Potting and Planting to Grow and Can

 

Brandon and I are in the process of purchasing seeds for our Spring/Summer garden.  We also want to add a few nut trees to the landscape.  He recently tore down a building and basically all that is left of it that was worth keeping is the frame.  I would love for him to turn it into a potting shed to start the seeds before planting.  A section of shelving for my canning jars would be nice, as well.  A sink, and of course a long table for seeding and preparing/drying fruits and vegetables for canning.   I think potting sheds are the cutest buildings in the landscape of a home.  I hope mine is as cute as the one pictured above.

Dreaming,

Cristy

Stopping to Smell the Yellow Roses

Wow! 2013 came and went like a Mid-Summer pop-up shower.  Gone are the holidays of Thanksgiving, Christmas, the New Year (aka my birthday). Gone is my 33rd year of life!  And here I am, marching right on through the 3rd week of my 34th year.  33: it was low-key, earthy, a coming of age (30's and all that that encompasses), fruitful and joyous.  I expect this time, this new year of my aging, to be all of that and more. Not only do I age, but our children, losing a few more weekends of their youth, will be reaching milestones, that my husband nor I, can freeze.  We will take advantage and make the most of these precious minutes.  We will love and be happy in every single moment.  We will have dessert.  We will play in the snow and the rain.  We will hike and swim and metal detect.  We will slumber in the living room on pallets of old quilts.  We will watch flowers grow into berries, harvest them and make the sweetest jelly on earth! 

Right now we are 5, with 11 fur-friends and 3 scaly swimmers.  We are happy and healthy, we are clothed and fed, we are sheltered and watched over. And for all of that I am thankful!

I just stopped by to smell the roses.
Cristy

Pasta Sauce

T-minus 7 minutes till I dip my homegrown tomato pasta sauce into hot sterilized jars.  I'm a little Italian, but mostly Country.  Our Spring/Summer garden has been plentiful this year.  Our first time planting potatoes yielded 100 +/-lbs.  That made us happy!  We've been successful with our squash and okra, as usual.  But also, for the first time we have tons of half white runner beans!  I have canned and canned.  Wild animals (rabbits, deer) have eaten our bean plants for 2 consecutive years.  And apparently we've never had green enough thumbs to do any good at growing tomatoes...until this year!  I have canned salsa, and now soon to be pasta sauce.  Old timers say you should work in your garden every day to have high yielding produce, and that must be where the term green thumb came into play.  See, I don't go to the garden every day, but most days if I spend any amount of time out there, I come in with green thumbs, and fingers...from plucking and weeding.
Love,
Cristy Gloveless ;)

It has been a long time...Random

Blogging isn't hard; finding the time to, is.  And on this dreary, winter morning, I find myself piddling away, when there are many important things I should be doing.  Now, I suddenly find myself worried over all the commas I'm putting in this post.  Oh, well.  It's that time of year that I find myself withdrawn.  I fingered through the February 2012 edition of Southern Living this morning.  Standing in the kitchen, sitting on the couch, sitting on the bathroom vanity, and sitting on my feet at the dinner table.  I read a lot...most of the articles, recipes.  Looked at every picture, every detail.  Looking for inspiration.  We are awaiting the close of our loan, to build our home.  Why the heck am I withdrawn?  Only I can change this doldrom.  This weekend, we will move.  And, I will make one of the Pimento Cheese recipes from the magazine, as well as Hummingbird Cake.  That should lift my spirits.  Two quotes: 'Ain't no sunshine when shes gone.' and 'You'll forget the sun in his jealous sky as we walk in fields of gold.' ...waiting for Daffodils.

Sunshine in Winter

Sunday, as we emerged from the porch, our daughter discovered that the daffodils had bloomed.  She let us know by yelling: "FLOWERS!!"  I snapped this photo with my handy Wednesday afternoon, to share with you: Sunshine in Winter.

Dinner Culture

A part of world culture seems to be diminishing in parts of the world.  Once upon a time everyone sat down at a table to enjoy the company of family and friends, and shared a smorgasbord of food.  It did not matter how long you sat there.  There was talking, laughing, crying, yelling, arguing, but everyone was together.  We took the time to savor the flavors, and chew the food, and enjoyed a friendly face.  It seems that today we may only have time for a sit down dinner on a special holiday...IF, we are not having to rush from one home to another. 

henri-matisse.net

In Germany, dinner may last 3 or 4 hours.  And who needs a living room?  A large kitchen with a table and chairs, candlelight, linens, stoneware, silverware, stemware, and serving bowls, dishes, and trays fits the bill.  Ambiance.  Meat, noodles, gravy, salad and bread.  Cusine.  Not an empty seat, no phone calls, who cares about the time?  A joke, a crunch, a wink, a smack, a laugh, a tear, a toast, the smell....

 Welcome to the drive through dinner culture.  You bark into a micro-phoned box, drive up to a window and just like magic, someone is shoving food out the window.  Do you drive home and put it on a plate and sit down at the table and talk about what you did today?  Or, do you still cook, something homemade, prepared in your kitchen, for your family?  Do you serve it at a table for everyone to sit down and enjoy?  Or ,do you fix a plate for everyone, make the cattle call, and watch as everyone goes in a different direction?

Sit down dinner culture...the place where children learn to say please and thank you.

This might not be easy...

I signed up to follow a friend's blog today. See myrtle + lloyd (http://myrtleandlloyd.blogspot.com/)  I had already been unofficially following, and decided to make it official.  Then I thought, that looks simple and interesting, and not very time consuming; I think I'll create a blog.  Maybe this is the place where I can say what I want without feeling the guilt of posting every move I make on Facebook (which I have all but stopped).  Why do I now feel so un-interesting, and naked?  This might not be easy...but I'll make the best of it.