Trip Down Memory (Garden) Path

The last of our flowers (Japanese irises) have just finished blooming, and it's a bittersweet moment.  No more flowers until fall.

I've cleared that sunny spot in front of the irises and planted cosmos, marigolds, cone flowers, and zinnias.  I *love* color in the garden.  That's easy to see, just looking at some photos of my old garden in Indianapolis. 

A garden really is like an old friend, and I enjoy looking at these photos and reminiscing.  My dream is to someday have a small farm in the community where Todd and I eventually settle, and remembering my old gardens will help me to build the final one.  Meanwhile, I'm going to enjoy the flower-less space where we currently are...the wide variety of shady trees full of songbirds, the quiet pond with its lazy turtles and drowsy fish, the darting lizards, and the nice deck and sun room that we have overlooking it all.  Also, I can't forget the fantastic solitude/privacy that we have here (so unlike our noisy neighborhood in Indianapolis).  We have a lot of blessings to count!

Since it's spring, I wanted to take advantage of the nice ripe local strawberries.  I decided to make some ice cream for a treat.  I found a wonderful recipe using real vanilla beans...

...and fresh strawberries roasted with sugar and balsamic vinegar.

It sounds like an absolutely terrible combination, but the vinegar gave it a special something...and even though I don't traditionally enjoy strawberry ice cream, I had several helpings!

The original recipe is here.  Enjoy!

Before and After

Having two wooded acres, we play a lot of catch-up in the spring.  For the past two weeks, I've spent at least 2 hours a day in the yard, and at least 4 hours each weekend day.  Todd has put in his time on the weekends, too.  But - oh!  It's starting to come together.

This is an area I decided to turn into a woodland path connecting the front yard to the front of the house last year.  I cleared away the ground vines and leaves, but didn't do much else. 

Here is the after shot, after I hauled up load after load of bricks from our fireplace area and planted ferns, hydrangeas, and helleborus all the way up on either side.  Oh, this tiny picture doesn't do it justice!

We have a circular driveway lined with rocks and small stone walls, alternating.  I crawled along the whole length, weeding and pulling out trapped leaves and sticks.

Before:

After:

The walls:

After:

I prefer it a bit shaggier than this, but trust me, it will grow quickly!

Our helleborus are generous self-seeders.  Thousands of seedlings sprouted through the thick matted leaves...most had to pulled up.  The front right bed before:

After:

The left beds, too, were absolutely choked with leaves and twigs, and the old growth of the ferns and helleborus had to be cut away.  A small before shot:

After:

The small fenced-in section just outside our bedroom was one of the worst.  Overrun with ivy and tree seedlings and over a foot deep with leaves in places, the hostas had come up before we'd cleared the space.  That meant crawling around and carefully clearing the leaves with my hands.

Before:

After:

The back garden was just as bad.

It's hard to tell because of the glare, but I spent hours and hours trimming bushes, pulling weeds, and removing dead leaves.

I'm not done by any means.  I still plan on devoting a couple of hours a day to yardwork.  I want to build another brick-lined path in the back yard, fill in all the bare spots you've seen in the side and back gardens with shade-loving flowers, and MORE weeding, and MORE leaf removal, and MORE transplanting.  There's a lot of work involved, and I'm absolutely covered with mysterious insect bites of various sizes and levels of itchiness, but I love seeing it come to life.  I'm excited to reach 'maintenance mode' and be able to sit back and enjoy all the natural beauty.

I hope you're having a great week!

Ore-oh, yeah!

The recent rains have cooled things off a bit, and I've been more active in the yard.  I've really enjoyed watching the little creatures there...something I haven't done for a while because of the heat.  

Moths are especially prolific in late summer.

There are endless varieties of moths - much too many for me to be able to identify by sight (yet!).  So far I either identify them as "bushy-headed" or "needle-nosed".  This one, of course, is of the bushy-headed variety.  I love the feathery antennae.

It's easy to see them clinging to screen doors and windows, but I can usually find their natural hiding places.  Moths love to hide behind blades of grass...

