The berries are becoming more cordial

Today was the first weekly shaking of the berry cordial. Spork and I pulled it out of the cabinet this afternoon and noted a few changes from last week: the vodka has become pinkish, the blackberries have turned red and the raspberries have turned white. The sugar at the bottom of the jar was almost completely dissolved, too. One shake down, seven more to go.

Before shaking

After shaking. Note the white raspberries.

We are harvesting more berries than we can eat right now, so Spork resorted to freezing some for future use. I broke with cobbler/pie tradition this week and baked a clafoutis (or flognarde, since it's made from berries). It is one of the best smelling things to have ever graced my oven. It was yummy, but I regretted not having some vanilla ice cream to go with it.

Crusty, oozy berry goodness

The garden is finally beginning to produce. It's been a strange spring - even the farmers' market produce is behind. I've only had one bird-pecked tomato so far, but lots of yellow wax beans, summer squash and eggplants.

Ichiban eggplant showing flea beetle damage on the leaves

My butterfly garden, while messy, is very bloomy. I can't get enough of the passionflowers, which I find to be almost hypnotic. I originally grew them only because they are larval host plants for gulf fritillary butterflies, but now I love their complex flowers.

Passiflora incarnata

Bee balm with one of the skipper butterflies

My sister, Terri, has two new puppies, Taz and Buckley. It's great for me because I get to play with puppies, but my shoes aren't destroyed in the process. The pups are 1/2 schnauzer and 1/2 catahoula. The rescue group Terri adopted them from told her these would be small dogs, but Buckley has the feet and legs of a Clydesdale. Mmmm-hmmmm. They are mighty cute, though.

Taz (front) and Buckley, with hand model

Birthday goodness

This year's birth celebration (I celebrate for a week, minimum) started out with a bang. Spork's uncle Joe, expert kayak builder and chess guru, had emailed that he was sending some sunflower cuttings so when I went to the post office and found the Key of Joy in the mail box, I was very excited. When the Key of Joy revealed a 5 pound package, I thought I might need to pick up another jar of rooting hormone on the drive home.

Helianthus debilis, aka beach sunflower

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that the package contained a tiny bag of sunflower cuttings and a really cool piece of wooden inlay, which Spork later told me was called an intarsia.

Cutest birthday intarsia ever

I am so tickled by this! It was a complete surprise to me and I am so touched that he went to that much effort for me. Bonus points all around: 1) it was a surprise 2) it was a surprise that came in the mail 3) it was a birthday surprise that came in the mail and 4) it has a kitty on it! It's the best! I smile every time I look at it. :)

On the culinary front, Spork asked me what kind of cake I wanted and I requested a coconut cake with lemon curd filling. He donned his manly Triumph apron and made the entire thing from scratch, right down to the lemon curd! It was so good that I volunteered him to be the official cake baker from now on. For some reason, he didn't seem to relish that idea.

Spork's coconut cake (with lemon curd filling)

My girl Daisy helped me open my presents. Then moved on to shredding random papers.

After many days of cake (in addition to Spork's cake, Becky provided a super-evil raspberry amaretto cake and my mom made a red velvet cake), I couldn't face the idea of cobbler-ing the enormous quantity of berries that had accumulated in the refrigerator. It was time, I decided, to try my recipe for blackberry cordial, slightly modified to mixed berry cordial (blackberries, raspberries and boysenberries).

Day 1 of the mixed berry cordial

For this recipe, you pour a cup of sugar into the bottom of a large jar. Top that with 4 cups of berries (washed and patted dry), then pour in 4 cups of vodka. Place in a dark cupboard for 8 weeks, shaking once a week. Strain through a sieve, then through a coffee filter. Store in glass bottles.

I've never made this before, so I overlooked the bit about 8 weeks of waiting and shaking. I'm sure it will be worth it, though.

Just for John: Blueberry Cheesecake Pie

I thought for sure that John would show up, fork in hand, on Saturday night when we cut into this ridiculously luscious pie. It's a graham cracker/pecan crust (made with a whole stick of butter!), topped with a layer of cream cheese whipped with sweetened condensed milk and lemon juice, topped with a layer of cooked blueberries. It was good last night, but even better for breakfast today.





See John, it was with authority when I wrote that Spork is only 99.99% evil. I am pure evil! ;-)

Cobblers, critters and rose rustling

The first cobbler of 2009 has been baked and consumed! It was made from the wild trailing blackberries, aka dewberries. The dewberries produce in the time between the strawberries and the "tame" blackberries. The upright (not trailing) wild blackberries are also producing, but they are... ummmm.... less than desirable. We have dubbed them vomitberries, if that gives you an idea of their flavor.

Dewberry cobbler

The "tame" blackberries are absolutely loaded with green berries, just beginning to turn pink. I use quotes around tame because for the most part they are huge plants covered with wicked thorns and they send up baby plants in every direction, 12+ feet away from the mother plants. Some of them are also sending out more blooms. I'm not sure if these will make berries, since they are so late, but you won't hear me complain if they do.

Chickasaw blackberry bloom

The raspberries are also covered in baby berries. The raspberries are interesting because they produce twice on each cane. Here in Texas they produce on the tips of the new canes in the fall, then again the following spring lower on the canes (the tip is dead by then). My understanding is that up north the canes don't produce in the fall on the first year, but instead produce twice in the second year - tips of the canes in the spring, followed by the lower branch berries in the fall. Either way we get two harvests of raspberries a year and that is a very good thing.

Baby raspberries

Once again we are sharing the stuga with a wide assortment of lizards, skinks, snakes and frogs. We have many green anoles, including this guy, who guards the water hose. He does not approve of my use of the hose, as evidenced by his liberal use of the stink-eye.

Green anole

This little guy was hiding in my compost container (aka, plastic Folgers coffee can) when I brought it in. When I set the container on the counter, he jumped out and it was an exciting few minutes while I battled Lucy and Daisy for his capture. Fortunately for the frog, I won the battle and he regained his freedom.

Green tree frog

I have been wanting to try rose rustling for a while, so I was happy when I noticed a rose growing from a mound of unkempt shrubs in front of an abandoned gas station. The rose had sent up large arching canes dripping with dark purplish/maroon flowers right through the center of the shrubs. I was so excited to find one I could rustle, that I planned for a week exactly when I would do it. Then when we got there, I chickened out at the last minute and Spork had to run over and do the clipping! He was very cool about it. I think he has a future in stealth crimes, as long as he doesn't have a plan that involves following whispered instructions.

Unknown purple/maroon rose "liberated" from the abandoned gas station

It is most likely Dr. Huey, which is commonly used as a root stock for grafted roses, but is also a pretty climbing rose in its own right. I won't know for sure until this one takes off (if the rooting is successful, that is).

Liberated rose in its fancy mouthwash bottle greenhouse

Finally, I received a surprise delivery of gardenia cuttings last night. Yay! I've been wanting to try gardenias and growing your own from cuttings or seeds is the most fun way. It's funny because the best part of gardening to me is fussing over the baby plants up to the point they really take off and grow on their own. Once they become part of the landscape, I'm pretty ho-hum on them and usually I have more babies in the queue or at least added to my list of plants to try.

Gardenia cuttings soon to be added to the nursery/plant ghetto