Holden Beach, NC

 

For the second year in a row, our friends and we have rented a house on Holden Beach, NC. Until last year we had never been to this beach before. Our friends have been going there for over forty years and introduced us to the area. We went during the first week in October these past two years and both times the weather was perfect. It was warm enough to sun and swim during the day and cool enough to don a sweatshirt in the evening. There was low humidity, beautiful sunrises and sunsets, no crowds, and plenty of relaxation.

Holden Beach is a strip of island accessible by a bridge with a waterway between it and the mainland. It is one, straight road lined on both sides by houses. There are no hotels or high rises there. You will see a few beachy type business before the access bridge, but otherwise it is a quiet place. Myrtle beach is to the south and Wilmington is to the north. Overall, we like the quietness of Holden Beach for relaxing. The beachfront houses are only yards away from the sand so there is not a long walk to the beach. Almost all of the houses have large, covered decks where you can sit and watch the water under beautifully painted skies. Each morning we spotted dolphins and many fishing birds making nosedives into the water for food. Holden beach is also the only place where you can find fossilized sea biscuits. (You can read about them here) We found some beautiful, intact biscuits last year during a rain storm. We only found a couple more this year but I am always excited to find one. Shell collecting was minimal because most shells were broken to pieces by the waves. The beach is long enough that you can walk miles. Last year Steve and I walked three miles up to the pier and back. 

We drove to Shallotte, Southport, and Calabash for a little shopping and dinners out. Another day we drove to Wilmington for some antiquing and lunch. We found a very nice little antique shop in Shallotte called Miss Minnie's antiques. She had things displayed beautifully and it was fun to browse. There are a couple of ice cream shops and a Food Lion nearby. We also had a pizza delivered one evening which we ate on the deck. Shallotte is only twenty minutes or so away from the beach and there are stores like Hobby Lobby and Walmart if desired.

Our friend Dan fished every day. He threw back all but one fish. The one he kept was a flounder. He filleted and broiled it for dinner and all six of us had a small piece. it was the best flounder I have ever tasted. Flounder are interesting, flat shaped fish with a white underside and a sand colored upper side. Their eyes are both on the top side which makes their face look a little goofy. It reminds me of how a child might draw a fish's face.  

It was a good vacation, especially for Steve, to relax and do nothing much. My favorite part was our evening walks on the beach where we watched the sun set. Each evening it lowered slowly until it finally touched the horizon in a fiery red ball.

There is a man who comes each year and builds sand pyramids. Steve took this photo just as the sun was setting behind them.

The Autumn Song

 We have been away to the beach for a last taste of summer. Autumn greeted us upon our return! I have photos and thoughts to sift through from the trip. For now, I will share a photo that Steve took at a bar where we had lunch. The sun was shining on us from the window. I am beginning to feel the history behind those lines and wrinkles.

                                            The Autumn Song by Sarah Sparks

Weathering the Storms

 

A view of the North Carolina mountains taken in the highlands when our daughter lived in Boone, NC.

We were spared the bulk of the wrath of Helene last Friday. She dumped unimaginable amounts of rain here and caused a couple of local tornadoes and many power outages. However, our neighbors to the southwest, in western North Carolina, West Virginia, and Tennessee, and Georgia fared so much worse. 

It rained for a week prior to the arrival of Helene in our southern states. I can't recall so many days of rain like we had. We were thankful for the water after a summer of drought. But the hurricane was too much, too fast onto ground that was already saturated. If you have ever visited Asheville, Blowing Rock, or any of the western North Carolina/West Virginia/Tennessee mountain areas you can see by the geography why such flooding occurred. The mountains are tall and close and the hollows and valleys are deep. It is a beautifully rugged landscape, very lush and green. The contrast of mountains to hollows is its beauty. 

Our neighbor's suffering is very much on our minds. Many local organizations and businesses are collecting supplies and funds to rush into those hard hit areas. There are many opportunities to give support and I appreciate all the ways these organizations make it easy for people like us to chip in and help out. Food Lion supermarkets are matching all donations up to one million dollars. I feel certain they will make that goal and have two million dollars to send for disaster relief. Every day my Facebook feed is filled with missing persons photos from families looking for loved ones who have not yet been found. It is truly heartbreaking and so we pray. 

