Dandelions In the Cold

Hey, y'all, it's quarantine time!

Dandelion Fields Forever

Well, we don't have any bluebonnet fields handy, but we do have...

....ooooodles of dandelions!

A Little Green Post

 While Mom was in, I mentioned how much I'd like to clean up my big shade garden.  Someone at some point planted orange daylillies in there...and those suckers grow like weeds.  In big packs.  Towering three feet tall.  These had escaped the garden border and were making for the hills.

A Little Bit of Summer

So I have just now gotten around to downloading, editing, and cataloging all the photos from this summer.

 Remember how we found the secret Secrest Arboretum last year?  Well, Mom and Dad came to visit us this July, and we took them to see it.  But first!

A-Foraging We Go!

A long time ago, in a land far away, David and I went to a garage sale.  We were the only ones there besides two sweet dogs and four chatty garage-sale-people.

We found this book:

It was published in the 70s or maybe 80s, and it references mostly Britain and Scotland, but we have a lot of the same plants here that they talk about there.  Very interesting...and inspiring.  So Dave ordered these...

...online, and they are a little more precise (like, photos instead of drawings).  We each took one, donned our outdoor clothings, and ventured into the backyard.

Pretty, right?  Only one of the above is actually edible.  It's the dandelion-looking one on the bottom left.  We didn't harvest it, though.  Instead, we picked up a whole lot of these:

They're called Queen Anne's Lace or "wild carrot."  Now don't freak out, those of you who have ever heard of wild carrot...our books gave us multiple, excellent photos of wild carrot versus hemlock with several dead give-away clues to differentiate between the two.  Believe me, we're not playing a Game of:

Yeah.....no.  If we weren't certain, we didn't pick it.  Besides, we did this a long time ago, and neither of us ended up in the hospital, so.....

 This lovely thing is not edible either (that I know of), it's just a better photo of those miniature snapdragons I told you about.  Dave thinks they are (or should be) called 'eggs and butter.'  You know I love that.

This is our haul:

 A mix of burdock root, wild carrot,

 and one parsnip (really too mature, but we pulled it anyway).

Dave gave them a rough wash:

 ...and I prepped them in the kitchen with a good scrub, peel, trim, and chop.

We didn't do a great job harvesting the burdock because we didn't pay too much attention to the directions in the book.  So the burdock we gathered was pretty tough, and less of it was usable than we'd hoped.  It has a spicy, clean fragrance right out of the ground.  Sorry, y'all...I didn't take any photos of the burdock in the ground.

We boiled it...

...pureed it...

 ...and added it to some rice and beans.

 It was really pretty good!

Dave prepared our one little parsnip into a soup.

And the carrots became munching fare while we worked.

They're really nice just raw, though I think I'd describe them as a bit gamey (if veggies can be gamey).

But just so you're not worried we don't eat like civilized folks...Dave took me out to a nice restaurant the other, uh, month...

 ...and I, apparently, looked like a crazy drunk lady.  But Dave looks adorable, right?  These were phone photos, the only ones we took from that night.  Too bad...before I had that 1/2 glass of wine, I looked pretty.

And these photos somehow didn't make it into this morning's post...so...

 See the hummingbird??  That's the beautiful foxglove David got me.  It rebloomed all summer to my great delight.  The rose on the upper right is from the same plant that produced the cute white ones...only this one was pink.  I have no idea why.  And, of course, the yellow begonias that we all love (I knew I had a better photo of those!).

I may end up having to update the flower photos again after this...despite my efforts, I'm apparently still not organized enough to find all the photos I need for bloggin.

OH, and if you're my family, please know that my phone has completely and totally died.  And don't buy a Motorolla Photon 4G.  Their customer support is wretched and their phone doesn't last half a year.  Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

The Secret Arboretum

I have to tell you about this place.

(I also have to tell you that there are 57 photos in this post.  No lie.  57. Prepare.)

We visited about a month ago, and it's ridiculously beautiful and...totally free.

Did you hear that??  Free.

This is the tremendous stone amphitheater.  It's just chillin' on the perfectly manicured, bowl-shaped lawn.  People request to use the space for weddings.  They're totally open to using it for concerts and performances, too, but they don't have a volunteer to head up the organization of such ventures.

Volunteers.  That is what keeps this place going.  Volunteers keep these gardens up...all of them.

And there are a lot of gardens in this arboretum: the Secrest Arboretum.

(Sorry, but most of these photos are at least a little overblown.  Still getting used to this camera.)

For months Dave and I had seen the sign by the highway, and I always had to correct my reading of "Secret Arboretum" to Secrest.  

There was a tornado through the arboretum about five years ago.

 They're still recovering from it. 

I can't tell you how many of these stumps we saw...huge, old trees that should have been anchor points in the gardens and provided some much-needed shade.  But they didn't go to waste...

  The Discovery Pavilion is made from trees from the arboretum.  The surrounding garden is made entirely of edible plants.

Dave can tell you more about that.  But there's also a beautiful reception room with hardwood floors and paneled walls, also made from trees from the arboretum. 


The tornado luckily missed this section:

Sequoia trees.  In the middle of Ohio!  Amazing, huh?

Can you believe this?

Solid teak picnic tables and chairs, three sets of them.  Again, just chillin in the free arboretum.  Waiting for you to come eat on them.  They're surrounded by ornamental allium.

To give you an idea of the size.  Dave loves these.

One of my new favorite photos of me and Dave.

   This is the playground segment of the arboretum.

It's tucked back in the corner, by the sequoias.

 This arboretum has some very good friends.  This is the pile of marble waiting for the volunteers to come set them around the park.

 I still can't get over how beautiful this place was!  IS.

 This is the meadow that lies next to the Rose Garden.

With, I believe, over 200 varieties of roses.

 Don't worry, I've chosen only my favorite photos and condensed them.

Mostly condensed them.

Cause I don't know about you, but I don't have nearly enough photos of beautiful flowers.

 So many roses, I think they ran out of places to use them and used the extras around that random shed over here.

Snapdragons, not roses.
SNAP!

 And for the finale!! 

  So come visit us!  And you, too, can have some gorgeous photos of some unforgettable flowers and people!!