I once thought there could never be too many morels...until this week.
I feel like Bubba and the "shrimp" speech. I have fixed them sautéed with steak...fried with Drakes batter and cocktail sauce...stuffed...chopped fine in marinara over pasta...on pizza...thinly sliced and crisp like chips the way James showed me on Easter...in home-made soup with fresh herbs...in my morning omelet with cheese...
and I still have morels left!
Not that I am complaining, mind you.
May actually freeze some this season...which I never do.
.
And the Mansfield Car Show and Morel Festival isn't even until Sunday!
Spent a great deal of the week adjusting to the loss of my fuzz-buddy, Tucker.
Strange how you get into a day-to-day routine together...and how glaringly obvious that becomes with his sudden absence. Even Shelby (a relatively new arrival to our little family) wandered the house looking for him and meowing.
Finally settling in on the hassock he loved so much, rubbing her face in what must have been his scent.
And I finally get it, too.
Shelby was a Rescue Kitty. She had been surrendered, though I have no details as to why. She is a well-mannered, well fed, obviously well loved and taken care of, full grown house-cat. There were/are mornings after she arrived here that she would sit staring me right in the face intently like "...you are not who I am looking for...but you seem nice enough...will you love me?" Or possibly just feed me.
Now I understand.
The first time I came home and sat down after groceries and the weight of it hit me that Tuck and I would never again engage in the after-grocery-climb-up-my-lap and snuggle...then Shelby had the audacity to come over and try to sit with me...I almost pushed her off my lap.
Then I cuddled her instead.
No, she is not Tucker. Since she is already grown I will probably never bond with her like I did that 4 inch pawing and mewling kitten who stole my heart for the next 14 years.
And I will never be whoever it was that took such good care of her and loved her before she was left at the shelter. The person she looks for and finds me, instead. Did they get sick, die, maybe move to a place where a cat wasn't allowed or welcome? I may never know.
What I do know is this...we will both get past all this...and we will both have a New Beginning. Our own familiarity, love, and eventual routine together.
Engaged in the first of my planting this season with several patio pots and the beginnings of a bog...and my 2017 Herb Basket...literally planted in a wooden Bushel Basket
Beginnings of the bog...a work in progress.
The compost box was amazing this year. All of last year's newspaper, paper towel, coffee grounds, peelings and eggshells...along with straw, small twigs, cardboard, leftover Halloween pumpkin, vines and rotted leaves...now 30 gallons of sweet smelling rich black soil. No matter how many years I do it...this is always incredible to me.
And...speaking of disintegration and decomposition, I guess this is as good a time as any to segway into
Trump's 100 Days.
Athough the ACA is still standing...and The Wall isn't...the Muslim Travel Ban has been shot down in numerous courts as unconstitutional...the Tax Code remains the same...and more than a few of his followers are exhibiting "buyer's remorse"
Even Trump himself...who now laments none of it is as EASY as he thought it was going to be...this being President Stuff.
Seriously, ya think?
But in a convoluted pretzel-logic kind of way he HAS made America GREAT again.
There are more people than ever helping with a Resistance to his hare-brained schemes and out and out unconstitutional ideas. People are paying attention...not just ignoring what he is trying to pull...and that, my friends, is truly GREAT.
More anon...
