You know there has been too much rain when you find mushrooms hanging from the trees on your local walk…
…I haven’t tried to look these up yet but they sure look like upside down mushrooms…
They seemed to be only growing on the same type of tall shrub…but were very abundant…
I’m guessing it will be a good year for all types of fungi…
Another birthday celebration…This time Happy Birthday to my firstborn!…
How I wish I had a digital camera in 1977…
Ms O…the beautiful woman on whom I had to learn everything about mothering and who is now doing a wonderful job mothering her own children…I am always amazed at how lucky I am…
And her husband Mr H has a birthday in one week…
…In case anyone is counting, that is 4 birthdays in 3 weeks!
I wanted a nice, simple vegetarian and gluten-free side dish for my weekend get-together and my very best friend shared a recipe she found and adapted. It is so simple and yummy that I may keep it as my “go to” potluck dish…Originally called “Wild and Nutty Rice”…she made it with quinoa…a gluten free grain…
…so I guess I’ll call it “Wild and Nutty Quinoa”…
First cook 16oz. of quinoa according to the package…it cooks a lot like couscous…
It looks a little like couscous too ….
…
While that is cooling, lightly toast about 1 and 1/3 cups of sliced almonds…nothing exact here…
…
The recipe next says to add 1 and 1/3 cups of raisins but I had some wonderful dark, chewy apricots from Trader Joe’s…not the soft mushy kind that stores seem to think everyone likes now… so I chopped some up to raisin size…
…and combined them with golden raisins…
…then slice a bunch of scallions…
…. get the zest and juice from one large orange…and 3 Tablespoons of olive oil..
…and combine everything together…
So simple…and I bet it tastes good made with the rice too…
…is something I never heard of until yesterday. My ten year old cat, Miss Sally, seemed to have a red watery eye all weekend , which I ignored due to a house full of guests…and Sally tends to hide when we have guests. Tuesday I got an appointment at the vets and Sally was diagnosed with feline uveitis…an inflammation inside the eye. The question that now needs to be answered is why did she develop this infection…A battery of tests were taken and today I heard that my cat tested positive for Feline immunodeficiency virus. Tomorrow I talk to the vet again…
…Today I am having fun hiding pills in sardines and putting eye drops in eyes…
Usually I manage to go out with Mr O for my first sail on our sailboat sometime in early June…Not this year though…This year it was too cold and rainy to go out until July…
A few days earlier we had some help getting the boat ready….
…And after a sail? or even a non-sail?…naps, lobster rolls, and ice cream…
Legend has it that Queen Anne, the wife of King James I, was challenged by her friends to create lace as beautiful as a flower. While making the lace, she pricked her finger, and it’s said that the purple-red flower in the center of Queen Anne’s Lace represents a droplet of her blood. In reality this spot attracts insects… It was interesting to discover that if the cut stems of this flower are placed in colored water the white florets will absorb it…much like carnations do…I will have to try it someday to impress the grandchildren…
This is one wild-flower that has always been ubiquitous in my area…maybe over-looked …but always a sign of summer for me. Thanks to a summer library booksale I came across this William Carlos Williams poem…
…
Queen-Ann’s-Lace
by William Carlos Williams
Her body is not so white as
anemony petals nor so smooth – nor
so remote a thing. It is a field
of the wild carrot taking
the field by force; the grass
does not raise above it.
Here is no question of whiteness,
white as can be, with a purple mole
at the center of each flower.
Each flower is a hand’s span
of her whiteness. Wherever
his hand has lain there is
a tiny purple blemish. Each part
is a blossom under his touch
to which the fibres of her being
stem one by one, each to its end,
until the whole field is a
white desire, empty, a single stem,
a cluster, flower by flower,
a pious wish to whiteness gone over -
or nothing.
Happy Birthday to my youngest…Mrs. R…
From 1982…
…to 2009…
How quickly these 27 years have gone by…how much has happened in these years…how proud I am of my beautiful, accomplished, adult daughter…here’s to you my dear!
And to Mr. R who had a birthday two days earlier….
The ceilings are curved, the booths still have juke boxes with push buttons, and the breakfasts are yummy…
…If you’re too late for breakfast I can highly recommend their fish chowder…I thought it was the perfect thing to eat while sitting under an umbrella watching the ducks and the river traffic…
…I love coming here with my sister…
Simple summer things I’m loving…
Thanks to Christina of SoulAperture for hosting a Simple Things day which started me thinking about this list…I’m sure it will get longer…
After three gloriously sunny days we are back to rain, thunder-storms, and chill…I was feeling rather glum about it, rather mildewy around the edges, when I read this while I was browsing in a bookstore, escaping from a sudden squall…
Just Rain by Mary Oliver
The clouds
did not say
soon, but who can tell
for sure, it wasn’t
the first time I had been
fooled; the sky-doors
opened and
the rain began
to fall upon all of us: the
grass, the leaves,
my face, my shoulders
and the flowered body
of the pond where
it made its soft
unnotational
music on the pond’s
springy surface, and then
the birds joined in and I too
felt called toward such
throat praise. Well,
the whole afternoon went on
that way until I thought
I could feel
the almost born things
in the earth rejoicing. As for myself,
I just kept walking, thinking:
once more I am grateful
to be present.
Her book “Evidence” went home with me…
A few images from a busy Independence Day…and my sister’s 60th birthday…should I tell?
The day was celebrated at my sister’s house with family and friends…lobster and cake…Except for one nephew, all in our two families were there for a picture…How hard it is to get 11 people to look good at one time!