...or under large leaves, like this "needle-nose".

Of course, we've got the omnipresent carpenter bees, which nap on the Russian Sage at night...

Grasshoppers get bigger, browner, and more sluggish as the season moves on.  They've lost their jaunty hops and seem to have a staring, harassed look.  It's definitely grasshopper mating season.

I've found a few insect nests, too, like this strange marble-sized mud nest built in the branches of our pine tree.  

 

I wonder who lives there?

 

The rains have brought my nasturtiums back from the brink.  I love their bright, saturated colors.

Nasturtiums are edible.  What a beautiful salad they'd make!

I cut back my stocks earlier this year and they've finally rebloomed.

Stocks have an amazing scent.  I planted them along our back walkway so their delicious smell wafts up as you brush past them.   Ahhhhh!

They're annuals, but I believe they re-seed nicely.

My snapdragons have gone strong all summer long...

And believe it or not, one of my lilac bushes is blooming again!

I made the mistake of planting morning glories years ago, and spent the subsequent years ripping up transplants all over the yard.  This year I decided to pot one of them up.  It was an interesting experiment.  I got the same blue flower as the parent plant...

...but the blooms are much smaller.  Also, instead of the large spade-shaped leaves, this plant has jagged, fuzzy leaves of a completely different shape.  

I think I created a monster!  It allows me an opportunity to use one of my favorite words:  transmogrify.

trans·mog·ri·fy [trans-mog-ruh-fahy, tranz-] 

verb (used with object), trans·mog·ri·fied, trans·mog·ri·fy·ing.

to change in appearance or form, especially strangely or grotesquely; transform.

I think it fits!  This is the parent plant's sinister cousin.

Anyway, I can't break my flower-buying habit, but since we're moving soon, I stick to bouquets.

I can't wait to plant rose bushes at our new house!

A friend of mine was recently talking about her love of Newman's Own Oreo-style cookies, and I remembered a recipe tucked away in my collection.  After she left, I pulled it out and preheated the oven.  Could homemade Oreos taste as good as store-bought?

In my opinion - they taste even better.

Homemade Oreo Cookies

makes 16 - 24 cookies

Annie's Eats

Directions

For the cookies:
1¼ cups all-purpose flour
½ cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
1 tsp. baking soda
¼ tsp. baking powder
¼ tsp. salt
1 1/4 cup sugar
10 tbsp. (1¼ sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 large egg

For the filling:
4 tbsp. (¼ cup) unsalted butter, at room temperature
¼ cup vegetable shortening
2 cups powdered sugar
2 tsp. vanilla extract

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 375˚ F and grease your cookie sheets.  In a large bowl, combine flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and sugar.  Add the butter and mix briefly to incorporate.  Next, beat in your egg and mix until the dough forms a mass.  

Take a small ball of dough and roll it into a ball.  Flatten it slightly and place on cookie sheet.  

Bake for 5 - 7 minutes.  Remove from cookie sheet and cool on wire racks.   What a beautiful cookie!

While they're cooling, make your filling by combining your butter and shortening and beating until smooth.  Add your powdered sugar and beat 2 - 3 minutes, then blend in the vanilla.  **My filling seemed too thick to pipe at this point, so I thinned it out with some milk.  It was still quite thick!

 For cookie assembly:  pair up your cookies by size.  Fill a pastry bag with cookie filling and pipe frosting onto one cookie half.

Put cookies together and press so that filling is evenly distributed.

This recipe makes some gorgeous stacks of cookies! 

They taste like Oreos, but are softer in the middle.  They are amazing and I'm sure I'll never buy store-bought Oreos again.  They didn't take any time to whip up, either!  Truthfully, you can cut the sugar down quite a bit in this recipe and still have a great-tasting cookie.  I feel great about adding this to my roster of kitchen DIY recipes, and I love having the excuse to say:  Ore-oh, yeah!  :)  

Hope you give them a try.  Have a great week!