slushy day

36 degrees F today with a mix of rain and snow.

neat little world in this water droplet sliding off some manzanita blossoms

the ducks enjoyed some supervised forage time splashing and drilling in the water that has collected in the fig orchard swales. 

click image to play video:

expected to snow overnight.

many mushrooms

harvested 4 pounds of oyster mushrooms from the greenhouse today.  although they have proven to keep quite well in the refrigerator it's still probably a few too many for us to eat before they start losing freshness.  to preserve some of the harvest i decided to try out a little electric food dehydrator we picked up at a yard sale a couple weeks ago.  

today's haul, 4 lb of king oyster mushrooms

i filled the four trays of the dehydrator and was still left with plenty of mushrooms for immediate usage.

the dehydrator is running on the lowest temperature setting in hopes of preserving as much of the nutritional value as possible.  not sure how long it will take to get the desired dryness so i've been peeking inside now and then to check the progress.  i'll probably post some pictures of the finished product when they've finished drying.

homegrown breakfast

greenhouse, gardens, and ducks provided a lovely breakfast this rainy morning.

and for a nice bright finish to the meal i went out to the kitchen garden and ate a kumquat in the rain.

snow

started snowing at about 5:00 pm yesterday and continued throughout the night.  here's what we woke up to this morning...

the new ducks hadn't experienced snow before and were a little suspicious about all the white stuff when i opened their shed this morning.

they're a pretty curious bunch and they soon came out to explore and get some breakfast.

was business as usual for the older ducks.

here's a short video of the ducks having a snowy breakfast

zane loves snow.

here's a video of the frisky little snow dog in action

staal tried out a new camera.

how can you not love a man who brings you coffee in the snow?

fig trees

had to be done

the obligatory snow selfie

supposed to get a couple days of sunshine and then more snow next week.

current conditions

mushroom harvest

several of the oyster mushrooms in the greenhouse had some good size on them today so i did a little harvesting.

i ended up with a little over a pound and didn't even make much of a dent in what was there.

i think i know what we're having for dinner tonight.

conjuring magic

 

little feathered sprites
with bright, mischievous eyes
circling round and round each other
a morning ritual
conjuring magic
with wing beats
dancing lightly on tip-toe
though in their hearts they soar
and i fly with them