Birthday Reflections, Valentine’s Day Style
Birthday Reflections, Valentine’s Day Style. My mother likes to reflect that I was born on Valentine’s Day during an historic ice storm. She doesn’t remember a whole lot about the biggest event in my life, since the local doctor put women to sleep to deliver babies back then. My father drove 22 miles over slippery roads to deposit my sister at his parent’s and by the time he got back, slipping and sliding all the way, I was already in the world. That was about 39 years ago.
4 drop biscuits made with ancient wheat melded together in iron skillet
Cut to 2015, and Facebook, where we receive our first cheerful salutations. One of the first I read, at 6:30AM, “Shouldn’t you be sleeping in and having breakfast in bed?” And I thought, to have the meal I would like to eat served in bed, I will have to get up and make that myself. (I’m a little particular, and now more so, having given up modern wheat. Ask me about ancient wheat.)
Homegrown Serrano Pepper – See my Pepper Series on Late Bloomer
Of course, I was already up, so that’s what I did! Organic farm eggs scrambled with my favorite, delicate little mushroom caps, with a half of one of my fresh-picked Serrano peppers, two slices of bacon, free of nitrates, nitrites, hormones, antibiotics, not fed GMO corn, and not grown in a CAFO (confined animal feeding operation), and one monstrous *ancient wheat drop biscuit laden with raw butter and homemade, wild-picked chokecherry jelly. (Click here for my biscuit recipe.)
Beech Mushrooms
The best thing about birthday presents, as my online, jelly-making, garden pal, Bob, said, is a surprise gift, something you are not expecting. After I hastened through the five half pint jars he had sent in the fall (aren’t garden friends some of the most generous and sharing people??), he had said that was all there would be till August, so a few days ago I received a surprise birthday present of this memorable jelly.
Jars of homemade Chokecherry Jelly, from wild-picked chokecherries
And I got the best flowers, albeit indirectly, when online garden friend and garden writer Renea Winchester offered to send daffodil bulbs from Georgia (I always called them Buttercups in Tennessee), as she was clearing some beds. I jumped at the chance of having my favorite flowers from home growing in my Los Angeles garden, so I received those yesterday and promptly potted them up. In this 80° heat wave we are experiencing, I couldn’t risk putting them in the ground in the sun, not with the promise of flowers so apparent.
Daffodils potted up, AKA Buttercups
I have a long list of things to accomplish today, so let me wish each of you a Happy Valentine’s Day and get to it. If this is also your birthday, please let me know! Thanks so much for reading, and if you enjoy receiving blog posts from Late Bloomer, please subscribe and share with a friend. Let’s get the whole world in on the small-scale farming movement (even if you only have a balcony to grow on), and take back control over our food. – Kaye
Linden ventures out into the garden to sniff the catnip (hidden).
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Renea Winchester is an award-winning author of “In The Garden With Billy: Lessons about Life, Love & Tomatoes” and other heartwarming books.
Category: Community, Garden Musings, Urban Gardening
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Sounds like a love morning. Happy birthday, Kaye! xo
Sounds like a lovely morning! Happy birthday, Kaye! xo
Thank you, Destri! I missed you on Sunday’s bash. Say, does 60 episodes and an Official Selection to Vancouver Web Fest merit me a spot on your http://www.thedirectorslist.com? No pressure, haha!
39 years ago! LOL
Give or take…. haha
Here all this time that you played a nurse on General Hospital. I did not know that you played a baby! LOL
Huh, I didn’t play a nurse, I played a grieving mom/child snatcher, haha!
Happy 39th birthday! 😉
Thanks, Sheri!! I was thinking of you tonight!
I have been using spelt flour, I haven’t located the ancient wheat yet…looks good. Recipe, please. I’ll give you the 39.
Thanks! Mike, shop for Einkhorn online. I think they even carry it at Walmart! https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=einkorn+wheat&tbm=shop
Happy belated birthday from Germany. Even if you don’t know me, but I know you – just a little bit – from your wonderful, great and outstanding Youtube-Channel, just finished all your videos. I love them! Similar to you I am now an empty-nester and just started gardening so your videos are perfect for me. Thanks for putting so much love and effort into them. You are a remarkable woman. Looking forward to reading all the contents of your blog the following days. I wish you many, many more happy years to come.- Just posted your comment! https://www.facebook.com/LateBloomerShow
Thank you, so much, Ranka! Your comment makes my day. You have no idea how wonderful it is to hear that I am succeeding in my goal to reach and inspire people like you. It makes all the hard work worthwhile. I want to share your comment on Late Bloomer Show on Facebook, where you can also make posts and share your garden photos if you like. Have a wonderful day and know I am gratified by your support! Happy Gardening! – Kaye
Hi Kaye,
Cool about your birthday . We had a ram born on the farm on Valentine’s day. He has heart shaped black spots on both of his frount knees . We used to ride him! It is subzero here in Delaware and I think our Silver Fox rabbit had her litter last night in the blizzard .
I am also thinking of growing some ancient grains and am buying in bulk my own grains to gring for baking that are not from modern wheat like spelt kamut and rye . I have a nice mill that will grind it quickly.:)Sharon
Funny, I just ordered a grain grinder. I had seen a good one (in fact you see it very briefly in my episode Arts & Ag Part 3), but they were very expensive online, and I only wanted to do the big bowl of gem corn I harvested last year. So I ordered a $50 one. It came on Thursday. My Friday housekeeper came on Friday and said “I have one!” Long story short, she dropped it by yesterday and it looks pretty similar. So I will return the other one! I would love to visit you this summer when things are rolling along in your garden, Sharon. Don’t know if I can make it happen, but I hope so. Thanks so much. If you want to avoid gluten, though, you can’t buy kamut. I’m reading “Wheat Belly” and it’s a revelation! Thanks for writing!! – Kaye – See that grinder toward the end of this video: http://youtu.be/Yzts-DVeSuw?list=PL7C4BD0DA41DD3FFF