Unexpected Gourds

A few weeks ago this plant popped up outside my front door. It grew very fast and started flowering profusely. Bees were always buzzing around it. They would burrow deep down into the blossoms. We could even pet them and they were so drunk on pollen the didn't even budge. I decided to let it keep growing, for the bees sake. 

And keep growing it did! Like a magic beanstalk, it grew up the house and into the rain gutter.

My home is always decorated with all kinds of nature bits: gourds, nests, pumpkins, shells, acorns, pine cones, insects, feathers, skulls, and more.

When a pumpkin or gourd gets a bit soft I display it outside, that way I can enjoy the beauty a little longer. Apparently, one of last years gourds planted itself at my front door.

Now we have all these lovely little gourds. We cut them off at different stages so we can enjoy the different shapes. They will end up back outside and hopefully the cycle will continue.

So inspired by the adorable gourds, my daughters decided to capture a couple in watercolor...

The Younger

The Older

Looking Glass Flowers: mAd TeA 2015

'O Tiger-lily,' said Alice, addressing herself to one that was waving gracefully about in the wind, 'I WISH you could talk!'

'We CAN talk,' said the Tiger-lily: 'when there's anybody worth talking to.'

Alice was so astonished that she could not speak for a minute: 

it quite seemed to take her breath away. 

At length, as the Tiger-lily only went on waving about, she spoke again, in a timid voice--almost in a whisper. 

'And can ALL the flowers talk?'

'As well as YOU can,' said the Tiger-lily. 'And a great deal louder.'

'How is it you can all talk so nicely?' Alice said, hoping to get it into a better temper by a compliment. 'I've been in many gardens before, but none of the flowers could talk.'

Put your hand down, and feel the ground,' said the Tiger-lily. 'Then you'll know why.'

Alice did so. 'It's very hard,' she said, 'but I don't see what that has to do with 'it.'

'In most gardens,' the Tiger-lily said, 'they make the beds too soft--so that the flowers are always asleep.'

This sounded a very good reason, and Alice was quite pleased to know it. 'I never thought of that before!' she said.

The Menu:

"It's my own  invention."

Mushroom Tarts- chickpea shortbread with mushroom and wild arugula topping

5 Layer Cake- orange cake with cranberry cream and blueberries

Flower Sandwiches- pickled beet butter on whole wheat with chopped egg centers

and of course lots and lots of TEA

The Alice Dolls: Little Pullip Alice & 1966 Madame Alexander Alice

My Mad Tea Party 2013 

click here

Easter

Through all the fogs through

all earth's wintry skies

I scent the spring, I feel

the eternal air

Warm soft & dewy, filled with

flowery eyes

And gentle murmuring motions

everywhere

Of life in bird & tree & brook

and moss-

Thy breath wakes beauty, faith &

bliss & prayer

And strength to hang with nails

upon Thy Cross.

-Lilias Trotter (from A Passion for the Impossible)

*the photo: We were at The NY Botanical Garden. My daughter inched closer and closer to a little brown rabbit who just stood there for the longest time nibbling on a plant. He seemed oblivious to us. He was straight out of a Beatrix Potter story, all that was missing was his little blue jacket.

Tasha Tudor Day 2013

Honoring Tasha here today with one of my favorite of her quotes...

"I’m very fond of men. I think they are wonderful creatures. I love them dearly. But I don’t want to look like one. When women gave up their long skirts, they made a grave error…" ~Tasha Tudor

4th of July dresses

 I finished my dress just in time to wear it for the 4th of July. My french vibe picnic was complete. We strolled through an amazing sunken garden, had our picnic (pan bagnat, pickled crudite, and dark chocolate truffles), saw a Duke Ellington tribute concert with fireworks to finish it off.

 The dress is so light and comfortable, it's like wearing your coziest cotton nighty. I wore it again today to church because it was so hot out. We don't have air conditioning yet so we had the service outside. The property is edged with woods and thickets of wild blackberries grow there. After church my little one and I picked berries to make Vitamix ice cream, a real treat after such a hot day.

