Well, hi there! I hope this past week has treated you well. I’ve had a wonderful week, and the weather has been beautiful! We finally got a bit of rain today, which was needed, but up until now it’s been sunny and gorgeous. On our days off, Joel and I went for a little foraging foray near the Rogue River. We were hoping to find chanterelle mushrooms, but I just don’t think there’s been enough moisture for them to pop up yet. Soon, though! The river was amazing as usual.

We did find some other cool things, though, like this shelf type mushroom. Not quite sure exactly what it was so we left it be, but it sure was pretty!

Then we hiked for a bit along a small creek until we got to a point where the bridge across it was washed out.

So, we turned around. On the way back we decided to walk through a meadow that looked like an old homestead property. There weren’t any buildings or anything left, but we did spy a few old apple trees in the remains of an orchard.

We knocked a couple down, and they were some of the tastiest apples we’ve ever had! That said, hiking always makes food taste better, especially food that you find!

There was also what we thought was a plum tree, but this is not plum season so it was hard to tell for sure. It was a pretty tree, nonetheless.

As we continued to walk through the meadow back towards the trail, we found a few more interesting things. Golf balls! I swear, if you keep your eyes peeled and are in foraging mode you never know what you will come across. These became new toys for Cosmo the Kitten (of course).

Back at home the flowers are still amazing me with their blooms. We had some friends over for dinner the other night and it was so nice to be able to go out in the garden and cut fresh flowers for the table. I know this won’t last long, and that’s ok because I love the changing seasons, but I sure appreciate it while it lasts.

The most exciting part of the week was discovering that we have baby cauliflowers forming! You can’t imagine my delight when I looked into the center of the plants and saw tiny little cauliflower heads under the leaves. They’re so cute! I can’t wait to roast them up.

The Brussels sprouts, on the other hand, are looking a little odd. I’ve never grown them before and I know they can be troublesome sometimes. They had a lot of aphids on them, as did the cauliflower, but the old soapy water spray seemed to do the trick. Here is what they look like now:

For those of you who have grown Brussels sprouts, does this seem normal? I just want them to shoot up their big tall stalk and grow little baby cabbages on them! Hopefully that will happen, but if it doesn’t, oh well. I’m not gonna stress about it.

And that’s pretty much it for this week, fun foraging finds and a baby cauliflower. I couldn’t ask for more (except for a few chanterelles….)