Not exactly a walk in the woods...

...more of a billy goat scramble, actually. I went out behind the house today to check out the wildflowers and to scout a bit on the foraging front.

After a few very damp days, there were more branches of the little creek than usual, and hopping between rocks i did start to wish that i hadn't traded ankle support for light weight in my footwear choice - but the woods are putting on their spring show...

i met at least one neighbor,

 i've got a better idea where the pawpaw trees are, and i found this:

Brilliance.

I stopped in at the IGA market in Marshall, something i make a point of doing whenever i get down that way, because it is the most amazing combination of goods in a cheerful collision of cultures, from rural Virginia redneck to treehugger.  You can buy Moon Pies or local artisan sausages.  Or both (i've been known to...).  They carry the quasi-local cream line milk that i like to buy whenever i can.  Great stuff: it comes in half-gallon glass bottles ($2 deposit, so when i finally round them up and return them, i feel rich), but the caps have an unfortunate tendency to leak, and the necks of the bottles don't facilitate tidy pouring, and i hate to see any of it wasted.

But!  The Marshall IGA had a solution to this problem, too - one i'd never seen in any of the other places i'd bought milk in glass bottles - for a mere 69 cents, i brought home this wonderful gizmo:

This great little spout pops on in place of the cap, stands up to shaking the bottle to mix in the cream, and pours perfectly, much to the disappointment of the feline members of the household.

Bragging rights

So i took the nomad dress from the last post, and entered it at the Clarke County Fair - a plan i'd hatched mainly to give myself a deadline for finally finishing it.  For grins, i also took along a silk scarf i'd tie-dyed recently, and entered that as well.  Both came home dangling blue ribbons, which was kinda fun...

The CSA report, week 1

We signed up for a CSA (that's community supported agriculture, for those who haven't encountered it before) membership this year.  This is a good thing, because as much as i'd like to grown my own, i'm not very good at it.  Also, there's that living-on-a-wooded-mountain thing: i have little sun, but lots and lots of rocks.  Big, honkin' rocks, in fact.  So it's a good thing that Stoneybrook is close by with their CSA program (nice folks - i play music with a few of them from time to time).  Last Wednesday, we got our first weekly box of veggies: red leaf lettuce, kale, chard, garlic scapes, collard greens, yellow squash, and zucchini.  I've been racing to use it all up - and make room in the fridge - before Wednesday, and our next box.

So the chard and some of the garlic scapes went into some fried rice, i made kale chips (promising, though the recipe i used was too salty), and the lettuce was easy to go through in salads and sandwiches (i have a little left, but i had some from the farm market on hand when i got the CSA lot). I used more garlic scapes in place of green onions in a marinade, and grilled a little more than half the squash and zukes with some local beef tonight.  The collard greens still need to be used, but at least they're not too bulky.  The remainder of the kale will probably go into a revised version of those chips, and i'll figure out something for the last of the squash... there's at least hope for getting the refrigerator closed when i bring home tomorrow's box!