Ilene, It sounds like your retirement is off to a wonderful start and I am so glad you'e enjoying it. I have a little mud, thanks to that 2.6" of rain we got the other day, but our soil should dry pretty quickly since it was bone dry before the rainfall. Your mud seems to be an ongoing thing this year.....unfortunately. The photo of the poppy is gorgeous. I planted poppies after we bought the land in 1997 and they've reseeded here, there and everywhere (including in the middle of the dirt/gravel road one year). They always surprise me by popping up where least expected. I was only outside for a couple of hours this morning. We started out with 100% humidity for the third day in a row and once the temperatures heat up a little, it is unbearable outside. I'll go back out at about 3 or 4 o'clock, once the temps. start to drop a little. The garden looks really good to everyone who sees it, except me. And it isn't that is doesn't look good to me, just that it looks "behind" where it normally is by the end of May. What do I expect? We still had low temps. in the upper 30s and 40s in early May, so it would be odd if the garden wasn't "behind". I suspect by mid-June the garden will look about the way it usually does in mid-June, except the corn is still going to be behind. Some years I pick early corn by Memorial Day weekend....this year there is no early corn, and the regular corn won't be ready until July. That's the breaks. At least I have corn. Last year's rain wiped most of it out, so I hope we harvest a good crop this year. There is no rain in our forecast here for a few days and I only have a couple of things left to do in the veggie garden. I have one area of the flower border that needs to be weeded when it dries out a tiny bit more. I'm seeing snakes more and more, but only one rattler, and so far none in the garden that I've seen. The venomous snakes are my least favorite part of living here. I just hate them. I have one guinea who lost his or her mind and started roosting up high in the chicken coop (which has a high, peaked roof) about 4 o'clock yesteday and still hadn't come down as of a few minutes ago. Finally, I went out with a rake and chased it down off its' perch and out of the coop. It headed straight for the drinking water, and I came back inside. Hopefully, now that it is down, it will go out and eat and do other guinea things like prowling through the tall grass, flying madly from tree to tree and squawking and yakking like an idiot. I don't suppose we'll ever know why it sat on a perch for 22 hours. It is never dull around here, rain or shine. Dawn

This doesn't shock me after something I witnessed last year. We seemed to catch the "great goldfinch migration" with literally 40 to 50 finches in our yard during a 1 day period (our normal summer finch activity is 4 to 5 mating pairs of goldfinches and a few house finches). The goldfinches certainly swarmed the finch feeder, but the really weird behavior was how they all lined up at the border between the street and our yard in order to eat dandelion greens. To this day, I hay no idea why they were eating dandelion greens, but there is no question that is what most of the "flock" was doing. But eating chard leaves wouldn't surpise me.

Here's a recipe I made up last weekend using beet greens, but you can certainly substitute Swiss Chard, as they are closely related and taste nearly identical. DH told me last week that I should write this one down, but of course, I didn't get around to it till now, so I'm having to go by memory of something I just threw together using what I had on hand at the time. We were at our farmhouse in Tahlequah, but I had picked some beets from my garden in Texas to take with us. DH grilled the beets, and I had the beet greens to play with. To keep this on the Swiss Chard subject, I would just substitute Swiss Chard for the beet greens listed in the recipe. To give credit where it's due, I very loosely based this recipe on Giada DeLaurentis' Mediterranean Salad, but it's changed quite a bit. Orzo and Beet Greens Ingredients (measurments approximate) 1 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil plus 2 tablespoons 1/2 large onion (1015 or red) chopped Beet Greens - from around 2 or 3 beets, or more, chopped into small pieces (makes around 2 cups packed) 2 cloves garlic, minced 2 lemons, juiced 1 lemon, zested 1/2 pound Orzo (1/2 box) 3 cups vegetable (or chicken stock) 1/2 teaspoon salt (or to taste) 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper (or to taste) 1/4 cup chopped fresh basil leaves Using a medium to large pot, saute the onion in 1 tablespoon olive till transluscent. Add the beet greens and saute till wilted and a little tender. Add the lemon zest, and remove from the beet, onion, and zext mixture from the pan into another dish, and set aside. Add the 2 tablespoons oil, salt, pepper, and the garlic, saute for just a minute, then add the orzo, sauteing until just toasted and a little brown. Carefully add the stock and lemon juice, and boil till the orzo has absorbed most of the liquid. Stir occasionally. When itÂs almost done, add the beet and onion mixture, and continue heating till the stock has been absorbed. Turn off the heat and stir in the basil. Serve warm or at room temperature. Sally

Chard has tender stems as mentioned above, as does beet greens. It is only about 6inches tall in my garden now but i sneak some of the baby leaves with stems for my salad mix. Good raw if small like baby spinach. Our 'go to' method for any greens is to first make garlic chips. Slow roasted slices in cold evoo, bringing up the heat till pale brown and crisp. Remove with slotted spoon and rest on paper towel. A half onion, sliced, in the garlic oil till transparent, add stems sliced, few minutes, add a half cup h2o, then wilt the chopped leaves on top and cover to steam. Plate and top with a big squeeze fresh lemon, splash light balsamic, top with garlic chips. If it is very fresh it is rarely at all bitter. Collards and kale the same but not the tough stems. We slice very thin to break the cell walls and makes a tender green with less cooking time. (southern collards are often boiled to death with lots of fat and ham hock) i like a more fresh taste.