Gardens and Mushrooms and Ticks, OH MY!

It was another busy weekend. I don’t seem to know how to have any other kind.

Saturday I went and help set up at the farmers market, and then socialized for another 3 hours. I was back at my home market after working a different one all winter. I’ve come to love the winter market, the people there, working with BF, and I thought I’d be really sad to leave it. Part of me is, but then part of me is giddy with joy to see the friends from my home market that I have missed all winter. My cheeks hurt from smiling by the time I left. And there was asparagus and strawberries! YUM.

After market we worked about 160 lbs. of compost into the 2 raised beds. It’s probably not enough, but it’s a good start. BF sent the soil samples off to the cooperative extension today, so we’ll see what they say. We broke the hoe (oh, that sounds bad), so BF used the smoothing rakey thing while I used a hand hoe to work it in. Ow. We’re so tickled to have it done though. Next week we’ll get some plants from the market and get them in the ground. I’ve already got rosemary, lavender, lemon verbena, chocolate mint, pineapple sage, tarragon, thyme, and basil ready to go. We have a bay tree and marjoram that have survived in pots over the winter, and I have oregano that comes back every year already peeking up and saying hello. I’m contemplating a bit of a tea garden this year. I have chamomile seeds (and some others that I can’t really remember right now) that I think I’m going to stick in a pot and see what they do.

The raised beds are where the stump was from the tree that fell on the house. See, stump removal is a rather misleading way to describe what they do with the stump. They actually grind it up with the existing dirt to create a woody mulch pile. Mound. Hill. In the middle of the back yard. And then you get to decide what to do with the hill. We made a garden because, honestly, we had no other ideas.

Saturday was rounded out with friends coming over for a few beers. It was a good day.

Sunday we slept in and then set out to do some morel mushroom foraging. BF has been doing his research and chose a location that wasn’t too far away. I can’t tell you where because OH BOY did we score big. We ventured from the path into a wooded area and looked at the trees around us. We didn’t really see the elms or tulip poplars that the morels are supposed to grow around. We were set to give up and get back on the trail when I happened to look down. “Oh, oh, oh look what you just stepped directly over!!” Two beautiful morels poking their heads above the leafy cover that BF had just missed with his booted size 13s. Bliss!

Despite the dreary weather, the setting was gorgeous. There were rolling hills with a wide variety of trees (blooming dogwoods, evergreens, elms, oaks, poplars, and who knows what else.) all bursting into spring. There were wildflowers blooming, and we even saw two owls! There was a horse event taking place, so folks on horseback dotted the hills. This was someplace we wouldn’t have gone if not for the foraging, so it was a really pleasant surprise to find it filled with so much beauty. And, we ended up with about 164 morels. Our record before that was, I think 8. Yes, I typed that correctly, 8.

We spent two, maybe more, hours in that spot finding morel after morel. There were veins of them, leading us in one direction, then another. MarleyQ was as patient as she could be with us, occasionally trying to sneak off, but spending a good portion of the time sitting next to us or lying in the leaves and dirt, panting and finding ways to make her presence known. We noticed the time, decided we had a good haul for our outing and very reluctantly got back on the path because we knew THERE WERE MORE OUT THERE. Click to make these bigger…

We also ended up with something even more unexpected…

Marley, in her eternal patience, sat herself in a nest of ticks. Lone star ticks. Nymph stage lone star ticks. We were in the parking lot for a good 45 minutes pulling freckle-sized ticks off of her belly. Soon we realized it was much more than we could possibly tackle in the parking lot. We loaded her in the car, got home, stripped at the front door and threw our clothes and backpacks right into the washer, and threw her in the tub. I scrubbed her, conditioned her, and then we had her on the floor with all the overhead lights on and lamps with the lampshades removed placed strategically around us while we combed, tweezed, plucked, and pulled hundreds of ticks off of her body. Most were on her back end—you know, where the hair is really long and thick. The poor girl fell asleep while we, for two hours, went over every square inch of her body. (Did you know dogs can have freckles? So cute! Don’t try to tweeze them off.) This morning we found a few more, and we expect that will continue for a bit. Gross.

Now our skin is crawling and we’re both completely paranoid about every tickle, itch and pinch that we feel. I know there are more on me. Somewhere. Hiding. Sucking my blood. I know it. But jeez, dinner was really, really good last night. And BF is going back for more on Wednesday.