Spring for real

Yes, indeed—we have a pretty low threshold for grilling weather. When it got to 48°F last Thursday, Terry fired up the charcoal. I suspect we were not the only ones—as luck would have it, Jewel had T-bones on sale just in time. And when Jewel has T-bones on sale, the savvy consumer rifles through the stack to find the hidden porterhouses. Hee hee hee.

A porterhouse with foil-pack potatoes on the grill

We finally had a night that didn’t freeze, and a lot of the snow melted. The birds have returned with a vengeance. Yesterday I counted 16 robins on the lawn. The ground can’t possibly be thawed far enough down for worms. What can they be eating?

One of 16 robins a-bob-bob-bobbin' along

I saw a huge flock of sandhill cranes last Wednesday when I was at Jane’s house. As I was headed to town yesterday, two cranes flew low over my car just after I pulled out of the driveway. I also saw a killdeer.

This morning, the air was filled with the raucous calls of hundreds of redwing blackbirds. I took a picture of them with the big lens and was thrilled to see that their red and yellow epaulets showed up in the image! I certainly couldn’t see that with my naked eyes. The flock moved from place to place on the back field. What were they looking for? Water? Food?

A flock of male red-wing blackbirds, epaulets showing

At lunch time, Terry reported that the ground was alive with insects. They must have overwintered as pupae and hatched instantly when the top of the soil warmed. I went out and saw not only flying insects but also spiders. The mystery of what the birds are eating is solved.

I’ve started getting the high tunnel ready for planting. That left little time for my continued experiments with sourdough. I made sourdough crackers on Sunday afternoon. The recipe called for quite a bit of butter. What’s not to like? It said to add 2 tablespoons of dried herb(s) of my choice. I put in dill. I made dill crackers before, and with every intention of tweaking the recipe for a better result, I dried quite a lot of dill last year.  After rolling the dough thin on parchment, I brushed the crackers with oil and sprinkled them with kosher salt.

Sourdough dill crackers ready for bakiing

During baking, some of them bubbled up, which was awesome. If I make these again, I would let the dough rise a bit before baking. The crackers improved with age. The ones that weren’t crisp at first got that way as they cooled. Today, I could hardly leave them alone. The dill was okay, but I cannot help but feel that the best herb for these crackers would be cheese.

The final product--the blistered crackers are the best