Playing in the Dirt. Oh Boy!

Finally! We have a nice warm day today and it's time to go out to the garden and play in the dirt. The snow's all melted off, and the ground is soft enough to be worked in the raised beds. I lifted the black plastic off of one of the beds, and checked it with the soil thermometer. To my surprise, it registered 65 degrees. It's good black dirt, lots of compost piled in there last year and it should have lots of soil nutrition for this year's crops too.
I peeled back the black plastic to find wonderfully warm, moist soil, just waiting for early season things. I planted Sugar Snap peas along the fence, so they could climb, then added a close-by row of half Purple Plum radishes, and half a row of Claytonia, Miner's lettuce. On the other side of that bed I added Spinach and onion sets. They should all do well, even through the cold spells to come.
It was 63 degrees and blowing out there, so I just couldn't quit and go back inside so I washed the sheets from the bed and hung them out on the line along with the blankets and pillows, to blow the musty winter smell out of all of them. By the clothesline, I saw the snowdrops, coming up through last year's leaves.
Then I turned the dirt up in four more raised beds and planted turnips, beets, more peas and lettuces and onions. It felt great to get out there and work in that beautiful black soil. In the greenhouse we've got a couple more lettuces growing for salads before the garden ones come along, and Jim has seedlings coming up for transplanting. This time of year, we've just got to get out there and get something growing, and we treasure each little bit of greenery we find.Happy Leap Day everyone, it's good to see winter loosening it's cold grip.

What a change!

As usual, we spent our holiday week between Christmas and New Year, on the beach in South Carolina, visiting my daughter and her husband. The weather isn’t summery then, but the crowds are less, and the rates low enough to make it affordable. We’ve been going to Myrtle Beach for about 20 years, and this year made the change to the little town of Folly Beach.

What a great place! It’s small, non-commercial and friendly, and kept that way by the residents who carefully restrict development and keep the character of the island. The business strip is just a few blocks long, and only one small, open 24 hours grocery store as the only off strip business. There are no chains and all businesses must be owned by locals. No fast food, no banks, but great seafood and you can buy a hot dog from Bert’s Market 24 hours a day for 82 cents! This is me, watching the sunrise from our own deck.

We rented a little house right on the beach, very close to the downtown. Jim was in heaven because he could walk to the Crab Shack for a half dozen raw oysters on the half shell and a beer almost every night. The people watching was just the best, and everyone asked where you were from, and are you having a good time, and they really cared!

Captain Anton shucking out an oyster for Jim.

We also took a pluffmud tour, (that’s the swampy part of the tidal backwaters) and ate an oyster right out of the shell, walked on boggy ground and picked up shells and a starfish, toured Fort Sumter, and the Hunley, as well as a local winery and distillery, and hoisted a pint at Tommy Condon’s, the best Irish Pub in Charleston. What a great week. We painted the boat with our own message and took about a million pictures of sunsets, sunrises and lots of palm trees, dolphins and lighthouses.

We spent New Year’s Eve walking from bar to bar in the little town area, then walked home when things got crowded, got the sleeping bags out and sat outside wrapped up warm, drinking champagne and watching the fireworks down the beach. It wasn’t really cold, about 50 degrees, but what a marvelous way to break in the new year.

The next morning we went in our pj’s to the local breakfast place, The Lost Dog Café, for free coffee to go with our delicious breakfast, then later in the day, when it warmed up to about 73 degrees, Jim took part in the Polar Bear Plunge! About 100 crazy people, many of them in costume, gathered on the beach, ran screaming into the water, splashed about a bit, then waded out, silly and happy. We will definitely be back to Folly Beach. It’s a great place.

Now that we’re home, the cold weather set in, and this morning we woke up to snow-lots of snow, from 8 to 10 inches of dry, powdery snow, heavy on the bottom and icy. Jim was prepared though, and went into action.

He bought a snow blade for our lawn tractor this summer, and mounted it, put the chains on, and parked it in the garage with the blade pointing out. This morning, he’s been out plowing for about an hour and a half, and is almost done clearing a wide swatch of driveway. Such a change from trying to shovel the whole thing out by hand, and safer too.

