Despite the cool, very rainy, foggy week the Spring flowers are gorgeous. I was walking in the woods and on the paths around here and the smell is heavenly and the green so bright and vibrant. What a treat – even in the fog.
Along the path in front of Tudor Hart
Blankets of BunchberriesI found masses of Lady Slipper’s hidden in a small knoll in the woods. What a treat.
The flowers combined with that sea mixed with cedar smell is so amazing.
The weather is supposed to clear tomorrow just in time for the Festivals des Chansons. I hope so as the town is preparing like mad. I will post pictures later this weekend.
Tom and Heather are here for 2 weeks working on their house so Heather and I raided her herb garden and my pot of herbs (given to me by Sheila) and decided to try to dry them and continue to use them over the winter.
We had chives, parsley (2 types – curly and flat leafed), oregano, mint (way too much mint!!!), two types of sage(regular and pineapple) and thyme. We used the oven drying method and laid the herbs in a single layer on cookie trays and put them into a 170 degree oven for 1-2 hours. In the end we had enough dried herbs for each of us to last the whole winter at least. They smell great which tells me that lots of my current herbs may just be really, really out of date. The parsley even retained its nice green colour. Heather has so much mint that we did two methods and dried some in the oven and then each of us hung a bunch to dry naturally. We hung the bunches Tuesday and mine is just dried now. I have no idea what I will do with all the mint but obviously time to look at making mint sauce and buying some lamb to go with it!!
The wildflowers here are lovely. I am trying to capture as many as i can from all sorts of settings. For now I am getting pictures and over time I hope to be able to name them all with their right names. Lots of them I am calling names that I have known since a child but I have discovered that some of those names are not correct and were really pet names – sort of.
Some are standard – golden rod, daisies, but some like fireweed and what I call purple or white asters are names that change depending on who you speak to. Think bunchberries, pigeon berries and the other many names we call those lovely little flowers that are in all of our lawns.
So feel free to send me any thoughts about names and any pics that you may have that I don’t yet have.
Since mid-August to now Sept 16th I’ve been taking pictures of all the types of mushrooms and fungus that I see popping up daily in my walks in the woods. Absolutely unbelievable, especially after a rainy couple of days. They are large and small, colourful, odd shaped and found alone or in clusters.
My challenge is to try to name them. I need to find a website or book that can help with that and have not yet had time. If anyone knows such a site let me know. Like Alice, I need to know if they will make me grow tall, or small, or kill me on the spot!! I do not intend to eat any of them but it has been fun searching for new ones.
