score! we have chantrelles growing quite happily under the oak right next to the house. i found a little patch of 5 or 6 golden lovelies which i brought in to identify, and my suspicions were correct :). i have never eaten chantrelles and i will need a recipe to know what to do with them, but anything i get wild makes me happy (especially in my own yard).
yesterday i picked a whole bag full of wild grapes from the neighbor's front fence, and today i mixed them with some of our june harvest of blackberries to make wine. only about 3/4 gallon, but with a few more episodes of picking i could theoretically make a decent-sized batch of the stuff. last time we made blackberry wine we used a "fancy" recipe, complete with special yeast and clarifiers and plenty of high-tech equipment, but it turned out not unlike mouthwash in terms of alcohol content--though tasty enough, if you could stand the burn--so this time i'm doing the hillbilly sugar+yeast version. it's also ready a lot quicker that way; 6 weeks instead of 6-12 months. i'll be ready for this one just about when the little mister is arriving... maybe we can have it as our celebration wine on his birth day :)
i used the weed-eater for the first time today, and i must admit it wasn't really very fun. the vibration was intensely unpleasant, it was heavy, and apparently the freaking string was busted b/c i wasn't really making a lot of progress... but matt cleaned up after my attempt and at least i can say i tried. i also discovered a flower on my morning glory vine (planted to grow up the hand rails to the front door), which delights me! i have recently been training them up the sides, as they are now long enough to really get up there and make a show. matt has done a great job cleaning up the back yard from all the leftover debris of the old trailer... he was actually shoveling little handfuls of broken glass and crap into a trash can today.
(train of thought interrupted, blog over. but i'm sure i'll pick it up later!)
yesterday i picked a whole bag full of wild grapes from the neighbor's front fence, and today i mixed them with some of our june harvest of blackberries to make wine. only about 3/4 gallon, but with a few more episodes of picking i could theoretically make a decent-sized batch of the stuff. last time we made blackberry wine we used a "fancy" recipe, complete with special yeast and clarifiers and plenty of high-tech equipment, but it turned out not unlike mouthwash in terms of alcohol content--though tasty enough, if you could stand the burn--so this time i'm doing the hillbilly sugar+yeast version. it's also ready a lot quicker that way; 6 weeks instead of 6-12 months. i'll be ready for this one just about when the little mister is arriving... maybe we can have it as our celebration wine on his birth day :)
i used the weed-eater for the first time today, and i must admit it wasn't really very fun. the vibration was intensely unpleasant, it was heavy, and apparently the freaking string was busted b/c i wasn't really making a lot of progress... but matt cleaned up after my attempt and at least i can say i tried. i also discovered a flower on my morning glory vine (planted to grow up the hand rails to the front door), which delights me! i have recently been training them up the sides, as they are now long enough to really get up there and make a show. matt has done a great job cleaning up the back yard from all the leftover debris of the old trailer... he was actually shoveling little handfuls of broken glass and crap into a trash can today.
(train of thought interrupted, blog over. but i'm sure i'll pick it up later!)
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