Clover and Multifloral Roses

Difficult to see in this picture but the grass is spikey but the asparagus seems just fine.

I walked back through the property checking cows and fences after a night of heavy rain.  The air was softly sweet with the multi floral roses that invade the pastures and fence lines everywhere.  They don't smell like roses exactly but they make the air lightly sweet. 

The pastures are full of white clover blooming for all they are worth. I stop in the middle of a field and listen. The buzzing of honey bees is everywhere. Darn!  Why didn't I get it together to put up a hive this year!  I would have had locust/clover/multi floral rose honey and I bet it would have been delicious. The orchard next door has bee hives, but I imagine their honey is mostly apple and peach blossom -  which doesn't sound bad at all.

My new string trimmer.  I've been saving up all winter for this. It has an automatic starter on it and a 4 cycle engine so its powerful enough to cut through weeds.  It's kind of heavy so I only use it about 20 minutes at a time.

Last week when it was rather warm outside and the asparagus was bolting and knee deep in grass, I was despairing that it would be gone much sooner than usual. In an effort to keep it coming, I mowed down the patch.  Then I waited. We had another good rain and some cooler weather and -- it came back. It came back strong.  I've been picking both morning and evening.  I always eat a stem or two of raw asparagus as I pick.  I'll admit its not as tender and sweet as it was a month ago, but it's still very good.

Wild Blackberries

From the looks of the blossoms this week, I think we will have a bumper crop of wild blackberries.  Those you  buy in the grocery are sweet and good for just eating fresh, but if you want blackberry pie (heavenly) or blackberry jelly or jam, you need to get out there and brave the thorns to pick wild blackberries. Picking blackberries has been a summer tradition with our family for over 50 years.  We've picked gallons of them.  This year I've a really large patch at the east side of the yard at the edge of the woods.  They weren't really there last year - but they are out in force this year.  That's one of the things about blackberries, they just seem to pop up a different place all the time.

Blackberry patch blooming like crazy this year.