The Mountain Thymes

The last couple of days have been glorious, low 70's and breezy.  Yesterday we washed the winter off the kitchen window.  Wasn't going to wash any windows until after Cliff did his spring pressure washing, but that window was pretty grubby and I spend a lot of time in my kitchen enjoying the view.  Hung a load of laundry out on the lines and on the wooden drier on the back porch.  This drives a couple of our neighbors crazy.   Yes.....that's an appliance out on the back of our North Carolina porch along side of the clean laundry.  We acquired the little freezer from a dear friend, put it in the kitchen, only to hear popping and crackling noises a few days after filling it with frozen foods.  Cliff noticed the compressor running extremely warm so the freezer is out until we find out what's happening.  I think we still have room for a sofa and recliner on the porch. It was so warm and breezy yesterday, even the jeans dried in a couple of hours.  We haven't built

"Your health is important.   Eat your vegetables !"  ~ fortune cookie from the Tin Loong lunch buffet  My mother could have written that fortune. After buying more Gold Rush apples at Mercier's Orchards last week, we stopped for the lunch buffet at Tin Loong in Blue Ridge.......best Chinese food around here.  We usually eat out at lunchtime because the prices are better and it allows us to eat out more often.   Funny how all the things we used to comment about regarding retired people are the things we now do!  Like Cliff says, " because we can ."  We even go out and clog the roads on a Sunday when we feel like trying new destinations.  The temp this morning was about 30 degrees at 6:30, a 16-degree drop from yesterday morning.  And once again we had a slow steady rain all day yesterday amounting to a little over a half-inch.  The ground is so saturated that here and there tree roots have become exposed from erosion and we notice more trees down and more f

On the road again............... We saw Willie Nelson live in concert last night!  It was a rush for us.  Ninety minutes of Willie live!  The only concerts we've attended are the small hometown kind where parking is easy and the price is right......cheap or free.  Also, there are very few performers or groups that I feel are worth fighting the crowds to see.  Andrea Boccelli is another I would love to see live and he's performing in Orlando tonight but tickets are in the hundreds of dollars so I'll never get to see him.  Willie's tickets were crazy reasonable. The Anderson Music Hall, located in Hiawassee, Georgia, is only about a 40-minute drive from Murphy.  We didn't know how early people would arrive and the concert was SRO so we were parked on the grounds at 5:30 for a 7:00 show.  Actually, we weren't the first ones on the lot and got a great parking spot.  There were no parking attendants.  People just pulled in one right after another and parked.  Wh

When my friend, Pat, goes to thrift shops, she picks up old magazine issues and shares them with me.  This morning I poured my freshly brewed cup of coffee, sat back in my recliner with the April/May 2007 issue of Mother Earth ready to read all the articles in this "giant garden issue."  The front cover pictured a greens garden and a wonderful rustic tipi trellis as the focal point of the garden.  This is how I plan to grow the cukes, peas, and beans this year.  Starting on page 125 were the directions and photos to make simple, beautiful garden fences and trellises.  Along the way, I read a few articles about raising chickens, how a family transformed a barn into their home, and how an Italian in Ridgefield, Connecticut prepares his fig tree to survive the cold winters.  As I flipped through the rest of the magazine looking for the simple, beautiful garden trellises title, I couldn't find it.  Flipping back through again, I came to pages 123, 124, 131.  Page 131?!? Someb

"Wouldn't it be boring if the journey threw no curves?" I have only two magazines subscriptions now...........two publications that I still need to hold in my hands, still need to read out on the porch with a cup of chai tea, even in the brisk crisp weather.  Sitting on the porch with a cup of tea and a computer on my lap just doesn't have the same enjoyment as physically turning the pages of a favorite magazine or book, but I've become more mindful of our environment so when old subscriptions ran out, there were no renewals.  I've always swapped and shared with friends or borrowed from the public library, but over the years have tried  become more aware of the impact newspaper and magazine publications have on our environment.  I keep all my Mother Earth issues for the recipes, esp. the breads, and the gardening tips, and even though I don't milk my own cows or raise my own bacon........yet........ I live vicariously through the homesteaders.  My March

Three years ago today, Olivia greeted the world and she's been a ball of energy ever since. The day was so cold with a bitter cutting wind.  Each time we went to visit Lauria and Olivia at the hospital, Hayden, Sofia, and Grant shivered and cringed as we ran across the parking lot.  HAPPY BIRTHDAY, OLIVIA!!!  Punxsutawney Phil is predicting six more weeks of winter but we won't mind if it's six more weeks like we've been having.  Farmer's Almanac says we'll have a couple of short wet-snow periods then back to the mild weather.  Our clay is so wet, I'm not sure when I can set my potatoes..............will have to talk to our local farmers and see what they advise.  Got my first seed order in the mail a few days ago............exciting!! I'll start the tomato seeds in the house in the next few days and leave them in the south window.  A first time try for me is the Broad Windsor Fava Bean.  When we were children, my father used to walk us down our road,