Post Script: I stopped in our local Food Lion supermarket today and asked the cashier about making a donation for hurricane victims. She said she did not know anything about the fund drive. She mentioned that another customer asked the same question. I rechecked Food Lion's Facebook page and the announcement is still there. I don't think it is spam. It may be only Food Lions in a particular area are having the fund drive? I don't know.

 

The Commingling of Summer and Fall

 

It has rained so much and so steadily these past six days that I can only get as far as the screened porch to be outside for any amount of time. The rains couldn't come soon enough after the drought this summer. We lost a couple of established shrubs, a few perennials, and a tree from the drought. For this reason, I am happy to sit on the porch, listen to the rain, and watch everything turn green again.

In spite of the humid, tropical rain, the calendar says it is autumn. It's confounding because we have the air conditioner running again in order to keep the humidity down. The cool, fall weather we experienced two weeks ago is only a memory. I have learned that in the south, the delineation of summer and fall are not crisp and clear like the change up north. Summer and fall commingle for a long time here. 

My wall planter still looks happy and healthy. I don't have the heart to toss it on the compost pile in order to replace it with a fall plant. I decided to let it be and use some other pots for fall plantings. Some pots will sing, "Summer!" while others sing, "Fall!". My friend mixes artificial fall mums with other live grasses in her outdoor planters for fall. She has trouble with deer pulling up her mums and she said this solution works well. I have seen her arrangements on her front porch and they always look very nice. Driving by, one would never guess that they were artificial flowers. I was shopping with her recently at Hobby Lobby and she convinced me to give the artificial mums a try. They were forty percent off and they were nice looking. When I got home I decided to use them to replace the geraniums that had become leggy out on the screened porch. This porch is right off the kitchen and I see it every day, walking past the door. I must say, I like the splash of color the artificial flowers add there for fall! It makes me happy that the blooms will not fade before Halloween and I can even leave them out until Thanksgiving if I want. I will add some pumpkins to the display and the grandchildren can carve them  next month.

There is much yard work to be done before we can say the gardens are put away for winter. This is the season we should be out there getting it all done. For now, it will have to wait for the rain to pass which, according to the forecast, is still days away. I feel better about the delay by making a list of all the work that needs to be done. This helps me feel a little more in control of it all...even though it's really Mother Nature steering this ship. But one thing is for sure; she does not have control over my screened porch mums!

Fun Little Cookie Press Find

 

I drove Steve to an antique shop in Bedford, VA to look at some cassette tape decks our daughter spotted there a couple of weeks ago. It is funny that tape decks are something we buy in antique shops nowadays. "Back in the day" we shopped at stores dedicated to selling only stereo components. They were high tech stores in their time and people would carefully select components to build a stereo system suited to their needs. We still use all of our stereo components including a turntable for albums. Most of the units have needed to be replaced, one by one, over the years. Steve tried to replace the tape deck a couple of times with ones he found on ebay, etc. They all turned out to be duds. He was happy to have a chance to look at these two in person and test them before he purchased. He went prepared with a little bag of cords and testing gadgets.

Anyway, I browsed while he checked out the tape decks. I spotted the beautiful graphics on the box above in a kitchen display. I have seen these cookie presses before but never this deluxe version. All the attachments were there including the original manual and recipe booklet! It was priced at only $8.00 so I bought it.

I bake cookies a lot. I have some tried and true favorites like chocolate chip, oatmeal, molasses, New York Black and Whites, and pizzelles. Outside of those, it is fun to try new recipes. We noticed that the recipe booklet in this set spells cookie with a 'y', 'cooky'. These little butter cookie gems are popular in Italian bakery cookie trays. I cannot wait to test it! If they turn out well I will take them to my rug hooking group next Tuesday. : )

Nags Head, NC

 

 This year my daughter took each of her three children on their own, personal getaways. Her eldest came with us on our girls' Vermont ice skating holiday in February. Then she took her middle son to New York City for a fun-filled visit. Lastly, her youngest son chose to have a beach holiday. They asked if anyone else in the family would like to go along and I raised my hand. 

