Rush

These are soft rushes.  I like them.  They remind me of fireworks. 

Rushes.  Rush.  Rushing.   Hurry, hurry, hurry.   Because if you don't, then....fireworks.  

We've been rushing a lot for the past year or so and it's time to slow down.    I've found myself with less and less time these days and I've had to choose between doing things and writing about them.   

It's sort of a catch-22.    If I do things, I don't have time to write about them.   If I write, then I don't have time to do things to write about.   Because, trust me, you don't want to see my brain on 'stream of consciousness'. 

So, I'm taking a blog vacation for the next few weeks.  In the meantime, I invite you to check out my blog archive below in the sidebar.    I have over 1300 blog posts on here and surely you'll find some fun ones if you look through the old stuff.  

Here's the archive from spring and summer 2011, the year I started the blog.    Happy wandering!

• Mar 2011 (39) 
• Apr 2011 (29) 
• May 2011 (34) 
• Jun 2011 (33) 
• Jul 2011 (32) 
• Aug 2011 (33) 

Jam eBook Sale

Thanks to all of you who have looked at my ebook over the past year!

A Simple Jar of Jam is a collection of more than 180 jam, jelly, marmalade, glaze and chutney recipes and variations from this blog.   The vast majority of them use low sugar pectin. Click here for a preview to see the table of contents, a few recipes and the index. The ebook is an interactive pdf, best viewed using Adobe or iBook.  

To celebrate the beginning of jam season this year,  we are lowering the price from $7.95 to $4.99 for the next few weeks.  [That's a 37% savings.]  Tell your friends - Spread the news!

You don't need a coupon code or anything, just go to Rurification's Etsy Shop and buy it. 

Thank you so much for reading the blog and buying the ebook.  Every purchase goes a long way to help support this blog.  

Jack in the Pulpit

This is Jack in the Pulpit - Arisaema triphyllum - an enduring wildflower out here.

It endures probably because it's poisonous and the deer don't eat it.

The blasted deer eat everything.  

Everything.

Including every last one of the leaves on my brand new plum tree.   Which really ticked me off.   And which I took as a personal affront.  

If I ever meat meet that deer, it will be dinner.   My dinner.  And it will probably be delicious as it has been subsisting on a diet of my orchard trees.

This is one happy Jack in the Pulpit.   Normally they are 8-24 inches high, but this one was easily 3 feet high.   Notice the two leaves - and each leaf has three lobes very similar to trillium leaves.     These bloom after the trilliums.

They make gorgeous shade garden plants.   And they're pretty easy, unless you accidentally weed them out, which has never, ever happened to me.   It's just that the Jack in the pulpits in my garden mysteriously disappeared that one day after I was weeding. 

It was a coincidence, I'm sure. 

Hoosier Hills FIber Festival

We're getting all packed up and ready to go to this year's Hoosier Hills Fiber Festival.

Hoosier Hills Fiber Festival

Friday, June 6th: 12pm to 6pm

Saturday, June 7th: 9am to 5pm

Johnson County Fairgrounds

Franklin, Indiana

Free admission.  Free on-site parking.

This is a super fun show, great for the fiber enthusiast and novice alike.   Bring the family and see all kinds of fiber animals as well as spinning wheels, looms and more yarn than you can imagine.    Take a class and learn a new skill. 

 
We'll be there, in Scott Hall, with a booth full to bursting with hand dyed goodies like these. 

Hoosier Alligator

This is a common snapping turtle that Lily noticed in a puddle in the road.    Normally we leave turtles alone, but we didn't want it getting hit by a car and it was pretty well camouflaged in the mud, so we moved it.

It was unhappy.

As soon as we disturbed it, it demonstrated why they are named snapping turtles.  Keep your fingers and toes away from these guys - they're quick and will jump at the target. Not that a turtle will ever win any long jumping competitions, but still.  

In the ensuing melee, it got flipped on its back and it immediately stuck out its thick neck and used it as leverage to flip itself over.   It took all of 3 seconds to right itself. 

They're as close as we get to alligators in the midwest, though we also have alligator snapping turtles, which are said to be very rare in Indiana.   I saw one once a decade or so ago, crossing the road near a creek in Hendricksville, Indiana.   It was a foot and a half across - huge! - and from a distance, coming down the the road, I swore it was an alligator.   Alligator snappers have ridged backs and long ridged tails.   Very prehistoric looking. 

The wiki page on the common snapping turtle is full of interesting bits.   Here's one about the snapping turtle in politics.

