Serviceberry and Wildflower Cake Bars - June's Delight

 I made these in honor of the Irises I smelled last week that smelled just like pound cake!  They were growing in a landscape client's garden, so I couldn't harvest them for cooking.  But I've come up with another option that I think will suit just fine - a blend of fresh wildflowers that are blooming at the moment:  

Honeysuckle, Elder, and Rose.  

Eating flowers serves to soothe the soul three times:  first, when you harvest in the sun with the pollinators flitting about, harvesting along with you, then when you are enchanted with the exquisite taste, and last once you digest and incorporate these fleeting floral gems of medicine into your body make-up.

...and native Serviceberries (Juneberries) are also ripening. 

I only have a little bit of Wild Rose to use, the native Rosa virginiana, because I don't want to take all or even a quarter of the flowers from my two small patches.  So, I have substituted a Rose I have trellised on the art studio.  The invasive Multiflora Rose would also be a great one to use, but it just finished blooming here.  You can use any fragrant Rose.

Notice the large spider bottom middle left of rock.  :)

The mixed batter before folding in the wild goodness.

Preheat oven 350.
Mix:
2 c. flour (I used sprouted Red Fife, a type of heirloom wheat, but use whatever you want).
1/2 tspn. salt
1 tspn. baking powder

Then add to the above:
1/2 c. hemp seeds
1 c. finely chopped cashews (measure before chopping, practically make a powder)

A *local* Super food! - and that really makes it Super!

I wish you could scratch and sniff this.  Sweet, heady, powerful, yet gentle.

In a separate bowl mix:
1 c. sugar (organic raw cane is ideal, I try to use organic everything all the time - not only is it healthy, but it supports farming that supports life:  the bees, the water, the air, us...).
3 Tbspn. butter/ghee/or a mild oil like avocado or walnut
2 eggs (please get yours from happy chickens, not from a factory)
1/2 c. hemp milk

Be sure to chop or cut the flowers into smaller pieces.

Then mix the dry ingredients into the wet.  Once mixed well, fold into it the flowers and berries.  You can substitute any other edible flowers or berries you wish.  This is what I used:
2 c. Elder flowers, Honeysuckle flowers, and Rose petals (about equal parts each)
1 c. Serviceberries

Looks like Magic?  It is.

Do not over mix, pour into greased baking dish (about 9" x 13"), spread evenly to sides.  Bake for 30 minutes.  Allow to cool - if you can wait - and cut into squares.   Makes about 24 cake bars.

Then Bliss Out.  These flowers are cooling and relaxing - perfect for June's heat and activity.  Enjoy one, or two, while watching the clouds roll by...

Nom nom.  Late Spring in edible form.

“In every grain of wheat there lies hidden the soul of a star.” - Arthur Machen 'The Great God Pan.'

A catbird was harvesting those just out of my reach; I'm happy to share - they need to eat too.  You have to get to these coveted berries quick; like many of the wild delectables, they don't linger long.

The Pollinator's Lust - A Photo Journal

Ah, the joys of gardening for a living.  These are a few of the flowers I got intimate with in the past week.  :)

Iris

Major nectar and pollen source for the Honey Bee right now:  Holly. 
The trees at work were humming, and the smell, one of my favorites!  Divine.

Peony

Columbine, Aquilegia

Sweetshrub, Calycanthus floridus

Azalea

Rue Anemone, Thalictrum thalictroides

Columbine, Aquilegia

Mock Orange, Philadelphus virginalis

Philadelphus virginalis

Columbine, Aquilegia

Forget-me-not, Myosotis

Pollen Butt

Mea'n Fo'mhair - Mid-Harvest: Crisp Juicy Apples, Cricket Symphonies, and Recognition

from The Lord of the Rings:
“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.

"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

In the middle of what is forecasted to be a week of rain, I am getting a chance to write about harvest and share some pictures of recent harvests from the past few days before the rain began...  and to actually stop the outward harvest and look within at my personal growth.

Every day is a day of harvest, but this time of year, Mabon, the time of the Autumnal Equinox, is a yearly time of harvest.  A time in which we gather what we have sown as we prepare to go inward for the winter. A time to recognize and give thanks for what we have.

