Monday, May 3, 2021

May Day


On Saturday we walked in the Manhattan woods. It was May Day. A lovely group of people. A picnic in my backpack.


Joan is a founding member of my forage walks, and has been following my erratic botanical routes over hill and through dale since 2014. At last she was rewarded appropriately (at least in foraging terms): morels! And she ate them for supper in a cream sauce, atop a croissant. My kind of people. We kept spotting this elusive springtime mushroom, and our timing could not have been more lucky. Enough for everyone. In New York City. Whaddayagonnado?


The fleeting green intensity of mid-spring still surprises me. Just two months after snow cover and skeleton trees.


After our walk we picnicked. Deviled spring eggs; ramp leaf, sumac and lamb meatballs (unusually - most picnics tend towards vegan or vegetarian, depending on peoples' preferences) with garlic mustard and ramp leaf dipping sauce; lavash stuffed with ground elder and spicebush leaves; carrot and Japanese knotweed tartlets in mugwort pastry cases; and lemon-spicebush tarts with strawberries, for dessert.


Later, the Frenchman and I sipped drinks on the terrace. It is our best time of day.


Supper salad: highly unseasonal tomatoes (I cracked, it happens), with ditto cucumbers. But at least those were tossed with slivered ramp leaves and common milkweed vinegar! Kept company by scoops of dense and lemony labneh.


The terrace, these May evenings, is caught by light from the western sun.


And it is still light when we sit down to eat, sometime around or after 8pm. Above us, the newly-returned chimney swifts execute aerial maneuvers and are gathering in number. First one, then three, now six. Where do they nest? We don't know.

But we nest here. Even if we have not flown south in a long time.

_______


8 comments:

  1. A beautiful picnic, and what an idyllic place to end each day on your lovely balcony.

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    1. Thank you! We do love this little space.

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  2. What a lovely space you have! Having seen all your gardens I'm thinking you are some sort of garden magician! Hopefully, you will be able to fly south and see your mother soon.

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    1. Thank you, Kath. No magician - i just love plants and need to live some of my life outdoors, so arrange the space to fit!

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  3. Leslie in OregonMay 4, 2021 at 5:17 PM

    Thank you for sharing your a lovely May Day with us! Since I continue to spend at least an hour outside each day, preparing our large and neglected-for-three-summers garden for sale, I am seeing up close the myriad and overnight changes of Spring. Even though April rainfall and humidity here were at all-time-record-setting lows, the indigenous plants, shrubs, trees and weeds are doing well.��

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    Replies
    1. I am glad you are able to spend garden-time but sorry (if you are) that you are selling your home. I hope you find a new one that brings you lots of fulfilment.

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  4. Happy May! I'm wanting more picnics where I am, and would be pleased if they could be as colorful. I appreciate your inspiration.

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