The baker crows at midnight

These will go nicely with my birthday breakfast tomorrow morning.

Blueberry Rhubarb Muffins
Makes 12 muffins

1-1/4 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
2-1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
1 egg, slightly beaten
3/4 cup plain yogurt or milk
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1/2 tsp vanilla
3/4 cup diced rhubarb
1 cup berries [the original recipe calls for strawberries, I used blueberries]

Preheat oven to 400 F. In a large bowl, mix flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. In a small bowl, combine egg, yogurt, oil, and vanilla. Stir egg mixture into flour mixture just until all ingredients are moistened. Fold rhubarb and berries into batter.

Divide batter between 12 greased muffin cups. [With blueberries, it might be better to use paper cups.] Sprinkle tops generously with sugar. Bake in preheated oven at 400 F. for 20 to 25 minutes or until golden brown.

Adapted from Joan Halquist's recipe, in "The Minnesota Homegrown Cookbook."

Helping

You can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.  And you can't raise boys without breaking a few windows, chairs, dishes, lamps, beds, cameras, clocks, etc. etc.

In the beginning ...

... there were radishes.

Happiness is a warm cattle panel

The farmer who leases our alfalfa pays part of the bill with cash, and the other with trade.  Earlier this spring he delivered thirty bales of straw to my garden, and a few weeks ago he brought out ten cattle panels.  Actually, some of them were cattle panels, some were sheep, and some were hog panels.  In other words, some were five feet tall, some four, and others three.  Give or take a few inches.

Cattle panels are wonderfully versatile things.  They are sturdy enough to hold up to livestock abuse, hence their name, and are quick and easy to install as temporary or permanent fencing.  But I did not get these beauties for the goats.  Oh no, no, no.

These panels are strong indeed, yet they are also flexible enough that with a bit of determination, strength, and coordination they can be bent to suit various needs.  Right at the moment, my needs are garden-related.  More specifically, bean-related.

It's kinda hard to see in this picture, but in the center are our new pole bean supports.  Hubby took four of the cattle panels and bent them in half.  He then drove in a fence post slanty-wise into the soil and secured the panel to the post with steel wire. Each 16-foot-long panel make an 8-foot-tall double trellis.  It's a good thing I'm pretty tall myself, otherwise come August those upper beans would be pretty hard to reach.

Here's another panel, bent into a peaked archway entrance for the garden.  The boys and I planted scarlet runner beans at the base.  I can't wait to walk through it this summer, when it's covered with brilliant red blossoms.  (And then later in the year, when the bean pods are hanging down from the top and banging me in the forehead.)

So, next time you pass by a farm auction, stop by and let your imagination wander.  One farmer's scrap metal is another gardener's delight!