midsummer garden

The garden (and yard, in general) is keeping us in some good eats and pretty flowers during these midsummer days.  We're still getting a small bowl of raspberries every day, the strawberries are coming in for their second hurrah, tomatoes are thinking about ripening sometime in the near future, the tomatillos are filling up their little lantern husks (I've got dreams of lots of salsa verde), peas are out (we had a less than fabulous 'crop' of peas this year) and beans are in.  The garlic has been curing for weeks.  It won't be too long before we dig the potatoes, or at least take a peek and snag some little ones.  There are some peppers, onions, collards and kale, parsnips and beets.  There's squash.  Of course there's squash.  Patty pan and yellow crookneck, which are perfectly enjoyable but I do think straight up green zucchini is my summer squash of choice.  Butternut, melons and more greens recently planted or sown.....

While our flowers are not all clustered in one part of our yard, and it may not seem like there are many out there, I'm still able to walk around for a few minutes with a pair of shears and come up with something like this:

(I've worked a lot this year on a good sized perennial flower bed on the side of the house, there is a big stretch of day lilies running through the backyard, and cosmos, calendula, yarrow, zinnias, and a few others are scattered here and there)

onions:

tomatillos:

The side of the garage/workshop (below, at left) was a mix of dry soil and grass until a few months ago and now there's a mix of getting-ready-to-burst sunflowers, day lilies, garden phlox, pink coreopsis, purple balloon flowers, coral penstemon, a variety of bulbs, and some newly transplanted peonies that I'm going to keep my fingers crossed for.

The same goes for this space, which started as scrubby grass and was then briefly (and unsuccessfully) home to some irises.  Now it is our perennial herb garden, located just outside the back door into the kitchen.  There is chamomile, garlic chives, lemon verbena, thyme, sage, oregano, rosemary, lavender, and bronze fennel.  There is also some lemon balm and chocolate mint, but they are in pots, because I'm smart like that.  There is also an old log that I planted some cinnamon basil in and it seems happy there for now.  Honestly, as excited as I have been about getting this herb bed in place, I've done more tending to it than actually eating from it.  That's gonna change soon.

grapes:

garden phlox:

squash, squash, squash (and cucumbers, too):

And look!  The brussels sprouts are brussels sprouting!  I've never (successfully) grown them before, and we have 6 very happy plants this year.  I'm looking forward to harvesting them as funny looking stalks and popping quite a few into the freezer.

I get so much satisfaction from spending time out in the garden.  These last several days (at nearly one hundred degrees) have kept me from doing much out there, but I've still been making the rounds each day.  Claire loves it, too.  She helps me water.  She grabs haphazardly at plants as I tell her not to.  She's learning the names of most of the things we are growing and she tells the plants to "grow, grow, grow".  She wants to eat all of the unripe blueberries and grapes and I try hard to steer her attention away from them, and away from the green tomatoes, remembering how last year she loved pulling them off.  Especially the unripe sungolds.

On another somewhat relevant note, the bees are doing pretty well.  A bit of a mystery with one of the hives, but manageable, I think.  And the other got it's second super added today.  Know what that means?  That means, if it keeps on the up and up we should be able to harvest any honey stored in that newly added second super and any others that we add on top of that.  Woohoo!  More on the bees, soon.

chicken triage: in conclusion

So.

Guess who laid her first egg (!) since the big crisis three weeks ago?
Yep, good ol' Margaret.  Love that girl.  I kind of thought maybe her egg laying days were done, to tell the truth.

Here I am about to reveal how very little I knew about chicken anatomy prior to getting up close and personal with Margaret and her parts.

I thought they had two, you know........ holes.

Well, before the whole ordeal, I honestly hadn't given it all that much thought.  There are other things on my mind, typically, than chicken privates.  Typically.

So, when I assessed poor Margaret's "situation", and I saw two distinct holes, I kinda just thought "huh, alright, two then."  I assumed that was normal and then proceeded to tend to the one that needed the attention.

Fast forward a week or so when I checked on her nether-regions to make sure things were looking alright.  Two holes, check.  Second one still a bit sad looking.  Okay.  No big surprise there I guess.  I attempted to check on the undersides of our other hens.  You know, to compare.  But they saw me coming and apparently knew just what I was thinking, because those girls steered clear.

Fast forward to today.  I'm outside watching the girls, thinking "you know, I really ought to check her out again, and make sure her parts are getting back to normal."  As though I had the vaguest idea of what that would be.

