Natural Dilemma

A Monarch butterfly, struggling in a web . . . Of course I released it . . .

 But then I felt bad for the hungry spider. . . 

Sometimes it seems that the beautiful people get all the breaks.

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Lammas. . . Lughnasadh . . . Early Harvest

Two of my blogging friends mentioned, in connection with my August 1 post on the threshing machine, that it was just right for Lammas  -- which fell on August 1.

Lammas celebrates the early harvest and the first harvest of wheat -- indeed, the name Lammas derives from words meaning 'loaf mass' and the first grain harvested was ground into flour,  baked into bread, and that loaf was blessed by a priest.

Long before Christianity, the early harvest was celebrated in England as Lughnasadh) and followers of Wicca and other earth religions have made this a part of their rituals.

Harvest is always worthy of celebration. I've spent much of Monday and Tuesday dealing with some of the garden's bounty-- okra, squash, eggplant, beans, tomatoes, potatoes, cucumbers, figs (only a few, alas, but there are more ripening.)

But it's been mostly corn -- shucking, removing the tip and its (almost always) resident worm. The worms and tips got taken down to the broiler chicks who, according to John, had a fine time eating the corn off the wormy tips -- and the worms as well.

Next the corn is blanched in a big pot of boiling water for about ten minutes, plunged into ice water to cool it, then cut off the cob and put into bags to go into the freezer.

Corn chowder, corn pudding, and Sam's corn cakes will be on the menu in the coming months.

End of June Walk

The air was clear; the sky was blue. Come with me for a stroll on the last day of June.

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