We booked rooms at First Colony Inn in Nags Head, NC. The inn was built in 1932 and is a registered historic landmark. I drove down to our daughter's home in North Carolina on Sunday morning and from there, we drove together to Nags Head. We had adjoining rooms on the first floor. We enjoyed everything this historic inn had to offer. The architecture, the gardens, the sparkling in-ground pool, the easy beach access, the friendly staff, and the breakfasts and social hour were all wonderful. The inn also provides beach chairs and an umbrella. We spent two glorious days relaxing at the ocean's edge. We built sand castles, played in the waves, swam in the pool, and ate dinners out. We also played miniature golf one evening at a really fun course called "Mutiny Bay", which is right across the road. The only thing that we didn't like at the inn was the musty smell in my bedroom and bath. As long as I kept the A/C turned up, it wasn't too bad in the room. But it was hard not to notice the damp smell in the bathroom. Given the age of the structure and the level of humidity in this climate, I understood the reason. This would not prevent me from staying here again. Although I might try a second floor room the next time. There are too many plusses about the inn that outweigh this one negative.

We prefer to avoid the southern beaches in the high heat of summer. September and October are my favorite months to visit the beach down here. For this trip, we had daytime temperatures in the mid to upper seventies and the ocean water was refreshing but not frigid. The water felt about the same temperature as the air.

It is a rare opportunity for me to have one-on-one time with any of our daughters these days. I cherished every moment of our time away. I loved digging in the sand with my grandson. My own inner child was at play when I knelt in the sand and ran in the waves. It was so easy to forget the problems of day-to-day life in this environment. Wednesday rolled around too soon and it was time to drive home. There are many things to do on the Outer Banks and we decided that another visit will be in order one day.

The inn holds a social hour every afternoon with a snack buffet and wine. Guests are welcome to mingle in the dining room or take plates out onto the deck or to their rooms.

Mutiny Bay Miniature Golf was a lot of fun. The eighteen hole course takes you up onto the deck of a pirate ship, up and down water features, and around perfectly landscaped greens. They even had water explosions as invisible cannonballs hit the water.

 

 

 

I don't think my grandson minded being doted on. It was his special getaway, so doting was a given!

Hobbies: Preserving and Stitching

 

 Summer lingers long in the mountains of Virginia. Yes, fall knocks at the door with cool nights and lovely days but our garden keeps producing tomatoes and peppers. The peppers, in particular, grow like gangbusters in September. Steve loves his hot peppers and preserving them is his delight. 

Recently, our neighbor gave us a dehydrator he wasn't using. It was a new toy for which we were very grateful! We got to work right away by dehydrating cherry tomatoes and Steve's peppers. The dried tomatoes will come in handy on focaccia or pizzas this winter. As for the peppers, Steve grinds the dehydrated peppers into powders. He sprinkles them on pretty much all of his food. He also loves to give them away to hot-pepper-loving friends. 

The crazy thing is, by the time I purchased the spice jars with sprinkle lids to put the pepper powder into, and replace the tape in the label maker, and buy a new grinder (the old one died), we probably could have purchased all the hot pepper powder in town. However, this way was  much more fun. Hobbies can be                                                                             expensive!                                                                                                                           

My contribution to expenses in the hobby realm was to rent an Airbnb with two friends for three days. We try to do this once or twice a year in order to concentrate on hooking, sewing, or whatever with no interruptions. It is also a lot of fun.

For this trip, we only drove an hour and a half away to Baseye, VA. It is a resort area for skiers and golfers, of which we do neither. But the area has Airbnb's available for not a huge cost. When split three ways, the cost is actually minimal. 

