May Day

HAPPY MAY DAY!
Goose Girl & Foxy decided to invite their friend, The Flying Scotsman over for a little dance around the Maypole celebration! They all had a wonderful time!

Spring Sprung, Life At The Luck Cabin

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Spring stuff coming up.
(the music and background noise mixed together in a way i didn't intend... and got a little creepy.)



xoxo

Good Morels (mushrooms!)

On my way back from the 'stairway to ramp heaven' I made a foraging find that made the day seem like it was born of magic, unicorns and rainbows... i found some morels! And not the kind I have to kneel down a pray for, but the kind I kneel down and pluck from the earth... Huge wild morel mushrooms. The most morels I have ever held, the most I have ever seen, the biggest most beautiful... morels the size of a f-en pine cone! we literally stumbled upon the patch of morels when walking back through the forest and (not) trespassing past someone's house... (omg, i stole someone's morels--- does this mean deep down i have no morals?) I did take the mushrooms, and shook them all around the area where i plucked a few... trying to spread spores in what seemed to be a perfect environment for growing them- there were sooo many! I made sure to leave many morels growing too, so spores could take wind and make many more.

WHEN I GOT HOME WITH MY MORELS :::::

i know it can be futile to attempt to grow morel mushrooms on purpose, but it's always worth a try. I wrapped the mushrooms in a cheese cloth and took them into the woods - shaking the cloth lightly to let spores loose into the air.

and my second trick, in hopes to grow my own... i filled a bowl full of spring water, let the morels soak for an hour or so --- then i took the spore filled water outside and spread it around in spots I thought they'd enjoy propogating.

THEN I COOKED Um' UP! :::::::

mmmmmm

• I cut each one down the middle (after rinsing it) , added ramps (wild leeks), parsley and rosemary to a pan.


• Alot of moisture came from the mushrooms, which i drained off twice. Once the water was drained off enough, i added some oil and let them cook on low/medium for about 7-10 minutes (until darker brown.)


• I put it over (gluten free) rice pasta with olive oil and pink salt!

SooOOOooOOo delicious, it felt like a sin.

XoxoxoX

Stairway To Ramp Heaven

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Yesterday me , JuJu the donkey and a good friend went ramp huntin' in the woods... there was alot of pointing, turning around, following ridges, judging terrain, and memory sharing - of where local people said they had found them before. Impressively JuJu pushed right through the forest with me, stepping over fallen trees & always guarding our back, stopping when i stopped, maybe even smiling a donkey smile.

After a hike so up and downhill that my legs are actually sore... we came upon the BIGGEST most heavenly, grandest HUGE insane ramp patch I have ever seen, and most likely will ever see! Thousands and thousands of them, more then i could take in standing in one place... going downhill, uphill... 360 degrees all around. I had the urge to lay down in it and roll around till I smelled like an onion.

For anyone who might not be familiar with "ramps", they are a delicious wild edible leek, or onion type plant. (see more close up pics here.) They have a strong odor & flavor - people love them so dearly here in the mountains that they have festivals sharing all their ramp recipes & NO ONE ever tells where the ramp patch they've found is. No one, including me. :)

We dug up about enough to fill a half gallon jar, some to eat, some to replant in our own hiding places.

When you first dig um' up, you have to pull back a rotten looking layer of brown-ish skin, to reveal the beautiful white root of the ramp (see pic below).

Digging down a few inches, cause ya can't pull the plant up by it's leaves (it will break)! The whole entire thing is edible....mmmmmmmm. And did i mention they taste sooooooo gooooood?!!

Xoxoxox

Brain Surgery, Ramps and My Mama!

My verrrrry loved friend Heather had to have emergancy brain surgery a few days ago! Which is why I have been a bit slowed down, exhausted, and my mind has been far far away from it's usual processes. Heather loves me and I love her too... she has been a good friend to me for years now! She had a scary octopus like absess infection in her brain but did not know it till it was paralyzing half her body --- the surgery had to be done ASAP when the test results came back. I am so happy she is talking and alive! She makes me glad to be alive. Heather makes this world a place where you are loved, all things including the most terrible, creepy, disturbing... all is accepted, all is adored. ........................................ When i wasn't pacing, and crying in the woods about Heather.... life went on as it always should. (Appreciate it while you have it! and being i came back from the dead myself, i know i dont want to lose time...) Today... I found the RAMPS i planted last year coming back up!!! I transplanted some that came up where i cut down trees (they don't like the sunshine the way I do)... so i moved them into another patch I had started in a good shaded spot where i will not be cutting anything back.

