In honor of Memorial Day, and because the lilacs just bloomed, a little Walt Whitman. When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed 1 WHEN lilacs last in the door-yard bloom’d, And the great star early droop’d in the western sky in the night, I mourn’d—and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring. O ever-returning spring! trinity sure to me you bring; Lilac blooming perennial, and drooping star in the west, And thought of him I love. 2 O powerful, western, fallen star! O shades of night! O moody, tearful night! O great star disappear’d! O the black murk that hides the…
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The hoops I built over the beds of greens worked so spectacularly well that I’ve hooped the tomato bed and planted the tomato seedlings a little early. I did discover that it makes a difference whether you use thin or heavy plastic — I think I’ve lost one seedling, and a couple others got a little burned up, but once I replaced the thin plastic with the heavier, the tomatoes are looking better. I think it’s not only the warmth, but the humidity. I also moved a bunch of greens out of one hooped bed, arugula, spinach, and some endive,…
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[I’m up against a bunch of deadlines, and just don’t have any blogging mojo right now, so here’s an oldie but goodie from the archives. Back soon.] Behold, my gorgeous
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I’m in a deadline zone, but here are some interesting links from around the intertubes that I thought you all might like: Weeds, being what they are, have developed their own Roundup-Ready varietals. Guess that whole GMO thing was so well-thought-out, eh? I have to confess, I used to resort to a little casual Roundup use around the LivingSmall ranchero, but between the frogs, and the cancer cluster in which I grew up, and my amazing Bernzomatic Outdoor Torch, I now just burn weeds up instead of spraying them with the dreaded Atrazine. Fellow Ethicurean, Steph Larsen, has incurred my…
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My new Bookslut Column is up: The Magic of Mushrooms, in which I gush even more about mushroom hunting, and review the following books: The Complete Mushroom Book: Savory Recipes for Wild and Cultivated Varieties by Antonio Carluccio, MUSHROOM FEAST: A Celebration of all Edible Fungi, Cultivated, Wild and Dried, with Recipes by Jane Grigson, and The River Cottage Cookbook by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.
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There they are — the first morels of the season. The Sweetheart and I found them up behind his cabin yesterday — eleven of them, nearly 12 ounces total (yes, I’m a nerd, I weighed them). It never gets old, the thrill of finding a mushroom in the grass. I also found a couple of nice clumps of early oyster mushrooms. Little bitty ones, which sauteed up beautifully. So last night we had mushroom pizzas — one with morels and red onion and sausage and one with greens from the hoop house and sausage and both kinds of mushrooms (someone…