Shoots Show 2018

Mr Toad welcomes spring!

It seems that summer has leaped right over spring here at the end of "Shoots Show". It's very warm, so tomato plants are growing fast, and pea vines are not.

Lettuces

We're finally beginning to eat greens out of the garden.
The slugs are too. Kale and spinach (plus a few flowers) have been their choice this year. I'll have to try for a fall planting of these two greens.

Herb bed well along

I've put six boxes of mixed herbs (chervil, lovage, chives and sorrel) into the freezer for winter use, along with a dozen boxes of  my ginger rhubarb sauce.

First shiitake crop of the season

Our shiitake logs are producing now. We've been enjoying stirfrys of shiitake and pac choi.
Bob traded a few hours of work at the local shiitake grower's last weekend for another log. It's nice to find people who use the barter system.

Pac choi and tat soi

 All of the garden structures are in place and waiting for the next big planting: beans! I'll do that in about a week and a half.

2015 Nissan Leaf

We finally did it! We replaced our Geo Prism (that's right, it was so old that it was a Geo, before Chevy took over!). We drove it for twenty one years and due to maintenance issues, it was time to let it go.
We replaced it with a three year old Nissan Leaf with 23 K miles. The Leaf is all electric. We've been able to reduce our carbon foot print even more. Estimates are that it will go 20 miles on 1 kwh of electricity. That's like paying $.70 a gallon for gas. We will keep the ICE Honda as our long trip/ cargo vehicle. The "new" car is quite different to drive. I think it's like driving your laptop! There's a lot to get used to. More of that life long learning stuff I mentioned last month!

Charging station in our garage

The car will travel between 80 and 90 miles on a charge, depending upon your driving habits.

It has fun displays. The one I like best is a little conifer tree. You get "branches" as you drive, if you're driving efficiently. When you "build" a whole tree, it starts building another. So far, I've gotten more trees than Bob. 

Ha Ha!

We've been enjoying a wide variety of birds on our property this year. There are the regulars, which include Piliated woodpeckers, Rose Breasted Grosbeaks, Orioles, and Humming birds. We've also seen a Green Heron, Cape May Warblers and Indigo Buntings. A Great Horned owl has hatched and fledged two owlets in our woods. We have seen them a few times. Very Cool!

Tufted Titmouse stealing fur (see inside circle)

Last week we watched as a Tufted Titmouse  made attempt after attempt to snatch fur from Lunette's butt. Surprisingly Lunette just sat there and didn't "blow a gasket". This was great fun to watch. I hope that bird got enough fur for her nest.

I suppose that's all the "fun and games" from here for now. By next post all of the beans will be planted and we'll be eating strawberries! We'll catch up with you at the end of Bright Time. Enjoy the summer.

Kathleen, Bob and Lunette