Imagine my surprise then, when, after stealthily swooping up first Rose and then Pearl, I found that our other hens each had only one hole.  Huh.  I looked once, twice, I moved feathers around in order to more easily reveal their suddenly missing second holes. (those poor girls! they didn't even seem to notice they were missing anything)

Next to be swooped up and flipped over was, of course, Margaret.  I had to get to the bottom of this. (the bottom of this...ha)

Well then.  Margaret indeed has only one as well.  (duh! of course she does, turns out that is what normal is) And located approximately an inch and a half below her one and only rear orifice?  A round, quarter-sized wound that is almost completely healed.  My jaw dropped.  I couldn't believe it.  Could not believe that the hole I had tweezers a full inch inside of three weeks ago was one that wasn't supposed to be there.  Those bastards were literally eating my poor girl alive.

That of course makes it all worse in retrospect, but it also adds to my elation over the fact that she is still here, not only alive and well but healed enough to have resumed laying.  I liked her a lot before, but now.... now Margaret and I are tight.

seven years and then some

Yesterday Mike and I celebrated our seventh wedding anniversary.  I listened to our wedding song ("By my Side" by Ben Harper, the version with the organ, of course) several times and smiled, eyes closed, as it brought back the feelings, sights, and sounds of our wedding day.  I could hear the cello and violin playing "Can't Help Falling in Love with You" as I walked down the aisle (the grass in Mike's parent's back yard) and I could feel the hot sun on my face.

We met our freshman year in college (we lived across the hall from each other in our freshman dorm) and we made pretty short work of getting together.  I remember finals week being the time we decided that yep, we were both pretty much in it.  Not the most convenient time to start a new romance, really.  Papers were typed way into the wee hours of the morning and handed in in the nick of time.  Studying wasn't as much fun as kissing.  You know.  Young love and all that jazz.

That puts us at almost fourteen years together, minus a brief stint during our senior year.  I'm 31 years old and so that feels like a pretty darn long time.  It has been, of course, full of ups and downs like anyone else's fourteen year period of anything might be.  But standing out most in my mind are the ups.  The joys and adventures and laughing and knowing and loving and learning.  Together.  And apart when necessary.

The weekend before last we went up to West Virginia for a wedding.  Mike actually officiated the wedding, what with the "power vested in him by the state of West Virginia" via the, um, internet.  The wedding was, probably obviously, one of a good friend.  Friends.  They pretty much left the ceremony up to Mike.  I dug out the sample vows and ceremonies that we used to create ours, along with copies of the poem a friend of mine read and the Traditional Irish Blessing that Mike's father read, and he brought it all along in a neat little folder.

Their ceremony, it turned out, was basically ours with different names.  Same poem read, and a friend of theirs sang part of the Irish Blessing.  I wasn't bothered by that at all.  After all, we hadn't come up with the things we used, not most of it anyway.  We made it our own, and I loved it.  I love it.  But I was honored, if anything, by their decision to just kind of use what was at hand with very little amending.  Add to that the fact that it was Mike up there, officiating, and only a week plus a few days shy of our own anniversary, and it was pretty moving for me.  I had my eyes closed for part of it, trying to actually hear the words he spoke as they sang themselves right into my ears....  Claire noticed and asked "what's wrong, mama?"  "Nothing's wrong, baby.  Nothing at all."

We made eye contact once or twice during the ceremony and I could feel this wonderful, grand thing moving between us.  An acknowledgement of sorts.  A respectful nod to all that was stirred up by such a small act.

Yesterday we (the three of us) ate lunch out in Asheville.  The food was great and after we got back home we spent most of the day as we would any other.  Mike was tired after having undergone a small medical procedure and so he napped while Claire and I played outside and went grocery shopping.  Boring everyday stuff.  I woke him up to help me get out the big ladder so that I could rescue a tiny (as in only a couple days old) baby phoebe who somehow ended up dangling by one tiny little birdy toe (claw?) from a piece of moss in the nest more than 20 feet up, at the eave of our roof.  I am not a fan of ladders, not that high, but this little thing was crying so loud and the sound was awful.  I climbed up and carefully pulled it's foot loose and placed it back in the nest.  All is well.  I made dinner, a recipe I'd pulled from a magazine forever ago and had saved for an 'occasion'.  Peppered pork and pears, made with local pork, leeks, pears, white wine and a bit of this and that.  Egg noodles.  A slightly fancier than usual salad.  Flowers (a gorgeous bouquet from our yard, I'll have you know).  A candle.