I brought three projects with me to work on. All three have been on my "to do" list for several months. I purchased the poison ivy applique kit last year from Susan Gonzales at a gathering in Maryland. At the time, my arms were broken out in poison ivy and her design made me smile when I saw it. She calls it, "Itchin' To Stitch". The other embroidery was also purchased in Maryland, but at this year's gathering. It is a design by Teresa Miller of Teresa's Primitive Treasures from her and Robin Leuschen's book called "Primitive and Folk Art Fancies". I was able to complete these first two pieces at our getaway. I also  begin my third project which is a cross stitched winter scene. It is still on the hoop while I finish it up at home now. It felt really good to be in a creative zone for three days, especially with friends. We talk and laugh, go out for a meal, eat ice cream, and appreciate how blessed we are to have this time away.

I tacked the 8"x8" poison ivy applique onto a lidded basket from Amazon. I placed this on a table in the bathroom. It is a good place to hide the wipes. ; )

 

The pumpkin flower embroidery is installed on a sliding lid box, also sold at Teresa's Primitive Treasures on Etsy.

Changes and Seasons

 

The hum of the air conditioner is finally silent. The house has been closed up tight all summer to keep out the heat. Finally, we can open the windows and let the cool air flow through the rooms. This is what I call good sleeping weather. Summer is winding down.

The lines in this beautiful field caught my eye when I was driving down our road. Gathering in the last cutting of hay is another reminder that summer is ending. It is a bittersweet time. I rejoice with the cooler air but I am also melancholy. The shorter daylight is noticeable. We begin turning inward, into our homes earlier in the evening, closer toward a source of warmth that no longer comes from the sun. We light the lamps earlier and we add an extra blanket onto the bed.

Like the golden light that arrives in September; Steve and I are entering our golden years. Our working years are winding down, our children are raised, and the "building up" of our life is almost done. We are talking about what retirement might look like for Steve and how we can achieve it. Our focus is changing toward preserving the harvest that has been our life's work and preparing for winter. It is bittersweet. 

Last night he and I sat in a classroom together along with a bunch of other folks. We were there to learn more about Social Security and retirement. The classroom setting reminded me of another time we sat in a class together, forty years ago. Steve was in his sixth and final year of college and I was working to support us. I was very pregnant with our first daughter and it had been a tough week for me at work. I decided to take the next day off to decompress. I must have been very emotional from the pregnancy  because my eyes were red and puffy from crying the night before. Rather than leave me home alone, Steve invited me to go to class with him. He made it sound like it would be fun. It was not. I felt so out of place in that Power Engineering class among all those engineering students. I looked a wreck. I was so big and pregnant and the fluorescent lights hurt my red and puffy eyes. The math was way over my head and it took all my willpower to look as though I had a clue. I seem to recall feeling physically uncomfortable with the pregnancy, either from my bladder or maybe it was gas. Oh Lord. But we were young and so in love! A new beginning was just around the corner for us and we felt like the world was ours for the taking.  

Can it already be forty years gone by? Are we really now sitting in a retirement class? It is a sobering thought and it gives me pause to stop and assess my life. 

So far, September has been lovely. Summer is leaving us in a kind and gentle fashion. I can still wear sandals and the sun still puts color on my skin. I pray this season of life will also be kind to us. For some reason, this Bible verse from Psalm 121:1-2 comes to mind as well as the song following.

I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the LORD, which made heaven and earth.

Journey's End- New Hampshire

 

 

Breakfast is served from a buffet. The dining room tables are set with china and silver.

 

 

 

 

Our final destination on this journey was the Follansbee Inn on Kezar lake. The inn is only a fifteen minute drive from our daughter's house and we love staying there. It is located right on the shore of Kezar Lake. They have a nice dock with kayaks and paddle boards for guests to use. It is a delight to walk down to the dining room each morning to see what is served for breakfast. Every breakfast is noteworthy and the inn is renown for their creative breakfast dishes. 

Chelsea and her husband and three boys have lived in New Hampshire for many years now. Steve and I know the drive from New York to New Hampshire by heart. The three hour drive itself is a dream because we drive straight across the state of Vermont. I love this drive. I have driven it in every season and it is always beautiful. There are fun little stops like the Vermont Country Deli in Brattleboro and white clapboard towns with antique shops along the way. We have stopped at breweries and scenic overlooks. The mountains covered in pine, maples, and shimmering birch never disappoint.

