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Posts Tagged ‘spring’
It’s Friday, which means it’s time to bore you with more photographs. Again of our gardens.
We’re taking Scooter in for his exam today, too. Wish us luck.
And have a lovely weekend, y’all.
I’m in a bit of a rush this morning, but not so much that I can’t stop to appreciate that Spring is, well, really springing.
Beloved loves flowers, so we have a ton of them around our house, and he planted even more bulbs last fall. The crocus did really well, but are already fading. Our daffodils seem to be having a hard time of it – they spring up all over the place, but only a few bloom. Anyone have any idea why? We planted some hyacinth, which have started to bloom and not only are lovely but smell really good, too.
But the tulips! We have tulips in every flower bed in front of our house (4 all together) and every last one of them is going to bloom. I am SO excited and will take lots and lots of pictures of them when they finally do.
In the meantime, here are a few photos I took the other evening. The first is a bloom from my neighbor’s tree – it’s some sort of magnolia. It is in full bloom right now, and is absolutely gorgeous.
And have a lovely weekend, y’all.
I’m still absolutely overwhelmed, and am SO grateful that Jen at Sprite’s Keeper has given us a break this week and let us pick out our favorite posts for the Spin Cycle. This is from April 2008, before I had any readers to speak of, and is relevant and at least mildly amusing. One caveat: Darling Daughter has done an admirable job of getting her shit together since this was originally posted. Haven’t you, my little Elk’s Lodge chaplain?
I’ll catch up with all of my reading and commenting once things have calmed down a bit. In the meantime, have a lovely weekend, y’all.
Spring has arrived and so has our mulch, which Beloved has been enthusiastically spreading for the past several days. The first day he performed this yearly chore, the kids went outside to be dragged around by walk the dog and stopped dead in their tracks.
“It smells like ass out here,” Darling Daughter declared. We’d have asked her how she knows what ass smells like, but since she has her head stuck so far up her own it really wasn’t necessary. (You have to understand I love this kid to death, but if she doesn’t get her shit together soon I’m going to have to kill her.)
However, she isn’t that far off – the stuff is fragrant. And the simile has stuck; while running our errands this morning, we stopped by the discount store and picked up 10 more bags of what The Young One now refers to as “Ass Mulch.” Now none of us can stop calling it that – our grandchildren are probably going to refer to Spring as “Ass Mulch Season” and we’ll all end up explaining ourselves to a school psychologist some day.
Of course, the entire town smells like ass these days (since it is that time of year) and that made me think about those people who are of a green and/or money saving disposition and make their own compost and mulch. The “why” part of that is understandable, but I have a real problem with the “how??” Where do you put it while it’s getting all, well, ripe? I can’t see keeping it in the house or garage, so do you just, like, keep a big pile of slowly decomposing crap in the back yard? Wouldn’t that cause your neighbors to complain and lower your property values? How would you keep the dog from jumping in it and rolling around every time you let him out to do his part in the lawn fertilization process?
Do you fence it off and post large “Beware of Mulch” signs? Go all Martha Stewart and construct a camouflaging-yet-decorative container out of old, flowered-patterned sheets and wire coat hangers? I suppose you could pack it away neatly in some of those 30-gallon plastic leaf bags, but it seems to me that would hinder the decomposition and render the attempt to be “green” rather pointless. Not to mention that once it was bagged, your teenage son would probably take the whole kit-and-kaboodle to the curb on trash day for the first – and only – time in his life without being asked.
You see, these are the kinds of things that keep us city-raised-but-moved-to-a-small-town-girls up at night.
Friday is the first day of Spring.
Can I get an “Amen”???
AMEN.
And I’m not even religious. But, oh, I am sick to death of winter.
