Orioles for Tea!

Another Amalfi Cathedral shot. It's a gorgeous place, set up on a hillside - which is most of Amalfi. Everyone there has great legs!


I am so excited! A gorgeous black and orange Baltimore Oriole was at the bird feeder today. So beautiful! I hope they nest close to here, wish we had some elms for them.


Now that part of our creek has been "improved" for better water flow, leaving a huge mess, I can see the bridge for the side road. It is a lovely structure, all hand laid stone, without mortar. That's been there a while.


All you gardeners that want to grow tea plants, The Camellia Shop at http://www.camelliashop.com/ has a selection of 5 or more, and an on-line, downloadable guide to growing and harvesting. I decided we are much too far north and it would involve far too much fussing on my part to attempt, but all of you in zones 7 south could fairly easily do it. Zones 9-10 would be easiest, of course. My guess is that these are not the super hardy Chinese clonals that grow in Darjeeling and Nepal. Sigh.


I went garden centering today and got lots of stuff to plant. We have to have deer resistant stuff, but I found a 2-fer daylily sale, with some super colors and some dwarf German bearded iris - this is not the early spring dwarf iris, but true miniatures of the usual kind. It is supposed to be warm this week, so maybe things can go in, I hope, I hope.


I found a packet of the American Tea Room's Giddapahar China Delight, a Darjeeling in my clean out the cupboards frenzy. It is a first flush from the Eagles Nest, a family owned estate. I brewed it for 3 minutes with 190 degree water. Dry, the leaves were a mix of green, brown and silver. They smelled of bananas and nuts. The liquor was a lovely gold, giving off an aroma that was again nutty and biscuit like. Which is what the tea flavor was, with a floral or sweet edge. I guess that all comes pretty close to the description of floral, honey and almond, doesn't it? It's always nice to know your palate is functional.