 

On our first night at Chelsea's we had a lobster boil. Lobsters were only $7.99 a pound at the local market. Late summer is the best time to enjoy fresh lobster.  We cooked and dined outside because it is a messy meal after all. The boys were excited about the whole thing. Eating lobster is never a boring meal and the boys are pros at it. 

 

I was impressed by four-year-old Eliot's ability in the kayak.

There is a lovely sitting area under the pines with many chairs, picnic table and hammock.

We spent two days swimming and paddling around on Kezar Lake. On one day, all six of us went out on three kayaks and two paddle boards and paddled our way to the island and back. That was fun! We went out for ice cream, visited Cheslea's potter friend at her studio, had a potluck at the local library, and had grown up visits every evening after the boys were tucked into bed. As always, it was very hard to part ways. Our consolation is that Chelsea's family will come down to visit us in Virginia this fall so we were able to say, "See you soon" instead of, "Goodbye".

A Day Around Albany, New York

 

The time has long passed for us to ever move back home. Even so, this place holds our families' history and it is where we feel most at home. Our brothers and sisters are still there and we make this journey home to reconnect with our roots. It is all about family...and food!

Albany was built on the Hudson River and was first claimed by Henry Hudson for the Dutch in 1606. It is the second oldest chartered city in the country. In earlier days it was surrounded by farmland and has mountains to the north (Adirondack), and south (Catskills). Because of its location on the Hudson River, many immigrants entering the country through Ellis Island in the early twentieth century came up the river and settled here. 

We arranged to picnic with my sister and brother-in-law at Thatcher Park on the Helderberg Escarpment. We had many family picnics here and we always loved hiking the Indian Ladder Trail. We decided to drive through the city on our way west of Albany so we could stop at Ragonese's Italian Imports on New Scotland Ave. to have sandwiches made. Boy, was I in foodie heaven! The sandwiches and salads were excellent as were the olives, cookies and candies. We followed New Scotland Avenue all the way through Altamont and on to Thatcher Park. The weather was cool and we needed sweatshirts to keep warm. It was refreshing and I was loving it. We ate under a picnic shelter and then walked through the woods and along paths. I could not get enough of the pines and their wonderful scent. The Helderberg Escarpment is a geological wonderland. Way back in time, it was the shoreline of an enormous lake, of which the Hudson River now flows at the very bottom. Over time, sediment layers fossilized and the area is now littered with prehistoric fossils of sea life. On this day, I bent down to pick up a round stone from a stream bed and discovered that it was not a stone but a perfectly fossilized clam!

A beautiful day for a picnic in the pines.

 

Sediment layers along the stream beds shed fossils.

We meandered along country roads on the way home to my sister's house in East Greenbush. Although lunch was filling, I still had room for a fish fry from Gene's. They don't have these where we live in Virginia so I try to have at least two or three while we are in New York. : ) It was a good day.

These fish fries were from Ted's Fish Fries, which we had on a different night. I prefer Gene's Fish Fries but I forgot to take a photo of my fish fry at Gene's. Gene's has the best cole slaw, too.

 

Summer Travel - Back in Time to Upstate New York

 August is my favorite summer month to make our trek to New York and New England. By August the heat in Virginia is monotonous and I appreciate some cool weather relief. Our first stop this summer was back home to the Albany area to visit brothers and sisters. The temperature gauge in the car slowly dropped as the miles north ticked by. We found the welcome relief I was longing for. It felt good to be outside all week without the need to escape the sun and heat.

Before we reached Albany, we stopped in Fultonville, New York to visit the Auriesville Shrine. I went to this shrine with my parents, aunt, and sister a couple of times back in the 1960's when I was young. My memories of the shrine were vague. They were also from a child's perspective. I wanted to see it again as an adult and with a mature understanding of our faith. The shrine marks the place where three Jesuit missionaries were martyred by the Mohawk Indians in the 1640's.  The history of the shrine can be found HERE.

 

Stations of the cross along the pathways were beautifully done in mosaic. There was another set of stations that went up to a hill of prayer.