The common snapper was the central feature of a famous American political cartoon. Published in 1808 in protest at the Jeffersonian Embargo Act of 1807, the cartoon depicted a snapping turtle, jaws locked fiercely to an American trader who was attempting to carry a barrel of goods onto a British ship. The trader was seen whimsically uttering the words "Oh! this cursed Ograbme" ("embargo" spelled backwards). This piece is widely considered a pioneering work within the genre of the modern political cartoon.

Who knew?

Looking for Luck

I am a believer in omens. 

But only the good ones.

See that rainbow?   It happened the other day when it was raining really hard but the sun was shining.  It's an omen - a very, very good omen.   It means we're going to have a fantastic year.  

And did you notice that it's a double rainbow?    [Look to the right, very faint].  It means double the luck.

Other lucky omens are four leaf clovers - very lucky.   Claire is a genius at finding four leaf clovers.

Large flocks of black birds - very lucky.

Bald eagles - even luckier.

Great blue herons - lucky, too.

Also, any cool thing we see in the woods: wood ducks, salamanders, snakes, rare wildflowers, the neighbor's cow.     Lucky, lucky, lucky.

Those yellow signs on the roads out here that tell about an upcoming curve?    Lucky.

So are yellow irises in town.  And license plates with the letter V in them. 

We find luck in a lot of places.   Looking for good omens helps me remember that the world is just as full of good things as stressful ones.   It's not always easy for me to have a good attitude but whenever I see a good omen, I laugh and remember that the world is a blessed place and my life is generally as happy as I'm willing to let it be.  

Tent Worms

These tent caterpillars are real pests this year.   They've done a number on our fruit trees and then they moved on into the veg garden.   They love the strawberries and I've been picking them off for weeks.  

The chickens hate them.   The ducks hate them.   Which means we have to kill them ourselves.   I've squished thousands of these this year - everywhere - on the road, on the trees, in the gardens, everywhere.  Eew.

Eew.     Seriously eew.

Dock

This is a dock plant - Rumex somethingorother.   Somethingorother is not part of its formal name - I just made that up.    There are a whole lot of Rumexes and I can't figure out which one it is.   Frankly I don't care.    I hate this plant.

It is a noxious weed.   In case you wondered.

It has roots to China.

It doesn't die.  Even when you kill it.   Again and again and again.   

They get huge - the size of rhubarb.

This one has made a home at the base of the steps to the studio.    I've killed it several times.  


After I took the pic, I pulled all the leaves off.   That won't kill it, but it'll slow it down.    Maybe I'll try boiling water.    Or vinegar.   Or boiling vinegar.     

Elderberry Progress

After last winter, I despaired of most of my new trees, but they've done really well.

These are two of the elderberry plants I rooted last year via cuttings in a jar of water.

They're doing great!

Of the six that I planted, five lived through the winter.    This means elderberries maybe this year!   I'm so excited.  

White Violets

This is the time of year for the white violets. 

They bloom after the blue ones.  They're a bit taller, a bit free-er in form, a bit easier to see in the gloom of the woods.   They come on at the same time the trees leaf out in the spring.  

We have several places where they've formed large loose colonies over the floor of the woods where it occasionally floods.  

Rooting Sweet Potato Shoots

I start my sweet potatoes in jars on the window sill.   I've seen other ways, but this takes very little counter space and works just great.  

I just shove sweet potatoes into jars, pointed side down, with part of it sticking out of the top of the jar.  If you can find potatoes with pink bumps already visible, then use those - they'll sprout faster from the top.  Leave the pink bumps at the top, out of the water.

In time, little pink sprouts pop up from the top and white roots show up under the water.  

In a couple of weeks, or when things get really warm, the sprouts will grow pretty quickly, and leaves will open up. 

If you can find a jar deep enough, just put the whole potato in deeper so the sprouts are under water, then they'll form roots at the base of each sprout.   

If you don't have really deep jars, don't worry.   Carefully twist the starts off the potato when they're a few inches tall and have a leaf open.   

Then put the sprouts in a water in a jar.  Soon they'll develop roots on their own.   

Easy squeezy!

Once you see roots, you can plant them.   Make sure you are well past the last frost date for your area.  Sweet potatoes like warm soil and hot weather. 

Antler

Lily found this little antler on one of our paths in the way back.    It's the first one we've found in the 20 years we've lived here.    Our neighbors found a much bigger one on their place earlier this year.   

It's probably a comment on the vast numbers of deer around here these days.     It's not uncommon to see 4 or 5 bucks in the fall within a couple of miles or so.  

