Dirt Therapy

I spent most of last night in the kitchen baking goodies for a retirement brunch for the lady who has cleaned the library for many years. We were all sad to see her go. Since it was a brunch, I decided to make bran muffins and chocolate muffins that are actually more like brownie cupcakes. I also decided to make chocolate banana cookies at the last minute.  Here is the Bran Muffin recipe - 2 oz. (1/2 stick) unsalted butter 1/2 cup dark brown sugar, firmly packed 1/4 cup dark or light molasses or honey 2 eggs 1 cup milk 1 1/2 cup bran cereal 5 oz. (1 cup) raisins 4 oz. (1 cup) walnuts, broken into small pieces 1/2 cup sifted all-purpose whole wheat flour (stir lightly to aerate before measuring) 1/2 cup sifted all-purpose white flour (stir lightly to aerate before measuring) 3/4 tsp salt 1 1/2 tsp baking soda Preheat oven to 400. Adjust rack to center of the oven. Butter and line muffin pans with paper liners (you can also make them without the liners). Me...

Plume Poppy ( Macleaya cordata ) - one of the few bright spots in the drab late July garden. Text and photos by Phillip Oliver, Dirt Therapy

And a stingy one at that. Our garden isn't very interesting from mid-late summer with very little color. I was just over at Nancy Ondra's great blog Hayefield and was amazed at what all she has blooming!   We have been very fortunate this past week with some abundant rainfall (at least 4 inches so far). It rained again yesterday and is looking like today might give a repeat. I wish other parts of the country could get some of this. It has been a huge relief and I know how frustrating it is to go without rain for long periods. The only blooms I could find in our garden were: A lone Shasta Daisy Lily " ' Scheherazade" A fading coneflower that I can't remember the name of - just planted this year. Crape Myrtle "Tonto" A morning glory that I've tried to eradicate from the garden but it just keeps reappearing year after year A faded hydrangea blossom The only hydrangea with fresh blooms is "Big Daddy" The...

One last post for the vacation series and then it is back to my own garden. Not really a garden but during our stay in Asheville, we drove to Chimney Rock State Park .  I had always wanted to visit and the last time we were in Asheville (back in the 90s), we had planned to stop there on our way home and they were closed. Chimney Rock is a dramatic 315 ft. monolith with 75-mile views. The elevator was being worked on so the only way up to the top was climbing a series of newly built steps. There are 419 steps and it takes about 20-30 minutes to get there. Michael, afraid of heights, stayed below, so I took the journey up alone. One of my favorite movies, "Last of the Mohicans" was filmed here. Hickory Nut Falls, one of the tallest waterfalls east of the Mississippi, is not visible from Chimney Rock but you can hike to it. Since I didn't want to keep Michael waiting too long, I didn't make the trip to the waterfall. On the way up Almost there Atop...

After departing the Pinkham garden , we headed west to Richmond, Va. We drove through a torrential thunderstorm with rain so hard it was difficult to see the road. The weather finally calmed down and we began to notice these billboards for Virginia Diner . The signs just kept appearing about every mile or so, it was like the old Burma Shave advertising. We thought this was either a great place or a really bad one to warrant all the advertising. We decided to give them a try since there were not many restaurants to choose from (we were not yet on the Interstate). Turns out they had been featured on "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives" on the Food Network. Very cool! I had their world famous Peanut Pie for dessert! We arrived in Richmond before dark, located a motel close to the Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden , and crashed for the night. The next morning was a mixture of sun and overcast skies following heavy rains the night before. We were at the gardens a few minutes before the...