I said I was going to wake up early. And I did. Well, 10:30am is early right?
Scrolling through Twitter depressed the heck out of me. The news and numbers and pictures have me heartbroken. If we can’t even properly make it through the first wave…imagine what’s to come. Nope. Must disconnect.
Pot of coffee on. And into the kitchen to bake two loaves of bread and make (sort of) Huevos Rancheros.
The awesome handcrafted bread knife was made by my friend (and Foundry resident) Billamy’s Woodworking.
Recipe: I used leftover barley risotto (instead of black beans), chopped tomatoes, a bit of leftover salsa, fresh green onions, fresh cilantro (I needed so much more!), black olives, shredded cheese, salt & pepper and then placed a bunch of eggs on top and baked in the oven for 45 minutes along with the bread. Yum.
While eating brunch HWMMS did his annual WEBER WONDERLAND GARDEN PLAN. I love him. I love that he makes a diagram (not to scale as he reminds me…which is so Doc Brown I can’t stand it.) and adds extra sheets of paper.
It makes him happy to have a plan. It makes me happy to have him happy even if the plan is, well, tentative at best.
First thing on the agenda? Mushroom Garden.
Yesterday, I harvested the oyster mushrooms we had growing indoors.
These oyster mushroom blocks are from Back to the Roots. So easy to grow.
We also purchased from Field & Forest – 8 large blocks of shiitake mushrooms to grow indoors in the pool room, but haven’t set those up yet. First priority was the outdoor Wine Cap Mushroom spawn.
We chose a location outside the tavern. A nice quiet space where we could create a raised bed with layers of compost, straw and wood chips. As you can see, Harley Boo approved of the new garden bed. I’m really excited to watch these grow!
I then spent a few hours (yes HOURS) doing a deep weeding of the Valerian garden (which is the garden along the edge of the driveway.) I say deep weeding because I pulled as many dandelion roots I could muster. HWMMS bought me the coolest garden tool for Christmas and it has been AMAZING to really deep weed, but ow! My wrist is sore! (Link here, but the exact one I have is currently unavailable.)
The plan for this garden bed is to add echinacea and catnip (companion plants!) There are currently 8 large mounds from last year that came back – this Fall I will start to harvest some of the roots. I’ve read that this plant is difficult to grow by seed but at Weber Wonderland? Wow. It’s almost a weed! I love it though, it grows ridiculously tall and attracts lots of bees. I plan on starting another bed down by the creek this Spring.
It is a total PAIN IN THE ASS to pull dandelions by the roots. But the medicinal value is worth it. These will be dried then grinded down to a powder which I will add to coffee when brewing.
HWMMS tilled the side yard which will expand the herb garden area, probably to twice the current size (squee!) And he took apart the hop box (where I had the ground wasp sting incident last year, I’m still traumatized and wouldn’t go over near that area!)
After four hours outdoors, I needed to come inside and rest. (I learned my lesson last week.)
I went back outside around 7pm and spent an hour pulling weeds from the one side porch garden where the daffodils, tulips and roses grow.
(This is the before photo. The red tulips have since bloomed and all those weeds are gone! I will post a photo after I add mew mulch and it is completed.)
Only accomplished the one side of the house before I realized I really needed to stop. Damn this never ending getting winded too easily illness. Took a quick shower and washed off the dirt and then lounged in the hot tub to relax and get a heads up on a sore weed pulling muscle arm.
A lovely, exhausting (in a good way) day. I hardly thought about COVID-19! Although now, I’m thinking about it again. Trying not to get hopes up that I will hear about my test tomorrow – Monday. I must think Wednesday, so I’m not super duper crazy anxious. Which I will be.
I cannot wait to climb into bed with the tired doggos under the freshly washed comforters that hung on the line today. Pure bliss.
More days like this, please?
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