Tea, Tomatoes and Critters

I am having one of Siam Tee's Oolongs today. It is Chaa Nang Ngam - DMS Beauty Oolong.  The leaves are tightly wrapped in little balls.  The packet has a dusty floral smell, with a hint of sharp library paste.  I love the packets these come in - vacuum shrunk metallic, with a lovely picture on the front.  This one is basically pink with a pretty woman on the front.

First, I rinsed it for a few seconds and then brewed it about a minute - not too impressive, yet.  A nice floral aroma, and a somewhat slight floral taste.  The leaves are barley unfurled.

Second wash, the aroma has shifted to a tart, almost unpleasant one, reminiscent of black currants.  About 3/4ths of the leaves are unfurled.  There is a somewhat sharp flavor as well. I let this second infusion go too long.  I'll try again tomorrow when I will have more time.  I am sorry I tried this today, as I am not patient.  I really didn't give it a good test.

There are more signs of Spring - my heart rejoices with each and every one.  The tiny white flowers of rock cress are blooming and in the woods, the small oven bird is calling in a very loud voice, "teacher, teacher, teacher".  The woods below us are really flaunting the red of new buds and hooray, a lot of bulbs are poking up their heads, especially the little scilla, which are real favorites of mine.  Sadly, the less attractive features are here as well, including a front yard barely above the water line and those pesky deer, who are getting redder by the day,  eating my day lily leaves.  I put this really noxious spray on them and perhaps it will help.

The birds are multiplying like crazy, today there were all our woodpeckers, the goldfinches, a cardinal, the grackles, blue birds, a white breasted nuthatch, a tufted titmouse and a huge! crow.The squirrels are out running around.  I feed them peanuts, but there is one golden eared one who absolutely has to raid the bird feeder.  He is not high on my popularity list.

Last night I went to a really interesting demo on grafting tomatoes.  It's really quite easy and the success rate is high.  The grafted ones are more disease resistant, produce more fruit over a longer period of time.  I have two itty bitty ones and we'll see how they do.  I was surprised to be told that any day it is over 50 I should put them out.  We'll see about that as well.  Oh, I am just so HAPPY that spring is coming on.