My mom also came to visit me! She is hillarious... she was singing to all my animals, and she was trying to train the chicken to not come inside the cabin. I have to say she was doing a better job with the chicken then i have...

if ya'll coulda heard her scream when the chicken came in and landed on the stove!!

............... here is a video, of my mom... I could not stop laughing and was acting out a bit to egg her on!



xoxox

Teeny Tiny Inch Worm

Yesterday when i was laying out in the sunshine, this suuuuper tiny inch worm got on my blankie with me. It's sooooooooo little and cute... and i love how when it's body is straight it looks like a stick, like a piece of a birch tree branch.

I let him crawl all over my hand...

It's a big world out there, I wonder how much of it the inch worm covers in it's lifetime?

xoxoxox

Warm Sunny Days Make....

Being Warm & Sunny Makes So Much POssible! *
1. eating watermelon in the sun 2. getting vitamin D & nice tan 3. planting seeds to grow an awesome organic garden 4. watching the animals lay down in sunny spots & run free, yay! 5. don't need no socks and shoes.... 6. for that matter, underwear becomes optional too! 7. hanging clothes to dry on the line, they come out smelling sooooo good 8. Theoretically could be sprayed with a hose for fun 9. Can open windows for fresh air 10. everything is just easier!!!!!!!!

* xoxoxoox

I Love Beach Music

When Spring seems to be in the air and sunlight dapples the path of my walks in the woods, it always makes me a little homesick. For Spring at home means dogwoods in full blossom, the tingle of the sun on your skin, the smell of pluff mud and the sparkling view of the ocean as you hit the bridge for the first beach trip of the season.

I am from the South and the promise of warm weather holds so much weight. Warm weather not only brings beach trips, a great hot dog from Jack's, sweet tea watered down from the heat of the day, but a certain vibe all of its own. It brings with it, its own music; beach music.

Heading down to the beach during Spring/Summer in the South, meant hitting a certain part of the journey where you would lose a good radio signal. But about 20-30 minutes after that, you would pick up the sounds of the beach. Nothing but good old Shagging kinda music. We would roll the windows down to catch that first smell of the pines, the sun beating down on our skin as the car was filled with the sounds of the coast. The music filled our beach house too or echoed from someone else's as we sat on the screen porch, watching my parent's dance around.

I can't get in my car and head to the beach in England, but I can bring the memories of the beach to me. All, I have to do is hit "play" on my Ipod and the upbeat, soulful, happy tunes from the "Beach Music Anthology" fill my house and if I close my eyes real tight, I can almost taste that hot dog and smell those pines, feel my toes digging into the sand, the breeze dancing across my skin, the waves hitting the shore and the sound of beach music floating across the air from someone's radio. I love beach music!

Here are just a few of my favorite beach music melodies:



(Image: film still from "Shag:The Movie")

A Walk In The Clouds

This is why they call them the Smokey Mountains. Sometimes I might spend half a day in the clouds, a thick white fog. In New Orleans it rolled off the river, here it rolls across mountain tops.

It can make the mundane, turn spooky and beautiful.

It can transform your driveway, into a portal of unknown destination.

It washes out everything behind you, and everything in front of you in a way I find much more soothing then the white of snow. This white haze is something I am familiar with, i love it the way i love the sounds of barges on the mississipi river and a train blowing it's horn.

(song of the day ::: Crave You .... i like how they switch lives. I wanna do that one day. Watch the video. )

XOXoxoxox

Organic Gardening = Making Groceries At Home

Even though it snowed last night, the sun came back out today - finally in a position to shine on the organic garden area! I decided it was time to get started on my spring/summer preparations... first, finish raking in the donkey poop I had been dumping over the fence all winter... and churning up the top soil & donkey poop I had layered into the garden beds last summer.

DONKEY POOP + TOP SOIL (removed from around the barn) = amazing black composted dirt !!!

I made a new garden bed too today! As ya'll can see, I dont go for the high class look in my garden... i use whatever i have around to build with (meaning no $$$ is needed, no store has to be driven to). Sticks, old lumber left over from building, and rocks are how I put it together --- and its filled with 100% donkey doo doo.

I had some hay that got moisture in it, and was no good to feed to the animals... so i started using that for my paths I walk on, in between garden beds.

In the pic below... are some of the semi-raised beds I have slowly been filling up. If you are not impressed with how it looks, take a look at the work I had to do to get it to this point...

click here ::: Flashback to A YEAR AGO!

Some of the donkey poop had grass seeds in it, that have begun to grow.

