And a handful of garlic to go with it.

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Last August, I assisted in this canning class down at the Charlottesville Cooking School. I’ve been canning for years and have taught a few friends, and always have people ask me where they can learn to can. I had suggested to my friend who owns the school that she should consider offering a canning class. To me, if you like knowing where your food comes from enough to grow your own food, you should know how to preserve it, right? So, she found this completely amazing woman to teach it and I got to help. I really did mean to keep in touch with Leni, but let’s face it, keeping in touch with anyone not on my everyday path of school and work can sometimes be a stretch. Honestly, even people ON that everyday path I have a hard time keeping up with. *sigh*. When I went to the 2 year anniversary party of the school last month, I ran into Leni again and she gave me her card and told me to get in touch with her. I finally did and spent the evening out at her house with a very lovely group of women discussing gardening and food and just life. I just feel so inspired now to work in the garden, to get serious about building more vegetable beds, about increasing the diversity of what I grow among a few other new projects. (Somehow convincing Pat to build me an outdoor oven after he paints the house and builds me a chicken coop.)

I didn’t take my camera along, why, I’m not exactly sure, I do tend to carry that thing everywhere. So, no pictures tonight, but, I did come home with a handful of elephant garlic seeds to put in the dirt somewhere, to go with my inspiration and that counts for something. Next time I’ll take the camera, definitely.

Small garden peek.

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It was in the 90’s and sunny here all weekend. I finally found the time to go down to the nursery just south of town I like so much and got some annuals for the hanging baskets. I kept it pretty minimalist this year, with just pinks on the front porch and I can’t even remember what in the baskets on the back porch. And of course a few begonias for here and there. None of my begonias wintered well. Couldn’t possibly have anything to do with the fact that I pull them all into the basement at the first frost and leave them there all winter, without alot of attention (or water)….never mind they have made it through before, which is one of the reasons why I fell in love with begonias to begin with. They seem to do well with my tough love. This winter was a little too much for them. Come to think of it, it was a little too much for alot of us.

I’m wondering how many strawberries the rabbits and squirrels are going to leave us this year. They are starting to look awfully yummy, aren’t they?
I’ve had this pot of strawberries for a few years now. I now also have 2 patches of volunteer strawberry plants that have jumped off this pot that produce way more than the mama pot. I think my goal for next spring is to have a new bed built to put them all in one spot in the ground and give up on the cool planter pot. Maybe I’ll throw some hens & chicks in it instead.


And the pole beans came up today. Literally. I watered last evening and noticed 2 had popped up. I went to water this evening and noticed an entire row had sprung up, just like that. It’s amazing what warm weather can do for the garden.

Adventures.

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The second grade drove down to Natural Bridge today to see the sights, including the petting safari.

Last night being Ben’s birthday, we celebrated in grand manner, with chocolate cake and champagne for the adults, sparkling cider for the kiddos. I’ll admit, I had been slightly overserved, was up way past my bedtime and then got up early this morning to work out with a friend before getting everyone up early so we could pick everyone else up and get to school at 7:45 this morning to drive the hour and a half south. And in typical fashion, I was just running a wee bit slow, managed to spill my breakfast all over the front seat of the car in trying to pick up one kid and so ran into her mother’s kitchen yelling about can I have some paper towels please, then didn’t get enough, so I had to run back in a second time. I am so not a morning person. And I was not having a good morning. Managed to get to school only 10 minutes late and block the circle in front with my illegally parked car, keys in it of course, while I wandered around eating what was left of my breakast. The other mom I was carpooling with, commented that while she knew she was in for a fun day today, she had no idea it was going to be quite so wild. I think she liked that I had a thermos full of coffee with me. I think she would have liked it better had I not already put my sugar in it. I need my sugar in my coffee.

It calmed down after that. Okay, the wax security guards in the corners at the wax museum were a little unnerving and when they tell you a camel can rip a bucket of food out of your hands with it’s mouth and to be careful around them, you should listen. It was a busy, interesting day. Even if we didn’t get time to stop and visit Foamhenge. We’ll have to go back.

Slightly distracted.