The candle (along with the small gift and card I'd set out on his chair) lead Claire to believe that it must have been Mike's birthday.  And so she sang to him, for quite some time, loud and proud, and she handed him a 'cake' (an empty wooden brie wheel).  It was quite cute.  He got it on video.  Handy little iphone.

And that was that.  It was a lovely day because it was ours, and it was lovely because it was simple.  I've learned of course that marriage is not always easy, but I do believe if two people can make it seven years and then some (or fourteen years and then some, depending on how you look at it), they can probably make it to forever.


Ben Harper's "By My Side":

Don't you get ahead of me
And I won't leave you behind
If you get unhappy
Show me a sign

There's no love like lost love
No pain like a broken heart
There's no love like you and me
And no loss like us apart


Promises promise is
Only a word
And when softly spoken
Is never heard

And a heart
Is not a stone
And is fragile
When alone

By my side
By my side
Won't you be by my side
By my side
By my side
Won't you be by my side

My care for you
Is from the ground up to the sky
It's over under up above
Down below and to the side
No use in pretending
No use in saving face
My love is never ending
You are my saving grace

By my side
By my side
Won't you be by my side
By my side
By my side
Won't you be by my side

solstice camping

We took a a somewhat spontaneous little camping trip over the mountain to Lake James State Park last Wednesday and Thursday.  It was our first time there and I was pleasantly surprised by how quiet and peaceful it was.  (I was kind of expecting Gatlinburg on water, for some reason... crowded, loud, crappy t-shirt shops..... but there was none of that)

We set up our laughably large tent and hung out for a while.  The overwhelming majority of our camping gear is for backpacking, not for car camping (or, 300 yards away from the car, as was the case here), and so our set up now is quite funny.  HUGE tent (as in, both of our other tents could easily fit inside with lots of room to spare) filled with nothing but two tiny 3/4 length ultralite thermarest mattresses.  We still use those along with our tiny little stove and headlamps, not having graduated yet to air mattresses, double burners, and a lantern.  I think the time has come to accept that, while our future most certainly still holds some backpacking trips for us, for now we are in a different place and perhaps it'd be a good idea to shell out just a few bucks to make our camping experiences a bit cushier.

We took the canoe out Wednesday afternoon and swam for a while in a little cove.  Claire was ridiculously cute in her life jacket and little flappy safari-esque hat.  I don't have a picture though.  I did not take my camera in the canoe.  Because surely, if I had, it would have ended up at the bottom of the lake.  (I'm clumsy like that)  Mike attempted to fish after we drove all over gathering the things he needed to do so, but it didn't go that well.  He was trying to fish from the campsite and his lines just kept getting tangled up in the trees.  Maybe next time he can catch our dinner for us.

After Claire fell asleep we stayed up around the fire for a while and I asked him if he knew whether the solstice was Thursday or Friday.  He looked on his phone (so connected we are these days, it's a bit ridiculous) and we discovered it was Wednesday.  So, we had our little solstice fire after all.

Sleep, shared with two other individuals on 2 very small and not-quite-an-inch-thick mattresses, did not come easily for me.  But there was some of it and when we got up the next morning we took it slow and lazed around a bit more.  We ate cold cereal and hot coffee for breakfast and we adults each got to do some reading while Claire played around the campsite making piles of sand and dirt and sticks.

We cleaned up our site and headed out in the canoe again for some more paddling and swimming.  I wondered aloud when she'd be old enough to take on a multi-day paddling trip.  I think maybe the answer is when she can swim.  That seems reasonable.  And safe.  Though I heard today about some campsites newly put in place along the French Broad river near us, so maybe we can give it a shot sooner.  I also heard today, from a friend, that Lake James "kinda creeps her out" because there's a town under it.  At first I was a little surprised, but then came to find that it isn't so uncommon to flood old towns when creating a lake.  (sadly, all of our lakes in NC are manmade)  I am now trying to think of this as being "neat" and "intriguing" instead of "weirdly creepy" because I want to go back and spend a few days there again soon, and it will be much easier to do so if I'm feeling intrigued instead of scared.

Happy Summer!  Here's to long days, ice cream, swimming, berry picking, and so much more~

how to eat ice cream

yep, about like that.

Claire and I took our first trip of the summer to Ultimate Ice Cream with some good friends.  Appalachian Blackberry for all the kiddos, and a mix of that and the dark chocolate for this mama.  Mmmm-mmmm good!  I brought home a mixed pint to share with papa.  It won't last long around here.