In Autumn, I begin to crave hearty, warm dishes like chili and turkey with dressing and sweet potatoes. Stew, freshly baked bread and warm apple pie. In the Spring, the opposite happens and I begin to anticipate the arrival of fresh sugar snap peas, rhubarb, blueberries and Spring lettuces. And while I daydream about tender young asparagus marinated in a light but lively vinaigrette or a freshly baked strawberry shortcake, mostly my thoughts stray to salads.
Wonderful big salads of mixed greens and nuts. Spinach salads with red onion and freshly sliced mushrooms. Hearty salads with grilled chicken, sliced apples and slivered almonds. Fruit salad. Coleslaw. Potato salad.
One of my favorite salads, and one of my family’s favorites, this is a hearty entree salad that is entirely appropriate for this time of year, when we are yearning for the lighter meals that come with the fresh greens of Spring…but they’re not quite here yet. I don’t know where she got the recipe, but this taco salad is one my mother served several times every summer when I was growing up – our kids love it too (with the exception of The Young One, who never met a leafy green vegetable he didn’t view with suspicion). It is tasty and filling (to say nothing of super simple), but fulfills my craving for salad when the real deal is still a few weeks away.
Note: Ranch Style Beans are mostly available only in the south and southwest – at least I’ve not been able to find them in the northeast. If you can’t find them, no matter what, you can substitute canned pinto beans, chili beans or kidney beans. It just won’t be quite the same…still good, just not quite the same. But use the Ranch Style Beans if you can find them.
Taco Salad
serves 6
1 pound ground beef
1 envelope taco seasoning (McCormick is good if you can find it)
1 bag pre-wahsed salad greens
1 can Ranch Style Beans, well-drained
1 medium tomato, diced
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
Kraft® Catalina Salad Dressing
Fritos®
Prepare the ground meat with the taco seasoning per the package instructions; let cool to room temperature.
Empty the salad greens into a large salad bowl. Top with the drained beans, tomato, taco meat and cheese; toss lightly.
Divide into six salad bowls. Drizzle each salad with the Catalina and garnish with a handful of Fritos.
Spring has arrived and so has our mulch, which Beloved has been enthusiastically spreading for the past several days. The first day he performed this yearly chore, the kids went outside to be dragged around by walk the dog and stopped dead in their tracks.
“It smells like ass out here,” Darling Daughter declared. We’d have asked her how she knows what ass smells like, but since she has her head stuck so far up her own it really wasn’t necessary. (You have to understand I love this kid to death, but if she doesn’t get her shit together soon I’m going to have to kill her.)
However, she isn’t that far off – the stuff is fragrant. And the simile has stuck; while running our errands this morning, we stopped by the discount store and picked up 10 more bags of what The Young One now refers to as “Ass Mulch.” Now none of us can stop calling it that – our grandchildren are probably going to refer to Spring as “Ass Mulch Season” and we’ll all end up explaining ourselves to a school psychologist some day.
Of course, the entire town smells like ass these days (since it is that time of year) and that made me think about those people who are of a green and/or money saving disposition and make their own compost and mulch. The “why” part of that is understandable, but I have a real problem with the “how??” Where do you put it while it’s getting all, well, ripe? I can’t see keeping it in the house or garage, so do you just, like, keep a big pile of slowly decomposing crap in the back yard? Wouldn’t that cause your neighbors to complain and lower your property values? How would you keep the dog from jumping in it and rolling around every time you let him out to do his part in the lawn fertilization process?
Do you fence it off and post large “Beware of Mulch” signs? Go all Martha Stewart and construct a camouflaging-yet-decorative container out of old, flowered-patterned sheets and wire coat hangers? I suppose you could pack it away neatly in some of those 30-gallon plastic leaf bags, but it seems to me that would hinder the decomposition and render the attempt to be “green” rather pointless. Not to mention that once it was bagged, your teenage son would probably take the whole kit-and-kaboodle to the curb on trash day for the first – and only – time in his life without being asked.
You see, these are the kinds of things that keep us city-raised-but-moved-to-a-small-town-girls up at night.