I’ve been doing the usual housework, shoveling a bit on the patio, and taking pictures. The new blade seems to be working well, and it’s amazing how much he’s getting done in a short time.

What a change, from that warm vacation on the beach. Soon as I get my chores done, I’m starting on this summer’s garden plan. I have a stack of garden catalogs I’ve been saving for just…this...moment.

This is OUR Kind of Christmas Season

It occured to me today, that there are all kinds of ways to celebrate any holiday, and while ours may not be what most would consider great, we love it.

This epiphony hit me as we were driving home from town with our two grandkids in the car, to watch them for the day while both parents worked. The 7 year old granddaughter was singing in the back seat, her own version of Jingle Bells, with goofy words. Something about "Batman smells, Robin lays an egg!", while next to her, her little brother, with all his 2 year old lightheartedness, joined in with "Dingle Dah, Dingle Dah," my husband, with his own warped memories of Christmases past, warbled the old Pogo song that my Father used to sing, to the tune of Deck the Halls. The chorus goes, "Swaller Dollar Cauliflower, Alla-Go-Roo!" Not to be left out, I chimed in with the only song that seemed appropriate and belted out, "Grandma Got Run Over By A Raindeer!"

We all finished with a happy flourish at roughly the same time and looked around at each other, proud of our joint cacophony and spirit and I thought, "I gotta remember this. It's one of those Golden Moments."

It seems as though, if we're lucky, and we are very lucky these days, our lives have a lot of those happy loving moments that just crop up when we are living right and paying attention to what's important. We just have to watch for them, and celebrate them when they happen.

Once we got home, we took the kids out in the yard to play, spent time climbing a tree, brought in and stacked some firewood, planted some little trees, (can you believe we can still do that on December 22nd?), played a few thousand games of go fish, and ended up building a fire in the wood stove and toasting some marshmallows. Now that's a happy holiday time.

I feel so grateful for the family I'm a part of, and my wonderful husband, Jim, who compliments my life in so many ways, and even abets and furthers the nutty madness that is our life.

We hope for everyone, a comfortable, loving family, and a bit of nuttiness to make it all sparkle and glow. I did get a good picture of the tree planting, and one of the little guy at the tree.

In closing, just in case you were curious, here are the full lyrics to the song:

The lyrics to "Deck The Halls" as done by Pogo Possum

Deck us all with Boston Charlie,
Walla Walla, Wash., an' Kalamazoo!
Nora's freezin' on the trolley,
Swaller dollar cauliflower alley-garoo!

Don't we know archaic barrel
Lullaby Lilla Boy, Louisville Lou?
Trolley Molly don't love Harold,
Boola boola Pensacoola hullabaloo!

Bark us all bow-wows of folly,
Polly wolly cracker 'n' too-da-loo!
Donkey Bonny brays a carol,
Antelope Cantaloupe, 'lope with you!

Hunky Dory's pop is lolly gaggin' on the wagon,
Willy, folly go through!
Chollie's collie barks at Barrow,
Harum scarum five alarm bung-a-loo!

Dunk us all in bowls of barley,
Hinky dinky dink an' polly voo!
Chilly Filly's name is Chollie,
Chollie Filly's jolly chilly view halloo!

Bark us all bow-wows of folly,
Double-bubble, toyland trouble! Woof, woof, woof!
Tizzy seas on melon collie!
Dibble-dabble, scribble-scrabble! Goof, goof, goof!

I did it! I did it! I made a souffle’!

Way back in the 60’s, I used to love to watch Julia Child cook up those yummy looking masterpieces of hers. Her warbly voice and confident manner was just fun to watch, and entertaining too. What a sense of humor and obvious love of good food. I loved the way she explained things so clearly. The cheese soufflé always delicate, tall and fluffy, seemed to be the epitome of French cooking, and way beyond my meager talents.

That movie that came out last year renewed my interest and I vowed to make one someday. We went out and bought her cookbook and I’ve been enjoying dipping into it for ideas ever since. Last weekend we got a dozen big beautiful brown eggs from a local Farmer’s Market and I thought that this was the time-and the perfect eggs for the task.