'tis the season

 The season of berries and squash is upon us here in Western NC, and so we are responding accordingly by making cobblers and quiches.  Specifically, in our kitchen, this (with about half the sugar and whole wheat flour added in in equal parts to the white flour) and this.  Yum and yum.  There was a bit of a debate in our kitchen about what a cobbler is.  In my mind, I always think of what I suppose is more often called a crisp.  I may have looked on somewhat unapprovingly as Mike prepared the above recipe, and may have said something along the lines of "so what will it be, like a blackberry focaccia or something?".  He was not thrilled with my response and seemed to think I was saying "no way am I eating that!"

Well, I had no problem eating that, my friends.  None at all.  It was delicious.  I am now singing the praises of the good 'ol country cobbler.

Greeting us after we got home from a weekend in WV were several little squashes.  It looks like we will continue to be greeted daily by the same for at least a few weeks.  More squash pie, zucchini bread, and some stocking of the freezer awaits.  The raspberries trickle in a handful here and there, but they don't stand a chance at making it into any desserts or jams or anything other than being gobbled up right then and there, still warm from the sun.

friday roundup

the good

this week I got to meet a new little babe, brought into the world bum-first (he was frank breech) at home, naturally, by his rockstar mama

a play date with our mamatime friends at a park in Asheville led to some hand-in-hand wandering around the city by Claire and I.... whenever I spend time downtown it reminds me of why I love it down here, we've got a good thing going.

we are no longer worrying about pertussis, but while it was on my mind a lot I discovered how much I actually enjoy eating whole cloves of raw garlic

Margaret is alive and well

later this morning we head to West Virginia for the weekend for a wedding
it's always good to shake it up for a few days.... a mini adventure for this family of three
no doubt there will be some out of tune singing of John Denver's classic along the way,
which Claire likes very much and when she tries to sing it she gets stuck on repeat and says the same thing over and over... its quite cute

more planting of (almost exclusively native) perennials and a few things for the garden after not one but two trips back to the big greenhouse over the last two days, before they close for the year and while their prices make it too hard to resist not going... yesterday, some mountain mint, bee balm, more coreopsis & coneflower, native saint john's wort, a couple tomatoes to replace the ones we had to pull, bronze fennel and lemon verbena.  Today I went back for more mountain mint & bee balm, coreopsis, some cute little purple flowers called 'balloon flowers', a spreading native geranium, chamomile, garden phlox, penstemon...... I think that's it.  Good thing they're shutting down for the year or I might be in need of an intervention

the not-so-good

sometimes, especially lately, we're (the grown ups) having a bit of a hard time finding our happy.  we are snippy and rude to each other, we forget to look out for each other's time and energy, forget we're on the same side, get defensive......   I get that that is all a part of willingly deciding to commit to spending your life with one person.... that it's hard sometimes, that it's natural to go through times when you feel like you really don't want to look at that other person for a while, (sorry babe, no offense....) let alone talk to them and live with them and hash out life details with them.

I know we're good because I still make sure to hug big hugs several times a day, to really look at him when I tell him I love him, because we make each other laugh, because we respect each other as parents and when I watch him with Claire it always makes my heart so happy, because we can almost always shrug the crap off and come away smiling with not too much effort.  But still, when the crap builds up and there's stress from this and that (and the other, don't forget the other) and we're being less-than-nice to each other, it gets me down.  Because I want our world to be one where even when we are super stressed, we are always kind and considerate to each other.  Where we always give each other the benefit of the doubt, always look out for each other, and never say hurtful things just because we can.  I think about how, when we're stressed and frustrated with someone, they are supposedly mirrors for us to look into to see things about ourselves that are bothering us.  Things that we do that perhaps we don't like.  When I'm in a good place and feeling calm I remember that and I breathe.  I try to think before I speak, remember that we are human, both of us.  I remember that we are deeply in love, that we know each other like no one else does.  I think back on all of our years together and about the things we've done and the places we've gone.

And usually, if I make the effort to do all of that (which I of course do not always do in the midst of the funk), a smile spreads across my face and the memories flood me with happy thoughts and a warm fuzzy or two.  And my not-so-good turns back into good.  And I think as long as that's the way it plays out more often than not, we're doing alright, and we've got our happy, after all.

linking up with Monica at ink&chai for keeping it real

chicken triage and other stories

So the sweet little tea party I wrote about last?  Well, I can't remember now if that was the same day that Claire fell on her head when the hammock swing came out of the ceiling.  It very well could have been that it happened not too long after the lovely little tea party.  The days of last week sort of just blended into each other, for the most part.  My grandmother was pushing her in the swing and the hook (the hook that Mike climbed up into the attic space above the porch to anchor it with a piece of wood so it wouldn't fall out) just twisted right out of the ceiling.  Very loud thunk.  Very loud scream.  A pretty much alright child.  A very shaken up great grandmother.  Obviously, had it not happened then, it would have happened the next time someone got in it, but oh, my poor grandma felt horrible.

