The rain has let up for a bit here in Portland. My bleeding hearts are blooming.
Out back, I see a lone flower bowing its head next to the oak tree. There will be more flowers coming up around the tree thanks to BethBAT who planted bulbs as a gift. Years of flower futures! That’s a beautiful gift.
I’m giving some thought to some plantings. I know I’d like another gooseberry bush. And I’m hankering after some Honeyberry bushes. There’s room for them out back! Maybe where the late, great holly tree used to be — that corner is bare and it gets some sun.
What Does a Honeyberry Taste Like?
Honeyberry farmer Jim Riddle compares the flavor to a slightly underripe blueberry or blackberry, and they can be eaten all the ways you would a typical berry. So if you happen to come across these in your local market, swap them out in your favorite blueberry jam or strawberry muffin recipe. Riddle co-owns Blue Fruit Farm with his wife, Joyce Ford, in Winona, Minnesota. The couple has grown several different types of blue-tinted perennial berries (hence the farm's name) for more than 30 years but decided to add honeyberries to the mix about six years ago. Riddle prefers eating honeyberries raw, but says they're also excellent for whipping up a good jam, or even for making a fruit wine.
Health Benefits of Honeyberries
Your immune system will get a big boost from honeyberries, thanks to their high antioxidant content. Tested against other common berries like blueberries, mulberries, and blackberries, honeyberries consistently produced the highest level of anthocyanins. Anthocyanins are created by the natural pigments in blue- and red-tinted fruit, which has been linked to improved eye health and all sorts of anti-inflammatory benefits such as reducing gingivitis (inflammation of the gums) or rheumatoid arthritis. These berries don't stop at antioxidants, though: they're also a valuable source of fiber and vitamin C.
You need at least two honeyberry bushes to cross pollinate. I think I want three.
What else is going on? Ann and I have been listening to the audiobook version of John Scalzi’s Starter Villain, read by Wil Wheaton. It’s a hoot! Here’s the publisher’s blurb:
Inheriting your uncle's supervillain business is more complicated than you might think. Particularly when you discover who's running the place.
Charlie's life is going nowhere fast. A divorced substitute teacher living with his cat in a house his siblings want to sell, all he wants is to open a pub downtown, if only the bank will approve his loan.
Then his long-lost uncle Jake dies and leaves his supervillain business (complete with island volcano lair) to Charlie.
But becoming a supervillain isn't all giant laser death rays and lava pits. Jake had enemies, and now they're coming after Charlie. His uncle might have been a stand-up, old-fashioned kind of villain, but these are the real thing: rich, soulless predators backed by multinational corporations and venture capital.
It's up to Charlie to win the war his uncle started against a league of supervillains. But with unionized dolphins, hyper-intelligent talking spy cats, and a terrifying henchperson at his side, going bad is starting to look pretty good.
In a dog-eat-dog world...be a cat.
An old favorite of a deck from a long time ago
What else… I recently broke a couple decades long hiatus and started using Tarot cards again for meditation. My older decks are practically antiques now. You know, from the mid 1990s! The new decks coming out these days are very different in art style and refreshingly inclusive in representation. One of the things I really love about Tarot is the art. I find it opens the mind and encourages intuition — Tarot is basically an elegant, mathematical arrangement of archetypes represented in pictures.
Here’s a new deck that’s quite different to me, reviewed by a reader I respect and follow, Wicked Moonlight:
And here is a short reading from her using this very deck:
youtube.com/…
Ah, Spring! And with Easter come eggs. These are fancy deviled eggs. We don’t serve and pipe our yolks. You?
The weekend begins now. Come in, share your day, your Easter weekend plans, your menus! And please share Spring photos, as well.
This is an open thread.
