Chicks and Mushrooms

Our dear prairie Rose's twelfth birthday.

She made her own apple cake drizzled with frosting.

 

One day last week we ended up with fourteen children here! Three children had stayed overnight, and five more came for a few hours while their mom was visiting the children's dying grandfather in the hospital.

Here our girls and friends are cutting up fruit and making sandwiches for lunch for fifteen people!

The children bought a batch of new chicks at Big R.

Timmy built a grass hut for them!

All getting a good meal!

Someone Jonathan has been working for wanted to give him some wild mushrooms his Russian wife had picked up in the mountains. He gave us a big paper bag heavy with these enormous, edible mushrooms.

This biggest one was eleven inches across the top.

The man told us his wife cleans the forest dirt off with a napkin, so I am trying to do that!

You do not want to get the mushrooms unnecessarily wet, especially if you are going to dry them. 

There were so many mushrooms that we figured we would dry some of them like he showed Jonathan, laying them flat on newspapers for a couple days.

You slice them about 1/8 inch thick and lay them out to dry.

The bigger mushrooms, you have to cut in pieces before you slice them. At least that is what I did!

These mushrooms are very tasty and filling, good protein and full of Vitamin D, the man said. 

These daisies are special. You don't find daisies very often around here, but we found these last Monday on our way over Vail Pass, when our car broke down AGAIN!

While we waited for it to cool down enough for Jonathan to fix the burst radiator hose, I picked a few of these daisies that reminded me of Pennsylvania. 

We always have choices in life.

We can choose to complain, or we can choose to look for daisies.

Usually you find what you look for.

And now what we looked for and picked is adorning our table.