Invasive?

That word is coming up quite frequently around here.  The beautiful bouquets of Wild Phlox I pick every spring and early summer turns out not to be Phlox!  I follow the Farmer's Almanac and they had an article with a picture of Dame's Rocket.  There I sat staring in a trance wondering why I had never heard this before.  They describe the Dames Rocket with 4 petals ranging in colors of pink white and purple.  Still not convinced as I kept reading they told that a true Wild Phlox has 5 petals.  The Dame's Rocket was brought over from Europe for decoration around houses because it spreads so fast.  Yes, it sure does.  Since we moved to Clara in 1999 I have watched them spread up and down the creek and along the fields in great abundance.  They are an invasive plant.  Do I care, no!  They are still beautiful and smell wonderful when the wind blows and carries the sweet scent through the air.  I will still pick beautiful bouquets of them to enjoy and smell in the house. 

Dame's Rocket in a Precious little cup my grandson Gage gave me 27 years ago.

The other invasive is a tree called Sumac.  This is a real pain in the behind!  My husband spends hours every summer cutting down the new shoots.  The roots run like a train track under the ground and all along tree shoots will come up.  As I type he is out there lobbing off at least 60 of the new ones.  They just spread all over in our pine stand that we thinned out for lumber.  Cherry trees are growing too.  We want them and not have the Sumac choke out the young ones.  So it has been an ongoing battle.  Sumac does have a couple benefits, one the birds will eat on the wild berries all winter long which is a good thing.  The other is my husband will boil his hunting traps in a liquid made from the the bark and red flowers in the fall just before trapping season.  So they can grow where we don't care, just not in with the cherry trees and blackberry bushes. 

It has been weeks I have been talking about the green lush fields and hills here in Clara.  Yesterday while taking our usual walk around the property I notice the fields are going the other way.  Not as green because the grasses are going to seed and turning a golden and brown hue.  Too soon to see the green giving way to other colors.  The hills are still full and green, they will be that way for a couple months.  I also noticed how big the garden plants are and filling in the space between each row.  No more roto tiling until we put the garden to rest for the winter.  This is a time I hate to see end, young garden plants giving way to harvest time.  It is so exciting watching each plant push up through the ground and grow ever so slowly until one day.........wow!  Look how big everything is.  That is where we are at right now.  I have been organizing the shelves in the basement getting ready to fill them with quart, pint and jelly jars.  Creature of habit, everything I do every year is the same. 

Check out the new invention my husband made me for yarn.  He has 3 more on the assembly line.  I usually wind my yarn into a ball for knitting.  Well it might take off and roll across the floor or I keep it in a container so it won't roll.  Then it hit me, what if I had something to wind it on that could set on the floor beside me or on the car floor.  Perfect, so far it is the best thing since ice cream🍧!  The most colors I knit with at one time are 4.  The next three will be on the same platform. This is a blanket for my great grandson that will arrive in September.   It is the little things that I love, simple solution to a very serious problem........if all were that easy.

One more thing that makes my life a little easier or fun.  When I was getting ready to make empanadas the other day I was dreading rolling the little circles of dough, because I hate cleaning up flour.  Thank goodness the mind was thinking how else to roll the dough.  I have a tortilla press!  Not knowing if it would work I thought, just one try, if not out comes the flour. It pressed a perfect circle at just the right thickness.  Now I will probably be making fry pies more often.  They are just little fruit filled circles folded in half, sealed and fried in oil.   Let cool, drizzle a glaze or sprinkle with confectioners sugar.  Kinda the grab and go pie!  Soon I will take some pictures of using the tortilla press making fry pies or tortillas and let you all see how great this $9.99 press works. 

Homemade corn tortillas are delicious and not hard to make!