Fall Break

A couple of weeks ago we went to the Duke Gardens. Searching around for plants we would like to one day plant in our future home. I really loved these crabapple trees. Apples the size of cherries are adorable. In the spring they get a beautiful bloom.

This small house is next to the Duke Gardens and I want to live there. I love the light blue tin roof. There's one like this in Mebane I've been eyeing. Could you imagine how sweet it would be to live next to the gardens? Why would you need to eat inside?
This bumblebee was completely docile. It sat very sweetly for lots of up close shots.
These are Chinese Ornamental peppers that really looked stunning. I could believe the colors. I've never seen a purple pepper.
I loved the way the color fades from white to green on this plant. I don't know what it's called, but I really love it!
I'm on my two week break for fall. I'm spending today being a couch potato because I can...but I do have plans:

1. Picking apples in the mountains with Kerri

2. Making apple butter

3. Finish my quilt

4. Bake pumpkin muffins, brioche, butternut squash gnocchi, and sour cream apple pie

5. Start a new sewing project...I just can't decide what.

An apple bag?

Homemade buttons?

And then again...I wish I could make this dress!

Umm...

I'm not sure what I'm going to do when the frost takes gardening from us. Few things give me so much joy. It will only be a small window of time, December through April. This past week we finished our fall garden. Complete with broccoli, beets, cabbage, spinach, arugula, mixed lettuce, and cilantro. I doubt the cauliflower and brussel sprouts will make it.

Has anyone noticed the exceptional color of the sky lately? I can't take my eyes off of the blue against bright green foliage. On Sunday Matt and I walked in the Duke Gardens. We're getting ideas for plants we would like to put in our garden. Hopefully by next May we'll have a place with a little land. It was a gorgeous day and we had a great time investigating different greenery.

P.S. Dad wants pigs! I've already checked a book out from the library and know exactly what to look for in a feeder pig. I've picked out names: Sweet Betsey and Arnold.

Helpless?

Sometimes nature makes me sad.

Today when we went to my parents to pick some peppers and water the fall plants, dad showed me a bee hive of his that was doing poorly. He's not sure what, but some sickness has got to the hive and the bees are going crazy. He was carefully watching the grass and then carefully picked up a small bee that was crawling on the grass. The young bees can't fly and are crawling away from the hive, four or five at a time. I asked if maybe they wanted to go to another hive, but dad quickly dismissed that thought. "They're just sick." I frequently forget that bees and other animals don't have the same type of thought process as humans. There is no option for them. I thought of those children who leave religious cults or Amish communities, like the hive is shunning them and sending them off crippled into the world.

I found this picture off the internet, but they looked very similar. I wish I had my camera.

As we pulled into the drive way a dove caught my eye. She was laying on the ground, much like a hen would lay on her eggs or young and I pointed out how odd she looked to Matt. Turns out dad had cut a low hanging branch down on Thursday and the two young were knocked out of their nest. They were still alive, and the mother still guards them, but their chances are so slim that I had a great desire to scoop them up and take them home. I know that that would only increase their chances of dying. Helpless little doves would make any one's heart go soft and mushy.

I am somewhat reminded of the book The Last American Man by Elizabeth Gilbert, who wrote a biography of a pioneer type man, committed to living off the land. In the book someone made a comment about how they would hate to kill a helpless deer. Eustace Conway said he didn't feel sorry for the deer because they weren't nearly as helpless as some people are. And I am reminded that nature is capable of so many things and I am the one that is disconnected and incapable.

I just figured out she also wrote Eat, Pray, Love. Since I enjoyed The Last American Man, I might enjoy this movie phenomena.

A year's worth of "to-do's", involving food of course!

It's not January, but I'm feeling the need to create a list of important things I would like to complete within this year. Since I'm a teacher August feels like New Year's, and a time to create resolutions, or at least goals. We teachers really like the word goal. You get a new class, another chance to do things differently, and new things to learn and adjust to. With this said...here are a couple of things I want to do this year...I think.

1. Finish my old quilt Check

2. Start a new quilt with a more difficult pattern, like so:Check

3. Attempt homemade brioche

4. Grow broccoli, cabbage, carrots, beets, cauliflower, and a variety of mixed greens Check

5. Don't let any of the above go to waste Sort-of Check (we froze broccoli)

6. Make homemade pasta (besides gnocchi, we've already mastered that)

7. Make apple butter with apples that we've picked Check

8. Sew a shirt with ruffles! (this one scares me the most)

9. Read all the Little House books...that should be easy! Check

10. Make a tiramisu with homemade zabaglione and lady fingers

11. Bake pitas

12. Make honey wheat bread a muscadine jam to eat with it!

13. Sew oven mitts and hot pads with insulated batting

14. Find a cute house to rent in May, with a small plot of land that has good soil and gets lots of sun

15. Make homemade chicken stock and freeze

16. Go to The Piedmont, a restaurant in Durham

17. Make dinners more during the week night

...I can't think of anymore!

out with the old in with the new

Our garden is suffering from a variety of diseases, inconsistent rain, mold, insects, and anything else you can imagine that would attack an innocent plant. We're still getting peppers in by the basket full and a few tomatoes, though mostly green because the ripe ones have all busted open by the time we arrive to pick. The romas have been our most sturdy tomato, resisting the heat and remaining intact. We've made endless sauces, salsas, soups, and pizzas with them. Most of our herbs are also fine and dandy, with the exception of the cilantro and dill. But the squash and cucumbers have been long gone, along with the corn and radishes. So we're left with a few rotten looking tomato plants and lots of peppers. We put peppers in everything, so lately we've been freezing all of them, because I need a break from peppers. I guess at this point I've become disenchanted with our garden. It's no longer neat and pretty, each small seedling green and bright. It has produced so many goods and filled our bellies time and time again, but as August wears on, I'm thinking it's time for a change.