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The weather has just been too pretty to be inside. And the yard needs too much work. So I’ve ignored the messes and dust bunnies taking over and working on what’s important. Digging in the dirt. Ripping out beds, prepping old beds, planting flowers & veggies and generally just rearranging things out there.
It’s supposed to rain all weekend, so I can clean the house then, right? Maybe….also want to make some spring dresses for me & my girl. In fact, I promised her one. But look at that sky. Who can stay inside & sew when the sky looks like that?
Exactly.

Winding down.

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For spring break this year, I took the mini-me to NYC to see the sights. From the moment the subway car doors slammed shut taking us away from Penn Station and a young poet stood up and started performing his work, her little mind was blown. We did MOMA, we did the Met, we did Central Park, Times Square, the Village, and more. We covered alot of territory in our two full days running around the city.
We stayed with an old friend from college, who lives in Brooklyn with her husband and the world’s second cutest baby ever. (The first being my Edie of course.) I taught said friend to sew back in college and she currently teaches fashion history at Parsons The New School for Design. She has quite the library of books about fashion and sewing and some really amazing clothes she’s sewn for herself. The whole experience has me completely inspired to get creative as soon as I get settled back in. And to be a little less intimidated by making my own patterns.
But first, we have to acclimate back into quiet, small town life. Everything bloomed while we were away – the dogwoods, the azaleas, the grass became green and luscious and leaves have started popping out on all the trees. So very nice to come back to so much green after our exciting tour of the city. I do love the city, but I think I love my green more. And Edie agrees. She’s been outside almost all day getting her green fix on. Although she did tell me, she does want to go back and see more of the Met. I completely agree.

The Arugula has bolted.

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Last fall, I threw some arugula seeds in the ground and before all of those lovely greens got picked and eaten, it started snowing. And those greens stayed buried under snow the better part of December, January, February & into March. That picture up there is what they looked like when the snow melted last month. I didn’t know if they had actually made it, but turns out they did and of course, bolted first chance they got. Consequently, we’ve been eating some nice, fresh, locally grown greens in alot of meals this week. A nice mushroom arugula risotto one night, tonight a deconstructed arugula pesto, augmented with some arugula pesto from the freezer. Clearly, we like to let our arugula bolt around here. We may even like it more cooked than in salads.

I sauteed some arugula with garlic and pine nuts in olive oil, then tossed in the pesto, then tossed it all with some pasta. It’s darn tasty if I say so myself. And feels great to be able to eat our own food fresh from the garden again. It’s the only thing ready to pick right now, besides some chives, but it feels great to be able to walk outside and pick dinner again. Especially during this glorious 80 degree weather. Barefoot in the dirt hasn’t felt so good in I don’t know how long.

From the vault.

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That there pillow got started I don’t even know how long ago. It had been moved from the basket of unfinished projects to a new location and when I went through the stash this weekend, I found it. I had pieced it together before I put it away – it had trim covering the seams pinned down, but not sewn. I can’t remember why I put it aside, but it had been long given up on.
Pat’s grandmother was a quilter and while I admire the craft of it, I just haven’t felt drawn to it enough to do it. This was my first feeble attempt at it. While I like the results, I’m not sure I’m going to jump into more quilting anytime soon. Grandma had made this amazing crazy patchwork quilt that I fell in love with, that she used old ties in the making of. It’s really a work of art and way beyond my feeble beginner skills. Somewhere along the line, I acquired a book about crazy patchwork and it broke down the crazy quilt process into small bites, pillows, laundry bags, instead of a queen size bed quilt, so it seemed dare I say, approachable? Although I still don’t think I could ever come up with something as beautiful as Grandma’s crazy patchwork quilt.
The pillow in question was made of various scraps from items in the living room, or things that would seem to flow with scraps from items in the living room. The leopard print is some throw pillows, the purple canvas is a fabric sample from the company I bought the slipcover for, as is the red canvas (it was the reject color), the red geometric pattern is from some pillows, as is a white brocade, the rest just seemed to flow with what was there. I even threw in some patterned purple velvet that was a dress scrap, as a small shoutout to the purple velvet sofa that lives under the purple canvas slipcover (Because babies & purple velvet sofas don’t mix well. Although that statement also applies to me I need a slipcover. On everything). I can’t even remember how long it took me to put it together – not long I think. The trim I pinned down was mostly upholstery trim, white & blue (?), with some chocolate brown grosgrain ribbon thrown in here & there. I left some of the white down and then proceeded to swap just about everything else out and start over. I used bits that went with the color scheme, bits that I love (the green leaves and the chicken ribbon) and that fringe piece? A scrap from Edie’s Christmas stocking. Over all, I think I like it. It looks great with my orange walls and my purple velvet sofa, even when it’s slipcovered. I might try another one sometime. Maybe.

