Happy Day

Have you ever had a day where you felt like saying,  "Yay!"?

Do you have a lot of days like that?

Is EVERY day a day like that?

I feel that way.

Every day

What a drip I am.  :)

Jordan told me yesterday that the human eye can differentiate between more shades of green than any other color.  I can't seem to confirm or disprove it online, but I think it's probably true.  Nick, my color-blind to green and red boy remarked when he visited the UP several weeks ago that there are so many different shades of green apparent when you drive around in the forest. So even he gets it.

I started laughing to myself as we drove to work this morning through the forests and fields.  When Bob asked, I said, "What if GREEN was someone's LEAST favorite color?"  It made me laugh because I had just decided that the UP would NOT be their fave place to live.

Yesterday a friend on Facebook shared with me a scientific discovery that women live longer if they are surrounded by nature.

Whoo hoo!

And yay!

Because in my life these days, Nature not only surrounds me, sometimes it stares at me through the window.

Or whispers to me through blades of grass.

Or sings a mysterious song at sunrise.

Or calms me with the peaceful deep coolness of the forest.

Or blinds me with the brilliance of God's beautiful garden.

And here am I, right here, smack in the middle of the forests, the meadows, the Gardens of God.
Life is good!

Yay!

Bluey Blueberry Blue

A year ago, we discovered a small blueberry patch at our camp.  Last year, I was thrilled to pick wild blueberries for the first time in my life.

All 23 of them.

Most of the 23, and look how small they were! Still, I was excited!

Then something happened.  The patch got mowed around, and then it rained....and rained and rained.
This year...blueberry bonanza!

A week or so ago, I picked enough blueberries to make a batch of scones.  I was happy.

I ate these!

The next time, I picked this many:

Enough to make TWO batches of VERY blueberry scones. Yes...this made me very happy.

First of all, I really like scones.  Great with my morning coffee.  Not too sweet, but rich and a little buttery.  And LOTS, maybe too many blueberries in them. Or not!  Anyway...I froze enough to last quite a while.

So, I figured if I have a few blueberries at my camp, chances are a lot of people around here have a LOT of blueberries.  So, for the first time ever, I'm including a recipe in my blog.  I made this recipe up, based on what I know and love and don't love about the scone recipes I've tried.

I started with Bisquick, because I had some, and because I knew it would make my recipe a little simpler.  So if you have some, and want to try this recipe, I think you will like it. This is my doubled recipe, since I had plenty of blueberries.  If you want to cut it in half, I'm sure you'll find that easy to do

So here goes.  Start with:

2 cups of fresh blueberries.  I like to toss mine up with about 2 tablespoons of sugar and let them

before the toss

sit while I mix up the other ingredients...brings out the flavor of them, I think.

In a large mixing bowl combine:
4 and 2/3 cups of Bisquick baking mix
2/3 cup sugar (more if you want)

In separate bowl or mixing cup combine:
8 tablespoons melted butter (I don't do margarine, sorry)
2/3 cup milk
2 large eggs, beaten slightly

brown eggs are beautiful...so are greenish-blue ones :)

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix up just until combined.

Fold in the blueberries.

You will notice, if you are a scone aficionado, that this makes a very soft scone dough..which I like, because some scones can be so hard and dense. So I take my medium kitchen scoop, and scoop out heaping scoops.

I bake on a pizza stone that's been sprayed with a little cooking oil, then flatten them slightly (the bottom of a sugar-dipped glass works great for this) so they are about 1/2 inch thick.

I baked one batch on this small stone, 2 batches on the large stone.  If you don't have a pizza stone, a cookie sheet works fine. But I think you should get a stone...at least for pizza :)

Bake at 350 until lightly browned and cooked in the center (about 15 minutes).   Makes about 26 nice size scones.

breakfast...yum

Anyway,

I noticed Saturday that the raspberries at our camp are just about ripe.

Life is good in the UP!

I Mean...Have You Ever???

Have you ever imagined a place where every day and every day and every day there is something BEYOND SUBLIMELY BEAUTIFUL out there just waiting for you to notice?

God waves a big sign sometimes to get my attention.

The big sign might be COLOR or texture or smell, or the feeling of a cool breeze on a warm day.

Speaking of smell...and since that was the topic of another post, I will be brief.  A couple of nights ago, my hubby and I were chilling in the living room at twilight, and we smelled what I thought was a skunk.  The smell gradually faded, and as I was looking out the window, a GRAY FOX walked down our driveway and stood for several moments looking at us through the window (turns out the smell was NOT a skunk) before running away.  Funny how it starts a fox running when you yell "FOX!" and I DARE you to be able to not yell FOX!" when one looks in your window.  AND, NO, I didn't get a picture of it, nor did I get a picture of the three different bears that ran across the road in front of me in the same number of weeks, the last being a cute little one.  And yes, my husband was in on some of my sightings and he can vouch for me actually seeing them.  Besides, if I was going to make up animal sightings, I SURELY would have seen a moose by now....a year in the UP and no moose (except for the big iron one down the road to which someone had gaily tied a couple of anatomically placed blue (wiffle) balls, which eventually fell off or were removed...poor moose)!

 Anyway---fox looking in window--Big Sign.  Hello, God.  I see you, too.

Anyway.

I've been amazed all Spring and Summer so far at the flowers that grow everywhere here. Funny what no herbicides on nearly every field (unlike Iowa...sorry Iowa) will do for the proliferation of flowers, both wild and planted and spread by little seedeaters, or wind, or serendipity at its finest.

I am a non-judgmental flower lover.  Because I know that some flowers are invasive.  Some are even poisonous lookalikes.  But I don't judge.  Because I am knowledgeable about what not to eat or touch, and I, personally, have not spread them in areas where they are not wanted. I also love to encourage pollinators of all sorts to survive and thrive, because without them, well, frankly, we are screwed.

So.

Without further ado.

The flowers of the UP....so far this year...minus the hundreds of other ones I've missed or not gotten a picture of, yet.

In somewhat chronological order.

And one more thing...I know some common names and some Latin names and some wrong names...please don't judge.

trout lily

marsh marigolds

trillium grandiflorum

forget-me-nots

a lot of yellow stuff in a field (looks like radish flowers, sorta)

chokecherries

hawkweed (native, non-invasive)

beloved of skippers

the masquerading hover fly

and BIG bumbleybees

columbine

irises

blackberries

daises, buttercups, and orange hawkweed (non-native and invasive)

but pretty

birdsfoot trefoil

more daisies

lupines

lupines

and more lupines (because purple)

chicory

because blue is pretty, too

cow vetch (I like the name)

plus black-eyed susans

poison (yes) hemlock

yarrow

escaped sweet williams

wild rose

I have no idea...still looking

otherwise known as dianthus barbatus

did you know that queen anne's lace...

has a mysterious purple flower in the middle?

sweet peas

that color!

red clover...see it?

milkweed

look at how just the weight of a skipper opens the trefoil flower....big sign

And my favorite of favorites. Only God would make a Great Spangled Frittilary love this milkweed so much that together they could create this unbelievable color combination!

Don't forget to stop and see (and smell) the flowers!