The Winter's Soups and Mash and Curries...

This is not simply garden talk, but life talk.  Our gardens and its seasons are a metaphor for life and while we may not all have a garden, we all have life.

What have you sown; what are you harvesting; how are you preparing for the coming dormancy?

Goldenrod and Asters:  The Bee's Current Harvest

Aw shucks...looks like it's time for some bingewatching of Bushcraft videos or something.  :)

Mathieu transplanting wild Tansy from the 'soon to be house site' to the orchard where it will attract beneficial insects.

How much of harvest is luck and how much of luck is what we did in the past?
We can be like the Mantis ever ready to seize the opportunity that presents itself at that precise moment when it is offered...

"You think that I am impoverishing myself withdrawing from men, but in my solitude I have woven for myself a silken web or chrysalis, and, nymph-like, shall ere long burst forth a more perfect creature, fitted for a higher society" . - Henry D. Thoreau

Milk Thistle in the Medicine Wheel Garden dropping its seed for next year's harvest...

What seeds are you dropping into the fertile ground of your soul?  Take advantage of this rain to water them in.

 Day and Night are equal right now at this balance point of the year as we go from the Yang of Summer into the Yin of winter.  We offer gratitude to the waning sunlight - the same sunlight that nourished the fruit we harvest and that will nourish us through the coming dark of winter...though hidden deep within it will be...

Sensual Magic - from seeds planted in April.

Enjoying the fruits of harvest.

Moussaka time!

What didn't come to fruition?  How will you ensure next year's harvest?  What seeds do you set aside?

First Year Teasel salvaged from the 'soon to be house site'...

...to be made into tincture for future use...

The summer sun captured in Goldenrod.  It smells like honey - or does honey smell like it?  Medicine for the winter.

Finish old projects, begin new ones...  All things come to an end and in the end is a new beginning.

Mourn the passing, celebrate your success.

                        Balance.                           

                                                                            

The last of the season's beans.

Great Ragweed along the Anacostia River from a recent plant walk I did in DC at Figment;
we sat and communed with this oft maligned plant.  It was magic.

"Go out, go out I beg of you
and taste the beauty of the wild.
Behold the miracle of the earth
with all the wonder of a child."
  - Edna Jaques

Wren says "hi!"

  'He who delights in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.' 

- Friedrich Nietzsche

The Honey Bee in Bloom and the Garden Humming

          "Be careful what you set your heart on, for it will surely be yours." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Rows of Garden (Beans, Potatoes, Curcubits...)

Rows of Bees...inside Balsamic

"Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing." 

 - Arundhati Roy

Butterfly Hummingbird Garden; though their numbers have been less this year.

"You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. 

What you'll discover will be wonderful. 

What you'll discover is yourself." 

- Alan Alda

Great Spangled Fritillary, Speyeria cybele, on Echincacea purpurea

“Find the seed at the bottom of your heart and bring forth a flower.“ - Shigenori Kameoka

Hives:  Balsamic on left, Monkey on right

                                                                                         “Live to the point of tears.” - Albert Camus

“Those who dwell among the beauties and mysteries of the Earth are never alone or weary of life.” 

                                                                    - Rachel Carson

Tiger Swallowtail, Papilio rutulus, on Verbena bonariensis

I expect to see Jack any minute...

The Haul

“Hearts starve as well as bodies; give us bread, but give us roses.” 

                                               - James Oppenheim, 'Bread and Roses'

Milk Thistle

"Out beyond the ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing
There is a field. I will meet you there.
When we lay down in that grass
Our souls are too full to talk about."
- Rumi

Dinner:  Lamb's Quarters and Beans...

"There's little risk in becoming overly proud of one's garden ‘cause its very nature is humbling. It has a way of keeping you on your knees.” - JoAnn Barwick

Lorax

                                

                               “Life is the flower for which love is the honey.” - Victor Hugo

Stella - a split this year from Monkey

“Live like you're going to die tomorrow, but garden like you're going to live forever.” 

 - Rudyard Kipling

"Are you breathing just a little and calling it a life?"

                                                                                                                - Mary Oliver