Suddenly Starving

Yesterday afternoon it finally warmed up again. On twitter, Tanawana mentioned that it was unusually chilly, "summer will be gone before it warms up". As I read his tweet, I began looking around for other signs of spring(besides bugs and leafy trees, I mean).

We have volunteer peach trees that pop up all over the place. I "gently" transplant some each year(i.e. rip them out by the stem, toss them out of my way, and they still grow). These same peach trees bless me with many bags of small bland peaches. They go into my freezer for enhancing my smoothies all winter. 

My two plum trees both blossomed earlier this spring. One tree is loaded with baby fruits already. They're two different variety of plums and they stand side by side, with a hammock hanging between them. The other plum had only one fruit that I could find. I rested on the hammock to ponder this. 

I had been working on receipts and mileages for reimbursements and suddenly it's noon, I'm supposed to run an errand, and I'm starving. I went into the kitchen to grab my lunch feast. In my bowl I chopped up:

arugula 

baby kale

yellow dock

chickweed. 

I had been thinking of dock leaves after dropping by Anthony's posts and chickweed after looking on Sergei's site. I made a dressing from:

raw apple cider vinegar

extra virgin olive oil

dried powdered mustard

dried powdered ginger

lemon pepper

garlic pepper

I poured half of it on the greens and massaged them in. Then instead of my usual slices of avocado, I smushed it(such a nice culinary description) and stirred it into the dressing mixture. I poured the rest on the salad before I remembered to add celtic salt. Trying a few bites, I decided that the chickweed seed pods taste nutty like sunflower seeds. 

I took my bowl outside to eat. My food always looks lovelier outside in sunshine. That's when I noticed the roses again. They're all over the bush. The blossomed all at once and now the petals are beginning to spread out. Soon they'll be dropping off. I checked for ants, saw non and threw handfuls onto my salad. They have a lemony flavor, the color was extreme in contrast to the greens. I loved it!