There's a Fungus Amongus

For Christmas, Jen gave her dad a box of Oyster Mushroom Spawn with all the tools to grown fresh mushrooms indoors this winter.  We have been eating them most of the winter.  One of the three varieties didn't germinate as well as the other two.  We are getting dove grey mushrooms and the yellow variety shown above.  They are so pretty and taste amazingly fresh, altho that shouldn't amaze me.  We pick them and throw them in the skillet.  

If you thought the second picture looked like a roll of toilet paper, you were right.  The spawn is placed down the middle of the tube in the cardboard roll, after the paper roll is soaked in boiling hot water.  They are bagged in plastic and kept in the dark for 5 weeks, then transferred to the refrigerator (where they kept company with the Bud Light) and then they head upstairs into the warmth of the house with the plastic bags opened on top to bloom.  A week later, we have mushrooms and start the process over again when it stops producing.  It was a great gift and it's been a fun winter project.  

Tiny Signals of Spring

It's Saturday, April 4th and we are expecting 1 to 3 inches of snow tomorrow evening.  Since this has already seemed like the longest winter on record, I am not a happy camper.  I decided to poke around in some of my beds today and see if I could record ANYTHING that would give me a glimmer of things to come.  That old spring tonic, rhubarb, was sending up fat, pink fingers and tiny shriveled looking leaves that will be gigantic before too long.  Thinking about that first pan full of homemade rhubarb sauce makes my mouth water. 

A tiny clump of tulips are breaking through the moss in our front yard.  We grow great moss in our lawn, all different colors.  Grass......not so much.  

My lamiastrum is always hearty and will be globe shaped and full of bright yellow flowers and bees before you know it.  It divides well and grows well in all our shade.