M for Mochi

Last weekend Lisa and I visited our favorite Asian market on the way home from our trip to New Bern. We got our staples of rice and banh pho noodles, along with some preserved radish (for pad thai). As we were checking out, look what we saw:


Mmmm....mochi. We ate a lot of mochi in Taiwan, as there are so many flavors (and some not so tasty) but peanut (with the peanut coating on the outside) was one of our favorites. Kind of cool to find it in Havelock, NC. Plus a few weeks ago I found a green tea mochi hidden in the back of our pantry, which was exciting until I discovered it was as hard as a rock.

So we ate our peanut mochi and reminisced about our trip to Taiwan. Not as good as being there, but not bad.

Perennials -- the gift that keeps on giving

It's been very exciting watching all the perennials come back to life and peek their little green heads out of the dirt (and I think it's time for me to get out more). The most exciting have been the perennials that I started from seed last year -- they all did so well over the summer but you never know how they will fare in their first cold winter. I'm glad to see so many of them made it. And so much larger, too! They will be ready to divide this fall for sure.

My most recent appearance was from my butterflyweed, which was extra exciting because she died off rather early in the fall. Here she is:


Three of the 4 liatris are back:


And 2 of the ox-eye sunflowers:


I put a bunch of these in a few other spots around the yard and they've all come back. One of them is HUGE! My ornamental grasses and coneflowers are back, too.

We decided to propagate our own sweet potatoes this year, instead of ordering them (which can cost about $15-20). Look how they are doing:



I wish I could say this is one of our sweet potatoes, but it's not. We tried using one of ours, but it was getting a bit old and wrinkly, so it just rotted when we soaked it. This guy just came from the grocery store.

This weekend we are headed to New Bern to view the gardens at the Tryon Palace. Plus they are having a plant sale. Because we need more plants.

Our first impatien bloom:

Yellow haze

So the pollen rolled in this weekend. Literally. There was no pollen on Saturday, then on Sunday we could see it blowing down the street in huge clouds. So much for opening the windows to let the fresh air in.


Note that we had just powerwashed and stained our deck, so it was looking practically brand new. Everything is just coated in a thick layer of yellow dust:


Thank God for Zyrtec.

On another note, the Easter Bunny came to our house and left plastic eggs all over the backyard.


Due to the economic downturn, unfortunately, the eggs were empty. Given we had recently devoured about 5 dozen chocolate chip cookies over about 3 days, I'm seeing this as a blessing.

Most of our plants found permanent homes this week, either in pots on the deck:




Or in the garden. Now begins the arduous task of keeping everything watered.


We have another bed of tomatoes like this one, plus many in containers. In all, we have 25 tomato plants of 4 different varieties. Crazy? Yes, but I am a firm believer that you can never have too many tomato plants.


Here are our ground cherries, and soon we will transplant the eggplant into the space between them. They got a bit of a late start, but they are catching up nicely in this warm weather.

And finally, our peas are flowering!


It's only a matter of days until fresh snap peas. Not much is better than that.

Earth hour

Sometime last week there was an international campaign to save the world by encouraging everyone to turn out their lights for 1 hour. Turning out your lights = saving electricity = saving oil, coal, natural gas, trees, money = saving the environment, discouraging war, increasing personal financial security = saving the world. Although Lisa and I debate as to whether saving the world is the way to go, we decided to participate.

We passed the time in darkness by playing Set by candlelight:


Therefore we did our part to save the world, and increased our mental sharpness. It was a win-win!!!