I weed it out, then give it back to JuJu and the chickens!! The hens looooove to run off with the whole clump of grass .... :))))

THINGS THAT CAME BACK! :::::

so my fall winter garden didn't work out at all, because i had the big depressing surprise of having no sun during that time of the year (due to the placement of the mountain ridges). But many of the things i planted during that time stayed alive under the snow, they didn't die when wind & temperatures hit -20 f ...

My dwarf fruit tree have survived! The pear, peach and cherry!

and in my gardens beds...

the kale! the spinach!

the carrots! the rutabaga!

and many herbs are poking their first leaves through the leaves and soil - oregano, parsley, thyme, mint, bee balm, comfrey, chives, lavender and sage!

Xoxoxo

When you have Lemons...

If life gives you lemons, make lemonade as the embroidery sampler in my Mom's kitchen says! This has been a week, where I just haven't stopped and I am not going to get the chance to either! I have had a lot of lemons this week and I am making as much lemonade as I can! I might need to set up a stall outside of my house to sell it all.

I have guest coming this weekend, a house that needs to be cleaned, a brunch to prepare for tomorrow and I need to get myself in the mood to entertain. Which normally is not my usual take on things. My parent's are fabulous entertainers, they have created a home where you always feel "Welcome", and they have given that gift to myself and my sister. But, this week has been so hectic and next will be as well with Art exams that I am not really in the mood for company. But, I know I will enjoy it when it is all happening.

I was flipping through my cookbooks, trying to find the perfect Spring time dessert for tomorrow and when nothing jumped out at me, I turned to a tried and trusted source: The Pioneer Woman's Tasty Kitchen Blog. And, it was here that I immediately spotted what I wanted to make. A scrumptious Buttermilk Blueberry & Lemon Cake that looks like it holds the essence of Spring inside it. So, after everything else is done, this is going into the oven tonight, because I have a bowl full of lemons and you know what they say....

Spring is in the Air

It is still bitterly cold here at times. As I came home from work last night and proceeded to open the door to come inside, I noticed that my fresh pot of sunshine yellow primroses already had a few ice crystals on their little blossom faces.

There is still the chance of snow, even though green is popping up here and there. My climbing rose has fresh growth as does the jasmine that I am training over the porch cover of the cottage. There are daffodils and crocuses in full bloom in front of a number of houses that I pass in the big red bus on my way to school.

The color of Spring is beginning to be all around us and that makes me smile. There is a promise of warmth and the growth of sunny flowers on the way. While catching up on my blog reading last night, I read a post of Spring Time happiness over at The Purl Bee. I know there is still the chance of snow, very likely more frost and it could be the same for you wherever you live. But, with these bright and happy projects, you can bring the Spring indoors to YOU. Enjoy!

(Click on the images above to be taken to the projects)

7 Eggs!! I Am Rich!

OH myyyy GAWD! My chickens are actually laying eggs! Last summer they were dry as a bone, hardly a chicken could do a thing it seemed. I had almost lost hope in the flock, i thought maybe they were too old, too inbred, too many bought at auction.
But alas! Warm weather and alot of free range fun = seven eggs this morning.
What is even cooler, two of the hens appeared to be setting (both the Rhode Island Reds)... i let myself get pecked as i pulled all the eggs from the nest to put in my basket.
I will let them have the next batch --- if they make babies too, I am going to explode with excitement!
xoxoox

What Big Teeth You Have!

"What big teeth you have!",exclaimed Red Riding Hood, to what she believed to be her ill Grandmother, lying in the bed, only to discover that it was in fact, a wolf! This seems to be the week of grandmothers turning into wolves, where all is not what it seems.

A week where everyone seems to be baring their teeth. I do not know if the "new" moon has made people crazy, or if the stars and planets are simply not aligned this week? Is there something in the water? Have people begun to drink the Kool-Aid? Has the long Winter finally made people just snap? Or does everyone have Spring Fever? This past week has been a week where almost everyone I have crossed paths with seems to be completely off kilter.

People have been snappy, or in an unusually odd mood that is out of character for them. I am so happy that it is the weekend. Hopefully, next week will bring with it a sense of calmness to everyone, because the franticness of this week was almost more than I could take.

This has been a week of being with "wild things"! As Maurice Sendak, wrote in one of my favorite books (Where the Wild Things Are):

"And the wild things roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws." 

There has been a lot of roaring and gnashing this week. There is something in the air, others I have spoken with have noticed it as well. I am just hoping that all this windy weather we are getting at the moment, will blow it right back out of here, because I would like an easier, calmer and more peaceful week next week, then this one has been!