So last night I did it! Made a classic cheese soufflé, from Julia Child’s cookbook. I don’t have the perfect pan, so used two smaller ones, so it didn’t raise properly, way above the edges of the dish like it’s supposed to. And I think I dirtied 20 dishes or cooking utensils on the way, but the result was delicious—if I do say so myself. And Jim agreed! In the end, it wasn't that hard, just sort of complicated. Light and delicate, with a soft cheesy, eggy taste, it was just yummy.
We still have a few cold tolerant things growing slowly in the garden, so the soufflé was teamed up with a dish of stewed turnips and potatoes from our garden, simmered in chicken broth. We had a salad of freshly harvested red lettuce and wild garlic tops, dressed with a dressing made from the walnut balsamic vinegar we recently got in a South Haven Michigan store, and sparked with mushrooms and onions sautéed in just a tiny amount of butter. Chardonnay completed the meal.

Dessert was locally picked SunCrisp apples, simmered in just a tiny amount of butter and cider, and topped with a little Captain Morgan’s spiced rum. Wow! The best meal we’ve had in a while, bar none.

Next, we’re going to try a dark chocolate soufflé for dessert some night soon. I can hardly wait.

Harvest Time

The amaranth came up all volunteer from last year's planting, and it was time to harvest, before it all fell off and replanted for next year. I got a lot this year, just have to figure out how to use it now.

The sunflowers were ready too. Time to stack them in the greenhouse to dry.

It's a BIG ONE!

We love watermelons--but who doesn't? This year we added two raised beds at the end of our garden space, just so we could let the melons sprawl to their heart's content, and hopefully have all the melons we could possibly want.In this year of too much heat and blooms just not setting, we had lots of blooms out there in those two beds, but not much set on and fruited, and that's why we've been watching the few with such anticipation. One in particular, a moon and stars watermelon, we've been calling the "sleeping giant" since it just kept getting bigger, and Bigger and BIGGER out there in the vines. Yesterday was the big day to harvest it. The little squiggly vine at the end turned brown and dropped off, and the white spot on the bottom turned yellow, and the happy melon herder brought it into the house. On the way inside he had to stop to show it to our Grandson, who thought it was just too cool. Much bigger than he was, he still needed to try it in his own little wheelbarrow for a push. It quickly flipped over, so we brought it into the house to cut it open and see if it was as good as it looked. We tried to count the spots, but it was like counting the stars in the sky, just too many to be sure of. It weighed 29 pounds and 2 ounces, and 15 inches long. It measured 33" in diameter the short way, and 42" the long way. That's a lot of melon. And just delicious. Pink and juicy and everything a melon should be. We ate all we could hold, put more in the frig, and sent some home with the grandson for their family. I think he gets a gold star for his melon this day. What a wonderful treat. There are more to come, but none as big and beautiful as this one was.

Happy Hummers

We have had so much hummingbird activity this year that it's been a joy to watch their acrobatics.The feeders hang right outside our back porch and we can watch them as we eat dinner and relax afterward. I filled all the feeders yesterday and they emptied them in one day, that's 4 cups of sugarwater!
Of course they're lousy photo subjects, not holding still to pose at all, but I did get these pictures as they moved in and out.
At times we've seen 3 at once, pausing to feed at the biggest feeder, while two more hovered neaby to take their turns. Of course, I couldn't get a shot of that action, just one at a time. Still, they're just amazing. We feel very lucky that they share their lives with us.

Sunday Harvest

Such good eats are available this time of year. This morning in the garden I planted some peas for fall harvesting, and brought back into the house about 10 pounds of goodies.
There were lots of tiny red, sungold and yellow pear tomatoes, as well as red, purple and yellow larger tomatoes. Also several ears of corn, three small onions, three lonely scarlet runner bean pods, one zucchini, two cucumbers and enough basil to make a big batch of pesto. Good stuff. The corn went into the freezer along with a lot of tomatoes and the pesto.

So I've discovered this year that it's a bad idea to plant small gold colored tomatoes among a batch of gold cosmos flowers--makes it really hard to find the tomatoes.
I had to tie the cosmos, tomatoes and beans back on the arbor again. They all keep trying to fill in the walkway under the arbor. It was fun to reach up and harvest the beans from over my head today. I don't care where they grow, I'll enjoy the beans as they come in. We sure do eat good this time of year.