Wild Ginger

This is the wild ginger of north America.   Asarum canadense.   Notice the brown flower at the base of the stems.   Weird, but cool.

According to wiki [link above]:  Native Americans used the plant as a medicinal herb to treat a number of ailments including dysentery, digestive problems, swollen breasts, coughs and colds, typhus, scarlet fever, nerves, sore throats, cramps, heaves, earaches, headaches, convulsions, asthma, tuberculosis, urinary disorders and venereal disease. In addition, they also used it as a stimulant, an appetite enhancer and a charm. It was also used as an admixture to strengthen other herbal preparations

HOWEVER!  It has similar aromatic properties to true ginger (Zingiber officinale), but should not be used as a substitute because it contains an unknown concentration of the carcinogen aristolochic acid and asarone.The distillate from the ground root is known as Canadian snakeroot oil.

Around here, wild ginger grows in colonies on well drained, loamy slopes and rocky outcroppings.  It's a beautiful garden plant.

Common Pink/Purple Woodland Flowers

We have an abundance of pink-purple spring flowers.  It's easy to get them confused.  Hopefully, this post will help you identify some. You may need to click these pics to blow them up enough to get a really good look at these spring flowers.   

This is Jacob's ladder - Polemonium reptans.  Also called Abscess Root, Creeping or Spreading Jacob's Ladder, False Jacob's Ladder, American Greek Valerian, Blue bells, Stairway to Heaven, and Sweatroot.  

The flowers are more purple than pink.  Notice the leaves - they're pretty distinctive.

Polemoniums make beautiful perennial garden plants and many have been bred for showy flowers. 

Wild Geranium - Geranium maculatum. Also called old-maid's nightcap and wood geranium.

It's a beautiful pink flower with 5 rounded petals.  The leaves have 5 lobes and remind me of hands.   If you are a gardener, then you will recognize these as being closely related to the perennial geraniums that you find at good nurseries and garden centers [not the pelargoniums sold as 'geraniums', but which are not perennial anywhere but the warmest of places.  Ridiculously confusing, but there it is.]

Here's a better pic.    These bloom at the same time as the Jacob's ladder above.  

Finally, we have the wild blue phlox that loves the roadsides around here in April and May.    This is Phlox divaricata.   It is pink-purple [not blue here] and has five petals like the geranium, but the petals are less round and more pin-wheel like.  

The flowers bloom in a loose cluster about a foot tall, like the taller garden phlox.  

The range is all over central and eastern U.S. and Canada, south through Texas and Florida. 

Nodding Trillium, Drooping Trillium

We have all kinds of trillium out here [mostly toad trillium] and we were excited many years ago to find a small colony of this nodding trillium a couple of miles away from us along the roadside.  

It is either nodding trillium, Trillium cernuum, or drooping trillium, Trillium flexipes.  It is also called nodding wake-robin and whip-poor-will flower.  

We are near the southern end of nodding trillium's range.  It is found throughout north central and northeastern United States and central and eastern Canada.

Drooping trillium's range is north from central Canada southward through the central U.S. down to almost the Gulf of Mexico.

There is so much overlap between the two varieties that it is almost impossible to tell the two apart.  

Goldenseal

I had never seen this flower around here before this year and was surprised to find that it was goldenseal - one of the most popular herbal medicines around.   

The Latin is Hydrastis canadensis and its other common names include orangeroot and yellow puccoon.   It forms colonies at the edge of the woods. 

The medicinal claims range from its effectiveness at reducing bacteria in the gut, to being used as a treatment for cancer.   One of the active constituents is berberine, which can have unfortunate effects when used with other medications. 

If you use goldenseal, make sure you do your research to know if it will interact badly with other medications and make sure to tell your doctor when you get any prescriptions. 

Blue Eyed Mary

This is one of the rarer wildflowers around here and it's rather delicate.   I saw some years ago in a little glade, but logging trucks went through there later and I haven't seen it since.    I was very happy to find some not far away this year.   And I had the camera with me!

It is Blue Eyed Mary - Collinsia verna.  It's an annual and if it is disturbed in the spring before it has a chance to set seed, then it disappears.

Notice the two white petals up and the two blue below.  Now notice the leaves.   They are opposite each other on the stem and completely surround it with the broad bases.   That tells you that this is Collinsia verna and not another Collinsia.   [There are some all blue ones on the west coast.]

It's a short plant, around a foot or so high here. The blossoms are in loose whorls around the stem.  

So pretty!

Here's more info on it from the Missouri Botanical Garden.   And even more from Illinois Wildflowers.

