Violets- Happy Spring with sweet Flowers and the Flour shortage!

Welcome Spring!

I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine:
There sleeps Titania sometime of the night,
Lull’d in these flowers with dances and delight.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream

I am so happy!-today is the Spring Equinox when Spring officially begins and longer days are on the horizon. Spring and Fall are my most productive times since I am not a person who relishes extremes of cold or heat.  And of course I love the flowers and foliage as well. These violets are wet with rain from this morning and are bravely heralding Spring in my front yard. Later today I will be harvesting enough to make some Candied Violets for decorating sweets and a Violet Infusion to make Violet Syrup later in the week. I will take pictures of the process to share later. I do hate to pick them but they don’t last that long and then they’re gone . We’ll have no luscious sweets to remind us of them without picking some.  So more on those later….

 Do you happen to recognize this Flour mill? Lehi Roller Mills were established in 1906 in Lehi, Utah  (about 22 miles south of Salt Lake City) and they are still in operation today. I really like the quality of their flours and my mom swears  by them. With the rising price of wheat and projected flour shortages I’ve visited there twice in the last two weeks to purchase about 80 pounds of flour for myself and others. They were out of many of their flours and the larger sized bags already and are experiencing high demand following news stories on the shortage.  

Part of the history of this mill is that the movie Footloose was filmed there in 1984- it is where Kevin Bacon worked and also where they held the prohibited dance (although that part was actually filmed at a local studio. ) I guess the film generated enough interest that the mill had to hire someone just to answer questions about it and people still come to have their picture taken on the porch there.  It’s another successful “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” story.