After I got Claire down for her nap shortly after the incident, I found myself in a most unexpected and undesirable situation for the remainder of the day.  Indeed, it turned out to be a day of incidents.

One of our hens (our gentlest one, Margaret) was acting strangely.  Listless, uncomfortable, keeping to herself..... upon closer inspection and a fair amount of googling, I deduced that poor Margaret was dealing with an extremely nasty ailment called fly strike.   Extremely nasty enough that I don't think I can bring myself to go into too much detail here, but suffice it to say that I spent many hours tending to her rear end and her lady parts, and they were not feeling very good at all.  It involved tweezers, diatomaceous earth, honey, apple cider vinegar washes, some salve, a trim of some feathers, much crossing of fingers, and lots (and lots and lots and lots) of fly babies.

Fly babies.  Sounds so much nicer than maggots. (there, I said it)  Ew.

After doctoring poor Margaret and separating her from the others, I went to bed more than half expecting her not to make it.  Well, guess what?  She did.  That was nearly a week ago and Margaret is indeed alive and kicking.

More than anything else I've encountered since taking on hens and bees and turning half of our yard into a garden, that made me feel like a real farmer.  Not just the at times farmer-like girl that I am here on our pretend 1/3 acre farm.  I saved my chicken from a nasty horrible death and I'm more than just a little happy about that.  Did I mention she's my favorite hen?  And that her eggs are the size of duck eggs?  Of course, she hasn't laid since the whole fly strike debacle, but I figure she needs time to heal.


Another recent hiccup along the way in our quest to find suburban backyard utopia...... I had to pull out several of our beautiful tomato plants because it seems the new area we planted them in this year has fusarium wilt, and one by one, the tomatoes (which were near to where we had to take down a sick apple tree last year, perhaps not a coincidence?) were succumbing to a sad state of wilted.

It'd be one thing if I'd purchased them as starts at some nursery.  But these were my babies, started from seed on a bleak February day and carefully tended for months before put in the ground.  I planted them in two rows, a total of 18 plants.  18 plants that, up until a couple weeks ago were all poster children (poster plants?) for healthy, deep green, robust tomato plants.  I dug out all of the affected plants and carefully handled them and made sure to wash my hands well before adding a new string up the stakes of the healthy plants.  10 plants remain.  We shall see.  I suppose at least now I know where not to put my tomatoes.  And more likely than not, I won't plant anything there again for a while, if ever.  There's talk of that being the spot for our earthen wood-fired outdoor oven.  The one we keep talking about.  It's 'on the list', you know.  Somewhere between finishing drywall and repainting the porch.  Priorities, priorities.


I need to do some thinking about my priorities for the summer....

tea for three

There was a tea party for three on our front porch last week.  I wanted to show my grandmother a bit of our day-to-day world while she was here, so we took Claire to one of the local playgrounds and walked around the lake afterwards.  On the way back home, we (ahem) just happened to stop by the bakery to pick up some yummies.  Armed with a snickerdoodle cookie, a cherry turnover, and a sticky pecan croissant, we made tea and headed out to the porch.  Claire wasn't terribly impressed with the sweets and paid more attention to the cheese and pears.  That was fine by us.  We took the high road and did most of the hard work of eating the baked goods ourselves, my grandma and I.

I said something along the lines of wouldn't it be wonderful if life was all about sitting on porches and eating baked goods and drinking tea in good company on lazy, breezy, early summer afternoons (yes, I know it's really still spring) and she said something along the lines of well then we'd never get anything done.  To which I replied something along the lines of sure, we could throw in a load of clothes and wash some dishes and weed the garden every now and then.  It'd be alright.  We'd work it all out.

a different kind of busy

My first Monday off for the summer began at 3am with a nearly 8 hour round trip drive to pick my dear grandma (mamau, that is) up from the train station and bring her back home to stay with us for the week.  (lots of coal and sawdust keep the rails closer to home busy, but sadly there is currently no commuter rail out here in western NC.... there is a demand though, so hopefully things will change)

Monday afternoon brought naps for all and since then we've been a different kind of busy around here.

