Monday, April 02, 2007

A little bit of spring

Pulled another bucket of blooming dandelions today, although I already see that I missed a whole area. The 3 pieris (andromeda) are blooming nicely. The coral bark maple is starting to leaf out, and in another week or two it will have bright chartreuse leaves on bright red branches. I'm slowly edging the grass with discarded concrete chunks that I find, and also with some thick granite pieces that my neighbor Doug brings over.



My little 'homemade' Japanese lantern, next to the viburnum that's about to bloom. I can't remember the variety of the viburnum right now, but it's extremely fragrant. I'll remember it once I start working in the yard again. For some reason, when I'm not working in the yard much, I just can't remember the names of the plants; but they all come back once I get out regularly again.



The flowering quince, beautiful in the spring but a curse the rest of the year.



My 'Audrey II'. Traded two drawings for it with a sculptor friend. There are actually lots of little tiny 'hairs' on the piece that you can't see in the photo. It's a great little garden sculpture.



Shipped off Calypso to Marilyn for the Focus on Book Arts conference exhibits. Shipped off the new boxes to Shane and Lisa. Worked on updating the web site.

2 comments:

Sundry said...

What do you do with the dandelions? Did you know you can eat dandelion flowers and leaves?

Usually the leaves are only really good very early when they are small and tender. They're a bit bitter, so it might be an acquired taste. We had them boiled with a bit of bacon and topped with a splash of vinegar. (Like cooked spinach.)

Better yet, the flowers! Soak them in a bowl of salt water to smoke out any bugs while you crack an egg or two into a bowl and put some flour on a plate. Dip the flowers into the egg, then he flour, and then drop into a heated buttered skillet. You need to use enough butter to really fry them.

It's kind of decadent. Truely delicious. Sautee until the edges are crisp. Roll so all sides are cooked. The nearly-opened buds are tasty too.

Aw, I haven't had these in years. It's making me homesick/hungry!

fingerstothebone said...

I've thought about eating them, but we have an unfenced yard, and various neighborhood dogs and cats come into our yard and I've found their business scattered about. So I'm a little leery of eating our dandelions. The fried flowers sound just delicious though. I have tried dandelion leaves (bought at the store), and I think they were a bit past their youthful prime.

How about dandelion wine?

Shu-Ju