June Is for Daylilies

 

Pork Piccata

On my last trip to the store, I saw a package of beautiful little pork medallions at a ridiculously low price. So, last night I decided to try something new.  A lemony sauce with capers that was perfect with the pork and the garlic mashed potatoes.

It was amazingly good and quite easy--I'll have to fix it for company sometime. It would be terrific with chicken, or it could go vegetarian/vegan with big Portabella mushrooms and vegetable broth. 

Highly recommended.

Pork Piccata

 ¼ cup all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 teaspoon garlic powder

2 pounds pork tenderloin, cut into 1 1/2 inch

 pieces

2 tablespoons olive oil

• ⅓ cup balsamic vinegar

• ½ cup chicken broth

• Zest and juice from one lemon

• 1 tablespoon capers

• Italian (flatleaf) parsley

• Directions

• Combine the flour, granulated garlic, salt, and pepper in a shallow bowl. Roll the pork medallions in the flour mixture till coated.

• Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Cook the pork medallions in the hot oil until golden-brown on both sides, 2 to 3 minutes per side. Pour in the balsamic vinegar and chicken broth. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to medium, and simmer 3 to 4 minutes. Remove the pork to a serving platter, then stir the lemon zest and capers into the simmering sauce. Squeeze in the lemon juice. Simmer till thickened slightly. Garnish with Italian parsley.       

1. (Adapted slightly from a recipe I found HERE Sorry about the white background. When I attempt to paste as plain text, everything goes kerflooey.)                                    

            

The Walnut Oak

Every time I go out, I see changes. Some are welcome, old buildings being refurbished, a garden planted where there were weeds. Some are sad and none more than the loss of the centuries-old oak in front of the disused church building in Walnut. 

It was the victim of a spring storm, blown over and uprooted.  Plans are being made to use the timber for a memorial and/or keepsake items that could be sold to raise funds to repair the old church, now owned by a local charity.

I've taken many a picture of the elegant old building over the years.

And the majestic oak was always a welcome feature, no matter what season.

Its winter aspect was my favorite. 

There are plans to plant another tree--now we'll just have to wait a few hundred years...

 

In the Time of Daisies--Fifty Years Ago

1973--John and I and not-quite-one Ethan are sitting in a daisy -spangled field under a Carolina blue sky. Seduced by The Whole Earth Catalog and Mother Earth News, we are on a quest to find a new place to live and a new way of life.

 We are also on our way to look at some land in New York State, but a fortuitous stop to see a college friend of mine has introduced us to the rich culture of Appalachia and we're pretty sure we're home. We begin to look at places for sale. This mountainside acreage-- fields and pastures, two barns and one derelict log cabin--is the third place we look.

The long views, the deep forests, the scent of honeysuckle and wild roses in the air, call to us and there, in the daisy field, we decide. This is it. The earthly paradise--or as close as we're likely to come. 

We still have to make our way north--it's my brother who lives up there and is offering us a piece of his land at a very fair price. But we are smitten with Madison County and ask the folks who are selling this beautiful sixty acres to hold it for a couple of weeks. We give them a payment of 'earnest money,' and continue north, looking wistfully behind us.

The New York property is nice--wooded and near some lakes--but it doesn't call to us in the way the daisy field place did. And when we learn that my brother keeps his furnace running pretty much nine months out of the year, it becomes obvious that the north is not for us. 

And so we return to Madison County, purchase the place, and camp out in one of the barns for the rest of the summer. We return to Tampa and our teaching jobs then, come June, it's back to the mountains where John and friends start work on our house, getting it to the dried-in stage before another return to Tampa.

One more year of teaching and in '75 we sell our house in Florida and haul all our worldly possessions to NC and the barn where we will live till snow comes and we move into a not-quite-finished house.

We've never regretted that moment of madness in the time of daisies.

 

More Native Plantings

This week Josie is doing a nature day camp at a nearby location, so I am taking her in the morning (9 am) and picking her up in the afternoon (2:45 pm.) As it happened, I also had a physical therapy appointment at 10 to work on my wonky right knee and impaired balance. So what to do with the morsel of time between 9 and 10?

The library was the obvious answer. Not for books but to take advantage of the morning light and the wonderful native plantings. Like the Milkweed above. (We have a lot of milkweed in our pastures but not always as accessible as this.)

I nelieve this yellow flower is Hypericum.

And I feel I should know the name of this purple beauty--I've had in my garden in the past. Is it Centaurea?(is it a native?)

Beautiful blooming yucca.

The Purple Coneflowers one of my favorites--but my picture is disappointing--trying to capture the butterfly -- a Spangled Fritillary?

And a lovely Flame Azalea (below.) We have a few wild ones that survive in our woods but the half dozen I've planted over the years have all perished, alas.

It was a pleasant way to spend a half an hour before submitting to the PT session and the very young woman who was quite inventive (and a little merciless) in finding ways to stretch and otherwise challenge my right leg.

I'll let Josie tell a bit about the camp in a later post.

 

Magnificent Magnolia

If only I could include the intoxicating fragrance . . .

From a tree I planted 25 or so years ago.

 

But His Boxes!

Facebook is overflowing with memes of the boxes stacked in a (tacky) bathroom at Mar a Lago. The one featuring Gollum seems especially appropriate to the Former Guy and his acquisitive propensities.  And then I saw the one that photoshopped Putin and the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia into the photo, happily seated on the boxes and reading the sensitive classified material. And it stopped being funny.

Now there are recordings of the Former Guy, showing off this classified material to random people. And it's clear that these boxes were not in a secure location--rather they could have been accessible to any of the rag tag hangers-on who show up at Mar a Lago. 

Or to anyone with access to a copy machine. Who knows what damage has already been done, what damage is yet to come?

Whether the Former Guy is using this information to make 'deals' or just using it to bolster his fragile ego isn't yet clear.

What is clear is that he is a danger to our country.

LOCK HIM UP!

 

Sisters From Different Mothers

                                                                                    

Dawning

 

Frog, Flowers, Indictment, and More

Welcome news that the Former Guy has been indicted over the documents at Mar a Lago. We'll see how it plays out. While I'd love to imagine him doing hard time in an orange jump suit, I doubt that will happen.

 

This, on top of the news that the Supreme Court has directed Alabama to re-do its gerrymandered districting that effectively diminished the Black vote. An unexpected but very welcome move on the part of this deeply conservative court.

And for more on this good news day, the hateful Pat Robertson has departed this life. If I believed in a just god, I'd believe Mr. R was in for an interesting bout of self-knowledge and serious repentance. Maybe he could be sent back to this life as a gender fluid someone. . . 

In Florida.

Native Plantings at Our Amazing Library