in the gulf), it is also the expected and accepted result of the system. How did we screw things up so incredibly badly? Inertia. Simply by continuing to do something (make money) beyond the point where it was actually making us happy. Growth transformed us into individuals who can make choices about our futures. This shift has brought us very real benefits, like democracy, but we've taken it so far beyond the point of usefulness and are now at a point of hyper-individualism that is actually causing us harm. Not only have we shed our fixed identities, but we have also lost out community. By lionizing efficiency, we have given up things that are of real personal value in order to benefit the bottom dollar, but are of no real benefit to ourselves (leisure time, for example).

So what are the political options that we've been presented thus far? Conservatives tell us that growth is and should be our top priority, no matter what the cost. Liberals agree that we should continue to grow, but they throw in the caveat that wealth should be redistributed more equitably. McKibben disagrees with both.

He explores the "economics of neighborliness" and ecological economics as paths to a better future. He sees an inability of rational utility to describe how real humans actually behave in life. We don't always make rational decisions about how to spend our money, as many studies have shown (i.e. test auctions where people will bid $1.50 to win a dollar and the overvaluing of sunk costs) and yet this is what everything is based upon. However, by becoming smaller and more localized, we personally know all the people that we do business with, making us base our choices on what benefits our community, because what benefits our communities will also benefit us. Hand in hand with this, ecological economics calls for a true accounting of environmental costs. Currently to describe how productive (good) our economy is, we just add up expenditures. So the most economically productive person is a "cancer patient who totals his car on his way to meet his divorce lawyer." By accounting for things like pollution and disease, we have a more real-life picture of our system and whether or not we are actually better or worse off and whether or not we are really happy.

As an example of how this works, McKibben focuses on agriculture and our food system. To make these systems more local, he wants to eliminate agricultural subsidies, or at least tilt them towards small, local producers, and to take back the agriculture departments of the land-grant colleges from the agrochemical companies (who now provide most of the funding) and put them to work on developing local markets and low-input farming methods. In addition to farming, he looks at how a variety of social and economic sectors would benefit by being based more locally: energy, communications (radio, Internet), timber, currency, music and entertainment, as well as government, should all be small, local, and accountable to their participants.

In short, McKibben asks us, "Why don't we start building an economy that works for our current needs, rather than constantly readjusting our lives to serve the growth of the economy?"

This Moment

In Soulemama's words: {this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see. 

Slugs!

I have some icky little garden invaders who have gobbled up pretty much all of my bok choy. Sneaky fellows! Being an evening/weekend gardener, it's so hard for me to stay on top of problems like this. Two days ago, my greens were fine. Then we had a string of rainy weather and bam! Suddenly my bok choy looked like lacy doilies.

I've decided to try a two-pronged approach to dealing with them. I buried a couple of small jars up to their necks and then filled them with beer. The delicate aroma of the expired Grain Belt that's been in my 'fridge since my wedding is supposed to lure these creepy-crawlies to an untimely drowning doom. My second tactic is copper. I've mentioned before that I have small piles all around the house of things that I can't easily recycle, nor can I think of an immediate way to re-purpose them. One of these piles was of those huge copper staples that are used to hold large boxes together. I pulled them out of the boxes that some of our furniture came in when we first bought our house two years ago and they've been tucked into the back of a drawer ever since. So, I dug them out and then bent them into rings which I then placed around the base of the vulnerable plants. Because of their slimy bellies, the little guys get a shock when they try to climb over copper and so it's supposed to be a very good deterrent. I'll keep you posted on how it all turns out.

Muscle Powered

My latest awesome thrifting find was this Zassenhaus hand crank coffee grinder. It needed a good cleaning, but other than that, it's in fantastic shape. I paid $2. It retails for $80. I was very proud.

