Gone Feral In Idaho

The first black krim's are turning red/black. Oh, and there are so many more growing in the plants.

Emily  and I met up one day earlier this year at the Shangrila Tea House where I had my first Kale chips. Included in a super amazing present she gave me was a packet of red Russian kale seeds. I spread them in the big raised bed earlier this spring and harvested most of it today to make kale chips. I need to tweak the recipe, but this is what I put in it this time: 1 clove garlic 1 C Cashews, soaked 1/2 C Nutritional Yeast 1/2 C water 5 T Olive Oil 1/2 tsp Smoked Paprika 1/4 tsp Chipotle (spice) 1 pinch sea salt        I based the recipe on this website's   Rawmazing.com Basically all that stuff goes in the food processor. I had way too much gloop. I'd use 3/4 cup cashews, 1 tsp smoked paprika, and 1/2 tsp chipotle. I'd also put in 1/2 tsp salt as well. I took the kale stalks and pulled the leaves from the main stalk because that is too woody. I also pulled the leaves into chip-sized pieces. I love the strange leaf...

Tiny Harvest I filled the bottom of a ramekin with yellow wonder alpine strawberries. If you look back in my blog, you'll find more commentary on these little buggers that you could possibly want.  We got our first ground cherry, I'm still working on how to describe the flavor. Seeds for both types of plants were from Baker Creek. open ground cherry

Mom's first rafting experience, she loved it. We had a great time.

Alpine strawberry revisit. I love these little plants- yellow wonder alpine strawberry. They are so soft, but not in a mush way, more like melt in your mouth. For such tiny berries, they have a lot of personality. Bright tangy with a tropical end note is how I would describe the taste.  My mom is in town so we have been enjoying taking the grand-baby for walks.  She's on the phone with my grandma right now saying, "No, it's not the boonies, they have streets and houses and streetlights, and flush toilets". Tomorrow we take mom on her first rafting trip. Main Payette, here we come!

Potter's field is the name for indigent graveyards- the burial sites for then called paupers, people with no family to care for their dead.   Link to a great article . No need for me to reinvent the wheel. Sorry for the small photo, but I think it accurately depicts the state of many of these old burial sites.

The dwarf water lily opened it's first bloom today. There are three more coming up from the depths. They open in the direct sunlight and start to close as soon as the sun moves over the peak of the house in the early afternoon. I love the creamy texture of both the petals and the stamens and pistles. The fish are quite happy in their new home now that the water is warming up. They are still camera shy, but I watched them pig out on some supplemental food so that they don't eat too much of the plants. There is an all black one this year that I hope to capture with the camera.   Sadie likes her fish flavored water trough. 

This little gem is a yellow wonder alpine strawberry. They are creamy white with yellowish-green seeds and creamy flesh. No wonder you can't sell these at the market. They are so soft, they melt in your mouth. I bet they would turn brown quickly with bruising. I've read that they have a bit of a pineapple taste, but this one was deliciously tart with a creamy mild aftertaste. It is definitely a strawberry and was worth all the fuss of growing them from seed. It looks like we'll have just enough to snack on all summer unless they don't like the high heat.  Here's one that is almost ripe. The Sea Breeze strawberries are going nuts! I wonder if it is because we grew borage next to them last year and there are a bunch of borage volunteers growing up with them this season. Apparently the birds don't notice the yellow wonder alpines, and I can see why; they fruits grow on perfectly down-turned stems that aren't visible from above.  I helped Kyle build a strawberr...

We head out in about an hour. I made these for the party. Link to the event information.  Link to Amber's blog . I get to wear a costume in June, one of the cool things about Boise is that costume events are pretty abundant.