 The grounds were not as I remembered it and it was difficult to get my bearings. The trees were all fifty years larger and the entire perspective was different than from my memory. However, it was more beautiful than I remembered. We must have visited it on a feast day when I was young because I remember there being a lot of visitors walking along the paths. Today it was quiet and serene. The place is rustic and has the northern, woodsy, Adirondack feel to it even though it is not located in the Adirondacks. Each path leads to different contemplative spaces with statues, prayers, chapels, and a church. Steve and I walked along the pathways and read the various plaques before attending Mass in the large, circular church. There was more to see than we allowed time for. The grounds aren't overly expansive but it is a contemplative space and one feels led to stop and pause for a time at each location. I was sorry the gift shop closed before we could get to it because I wanted to find some books to further explore the history of the shrine.

The Kateri Chapel built in the 1800's at the foot of the Hill of Torture.

 

The coliseum where Mass is held, built in the 1930's.

 

I am glad we had the opportunity to make the pilgrimage here this year. It took a memory from childhood and brought it to life and into the present moment. It also gave me a deeper appreciation for the holiness of this place and the sacrifices the Jesuits made. (Ever since reading The Musket and the Cross, I have been fascinated with the early explorers and settlers of North America and the interactions with the various native tribes.) Rather than completely satisfy my questions and curiosity, our visit to the Auriesville Shrine has left me feeling the need to go back again. I guess I now understand my mother's desire to take us there on more than one occasion. It was a gift she gave to me, perhaps without realizing it.

The August Garden

 

Here we are already in August! Thanks to hurricane Debby we had an abundant soaking. I can hear the plants all giving a sigh of relief from the drought of July. I tried to be proactive in the garden this year by pulling up vegetable plants as they finished producing. The two back beds, center and right, had Swiss chard, beets, snow peas, radishes, and lettuce. As one crop finished, I planted a succession of another up until now. Those two beds are empty except for a few beets. My goal was to plant one more crop of seeds with zinnias. I got sidetracked with canning tomatoes and pulling weeds so the zinnias never happened. It is a shame because they are always a bright and cheery flower, good for cutting, and they bloom well into October here. However, I have two consolations to make up for no zinnias. One is that the garden still looks fairly tidy and "alive" rather than scraggly and dead. The second are the beautiful hollyhocks, which are new this year, to the left of the shed. 

I had hollyhocks in that spot several years ago until Steve planted a hops plant and it became a monster and choked out the hollyhocks. The hops was invasive and required aggressive pruning, which we did not do. In addition, the dried hops weren't brewing a beer that Steve felt made it worth keeping the plant. Last year we finally pulled the hops plant out. I left that area empty with the hope of returning hollyhocks there. I searched for hollyhocks seeds or plants in all the garden centers around here but could not find any. One day I was rummaging in my seed box for something and I found an old packet of hollyhocks seeds. I felt like I won a prize! The packet was outdated by a couple of years but I figured I had nothing to lose. I planted them and they germinated! The, within a week, the resident rabbits had eaten them down to stubs. I sprayed them with Deer Off and that kept the rabbits from eating them again. Now they are big and beautiful and blooming. I couldn't be more pleased. Steve's mom always had hollyhocks growing near her back door and they remind me of her. This is the view of the garden that I see out of our kitchen sink window. I keep an eye on the garden from here and it gives me pleasure to see everything growing. 

Believe it or not, our county schools went back into session this week. When we lived in New York, the garden was  spent by the time school opened in September. School in August confuses my ancient internal time keeping clock where I associate the seasons with what grows when and what activities take place when. The heat, humidity and growing things tell me it is still high summer. The school buses do not belong in the picture not to mention that we haven't even vacationed yet. August is the best time to be in New England, when the ocean is finally warm enough to step into. I'm going to ignore the school calendar and stay on the summer clock a bit longer.

Quilt Finish- It Took Me Long Enough!

 

 I finally bound this lap quilt I started last year. It's called, "Carousel" from the book, " Simply Fat Quarters Quilt Book, It's Sew Emma #ISE-901" The spring time color palette really caught my eye. I also thought it was a pattern that would not be too challenging for me since I do not quilt that often. 