I've never used a hand mill for coffee before and I guess I was expecting it to be this laborious process. I mean, if it wasn't, why would we replace it with electric ones? I clearly don't have the time in my busy schedule to turn a crank to grind my coffee, right? It must take hours and so much effort. Obviously, no it doesn't. In a side-by-side comparison with my electric grinder (I have lots of ground coffee now), the hand mill was actually faster. Plus I had more fine-tuned control of the coarseness of the grind and it was more consistent. Unlike my electric grinder, which is plastic, this guy is all wood and steel. Nothing to wear out. Nothing to break. This will be the last coffee mill that I will ever buy. In short, I love it. I love the whole process. I love that with the exception of boiling the water, I don't have to plug anything in at all to make coffee. I love mindfully moving through the steps. I don't want to just push a button; I want to slow down and appreciate the time and the labor that so many people invest along the way so that a girl in Iowa can have a cup of coffee. From the farmer in Ecuador to the guy down the street who roasts the beans, I have several people to be thankful to for this indulgence. And I am grateful. Reveling in the process reminds me to be grateful and that's what I like most of all.

Cures what ails ya

It is again rainy and dreary in my corner of the world. In all honesty, I don't really mind thunderstorms or rain. I think that reading a book or working around the house to the background sounds of falling water can be very soothing. But, when you're stuck in a gray office and it's gray outside...yuck.

Solution? Cookies. So many cookies. These are by far our favorite treat to make. Cookies are easy and quick and incredibly satisfying. I use my mom's recipe, with a few changes that I made once we started following more of a traditional foods diet. We use all natural sugars and whole grain flour. Don't let that fool you, though. They are still light and sweet and very good. The date sugar can be hard to find. They used to carry it at my co-op, but they closed it out. I stocked up when they did, but it's also available online. I feel better about using it (rather than brown sugar) because it's less processed and it contains all sorts of micronutrients. So, it's a yummy treat, but my body is also getting some of the things that it needs.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 C. butter, at room temperature

1 C. evaporated cane sugar

1/2 C. date sugar

2 eggs, at room temperature

2 tsp. vanilla

1 tsp. baking soda

2 tsp. hot water

1/2 tsp. salt

3 C. whole spelt flour

2 C. chocolate chips

In a mixer, cream the butter.

Add first the cane sugar at a medium speed, then reduce the speed and add the date sugar.

Add one egg at a time, allowing the first to become fully incorporated before adding the second.

Add the vanilla.

In a small bowl, dissolve the baking soda in the hot water. Add to mixture, along with the salt.

Slowly add the flour.

Add the chocolate chips.

Use a spoon to make balls that are slightly smaller than golf balls and put on an ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake at 350 for 11 to 12 minute. You'll know they're done when the tops just begin to crack.

Blogger Frustration

Blogger has been down for most of the day today, preventing me from writing. Such are rainy, dreary Mondays. I didn't realize how much logging in here had become a part of my daily routine and what a hole not doing so would leave in my day. I've come to really enjoy the time that I spend here. Not only writing, but reading what you all write and our small, but really very meaningful interactions.

Back tomorrow, which is, after all, another day.

Weekend Review: Having Faith by Sandra Steingraber

As an ecologist, Sandra Steingraber is used to exploring how independent elements interact within larger systems. In Having Faith: An Ecologist's Journey to Motherhood (2001), she turns that eye inward, in order to examine the womb as the first ecosystem that we all encounter. She deftly interweaves the poetry of her personal experiences of pregnancy and birth with an objective presentation and analysis of anatomy, science, and the relationship between environmental toxins and fetal toxicity. The book is structured to follow her pregnancy, with a chapter for each month and additional chapters to talk about the birth and her challenges with breastfeeding. In each she talks about what she is personally going through (physically, emotionally, and environmentally) and then uses those experiences as points of entry to talk about a range of environmental threats to babies in utero. From thalidomide, to minamata, to BPA, and the ridiculously high number of environmental toxins commonly found in cord blood samples (280 is the average, if you're counting), she presents these threats not to scare new mothers, but to paint an accurate picture of just how much we've ignored the very real threats that our industrialized way of life pose to our children. She points out that with the heavy reliance on prenatal tests such as amniocentesis, our culture places a huge weight on genetics as the primary indicator of whether or not our children will be born healthy, while ignoring all of the environmental factors. There are no tests that are generally performed to see how many environmental toxins a woman has been/is exposed to, even though we know that they can cause incredible damage.

