Such a Fun Guy

 You might recall that we experienced that elusive weather phenomenon known as a sunny weekend. So, I set out to do what I had been unable to accomplish so far this year: I mowed my grass. Which in itself is quite an accomplishment. All the necessary criteria were met—I had the proper weather to facilitate mowing AND my schedule allowed for it And my mower had both gas and a fully charged battery. The two previous sunny days we had this season I was far away from my yard or busy with grandchildren. Hooray for me! Mark helped me clear a path to free my mower from the confines of its winter storage, and off I went, earplugs in my ears and a song in my heart.

Since it was the first mow of the season and my grass was moderately overgrown—and by moderately I mean there was no need for the bailer attachment—I was carefully navigating the first pass around the perimeter when an unexpected sight stopped me short. I disengaged the mower blades, dropped the transmission into Park, jumped off of the mower and went tearing around the back of the house to where Mark was quietly enjoying the afternoon.

“Come with me,” I said, and grabbed his hand, towing him out to the abandoned mower. There, just in a head of the front mushroom was a single, baby morel. 

 

We made all the appropriate Ooh-ing and Ahh-ing sounds one makes to a baby mushroom before carefully harvesting it. “Good thing I didn’t run over it,” I said and then blinked. Underneath the mower deck I could see two more mushrooms.

Mark and I froze in our tracks, like two soldiers who had blissfully skipped into the middle of a minefield, only to realize that the next step could mean death and destruction—or at least squishing of the delicious fungi, which would be a gourmand’s tragedy. 

I think it took us about 20 minutes to carefully sweep the area clean of the tender treats before we decided it was safe to move the mower. I returned to my interrupted chore while Mark carefully searched the backyard for more mushrooms.

And that’s the story of how I went mushroom hunting over the weekend, accidently, unintentionally-- but quite successfully. 

They Tell Me It’s Spring

 
It’s spring—or at least that’s what my calendar says. We’ve had rainsnowhailrainsnowhailrainrain 80degreeweather, followed by more rainsnowhail. I, for one, am in favor of unplugging Mother Nature and then plugging her back in to see if that helps.

Snow Skittles

Usually by this time of year I will have already visited a couple of my favorite dealers—I mean local nurseries—for inspiration and supplies. I would have quite the happy little collection of baby plants sitting in the shelter of my back deck, waiting for the first week of May, so they can be safely tucked into their summer homes. My straw bale garden would have been properly conditioned and ready to go.

Alas, spring this year has been super “F”—as in super fickle. I have my straw bales (SBG) in place—conveniently delivered from Overby Hay & Grain by my co-worker Haze and her husband Guy, and currently being watered by the aforementioned Mother Nature. I only have to remember to go out about every other day and sprinkle a half-cup of nitrogen fertilizer on them.

Unfortunately, “Mom” is handling the watering requirements to her specifications and not according to the needs of my SBG. The SBG book clearly states that the bales should ideally be watered with “warm” or “day old” water—water that has been sitting around in buckets. I’m pretty sure they didn’t have water with a top coating of ice in mind when they wrote the book.

At the end of winter this year I thought I’d get a jump on the growing season by starting seeds indoors. I planted green beans, snow peas, and sweet basil. Then I promptly embarked for a three-week trip and left my little sprouts in the loving care of my cat sitter (Hi Eileen!)

Kitchen Table Harvest?

When I came home, not only my cats but my plants had thrived under her green thumb care—to the surprising extent that my green beans were bearing fruit! With the way the weather has been acting, indoor gardening might be my new hobby... 

About Time

I’ve been thinking about time lately—the tick and the tock of it. Sixty seconds turn into a minute, sixty minutes into an hour, sixty hours into a ...pauses to count rapidly...a long weekend? And would you please stop saying sixty already, I’m feeling that personally.

When I was parenting young children, the laws of time seemed more like serving suggestions than anything resembling actual laws. Someone told me that when it comes to parenting “the days are long, but the years are short” and that resonated.

Time flies---and it must fly like a mosquito because it seems we are always trying to kill it. If we think of time as a law of nature, Spring arrives on this day, at that hour. Summer will arrive at her appointed time as well. Then somebody mentions Leap Year and time seems more of a social construct than anything else; a community agreement we’ve all agreed to. 

Take Daylight Savings Time for example—except Arizona opted out of that one. “Nope,” they said, “Just not feeling it. Social contract, smocial contract. Sorry, not sorry, do not agree.”

 

Recently, I traveled across several time zones and back over a three-week period. Living on the edge—as I am wont to do—I made my journey on the eve of daylight savings time. I felt it was a good way to “share the jetlag”—sure, I was now four-instead-of-three hours behind everybody in the Big City, but my thinking was they would all be so blurry-eyed over “springing forward” the next morning that my exhaustion would seem “normal.”

 

During that three-week stretch I went from PST to EST—followed immediately by EDT. Eventually, I

This is NOT my cousin's farmhouse
Her's is livable. But you have to admit
that's a pretty cool house.

ended up in MDT—only to spend the next week dancing back and forth between Mountain Time and Central Time because Kansas is a hot mess when it comes to time. The counties that border Colorado are MT, the rest are CT. We stayed in my cousin’s family farmhouse in Cheyenne County—Mom! Colorado is touching me! —and driving down one of the gravel roads you could experience 5pm on the left-hand side of the car and 4 pm on the right-hand side of the car. 

Thus, proving the old adage it’s always five o’clock somewhere –and that’s undoubtably why the chicken crossed the road.

Bonus Content:

Big City, NYC

Bird City, Kansas

City Food (Peruvian) from Pio Pio

Back: Lomo Saltado Back: Filet mignon strips, stir-fried with soy sauce, spices, red onions, cilantro, tomatoes, served over french fries with white rice.

Front: Ceviche Limeño (Spicy) A Classic Peruvian Seafood Dish (raw) Tossed with a Citrus Juice Marinade. Diced corvina, lime juice, red onions, cilantro, rocoto pepper.

Kansas Food from Big Ed's
where the steak is apparently served by the pound

Kansas: Sunrise in the FlatLands

Mid day in Colorado Springs, looking at Pike's Peak