I haven't resorted to that....yet.

Did you know that dandelion greens are very good for you? We haven't had to resort to eating them to keep the house in these "hard economic times", but I have to say that if we had to, we wouldn't starve. I am "that yard" in my neighborhood that everyone drives by and cusses, because of all the pretty yellow flowers that will soon turn to seed and contaminate their own chemically altered golf course like lawns - MMMMWWAaaaahhhhahahahaha!!!!!

• Dandelions are a good source of calcium, potassium, vitamin A and vitamin C.
• One cup of dandelion greens has as much calcium as half a glass of milk.
• Vitamin A is important for eye health, for building a healthy immune system and for maintaining skin integrity.

If you are considering eating the ones you grow you should make sure that you haven't used chemicals on your lawn. Otherwise you can buy them from a local farmers market or grocery. In the good old days, dandelions were picked where the grass grew tall and free before the last spring frost and before the first yellow dandelion bloomed. If you wait until after they flower they become bitter and chewy. You can add them to a salad or cook them like spinach or kale and there are a lot of recipes online if you go looking for them.

You should go to this site: http://www.prodigalgardens.info/may%20weblog.htm and find out a lot more about dandelions.

They're BAAaaaack!!

Ok, so last year we had some swallows flitting about the back yard checking out the real estate which they choose not to purchase. This morning I look out to a commotion of them trying to decide if they want to put in a bid this time. Spring is so close!! All those birdies getting twitterpated, I am ready, bring on the heat!!!

Winter, woes, WOW!!

I am very glad that winter is winding down. These past couple of days of nice weather has been a tease. I know longer, warmer days are coming and that is good. I will try harder to put more up here for those of you who might enjoy or get something out of this. On the left you will see where I am building a wall, a short one, compared to the last, and out of "stolen" rocks. I probably shouldn't mention that, but it is true. Several posts back you can see the bare spot where the deck was going to go, and here you can see the finished product. We are going to add another step down so that we don't have to build the wall so high. I love my deck and that is the WOW of this post.

You can go down to a previous post and see the before picture and I tried to get the same view after of the deck. That was taken this morning and you can see Angus on the deck and Peter in the lower right hand corner.

I had one real woe this winter during the ice storm. The layer of ice caused my red bud tree to split almost down the middle. Once it got warm enough to melt most of it off, I went out and tied it back up together, I sure don't want to loose that tree, it is lovely in the spring and give some green dimension through the summer and fall, so we will see what happens.

I guess that is all for today. I have expanded the garden this year added about 2 feet on each side and about 6 feet to the length. A sad thing I found out is that the Kentucky Horse park is no longer giving away their compost, you have to pay 40$ per load. So, I guess my compost pile is going to have to be pretty big now. I will probably make it a ground pile instead of contained in something, so that I can stir it regularly and get it hot and cooking, we will see.