She borrows a quote from Voltaire to describe a way to go forward: "In ignorance, abstain." To a certain degree, we already expect this of mothers. For example, there are no studies that can accurately set a threshold for caffeine or alcohol consumption before adverse effects are seen. And so, the prevailing wisdom has been to advise women to avoid both completely. But why does this mindset only apply to individual behavior? There is actually more evidence about the damage that environmental toxins (mostly from agriculture and industry) do to developing fetuses. There is no "safe threshold" for babies for lead or mercury, for example. Any amount is toxic and can have disastrous effects on a developing fetus. And yet we allow both to be spewed into our air and water and thereby taken into all of our bodies. Why is it that everyone wants to tell women what they should do to not harm their babies, but no one will tell industry to stop doing things that harm entire future generations?

She concludes that "prenatal care means taking care of water, fish, and glaciers" as well as our own bodies, for how can we expect those bodies to provide safe, clean first homes for our children when they exist in a larger ecosystem that is contaminated? This requires not only individual action (choosing to eat organic, for example), but also political action. It behooves all of us to demand nontoxic alternatives to current industry chemicals. This may seem like a daunting task, but we do have evidence that it really does work. Breast milk monitoring programs show that when persistent organic pollutants are banned, their levels begin to fall in breast milk. We can keep these toxins out of our and our babies' bodies, but we must have the political will to do so.

Writing in 2001, she saw the most urgent need as being nontoxic alternatives to chemicals such as PBDE flame retardants, whose levels are still on the rise in breast milk and are found in everything from your computer to your couch to your baby's pajamas. Sadly, this is still the case. One way we can do this, is by demanding that the United States join the Stockholm Convention, an agreement by countries around the world to ban certain toxic chemicals. To look at the map of those countries who have already signed it is heartening to see the 168 who have agreed to participate. The United States, Russia, and Saudi Arabia are pretty much the only countries who are not on board. Even China has signed on. It seems very telling that China, with their history of contaminants in everything from charm bracelets for children to dog food, are willing to make a commitment to reduce toxic emissions, but the United States isn't. 

This Moment

In Soulemama's words: {this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see.

In the kitchen

Right now I'm loving:

:: Farmer's Market produce. I thought that seasonal eating would feel like deprivation, but it doesn't. It feels like celebration.

:: Recipe gems in old cookbooks, like the cream of asparagus soup above from The Moosewood Cookbook.

:: Strawberries and cream. Is there a more perfect dessert?

:: Old timey coffee grinders. (More on this later!)

:: A partner who has a sense of adventure in the kitchen. I never thought that this would be important to me, but Steve always eats what I put on the menu, no matter what's in it. I know many people who have to plan around certain food aversions, but the thought of cooking without onions, for example, makes me grateful that Steve is who he is.

Siberian Iris

When I planted these Siberian Iris, I wasn't expecting them to be so small and delicate. I had never seen them before and something about the word "Siberian" made me think that they would be thick and hardy, and while they are tenacious little plants, it is the "little" that one notices first.

I love how the petals look as if they've been hand-painted. Such intricate detail.

They only lasted about a week, but were thoroughly enjoyed while they bloomed!

The sky was very rumbling last night. I sat in bed reading as the thunder crashed with a bevy of animals burrowing around me for reassurance that they wouldn't have to go out in the storm. It's okay little ones...you're safe here.

First Harvest

After returning home from our family picnic at a restored prairie, Steve and I enjoyed the very first pickings of this season's garden. After pulling up these radishes, I dropped new seeds right into the same holes for a second crop.
  

They were added to this salad, the recipe for which came from Molly Wizenberg's A Homemade Life. The cilantro also came from our garden and the feta is local and delicious!

It was a hot one yesterday. I didn't at all feel like turning on any sort of cooking device, hence the salad. My favorite summer dinner choice!