I figured it's about time for me to change up our wreath decor from spring-time cherry blossoms. When I think of summer, I think of sunflowers (though our sunflowers are still mostly two-leaved, maybe four). I'm thinking of adding a red-white-blue bow.
And snow peas are getting tall, too.
Finally! our Japanese iris bloomed. This whole week has been cold and rainy that most plants and flowers conserved their grow energy.... So we waited, and waited. Now we wait for the oriental poppy to bloom.
Once again, due to the volume of chaos caused by Joe's big and extended family in our house, there is no "before" pictures. But the tall stack of dirty dishes and almost empty serving platters do show that our Father's Day feast of BBQ ribs yesterday was a success. 
What was left of my lemon bars.... It's hard to believe Joe's mom brought a tray of cream puffs AND a small dish of cake!
We went fishing with Joe's dad this morning. Dad got to use his brand new St. Croix fishing rod that we gave for his birthday and Father's Day. A beautiful morning to be on the stream... though the fish weren't biting too good. Still we managed to hook some fish and MISSED a few LARGE fish. A typical fisherman's story. 
Pink lady's slippers were in bloom here and there in the woods. We even sat on the bank to have sandwiches for lunch. Good fishin'. 
As I type, two large pots of ribs are cooking for tomorrow, Father's Day. Joe is cooking up BBQ ribs for everyone. We'll be wishing you all Happy Father's Day!
This Wednesday Joe was sent all the way to Ironwood (3 hours one-way) for work. On his long way back he took an hour break for fishing... and caught this beautiful rainbow trout to bring home. When I came home from work he grilled up the fish for me. Even better with the wild leeks.
It was a nice surprise for me at dinner. I am looking forward to going out fishing with guys soon.
Last year we shared our small veggie garden with rabbits, well not intentionally. Joe bought a roll of wire mesh fence material at the end of season last year, for this year. Now that some seeds are starting to sprout, it's time to keep the rabbits out of our garden.
About a week of nice warm weather with some rain really popped our grape leaves, too. 
Ever since we watched Anthony Bourdain slurp a bowl of Vietnamese noodle soup "pho," claiming it was the one perfect dish that he is madly in love with after having eaten most anywhere all over the world, I've so desperately wanted to taste it. The truth is that I've never had an authentic pho nor am I anywhere near authentic pho around here. So I tried making it myself (a chicken version), in search of that one perfect bowl of pho.
Here's my first bowl of chicken pho. I actually followed the recipe, and it definitely paid off. Still, we aren't quite sure how it's supposed to taste.... Next time I'm going to try making beef base pho.
While my first batch of chicken pho stock was cooking yesterday, I made pork green curry for supper. Rather quickly, thanks to Yukiyo for shipping us cans of authentic Thai curry paste all the way from Hawaii. 
It was very good. Tasted just like at the Thai restaurant!!
I had never had dragon rolls before myself, but when I saw a picture/ recipe online, I wanted to try it for Joe. He was born in the year of dragon and loves anything with cool dragons. Of course, I had to compromise some ingredients. Shrimp instead of eels, and red chili sauce instead of sour plum paste.
We just planted some veggie seeds in our garden outside. Meantime, I have small pots of cilantro and basil indoor. They of course don't grow fast enough for my wanting to use them in my cooking. 
Can you even see my little tiny Thai basil?
For the first time since we married we are having somewhat perfect conditions for white morels, right after the black morel season. The trick is the timing and to beat other mushroom hunters to the right spots. No picture... but Joe one day picked a tall cup full of white morels from his customer's front yard. Then we started to see local mushrooms sold on Craig's List. So last weekend we went along with Joe's dad for our four-hour grand, though turned out to be mis-, adventure. We could have bought a pound of white morels for $30 at the stand, but we really wanted to pick ourselves. We did (not me, I still don't have an eye for white morels) pick a handful of mushrooms and lots of wild leeks. And we ended up finding a cool spring-fed waterfalls as in pictures.
After all it was a fun beginning of summer kind of outing, very appropriate for the Memorial Day weekend. Yes, black flies started to bother us once the temperature went up.
