Flower Friday. : : Lantana and Butterfly

A common buckeye butterfly to be exact. We have had so few butterflies lately that I was really excited to see this one fluttering around the lantana which has also bloomed quite late. I stumbled through the mound garden, successfully  avoiding falling into the sharp pointed agave. I was rewarded by some stationary shots. There is another butterfly, a small monarch on the Mexican sunflower taken through the bedroom window in extras. The presence of a screen made it not as crisp as I would have liked. 

We had almost our full complement at coffee this morning, minus Dan who is still recuperating from foot surgery. We are back to meeting at Trail House as it was 33F this morning, too cold to even contemplate sitting outside at Cafe Frida. Conversation ranged from the situation in Gaza through the disastrous choice for the Speaker of the House. I think the crackpot right wing won out just by holding out for so long that the entire party was united in a desire to just elect somebody and get it over with. Far more isatisfying was talking to Tobi about gardens, preparing beds for another season and building the soil through permaculture. She recommended a documentary called 'Kiss the Ground' which we will watch with interest tonight.

I took out the wilting gerberas which managed to droop even with their stems in those annoying plastic straws and created a rather satisfying arrangement of leucodendron, small branches of what John calls 'chaste plant' covered with small berries after producing beautiful blue blooms, and the blue statice left over from the gerbera bouquet. A trip up to the top terrace revealed emerging fava bean, planted as a cover crop which is full of nitrogen and will be dropped and covered with compost before it blooms in the spring. there were some strange holes in one bed which turned out to have been dug by John who forgot to plant more seeds in them. I think that was remedied today.

I puttered around the kitchen creating a farro and kale salad, a multi step process which had to be tweaked when I discovered that we didn't have any farro. I used brown rice instead. I also used acorn squash which had to be roasted first so that it could be peeled and cut into small pieces instead of cutting it raw and cooking it in a little bacon fat. John is not thrilled by the idea of salad for dinner, but this has enough goodies in it that I think he will like it.

The weather warmed up a bit during the day but it was still quite chilly in the shade, so I was happy to putter around the house. I switched my long puffy coat for a sweat shirt and managed to avoid turning on the heat for another day. 

I'm glad it's Friday and the end of a rather trying week.