More Butterweed

You know how when you notice a new word, it starts popping up in the most unlikely places?  

It's probably because we just notice it more, but at any rate, the same thing happens to me with plants all the time.   I find one and identify it and then start noticing it everywhere.  

This is butterweed.  I talked about it a few days ago.    So pretty.    So very yellow.   With those cool red-purple stems.  

Well this has been a very good year for it.   It's been everywhere and in larger numbers than I've ever noticed before.  Glades full of it under the trees.   Fields full of it in front of old barns.

Like sunshine.

Beech Carving

Mike Lane
1986
May 30

Who was he?   What kind of knife did he carve this with and why this beech tree - in the middle of the woods in Greene County, Indiana?  Remember the one we found on our place?

I kinda really want to know. 

Horseradish

We have a horseradish patch.  

It's trying to take over the world.

We decided to reduce the patch so I did a bit of research first to see what time of year to harvest the roots and some sites said spring and some said fall.    Apparently you can do either, but it's hottest in the spring.  

Here's a great site all about growing horseradish and making the sauce.

Here's another site that talks about making your own sauce.

And here's a very interesting page on the medicinal uses of horseradish throughout history.

I made some fresh horseradish sauce with one of the roots I dug up.   Easy.  Squeezy. 

This is how:

Figure these proportions:

• 1 cup grated horseradish
• 1/2 cup vinegar
• 1/2 tsp salt

Steps:
1.   Dig the root and wash it off.
2.  Peel it with a vegetable peeler.
3.  Working quickly, cut it into chunks and toss them into a food processor or blender with vinegar and salt.  
4.  Grind until it's the consistency you want.
5.  Refrigerate.

Why work quickly?    Because horseradish is like mustard - the properties that make it hot are alkali and are enhanced by contact with oxygen.   The faster you can get the acid [vinegar] in there to neutralize the alkali, the milder the taste. 

If you like it hot, then take your time.  Grind up the horseradish without the vinegar and salt.   Admire the scenery.   Watch an episode of something on the food network.   Then add the vinegar and salt.   

This stuff really takes your breath away.    Historically it was used with red meat to hide the flavor of spoilage.  

Rural Geometry

This barn is in Owen County, Indiana.    It looks like an old tobacco barn - obviously not big enough for these big round bales.   

I love the geometry of these scenes.   Round bales.  Triangle under the barn roof.  Rectangle and square windows.  Parallelogram rusty metal roof.

Love, love, love.

Flowering Shrubs

This is Viburnum carlesii,  Korean spicebush.   It smells divine.    We have one of these, that I planted when it was 6 inches high and that somehow we didn't kill even though we dug under half of it when we were digging and putting in the new foundation.   It must love us. 

It's about 6 feet high now and weathered the winter gloriously.   It smells divine.  

I'm going to try to root some cuttings this year so we can have a half dozen more across the front of the house when the new construction is done.

And here's another great spring flowering shrub - Chaenomeles japonica - Japanese flowering quince.   

It's beautiful this time of year and almost indestructible.   It spreads via runners and will form a hedge if you let it.   I've seen fruit form, but never have been able to harvest, though my neighbor down the way says that she has gotten enough to make jelly with.    I'm hoping that we have enough bees to get some actual fruit eventually.

You just can't beat how gorgeous these flowers are. 

Early Hostas

This is one of our hosta gardens.  It was a bed full of weeds and poison ivy when we moved here - heavy on the poison ivy - so feel free to be impressed at the transformation.   We edged it with rock from our creeks and filled it full of hosta.  

The sun dial is pretty there, but it's a dumb place for it since it's in the shade most of the day.   I like it there because it looks nice. 


Sundials aside, this pic is why I love the hostas this time of year, when they're just up and unfurling.   They get a lot bigger than what you see above.

You can't beat all these ruffled and curled edges.  I love them. 

Redbud Spring

Redbud season is spectacular in this area.   In the late evening light, the colors really glow.

The buds form right on the twigs and as the flowers bloom, they form little stems.

This year, since the winter lasted so long and the spring came late, we've had some beautiful, but very warm weekends crowd in on the season.   That causes the leaves to form on the redbuds before the flowers are quite done blooming.   I like how orange the leaves are when they're new.

Down the way, a redbud came down over the road in a storm during the winter.   Some of the branches were cut off and tossed aside and a couple of them ended up in the creek.   Mother Nature forced the flowers anyway and we noticed this blooming branch resting in the creek.   The cut end is jammed up against the wet embankment and obviously has been getting enough water over the past couple of months to force the blooms.