for my brother

message

a message
left on the front step
written in ice
we both wonder
what it could mean

snow melt

last night's snow is melting fast in the morning sun, making rain under all the trees.

short video:

snowy morning

snowy morning
watching hands lace boot strings
marveling at the knowledge of the body

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.