Well like most people with a good size piece of suburban property we are finding lots of work to do and discovering something new every week. The tree that blossomed we are quite sure is an apple tree. Not sure of it's health and what it will produce, but we have some fruit forming and we can only wait and see.
We have come to expect this daily phenomenon. For some reason the property across the street from us is the landing zone for ducks. When the weather is wet and the rain just keeps coming and coming there could be sixty to one hundred ducks just sitting on the lawn. If it's not raining every evening at the same time, approximately 7:30 pm, they begin descending on the lawn. We haven't figured out if they just come because the woman puts out buckets of bird seed, or if it's a natural event, but it's just that yard. They only go to that yard. It's actually funny watching people watching the ducks.
This beauty is called "Devil's Paintbrush" and is growing wild in the lawn. It is a pretty daisy type flower of orange and yellow, but is intrusive and banned actually in some states. It hasn't really become a problem here for us so we are just leaving it alone and mowing as usual. The only way to get rid of the plant is to dig it out so when it is an issue we'll do that. For now we'll just enjoy the flowers.
This is called a "False Dandelion" because it's similar in looks, but not quite a Dandelion. The yard is showing us many new things and we are so in love with living with land. It's only half an acre, but boy what we are discovering.
So now for the update on the Lilac adventure. The Lilac oil came out good and the extract seems to be a good result also. As far as baking directly with the Lilac blossoms, I don't think I'll be doing that again. I will try using the Lilac extract next. My favorite of all the trials was the lilac sugar. After I let it set and removed the blossoms I had sugared blossoms that were great just for eating. My biggest success was the Lilac jelly. I had put the blossoms to steep in boiling water and was supposed to use them the next day. However, I got busy and it was two days later that I got to it and it is absolutely amazing. It was so good on home made toasted bread and it is such a luxury. It only made three and a half cups so next year I will know what I will concentrate on with the Lilacs. If you ever get the opportunity to make some, let it steep a bit longer and then sit back and treat yourself to something special. This is the recipe I used, but I went gently on the lemon. I didn't have a fresh lemon so I used three teaspoons of real lemon from the bottle. Good luck and thank you for stopping by for a visit. I'll see you again soon.