Busy reading.  Lots and lots of that.

Busy cooking and talking, connecting and watching, sitting and listening.  Playing.

Busy drinking coffee.  (strong and black for her, strong with cream for me) Busy drinking tea.  (earl grey straight up for her, the same with milk and honey for me)  Busy being overwhelmed with joy as I planted beans yesterday and watched as Claire sat happily in her great-grandmother's lap, 73 years but not an inch between them, being read to and laughing in the sunshine.  That was one of those moments.  One of those store-away-in-the-mind-for-a-gloomier-day kind of moments.  I am trying to be ever so present in those moments, so as to give them a better chance at being absorbed deep into my bones.

Because I think life is truly about those moments more than it is about anything else.  Sure, there are other important things.  Even other very important things.  But really, those moments are what fill us up and carry us through, I do believe.

I look at my grandmother's hands, her face, her smile..... and I see my hands, my face, my smiles to come.  We get each other.  And I am so thrilled to be getting Claire in on the action.  The joy of knowing and loving this fabulous and honest salt-of-the-earth woman that I so love.  Because she's going to get it too, I know.

And now, I am off to fill the next several days with this new and lovely kind of busy.  A most important kind of busy that I am deeply grateful to be able to experience and linger in.

here we are

it's been a couple (few?) weeks since I joined up with Monica over at ink & chai for her weekly "keeping it real" posts, and so.....

pebbles in my shoes

~possible exposure to pertussis (for Claire and I) during the last week of work has had me going back and forth over what to do about it, and what not to do.  it seems to be going around and while I know our bodies could handle it, I'm not keen on getting a potentially lengthy illness at the start of summer. (for now, honey/lemon/cayenne/garlic/ginger syrup, kombucha and an herbal immune blend for me, same syrup along with probiotics and elderberry for her)  the local health department folks contacted the parents of all of the kids in my after school program suggesting they all take a 5 day course of zithromycin "just in case", to keep it from spreading in the event any of them were exposed.  if we did that, if we all preemptively took antibiotics whenever we were "possibly exposed" to something..... wouldn't that be always?  I assume every time I leave the house there's a darn good chance I'm coming into contact with someone who has come into contact with someone who has had some sort of yuck.

~she's a testy one these days, this girl of mine...... pushing, pushing, pushing.  definitely feisty.
(must be the pertussis)

~ants.  every spring there are several weeks in which the little creepies find their way into our kitchen.  borax seems to help a bit.  so does squishing them with my finger.  I'd rather them not be there though.

~I think those sweet potato slips in my fridge are destined for the compost... there's just no more room.  I suppose a neighbor's yard would be better than the compost, actually.  will have to look into that.

easy like sunday morning

~the house remains somewhat clean following the pre-visit cleaning before Nana and Pipop came last week (no white glove assessment from them or anything, but you know, it's nice to clean when folks are coming)

~schoooooool's out! for summer!  (and therefore, so am I.... no school = no after school art classes) I'm starting to make a little list in my head.... things to do this summer and such.  so far, it's heavy on ice cream, gardening and taking out the new (old) canoe.  and listening to live music out and about, continuing our ritual of breakfast at the market (read: pastries) on saturdays, a little visiting and being visited, some hiking and camping, and so on and so forth.

~in the wee (wee, wee) hours of monday morning, I will head out for a 4 hour drive to pick my grandmother up from the train station in Cary, NC and will then bring her back home to stay with us for all of next week. (!)  I am thrilled.  I bought a little goat milk 'guest' soap for her at the market to put on her little stack of towels that will be in her (Claire's) room.  I'm thinking fresh flowers, some chocolates...... little things I can do to make her stay even sweeter.  I plan to keep it simple while she's here- trips to the library with Claire, walks around town, some bakery comparing, sitting on the benches at the playgrounds and talking about any and everything, walks around the lake..... our raspberries should be ripening while she's here and they are her favorite.  I plan to make some sort of chocolate torte with raspberries on top for her... (happily taking suggestions there)

~so enjoying eating a little more out of our garden bit by bit.  now added to the various greens and strawberries are peas and garlic and soon, raspberries.  the tomatillos, squashes, cucumbers, and tomatoes and flowering, the peppers, potatoes, onions, beets, parsnips and brussels sprouts are looking good, and I'm ready to put beans in the ground once the peas come out.  melons, pumpkins and winter squashes will take up the last few available patches of garden space and from there on out we just have to eat and occasionally weed and water.  a lovely arrangement, indeed.