What Else is Happening

As predicted, I am tripping over tomato and basil plants while we wait for weather warm enough for planting. I am trying peanuts this year; my first attempts at starting them inside resulted in rotting seeds that smelled awful. I was advised to try again, with charcoal in the soil to lighten it up. I had a spot in the warmer part of the garden where I had burned before, so I tried some outside with wall-o-water cylinders to warm the soil. No news on that, yet.

The potatoes are in, the peas are up, and we've been eating greens from the garden. I also tried dandelions from the yard this year. They were good, parboiled for a few minutes and then sauteed with a little garlic. You just need to clean them very well because the stray blade of grass is like trying to chew dental floss. Rhubarb is up and very vigorous. I've been selling a lot to passersby and to the Covered Wagon Farm for pies. Rhubarb traffic is a constant interruption, but rhubarb lovers are such nice people that I don't mind.

There is one more bake sale, this Saturday, in front of the Leland Mercantile, for the Odyssey of the Mind teams that are going to world competition. They have managed to raise over $1o,000 in a about six weeks, though bake sales, car washes, a movie premier, large and small donations, and grants from the Leland Educational Foundation and the Oleson Foundation.

I will be baking again for this sale, but I have to go to work earlier and attend a noon meeting so my output will be less than the 20 loaves I baked last time. Maybe some Rhubarb Crumb Cake would be in order.

All this happens, but we still stop to admire the orioles, indigo buntings, and hummingbirds. And to hunt for morels. I never find any, but all that hunting gives me opportunity to note the locations of raspberries and gooseberries so I can go back later in the summer. I came home from work late one night and found a Cool Whip container of morels on my kitchen table. It seems the neighbor was weed whacking when he found the mother lode of morels on the site where the former neighbor cut down an apple tree 12 years ago. Not many people will share morels, but I have wonderful neighbors.