Unsettled Weather
The end of summer is collapsing into a cycle of unsettled weather. A hot day with clear blue sky will suddenly cloud up and let loose a torrent of rain. The night will go black and crack open in streaks of lightning, thunder echoing and rolling across the...
Right as Rain
Moss Creek
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Not A Bad Weekend
I had Friday off. Robert came up and we worked on the dugout canoe. Rob went home Saturday. Before he did, we rode the Triumph up the hill and hiked down to the Big Rock for a beer. On our way back, we collected some ironwood for future cooking projects. ...
Dugout Canoe Project
I got a notion to try my hand at making a dugout canoe. A neighbor up the road gave me a cottonwood log and even helped me load it. Joel loaned me a trailer and Mike helped me retrieve the log last month. It's been sitting in my driveway ever since. ...
Friday the 13th
Clouds hide the full moon, soaking up the light like a sponge In the corner, in the darkness, behind a low wall Two black cats fight, tooth and nail I cannot see them to throw a rock My shouts add to the clamor of their screeching In the early hours of this country...
Dreaming Me
I wish I knew Dreaming Me a little better. He seems like an amusing fellow. All night long, he tells me jokes and spins out dramas, sometimes comedies, sometimes parables. I can never remember all the details and I can’t tell you Dreaming Me’s stories as well as he...
Blackberries
I am at the side of the trail, eating blackberries just as fast as I can pick them. They stain my fingers red and dissolve in my mouth, this one sweet, that one tart. Thorns tear at my forearms as I reach inside the briars to twist free another berry. The trick...
Cheering the Storm
The evening sky goes gray, the smell of a summer storm hanging in the air the trees ripple in a wind pregnant with humidity night overwhelms evening, wrapping us in a blanket of darkness and the smell of ozone scorching ragged rips of lighting tear apart the black...
August
brittle yellow grass brown dirt showing through desperate for rain
Lobster Mushroom Hash Browns
The combination of shredded Lobster mushrooms, potato, sunchokes and a little diced red onion, give these hash browns a unique flavor, filled with the umami of Autumn. Ingredients 1-2 potatoes, grated sunchokes, grated, equal to the amount of potatoes used an...
Plaki with Lobster Mushrooms
Plaki with lobster mushrooms over rice pilaf Plaki is a Greek fish casserole. This is another very flexible recipe: essentially any seafood available with whatever vegetables and mushrooms which may be in season, baked in a tomato sauce, and served over rice or bulgur...
Beef Stroganov
What can you do with a bucket of chanterelles? I don’t like them dried and you can only eat so many omelets. You can freeze or can them, but they are never as good as when they are fresh. Ah, Stroganov… Stroganov is tasty, and you can use a ton of mushrooms if you...
Roast Bacon Wrapped Chanterelles
Fall mushroom season is just around the corner. Soon we will be tromping through the woods and, with a little luck, collecting buckets full of chanterelles. There is no better way to conclude a successful foray than to sit around a fire eating roasted bacon wrapped...
Broth
Waste not, want not. Take every opportunity to turn left overs and the scraps from carving meat into broth and stock. The turkey carcass after Thanksgiving, the bone from a roast or that steak, wings, scraps, what’s left over from that deli rotisserie chicken...
