We had some wind locally a few days ago...

 Hello, everyone.

By "some wind" I mean enough to make the branches move a lot. Also this happened:

All but the very bottom layer of the stack-a-plant tower tipped over and many of the plants were dislodged.

This little flower (?) I rescued from the vegetable garden was dumped onto the grass. I decided to put it into a gallon-sized pot by itself. (It's very happy in its new situation. Has almost doubled in size!) 

The grassy leaves hanging upside-down in the pot are some of the rain lilies I had planted into it.

Many of the succulents were tossed and turned.

Oh well, I really needed to rearrange that plant tower anyway. The rescued flower was getting too big for the stack-a-plant slots, and the rain lily bulbs were poorly situated. 

I wonder if the best plan for a pot like this is to have either small-sized herbs, exclusively, or flowers, or in the alternative some partial-sun succulents, but not a mix of all three. The tower garden would have more compatibility in watering needs that way.

New version has all of the rain lilies on the top 2 layers and all of the succulents in the lower parts. Also some of the succulents with transparent leaf tops, as in the second picture above, were transferred to other pots with more light.

I will try to remember to take a photo of the rearranged plant tower.

In other garden news, St. Joseph has been placed in his new garden at the corner of the yard.

The large rocks are there as accents. Behind him is a croton plant, the kind with multicolored leaves, which we hope will grow taller to serve as a background.

The native honeysuckle vine that we got from High Country Gardens has begun making flower buds, the pink primrose is burgeoning and I found some root suckers sprouting in the base of the pot so now there are two pots of these lovely flowers, and various other potted plants are also delighted in the return of warm weather.

 

Another try at the Veggie Tortilla

 Hello, everyone.

I have been trying to figure out how to make Tortilla Espagnola without excess browning on the top...thinking it's a matter of turning the heat down while cooking that first side (on bottom in pan, then on top on plate) so the mixture will firm up more before getting super-browned.

This is another try at the Tortilla Murciana de Verduras from Spain on a Fork.

It tasted wonderful!

Though I do cut up the mushrooms and peppers differently, it's just easier to serve if they're cut bite-sized instead of in great giant slices! It's fun to use multiple colors of sweet pepper for this, too. You can see the red ones peeking out in the picture.

The weather improved, so we're returning to morning walks

 Hello, everyone.

It's been busy around Ye Olde Homestead and I didn't realize how long it had been since a post was made.

This was a view of a near-dawn walk a few days ago. I just liked the shapes of the trees against the sky.

Today's walk gave  me this image:

This is a REALLY big thistle plant. As y'all can see, it's sending up a bloom stalk. I'm not sure which variety of thistle it is--much too small to be an artichoke, plus the climate probably isn't right for a volunteer artichoke anyway. It's not milk thistle, those have variegations on the leaves and don't look as mean and prickery. It does completely fill the setback between the sidewalk and the fence, so probably it's close to a meter/yard across.

If you recognize the plant, please feel free to chime in in the comments and share the info!

A little embroidery project

 Hello, everyone.

While the recap series of our October 2021 pilgrimage was going on, life was not standing still.

My local quilt shop had a sale and there was a little Kimberbell felt pouch included. 

The pattern is a "Jacobean flower" design for the embroidery machine. The blank makes up into a little zipper pouch.

I never thought I would enjoy the embroidery machine so much. Even though it does mean another set of stash items are accumulating, it is fun. And the designs are so pretty.

Recap of Camino Primitivo: Tenth day, Ferreira to Melide

 Hello, everyone.

We woke up in Ferreira (at Albergue A Nave) and got ready and walked out the door about 0840 to find: blackness. And fog. Turned around, went back inside to wait for light in the albergue lobby. Started out again.

It was still pretty foggy. The crosses are the church graveyard peeking over the wall. As we walk past graveyards, I try and remember to say a prayer for the folks buried there.

As we are in the last 100 km, there is more pilgrim traffic to share the trail with--note two groups in background. And the sun is finally out!

A caterpillar that I, personally wouldn't want to play around with!

In the US, gardeners talk of the Three Sisters, the crops that the Eastern future-US Indians used to grow together. These three are Corn (maize to the Brits!), squash, and beans. Here we see two of the three growing together. And what beautiful squashes they are!

In Melide, we ate, of course, Pulpo. It was wonderful. Melide is also where the Primitivo connects up to the Ruta Francés.

Recap: Camino Primitivo--After Lugo, to Ferreira

 Hello, everyone.

We return to the recap of the Camino Primitivo. At this point, as Lugo is the 100km town, we were in the final stage of our Camino walk.

This Roman mile marker was near the one bar we were able to have a rest and sip at during the day.

Later that day we encountered this trail mark with the usual Galician distance estimate.

The path was often a quiet road.

Another look at the quiet road, this time with less leaf litter on it.

We slept at the Albergue A Nave in Ferreira and we ate at the bar/cafe next door. I had tortilla de verduras, which was promised to be made with the produce of the owner's garden. We had walked past a lot of vegetable patches that day and almost all of them were well supplied with kale. Was there kale in the tortilla? No! There was, in addition to potato chunks, some eggplant and tomato. Even though it wasn't what I expected, the tortilla was good.

The following morning, we woke up at a suitable, early, time, dressed, and tried to head out. Fail. Not only was it still full dark at 8:40 or so in the morning, there was also fog on the road. We had to go back inside and wait for almost half an hour until there was light enough to walk by. (This is what happens when you walk into the shortening days--it was approaching the end of October by this time.)