Leora

Thursday Challenge: Rabbit Time

This week’s Thursday Challenge is TIME (Hourglass, Clock, Calendar, Wristwatch, Hurrying,…).

Sauteed Mushroom Salad

For this sauteed mushroom salad, I used two kinds of mushrooms: baby bella and shiitake. You can choose any two types that are available to you. Shiitake mushrooms in particular have healing properties.

Ingredients:

• 2 boxes of mushrooms, 2 different types (shiitake and baby bella, for example)
• 1 tsp. olive oil
• lemon juice to taste
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 head of bok choy, chopped (optional – you can substitute other greens)

Sauté the mushrooms in the olive oil for about 15 minutes and until the juices of the mushrooms begin to flow. Add bok choy or other greens (chopped kale, chopped collards, parsley or cabbage are all possibilities to try). Add lemon juice, salt and pepper. Cook until the bok choy softens. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Watery River and Brook

For more Watery Wednesday:

Nature Notes

Michelle of Rambling Woods started a new meme called “Nature Notes.” I really like the idea. So I decided to divide “nature” into a few parts: flora, fauna, weather, and … everything else natural? water, dirt, air? I think her plan is for us to post on a Thursday. But I’m thinking about this now, so here goes:

• Few flowers, other than crocus and snowdrops, have bloomed here yet.
• But lots of green is popping its way out of the ground, such as my columbines and daffodils.
• I saw a pretty red cardinal last week! I took a photo through the window, but it didn’t come out well, and I erased it.
• I hope to visit the stream down the street from my home in the next few days to see how it looks.
• It’s been alternately cold and warmish here. Today I wore my winter coat, and the sky was cloudy.
• We often have a variety of birds visiting our backyard. A neighbor’s cat seems to like to lie in the corner near the fence.
• I planted peas and radish on Sunday. The ground was easy to dig; I am optimistic about my spring garden.

I hope you will join in the Nature Notes meme. Even if you live in the city, there are still plants, animals and air! Right?

Ruby Tuesday Goes Green

Mary asked that we post green in honor of St. Patrick’s Day. I wanted to show my neighbors’ house, the neighbors from my childhood that were Irish and had a green and yellow house. But I couldn’t find my old photos in time. The ones I did find had way more orange than they were supposed to! Either I had a lousy camera in my childhood or I had negligible photography skills. Or both.

Instead, enjoy my columbines as they emerge from the ground. I hope to show their pretty blossoms in May.

For more Ruby Tuesday posts (usually photos with a bit of red or a lot of red, but this week, expect green), visit:

Today’s Flowers: Crocus

Such a joy that my neighbor’s crocuses are blooming! (Two points for anyone who can pluralize crocus in a different way, without looking it up in Google, no cheating!)

For some reason the orange ones have opened up before the purples.

A few of the crocuses have stripes!

For more flowers, visit:

Snowdrops

Some of you wondered how snowdrops look when they come up out of the ground.
(see Sunday’s post of snowdrops)

Don’t they look like little lamp posts? Later they “spray” open their petals a bit.

Crocus photos will appear on this blog on Sunday.

Skywatch: Rose Branch

Sky Watch Friday is a photo meme with photos of sunrises, sunsets, blue skies, gray skies, pink skies, dark skies and any other kind of sky posted by bloggers all over the planet.

In June this branch will be covered with little pink roses.

Thursday Challenge: Broken Egg Shells

Today I was able to turn my compost for the first time since fall. During the winter the ground is frozen (and so is my compost) even when there is no blanket of snow covering the compost.

What can you identify in my compost? Why is that item good for the soil?

Thursday Challenge is a place for photographic fun and learning. This week’s theme is BROKEN: (Smashed, Worn Out, In Need of Repair, Ripped, Torn,…)

Ruby Tuesday: Purim Presents

Our family decorates oatmeal containers with colorful pictures and scraps of wrapping paper. We modge podge (a kind of glue) the containers, fill them with treats and give them to our friends. This custom is called Mishloach Manot, and it is part of the celebration for the holiday of Purim. On the container at left you can see King Ahashverosh by his red throne.