I had it pieced together fairly quickly. Then, last summer, I dropped it off at Fork Mountain Quilt Shop in Rocky Mount, Virginia to have it quilted. It was there for about six weeks waiting its turn. Since the pattern was all straight lines and right angles, I chose a swirling quilt design as a contrast. I have no excuse for not binding it when I picked it up last August. I tucked it into the blanket chest where it sat for an entire year! 

I finally bound it last Tuesday when two friends and I got together for the day to do hand work. We try to get together at least once a month to sit and stitch and use that time to get some work done. I targeted the binding on this quilt to be my project for that day. It feels really good to have it finished!

Putting Up for Winter, Peaches and Lavender

 As if our own garden doesn't keep us busy enough, the local farm stands are offering wonderful, local produce that are too hard to pass up. It is officially peach season! I stopped at Ikenberry's to buy a bag of peaches to make a peach galette for dessert on Saturday. I ended up buying a larger amount so that I could make some jam too. As much as I hate weeding and laboring in the garden, I love canning and saving food. 

In the late 1970's we were renting an apartment in the city of Albany, New York. Steve was in college and I was working in an office to support us. I longed to live in the country. We took drives and dreamed to one day make that come true. Back then, I subscribed to Mother Earth News. It peaked my interest about country life, especially putting food up by canning. I knew nothing about canning and quickly learned that it is not complicated. I started canning produce for my father from his garden. I remember making tons of pickled beets for him. I canned cranberries from the supermarket at Thanksgiving and gave them as gifts. We bought produce from farm stands and I canned that too. I would can anything I could get my hands on.

We also listened to Prairie Home Companion on the radio every weekend. I recall Garrison Keilor singing a song about canning that I will never forget. The thought of those stained glass colored jars all lined up on a shelf waiting to be opened on a cold winter's day to feed family around the table still fills my heart with joy.

Peaches and jalapeno peppers ready to simmer

Sitting pretty until I take them to the basement

Dried lavender buds stripped from their stems

 Another wonderful harvest from the garden is lavender. We have three lavender bushes around the edge the garden. I never picked the blooms this year so they all dried on the stalk. It was now time to cut all the stalks back. After that was done, we gathered them up and took them to the patio. It was a pleasant evening with a soft breeze cooling the air. Steve fixed us each a drink and we sat with a bowl between us and stripped all the buds off the stalks into the bowl. I have the bowl in the house now, where the humidity is lower and the buds can dry more. I stir it a few times a day to help the drying process along. The aroma of the lavender is released each time I stir it. The house smells wonderful! Usually I will make little sachets with the lavender but for now I can't think past the bowl.

Progress on Apothecary Rose and Finished Stitches

 

I am slow on getting this rug completed. It is a large three feet by four feet and getting heavier each time I put more wool on it. I need to use the floor frame to work on it and that is too cumbersome to lug around for hooking with friends. So, I prefer to work on this at home. I just need to set my mind to completing it and put in a good two or three days of hooking and it will be ready to steam and bind.

I did finish stitching the "Hens Pin Keep" pattern by Stacy Nash. At ten by ten inches, I think it is too big to be a pin keep. I love the pattern and I will look for a frame so I can hang it in the dining area in place of a snowman sampler that is currently on the wall. I am beginning to swap pieces out with the seasons now. The same is true for some of the rugs.

I also finished stitching "Tribute to Summer Sampler" by Stacy Nash. I meant to hang this in the kitchen in place of two other Stacy Nash pieces that I switch out for the seasons. I have one for fall and one for winter. This was meant to be in place for the summer. It turned out too small to hang in that particular spot so I haven't rushed to frame it yet. I love the border and the simple hues of color on this one. It will serve equally as well hung in another location. Stacy's pattern front shows this framed in a gold frame which I think looks very pretty. I will probably do the same. Neither cross stitch has been ironed or blocked yet.

These are the things that have kept me busy when it is too hot to be outside or I have some quiet time to relax. : )