On a recent trip to a local hardware store, I saw these lovely mushrooms growing in the mulched landscaping in the parking lot.
How I wish I knew more about mushrooms! I could imagine these plump little ones, all tender and succulent, sauteed with butter and garlic.
On the other hand, I could imagine dying an agonizing death, swelling up and turning purple.
Are there any mushroom experts out there? I have a small, inadequate book that isn't helping. (Not that I would trust just a book identification. A mushroom expert, here in person, who eats the fungi in question the day before and survives -- that's what I'll trust.)
But I'm curious to know what these are -- if any of you have any ideas, please comment. Rest assured, even if you tell me these are edible, I won't go rushing back to harvest them.
That's a horse shoe (well, actually probably a mule shoe) over the door -- for good luck. My grandparents had one over their back door and they insisted it had to be in the UP position 'to hold in the good luck.'
They never mentioned witches but my reading has revealed that the horseshoe, as used in the British Isles, was a charm to keep witches from entering your house at night. (Bad witches, it goes without saying -- not like my friend Byron, The Village Witch.)
It had to be a used horseshoe because the way the charm worked was that before the witch could pass under it, she had to retrace every step that shoe had taken. So the householder would take care to choose a very worn shoe to insure that the witch couldn't complete the task before sun up. After which, evidently, all bets were off and the witch would have to start over.
The squirrels and raccoons have decided that our corn is ready for harvest and have been shamelessly working away at it.
The silks haven't dried up yet, meaning that the ears are not fully mature but the critters don't care about that. "Good enough," they say and every morning finds a few more stalks downed.
So, in a preemptive strike, I've been harvesting the ears that are nearest ripe -- and I have to agree with the critters -- good enough.
I sit in a rocking chair on the front porch and shuck the haul of the day. This is 'natural' grown corn -- no sprays, but that does pretty much insure a corn worm at the tip of each ear.
For those of you not grossed out by caterpillars and such, click on the picture to 'biggify' it and marvel at the intricate coloring and pattern of this guy. I think he's gorgeous.
But that doesn't stop me from dropping him (and all the others,) along with the broken off, munched-on tips of the corn, into a bucket for the delectation of the chickens.
A few of the ears of corn have little undeveloped ears attached. You know those tiny little ears of corn in Chinese cooking? That's what these seem to be. ( I added them to stir-fry for supper and they were delicious.)
All this corn . . . I imagine a taste of summer in the winter -- corn chowder, vegetable soup, corn sauteed in sweet butter, corn fritters, and, of course, those delicious corn pancakes from Sam's Carolina Kitchen.
"There's a job done!" as the old folks around here used to say. A whole lot of sweet corn, blanched, cut off the cob, and bagged up to go to the freezer.
Where, I think I can say with confidence, it will be safe from squirrels and coons.
Awake! For Morning in the Bowl of Night Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught The Sultan's Turret in a Noose of Light.
Do college students still read The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam? I have my mother's copy from her college years -- as well as my own, bought when I was a freshman at Emory University in Atlanta -just one year shy of half a century ago.
My suitemate, Ada Rasmussen, was a sound sleeper and I made a habit of bursting into her room in the early morning and shouting out the above quatrain.
"Of course, flowers are nothing more than sex organs," said the English professor, delighted to be introducing his innocent freshman students to the symbolism of church steeples, dark wells, and Freud's cigar.
Lily White yawns and stretches . . . Smiling, she preens in the morning sun . . .
Delicate shadows dance on her snowy robe. She flings it wide, revealing her wares . . .
Open for business, She awaits a passing bee . . . While her fragrance calls, "Over here. . . here am I. . ."
Time to pick the okra. Okra grows fast -- if you don't pick at least every other day, the pods get too large and become woody rather than tender.
Like this.
The flowers are lovely, hinting at okra's kinship with hibiscus flowers -- and cotton. Okra (hibiscus esculentus) is thought to have originated in Africa -- both the word okra, as well as the word gumbo can be traced back to African languages.
This is a nice size -- it would be lovely steamed and buttered. Many folks (not me) object to okra's mucilaginous quality and prefer it cut up, rolled in cornmeal, and fried or used as a component of soup, okra and tomatoes, or gumbo.
It's an excellent thickener for soups (and in my opinion preferable to the rabbit droppings that some Native Americans are said to have used for thickening.)
Green okra is the norm but I couldn't resist the picture on the Red Velvet Okra seed packet. These pods are beauties and even the ones that I allowed to get too big will be fine in soup.
Sad to say, once blanched. the lovely red changes to a dull green. It' s the same with purple asparagus, cauliflower, beans . . .
Early in the morning I found this handsome critter clinging to a piece of embroidery I had left by a lamp. Evidently he had come in during the night, attracted by the light which had been left on. He clung to my finger with his strong scratchy feet as I carried him outside. . .
. . . and decanted him onto the lily leaf. Such a good-sized beetle, and so attractive with his mocha coloring and evenly placed black dots. If Coco Chanel had been into designing beetles, this might have been one of hers.
I found out that he's a Grapeleaf or Grapevine Beetle -- which makes sense as we have wild grapevines growing not for from the house. And he's welcome to all he wants to eat.
A close look reveals that he is "fearfully and wonderfully made . . ." What a beauty!
This little fellow was one of my treasures for many years before I ever heard of netsukes.
I'd wondered about the holes in his back and just chalked it up to the mystery of the Orient.
But then I learned the truth -- he's a netsuke, of Japanese origin. These little carvings -- ivory, bone, wood -- were used as decorative toggles tied to one end of a silken cord (that's why the little holes) at the other end of which might be a tobacco pouch, a fan, a coin purse, or some such. Since kimonos don't have pockets, small personal items would be carried this way, with the cord threaded through the sash.
I showed my netsuke to my husband's Uncle Charley -- a collector of many things -- and he became enchanted with these tiny works of art. In almost no time he had acquired quite an assortment of these little delights and he passed a few on to me.
This wonderful dancer's face rotates to present two different personalities.
There are many netsukes of varying quality for sale -- some true works of art, some made in Hong Kong for the tourist trade, some exquisite copies meant to pass as the real thing.
I wouldn't dare to make guesses about any of these. But I like this rooster.
And this mermaid with her mer-baby.
There's a signature -- though that's no guarantee of anything.
When Uncle Charley passed away, his son gave me this fine dog from the collection.
The rest of these I know to be reproductions -- the only affordable netsukes these days.
But they're still little beauties.
(The photos were taken when I was playing with the Nikon.)
