Pages

Sunday, March 16, 2025

Garden Work, and Soup

62°f/17°C this morning. Thunderstorm moved through quickly, now windy and feels colder than the temperature indicates. Going back down into the 30's tonight.


Daffydowndillies!

The past few days of yard work are catching up with me. Today I feel like a slug, only managing to make breakfast (pancakes, sausage,  and fruit salad), and put on a pot of soup for lunch or dinner, whichever we decide. This is a new recipe I found online, sweet potato and lentil soup, and I have to say it is tasting pretty delicious. In my usual way, I had to substitute heavily--dried oregano and parsley instead of fresh,  chicken broth instead of veggie broth, canned tomatoes instead of fresh, frozen creasy greens instead of spinach, paprika and Chipotle powder in place of smoked paprika, and canned yams someone brought here at Christmas for fresh. I figure my result will taste about the same in the end. You can find the recipe here. If I can conjure up some energy I will make cornbread to go with the soup. Big if.


Yesterday we got 20 more bags of mulch spread. We have a system: We leave the bags in the truck, and Larry pulls them out one at a time into the wheelbarrow, cuts them open, and takes them to wherever we are working. I tell him where to dump it,  and spread the mulch, taking care around the plants that were already up. We had put down the chicken wire first, of course. 

If you are wondering why we don't buy bulk mulch, I'll tell you-- neither of us are up to shoveling that much mulch. We can handle the bags; even I can get them from truck to wheelbarrow. It costs more to buy in bags, but for us it is the doable option.

We were working fast because rain was predicted to start by 11, but the rain and storms and high winds never struck here. So I continued working outside, cleaning up and mulching the drift roses, and picking up, putting away, etc. Pretty tired but satisfied by evening.

Larry is chomping at the bit for the molly moochers and ramps to come up, but it's still a little early for those wild treats. Which reminded me of this:


Right now, I'm listening to Mountain Stage and dunking that biscotti in coffee, with my feet up. I must say, it feels pretty good.

Take care, friends.


Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

13 comments:

  1. You have been working hard in the garden and cooking. The soup looks delicious. Sitting with your feet up with a coffee sounds like a good idea:)

    ReplyDelete
  2. We are just going to have to wait awhile for garden work, but we're getting there. Didn't know what molly moochers are in your neck of the woods.

    ReplyDelete
  3. The ramps made me laugh :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. It's absolutely chucking it down here, to the point where there is virtually no snow remaining where it hasn't been piled up. Even our huge mound out front seems to be 2/3 down.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I'm part of an Arkansas morel group & everyone keeps asking if anyone has found any yet. Being in the northern part of the state, I watch the posts as people find them in the southern part & slowly move north to me. We should be finding them here soon!

    I checked out the soup recipe. I've always wanted to try sweet potato or pumpkin soup but they're always too high carb for my husband. :( Oh well. It looks so delicious.

    ReplyDelete
  6. ...I love your Daffydowndillies, ours are beginning to pop out of the ground!

    ReplyDelete
  7. You’ve been working hard even when you say you aren’t. Ramps are a little strong for me, but my parents always looked forward to the ramp suppers.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Last anonymous comment was from Live and Learn.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Sounds a good system to get that mulch down, something we need to do.. soup seemed to me your own recipe by the time you had substituted different ingredients, all good so I'm sure delicious.

    ReplyDelete
  10. You always work so hard! I am going to go pick some wild garlic in the woods later this week too. Enjoy some soup with more biscuit!

    ReplyDelete
  11. You need to slow down a little or you are going to wear yourself out! Sounds like you might already be a little worn out, but it is a good worn out when you can get out after a long winter and work in the yard.

    ReplyDelete
  12. A newly mulched garden always looks so nice! Good work!
    It's too early to do that here in Illinois - got a dusting of snow yesterday!?!

    ReplyDelete
  13. Our snow has disappeared so I'm hoping with some wind the ground will dry out and I can trim back the perennials from last year before mulching happens. Praying that's it for snow.

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for sharing your thoughts! Comments are moderated so may not appear immediately, but be assured that I read and enjoy each and every word you write, and will post them as quickly as possible.