Surprise!

I was doing the usual tour in the yard yesterday evening.

This tour has been the same every spring since I started gardening.  Look at the greenhouse plants, check for ripening tomatoes.  Look at the raised beds, check for bugs, sprouted seeds.  Look at the rhubarb and raspberries.  Check the wild chives and rhodiola.  Check on the peas planted along the fence.  Walk the short path through the spruce to the strawberries.  Half heartedly pull weeds.

This year it is also eyeball the pile of dirt that is supposed to be in potato bags.  I haven't planted a single potato. 

I was gradually weeding around back of the strawberries when this came into view!

After much excitement notifying my husband and grabbing the camera as if this little beauty would disappear, I took this. 

He mentioned morels usually come in groups, so I found this other one just a foot away.
 

Pretty, isn't it?

Yes, there were a grand total of two.  They were sliced in half, soaked in salted water, and cooked with butter as a taster.  There were two little maggots that came out in the soaking water.  Just to think I never used to soak my mushrooms.  Gross.

After years of mushrooming I wonder if some of the spores came off of my pants.  Or if my spore water "planting" has paid off.  I have not dumped spore water over here though.  Probably just a fluke - the web of mycelium was probably already there and the conditions were just right.

We planned on going mushrooming in our usual spot on Wednesday.  Hopefully there will be more than two.

It's been awhile...

Oh wow sometime in the past year and a half I just quit blogging.  Nary a blog post or idea to be found.  The blog appears to have flourished, as there are now more subscribers than ever. 

List of excuses as to why there have been no new posts:

I rediscovered the oboe and that has been a major player in not blogging.  No pun intended.  Band season just ended, and band time is stress-free-mental-checkout time.  Expect to see more oboe related blog posts. 

With all things oboe there comes a time when one decides to learn to make oboe reeds, and that is also taking up a majority of my down time.  Not for the faint hearted.  I could not imagine being a professional oboist and having your life revolve around something that is so fickle.  Probably like being a stay at home mom...

Being a domestic stay at home mom with two small children is also very busy.

We had another record setting winter this year - with extremely late breakup and plenty of snow to keep things covered up.  The garden is now snow free, but the dirt is still frozen.

With that said I would like to thank any readers who are still checking this blog periodically. 

2nd Generation Black Krim (freakshow!)

In a couple days a black krim tomato I grew from seed saved from last year will be ripe.  It is already soft, but still pretty green.  I had 20 or so seeds from a big giant one - here is a picture of the parent from 2011.

I thought the parent was freaky enough.  Three of the plants are in the greenhouse.  One of them I donated to my dad.  They all proved to have even freakier tomatoes than the momma!  Now that's a tomato strange enough for me. 

This tomato is the second generation.  It was a blossom that must have been two conjoined flowers, because it has what appears to be two separate tomatoes (maybe three) all stuck together.  Other tomatoes appear to have four conjoined tomatoes. Beautiful.

I like these freaky tomatoes.  They are interesting, not your run of the mill red beefsteak type.  Hope they taste the same as the parent.  

We have had several recent stretches of warmish weather that have proved to be just what the tomato plants need to ripen fruit.  I have been eating silvery fir tree tomatoes this week.  Plus lots of cherry/currant tomatoes.

I am still picking blueberries.  I found a patch of berries that will knock your socks off!!  So thick and crowded that a person simply can not stop and pick in one spot, 'cause the next spot just 10 feet away is just as good.  The best part, is that it is close to the road, just a few miles from my house!  So close that I have to hide my car in case someone recognizes me.  I also only remove my berry picking buckets when there is no traffic passing by.  We are very secret squirrel here.  So do not ask where it is...  Our answer will be "It's on Hatcher Pass."  Haha.

In this same spot we picked for 8 or 9 days straight in the same area and there are still more berries!  And these are real blueberries, not the high bush huckle/blueberries that do not taste as good but are just as blue.  It is a berry pickers' dream.  I think I may close out and go pick more berries.

Have a good day.