What I did with my weekend when I only had a few places to be.

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My latest inspiration for 11 year old boys.

One plain T-shirt with unbleached, unfinished muslin flair. I’m really digging it myself actually. I’m quite pleased with how it turned out, despite how wonky the ‘S’ looks in that photo. It’s not really that wonky, I promise.
I finally had a weekend where I had some time and energy to knock out some projects and it was soooo nice. Or at least, work on some projects besides household chores. I got some laundry done, some baking done, and most importantly, some sewing done. That up there is Pat’s nephew’s belated birthday present. I also pulled a few things out of the vault and got going on them again. I’m really excited about both of them and promise to share as they are finished.

How being a grown up is over-rated.

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I sat down and got spring break planned. At least, I bought train tickets for our trip. I got our summer child care plan figured out – which camps, when. Writing camp, Art camp, Girl Scout camp, and just camp for camp’s sake because we need something that week and I don’t care if cheerleading is the featured activity, it’s alot less expensive than any other option and you can just look at it as a cultural experience and they are touting you’ll learn awesome dance moves which certainly you can take with you and they can come in handy, right?

So inbetween all this running around with spring fairs and swimming and soccer and art and working more and having to plan ahead (which really bothers me to no end, I hate feeling I have to be on top of things because if I don’t have my kid’s summer planned by spring break, I might not have any options besides paying a college kid more than I make an hour to sit around my house with my kid but planning that far ahead makes my head spin and makes me think I could cause a late March snowgedden.) I’ve not had alot of time to enjoy this divine weather we’ve been having. Spring has sprung in a most delightful, welcome way, especially after the month of February here (well, December and January weren’t too popular either for a number of reasons, mostly starting with the letter ‘C’ and rhymes with ‘Old’.). I did find time the other day to sit under the dogwood and notice how it is budding and there are birds checking out the new birdhouse Pat hung on it the other day. And Garden Gnome seems to have weathered the winter just fine, despite being buried in snow for a good few months.
I haven’t had much time to be productive in the way I’d like to be productive – I’ve pulled out the bins of my warm weather clothes, but haven’t yet swapped them out for my cold weather ones, nor have I figured out what’s going, what’s getting altered (a lot of it) and what’s just getting tossed (should be a healthy portion, we’ll see). I haven’t made anything all week besides some lack luster dinners, but I’ve been productive. Spring break and summer are planned as much as they need to be. I started doing some serious restoration in the garden (and am sore all over thanks to it) and got some of the outdoor rearranging I’ve been wanting to get done since last summer, but had to wait until the right planting time, done. Nothing picture worthy though, just replacing the soil and lambs ear border carried away by the floods of late January, moving the butterfly bush to begin to replace the now dead hemlock and moving the lilac to replace the butterfly bush. It took 400 pounds of topsoil to replace what we lost and I still need some more.

But, I did get some lounge time in, even if I did need to schedule it and that feels completely wrong to have to schedule. I think I need to schedule alot more and just let some things slide….even if that’s how that basket sits for so long untouched….

Taking a wee breath.

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So Edie has had something to do everyday after school this week, except today. I’m working more so I feel like I have less time to do anything, what with all the running we do. And the weekend is not looking too much better. There seems to be an endless list of things to do outside, inside and around the house. Gifts to be made and sent for last month’s birthdays. I am just not capable of doing anything on time anymore it seems.
But today was too pretty. I did take some time and just soak it in. Look at that sky. The tulip magnolia in the front yard is starting to bloom. When that’s done, the dogwoods will be about ready to bloom. This is how I measure spring.
I still managed to bake brownies for tomorrow’s spring fair at school. And banana bread for around here because I haven’t baked them anything since last weekend and pickings are slim for breakfast.
Actually, I don’t think I have enough oatmeal for my breakfast tomorrow. Good thing I baked.