It's hard to beat a fried green tomato sandwich

Swiss chard, spinach, broccoli, butternut squash, cilantro, kale, parsnips, carrots. I know how to grown some of these. Swiss chard, kale, and spinach will go in the ground as seeds and sprout until it gets too cold. Broccoli will go in the ground as a plant, as will cilantro. I'd love to plant butternut squash, but it's a little late for seeds. Can I get plants? As for parsnips and carrots I have no idea. I'm researching on the internet for some advice, since my parents have never grown either.

I'm really enjoying this school year. I'm not stressed and I feel like I have a life outside of teaching. Last year I became so worn out and tried of always being in a endless cycle of teaching, planning for teaching, grading, and teaching more. I felt that I was trapped and couldn't do anything else. I learned late last year that you have to make time for other dreams and desires you have. I've been reading a great book called Coop about a family's decent into a Wisconsin farm, slowly working on my quilt, and will sign up for pottery lessons in late August.

Progress

I assumed the hardiest part would be the tiny hand stitches binding this quilt together. It's actually the most soothing.

Though there were are some failures in the garden, bitter cucumbers, stunted jalapenos, squash bugs that took over and brought quick destruction on all but two squash plants, the tomatoes are nothing short of a miracle. Three times the weight of these gigantic plants have caused them to fall over, though they are caged and steaked. They're incredibly sturdy and the stalks are thick. I've been most impressed with my Brandywine for their size and flavor, the Beef Steak because it was the first to produce a ripe tomato at the end of June and is also the sweeter of my big varieties, and my Mexico Midget, which is so loaded with tomatoes it worries me a little. The Cherokee Purple was a big disappointment due to the fact bugs like it more than the others, it's very slow growing, and looks the least healthy. The Better Girls must have been planted to late because they've done nothing but grown a few inches over the past month and a half. Most of our tomato plants are over 6 feet tall. Our garden has inspired us to create some truly delicious meals.

Spicy sausage, summer squash, and goat cheese pasta with basil

Summer squash and tomato gratin with sauteed onions and thyme

Roasted tomato and garlic soup with homemade croutons and fresh basil (the secret is to roast the tomatoes and garlic low and slow for an hour and saute the onions in butter not oil)

Quiltin'

Quilting is taking up most of my free time this summer that would otherwise be occupied by watching the Golden Girls or rereading the Harry Potter series. It has been, big surprise, frustrating. Only impatient me could manage to screw up sewing 200 some rectangles together. It's only a straight line for heaven's sake! Most teachers have until August, but being at a year round school, I've got three more precious weeks. I've finished piecing the front and will start quilting the batten and back this weekend with assistance from my mother-in-law. I have my doubts about finishing it.

It has been a pretty great summer, especially compared to the none stop work and uncertainty of last summer. I didn't get to all the projects I wanted to, but if I finish this quilt I'll consider that an accomplishment. I'll remember this summer as one filled with new and exciting music. Here are some of my new discoveries:

Laura Veirs

Samantha Cran

Gregory Alan Isakov (really really love!)

Bowerbirds

Nothing beats an outdoors concert that welcomes quilts and homemade food. Music in the Gardens at the Duke Gardens has been wonderful this summer! I'm really falling in love with Durham. Living 45 minutes away all my life, in a rural town, I heard horrible things about a Durham with the "highest crime rate"in North Carolina. My preconceived notions have been proven wrong time and time again.

I haven't baked anything spectacular lately. Bathing suits make me think twice about using butter and sugar. My favorite baking recipe I've used this summer is for granola by Molly Wizenberg from the June Bon Appetit. It's the perfect balance of nuts, sugar, salt, and spices.

Simple Granola:

3 cups of old fashioned oats

1 cup chopped pecans (but I do half pecans and half almonds)

1/2 cup unsweetened coconut

3 Tbl. brown sugar

3/4 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. ground ginger

1/4 tsp. salt

1/3 cup honey

2 Tbl. vegetable oil (I like grape seed)

1 cup assorted dried fruit (Dried cranberries are yummy!)

Preheat oven to 300 and mix the first seven ingredients in a large bowl. Heat the honey and vegetable oil in a saucepan until the two have blended and warmed. Pour warm honey and oil on to ingredients and mix. Pour onto a baking sheet and bake for 40 minutes stirring every 10 minutes to make sure the oats are evenly cooked. I also added a few more drizzles of oil to get a little more crunch. Add the fruit once the oats have cooled. It's great for breakfast, or even lunch.

The only thing that's missing this summer is watermelon and the ocean. Nothing late July won't cure.

A precious quiet moment with a crazy kitten.