Well, THAT was unexpected...

A few days ago I found a lady bug sitting on a chive in my little window sill herb garden. Given that I live on the fifth floor I was not expecting that. I'm guessing someone had opened the window for a bit and it flew in.

This morning I went to check on my herbs and was in for a bigger surprise.

Little mushrooms?! Sure enough...

Apparently I get to weed my indoor planter.

Dogs, etc

Every Saturday morning there is a farmer's market at Piedmont park. It has absolutely fantastic peaches. Today I got there reasonably early and then stuck around for the cooking demonstration (where they talked about how to make your own yogurt). While waiting for it to be time for the cooking demonstration I found a shady place to sit, eat a peach and just watch. There are a very impressive variety of dogs that get to visit the market. Here are just a few

That last guy was sitting near me and kept trying to come over. His owner explained that he really likes peaches :-).

After the cooking demonstration I walked across the park and came across a lovely butterfly.

Around the City

Cauliflower and Chickpeas with Basil Pesto

My basil needed to be cut back and I wanted something other than pasta. I also had a head of cauliflower in the fridge. This was the result. A friend and I had it on its own for dinner and finished it, but I think it would also work well as a side for roasted or grilled chicken (or you could chop the chicken up and mix it in too).

Recipe:
1/2 head cauliflower, cut into bite size pieces
1 can chickpeas, drained
~1/2 cup pesto

Saute cauliflower in a little bit of olive oil until it starts to get tender. Add chickpeas and cook until cauliflower is done and peas are warm. Toss the cauliflower and chickpeas with the pesto and enjoy :-)

Here we have a stately blue jay who can't figure out why I don't just leave him alone, and a young cardinal (I think) who seemed as curious about me as he was wary.

A variety of lovely flowers

The most prevalent flower right now is the magnolia - the flowers are huge and are also unusual and fascinating if you stop and really look at them. They also smell nice :-)

Then there is that ever present aspect of life at Tech...construction. I think the fraction of campus that is fenced off for construction is growing daily.

I went to Alumni Weekend at Mudd. You would never come across this at Tech:

I got to see the Shakespeare play

and a hummingbird nest

among a variety of other things. Visiting felt like going home, but this

is home now too, so life is good.


Pretty flowers:



Oh! I have a new herb garden! It smells delicious and is full of tasty things :-) It also has a pretty silhouette.

Smile!