Shangri-La
This is where I live. This is opposed to some things that are going on around me that I find very difficult. Still, it doesn’t change where I live.
First, of course, there is the garden because the garden is always first.
This selection of beans made up into 13 quarts canned.
This is purslane. That bowl is a really really large bowl and that is just a couple plants of purslane filling it up. As much as we’ve transplanted it out of the corn field, these were still growing there.
And that is certainly not all that is growing in and coming out of the garden but it is what I have recent photos of.
We actually still have blueberries from last year’s stash but they aren’t loose marbles anymore and loose marbles of blueberries are much easier to eat on pancakes and the like so we finally went over to Mrs. Grullo’s to pick some more. Besides, I couldn’t go a year without going over the mountain to see her delightful self. So we put in four gallons of blueberries and headed to Shangri-La. In Shangri-La there are first of all spirits, and second of all apples. Not quite ripe yet (at least not the apples) but soon. I got a big bag of cooking apples the other day, and another half a bag joined them today.
Then there are elderberries. Again, not quite ripe. Yet.
There was also a big stand of spearmint that we harvested a good amount of. Younger son said, “Hey, that smells like tea!” “Hey,” we said, “it is! Pick a bag full and we’ll have tea this winter!” Then there is the pond. We did not take any fish today but they are there.
On the way back out we found a stand of bergamot. And we noted that this would be another place to come check out the blackberries although of course their time is past for this year.
Abundance. Paradise. It isn’t a neat and tidy thing.
5 comments:
It does look like Shangri-La and that pond, what a beautiful place that must be. Sometimes, if I kind of squint my eyes and block out the unnatural sounds I can also catch a glimpse of Shangri-La. Now when we are off on a trip into the mountains it is almost always a paradise and so very hard to leave.
That elderberry bush is quite full, my wife will be very jealous when she reads this.:) The ones in the forests around us are just now flowering but do not look nearly as good as last year.
That's a whole lot of beans.:)
We used to find our elderberries further back in the mountains, on the road cuts. There used to be a family reunion held the weekend the elderberries were ripe!
Your elderberries aren't ripe yet down in TN? Oh, well then that's encouraging. We're having our first crop this year, and I've been tasting the berries for a week or so, and have found them...well...meh. They look as heavy and dark as the ones in your picture, but maybe they need to hang there some more. I haven't been able to motivate myself to pick berries I'm just going to have to drown in sugar. Think I can expect some improvement?
Not neat or tidy at all :).
We're still picking wild blackberries that grow along a biking/walking path near us. It's a beautiful sight to behold and truly paradise! We've made note of large stands of sweet fern and some really great areas for harvesting hemlock for winter teas ;).
We're very lucky to live amoungst such abundance, and really, I can't imagine being anywhere else :).
Ok Kate, here's measure of my ignorance -- I've never tasted a single elderberry. I've always tasted them as jam or wine. Ours are not hanging dark and black yet but still have some entirely green pods of them, and even the ones that look ripe have some green on the back.
Ah, but I happen to have some here, so I'm tasting NOW! Ok, a bit insipid and a touch bitter. So, yeah, maybe that's it, and maybe that's why ya don't make them into cobbler or eat them fresh over ice cream. I love gooseberries but wouldn't eat one plain for anything. Or rhubarb, which despite all appearances is culinarily a fruit. I wouldn't sell it short yet -- make something!
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