Just a quickie post for a photo of my first rhubarb crisp of the season, posting especially for lady of the cakes because we were just talking about it. Hopefully she sees it. Turns out I had enough in this first harvest for a crisp. Oh man yum!! Enjoy!
rhubarb crisp!
I finally got it all together to post some recent pics of spring right now here in the frozen tundra. As you can see from the photos, we are no longer under snow and ice. Things are coming up, hooray!!
The “always first to bloom” snowdrop:
And a couple of “purplies” (I’m told they’re scillia but I still call them purplies) one with and one without darling Fritz.
This is my second entry in this week’s challenge. Click the hyperlink to see more entries or to enter yourself. Enjoy!!
Filed under Challenges, Gardening
Greetings from the frozen tundra. Things are greening up nicely around here. The plants are happy and it’s mowing season again. Life is beautiful. Thought I’d share some of what’s growing and blooming right now.
You all remember my rhubarb right? Earlier photos can be found here. Well, here is the first harvest(we’ve had two more harvests since this one):
Our veggies we just got from the farmers’ market:
Then planted in the garden:
Flowers in pots for the patio:
A couple of photos from my neighbor’s garden, a lupine and an iris:
A few from one of our favorite restaurant’s garden out front:
And last, let me show you one of the four geese families in our neighborhood:
Spring continues to fill in all around us here in the frozen tundra and I took some photos to share.
Remember this rhubarb?
It looks like this as of a couple of days ago(time for harvest #2!!):
I am not sure what this is called but it comes back every spring without fail. And it doesn’t last long:
Part of my mother’s day gift. A nice, small bouquet of home grown daffodils:
My neighbor’s tree, a strikingly beautiful pink:
A pink bleeding heart:
Yet to be planted in pots, annuals that I bought last week:
I saw these at the cabin last weekend and hubby called them bloodwort. He also said that the Indians used to use the stems for war paint. I have never seen these blooming at the cabin in all the 20+ years I’ve been going there:
And last but not least, some beautiful lilacs.
We are greening up nicely here in the frozen tundra. I think it’s safe to say we are done with winter. Yep, now May 3 will be the latest I’ve seen it snow here. Used to be April 29, but not any more! Meanwhile, I have a few things blooming in my yard and this weekend I’m making my first trip to the nursery! I got a gift card for my favorite place so I’m going to get started with my potted plants. What fun.
Below are some of the sights in my neighborhood right now.
Scillia
Some crocus:
More scillia, two days later:
Remember this rhubarb?
As of five days ago, it looked like this:
Very soon I can make rhubarb crisp!!
On one of our walks last weekend, it was so nice and still that I got some good photos of our ponds.
By next week all those trees will be filled in with leaves. I just love the different shades of greens right now. It’s so lovely. For those of you that have spring right now, enjoy!!
Filed under Gardening
It was a long wait but it’s finally here. Spring in the frozen tundra. We went past 70 degrees yesterday!! And I took a few photos to share. I got out my patio furniture:
Took a look around the yard, had some large branches to gather up. One was laying on top of one of my early spring favorites, some sort of tulip. That branch was the first to be moved and it marked the beginning of gardening season. It felt great to be in the warmth of the sun and starting on the yard clean-up.
That owl up there is to scare off the rodents. That didn’t work too well as it was likely the rabbits that got my sand cherry shrub again. I also forgot to put a fence around it last fall to prevent them from chewing on the branches, again. Live and learn as they say. And maybe, just maybe, it’s too soon to say if it will make it or not. Here’s hoping!
Here are some scillia, I only just learned the name of these lovely little “purplies” (that’s what I called them previously and may just continue to do) from my neighbor, whose scillia were already blooming. These will open today I suspect:
The last of the snow:
Always my first blooms, the snowdrops:
And, you know, you just can’t keep rhubarb down around these parts. My trusty rhubarb, that’s been moved a couple of times and still it returns every year without fail:
And here’s hubby’s close-up of it:
So, in a couple of weeks I should be taking this photo again:
The photo with our first rhubarb crisp of 2012 was taken on April 15. Yes, we are a little behind this year but we’re finally on our way. Spring has finally come to the frozen tundra!! More photos to come.
What’s your favorite thing about spring?
Filed under Gardening
Sevilla and rhubarb have nothing in common. But since it’s spring, the earliest spring in the upper midwest that I have experienced these twenty years here, I had to share this pic of hubby in his “No Do” shirt holding our first rhubarb crisp(it’s not quite done yet in this pic) of the season. A fun thing happened in the last week that I felt compelled to share.
Earlier this same day that he wore the shirt, we were at an art show in a local mall where our daughter’s artwork was being displayed. A few of her friends’ works were also on display. While we really enjoyed the fun drawings, we never did find her artwork nor that of one of her friends. Kinda goofy, I wonder if they ever turned up?
Along comes a gentleman who, upon seeing my husband’s shirt, accosts him asking what his shirt meant. That he had recently lived in Sevilla for a few months, saw the motto everywhere and wondered what it meant. His wife is a professor at a local university here in Minnesota and they lived in Sevilla due to her job. They also spent some months in Madrid.
Hubby told him, as best he could, the meaning of “No 8 Do”. And then I went looking on the internet to refresh my memory. We looked it up when we returned from our trip to Spain almost two years ago but I had forgotten the details. The meaning that I recall was something along the lines of “It has not abandoned me” (no me ha dejado).
I found this website that shares one story of how the motto came to be everywhere in Sevilla. Please don’t read the English translation, it is awful. Of course you can if you want, but you’ve been warned. Here is my brief, rough translation. King Alfonso X was not very good at governing. So the town of Sevilla, where he lived, was divided into two camps, those that supported the king and those that supported his son, Don Sancho. This site says the king and his son were at war. In any case, the son conquered Spain but he did not attack Sevilla and left his father and his loyal subjects alone. At the end of the king’s life, he gave the city a gift as appreciation for their loyalty and for not abandoning him. The motto NO 8 DO, is made up of two syllables, No and Do with a skein of yarn in the middle. Skein in Spanish is madeja which can be a shortened version of No me ha dejado or No madeja do. There are other versions of what the motto means(this site has a couple more versions, towards the bottom of the page), but I like this one the best. I am a sentimentalist and want to believe this is the correct story.
And then Wikipedia states(about a third of the way down the page) that the motto is even on Columbus’ tomb. Below is a bad pic of the tomb but it’s the best one I’ve got. And I am not seeing the motto. I will just have to go back and find it :)
Here is the motto:
travels with toby 