This time last year I was on a gingham kick. I bought yards of gingham in all colors. My family and I went to the same place for the 4th that we went to this year. It has become a tradition. With gardens, concert and fireworks it's the perfect place to celebrate. Last year I made and wore this brown gingham dress and we had a classic Americana picnic. Who knows what will strike my fancy for the next Fourth of July. 

The Garden Game

I found this game "The Garden Game" at a thrift store, brand new and factory sealed. I grabbed it because the artwork is very nice. I had no idea how many hours we would spend playing it. You have to take care of your garden despite many obstacles. You must feed your soil, plant seeds, nurture plants, and deal with natural disasters. You get to reap rewards for your choices too, like harvesting and sharing with your community, even having harvest festivals if all goes well.

Over the winter we cozied up at the table with pots of tea and played hours of The Garden Game while dreaming of spring and getting ideas for our real life garden game.

If you play the game well you will reap a harvest. Every spring we each plant something that we like to eat and we are each responsible for taking care of it. My 9YO is pretty good about tending her little space, she was happy to dig  up and eat these sweet mini carrots. 

My 13YO doesn't enjoy gardening or gardens for that matter. She prefers foraging, climbing, catching animals, bird watching, identifying rocks, but not gardening. When we were picking out seeds last spring I urged her to at least pick out one things to grow. She likes salad so she picked mutli colored salad greens. She also read that they would be ready to harvest fairly soon. She planted them and that was pretty much the extent of her "gardening".

I wanted to just let them be, they were her responsibility. 

But every time they were dried out and mostly dead I caved in and watered them. I shaded them. I couldn't help it! I can't just leave things to die needlessly. This is what lettuces look like if you ignore them. Cute little flowers on top and seeds, which I collected. I will plant them this year. My salad loving girl will enjoy eating them and it's fine by me that she dislikes gardening. Everyone has their own thing to do.

Now for this year's cast of characters...so far. Yesterday I planted two of my all time favorite things- nasturtiums and beets (you know I love my beets!). I think they are both beautiful and tasty so every year they are top priority to plant. This time the beets are 'candy striped'. I can't wait to see them!

Making Mushrooms

This has been a week for mushrooms. I was feeling a bit lousy with a cold on Easter morning. Puffy head, runny nose, I sat in church trying to ignore it. My daughter knew just the perfect moment to pull this out of her bag. "Your Easter present", she said and she handed me this adorable crocheted mushroom. Yay! That cheered me on to listen to the Easter message and feed a bunch of people afterwards. It continues to work it's magic whenever I see it. When my daughter was little she was always giving me cute things that she made. Something made out of clay with too many eyes, a scribble drawing that said "I mad thi3 for you" (translation: I made this for you.). But, lately when she writes me a note or makes me something it is worth more to me than all those sweet little scraps from when she was younger. She is 13 now and she knows me more as an equal human being than the "mom" person I was to her when she was small. When the girls were very little sometimes the days were hectic and I longed for them to end so we could all just get some sleep. Now, the days are never long enough to do all the things we want to do. If you have little ones and feel sad thinking about them growing up remember they are still the same people, only much much more interesting. 

A friend forwarded me an email about a homeschool class about growing mushrooms, "Thought this was right up your alley", she said. She was so right. Even though I was on the tail end of my stinky cold we went. We "planted" shitake mushrooms. The first step was to go into the woods where we each got to pick our own host logs. They had a lot of downed trees due to hurricane Sandy, the Red Oak logs were pre-cut for us in manageable sizes. We carried them back and drilled holes into them where the shitake spawn was to be put. Here's my gal doing the drilling.

Next was the inoculation process. Shooting the spawn (which is mixed with sawdust) into the holes.

Next , melted wax is brushed over each hole to seal in the spawn to keep it from drying out.

There they are, logs filled with shitake spawn waiting to grow yummy mushrooms. I can't help but think of the perfect timing of this experience for us, it being Easter week. With thoughts fresh in my mind about Jesus and his resurrection, about how he always makes a way for seemingly dead things to become new. You know these mushrooms cannot even grow on a living log? It has to be decaying. Without the death of theses trees the new amazingly useful "fruit" could never be born.