The Mountain Thymes

Spoke to a farmer friend the other day when I was wandering aimlessly around Wally-World.  I felt better when he told me this year his garden was disappointing him.  He's had to replant beans when some did not germinate and other seedlings look as if they need geritol.  I thought I had done something wrong.......I may have........but don't feel as badly now.  Due to the mild winter, we have more insects attacking our leafy vegetable and one of the cauliflower plants looks like Swiss cheese.   The other night we had our garden broccoli with grilled turkey breast........not our turkeys!  Wild turkeys are too hard to catch.  Sunday afternoon bought the first dozen Tennessee peaches and cream corn sold  from the back of the farmer's truck along the 4-lane.  It's been a busy Memorial weekend in Murphy.......lots of tourists experiencing white water rafting, motorcycle rides, zip-lining, hiking trails, eating.............  Swiss cheese cau...

This morning I'm blogging from the kitchen porch.  Crows caw in the distance and woodpeckers hammer the trees in our front garden.  Hummingbirds visit their feeders as early as 6 AM.  I was greeted by one as I turned the hose on to water the front flower garden, refresh the ground water dish and the birdbath. What a great time of year!  The cool weather vegetables that were planted late March/early April are being picked and eaten daily.  We've consumed so much lettuce, we now hop out to the porch instead of walking.  Friday I picked the last of the red leaf, the mixed  lettuce and both kinds of spinach.  Spinach was starting to bolt.  We've given away eight bags of lettuce to friends and still have five more in the refrig.  Today I'll make a couple spinach quiches to freeze and maybe blanch and freeze the remaining spinach.  A few more broccoli are ready to be cut and Swiss chard is looking good.  Carrots are weak and wimpy an...

A few weeks ago we joined the 21st century by adding texting to our outdated "dumb-phones."  It happened because my good neighbor on upper Boulder Creek Rd would text me during the day to just ask a quick question or feel the need to tell me something that didn't warrant a phone call which usually led to a longer conversation than we expected when one subject continued to open another dialogue.  Immediately after leaving the Verizon store, I texted, ????, notified John, Mark, and Mary that we just added text to our plan.  Being a virgin texter, I accidentally sent the message to another Mary who used to be our neighbor on Candlewick St. in Florida so later that day I received a reply asking "who are you?" followed by a phone call from the Florida Mary.  The drawback with a "dumb-phone" is the time it takes to reply or compose a text. We don't have a keyboard, or whatever it's called, so one has to strike the number key the number of times it t...

Last Wednesday, after our regularly scheduled lunch with Pat and Larry at DTP, (Downtown Pizza), Cliff and I headed northwest toward Chattanooga with our final destination being the Kansas City area.  The cooler set in the backseat transported a variety of foods from peppermint patties to garden fresh lettuce.   We packed birthday gifts, a cake mix, our favorite pillows, and even included my yoga mat.  Early that evening we booked into a Candlewood Inn in Paducah, Ky, ate a complimentary spaghetti dinner, and relaxed in our room before closing our eyes.  Thursday morning the drive continued and we arrived at John and Carolyn's place by mid-afternoon.  Mark happily planned Friday off from work to spend with us and that afternoon we met Jen, his girlfriend, and sat out on the back deck under his canopy of huge aged trees enjoying wine and cheese.  John and Carolyn joined us after work and Mark cooked up burgers on his Big Green Egg.  His backyard is tota...

Lettuce and spinach are table ready.  We've been eating fresh lettuce now for about a week. I've had to apply my pungent soapy solution after each rain to keep the tiny insects from munching the leaves.  One type of leaf in the mixed row is so full of chew holes that it looks like lace. Potatoes  Planted sunflower, nasturtium, and marigold seeds earlier this week.  Summer squash and cucumbers are up.  Set all twelve tomatoes and too many peppers, both yellow and red.  Gave away quite a few then planted all the ones I couldn't give away.  Have two eggplants in.  No melons this year.  Only have room now for the winter squash, which I will plant when we get back from our visit with Mark and John.  I've noticed  a tremendous difference in the quality of the plants this year due to heritage or organic seeds that I purchased from my two seed catalogs.  Mountain laurel are in full bloom all throughout the forest....

It's always an adventure living up here in the mountains.  Yesterday afternoon we noticed a tufted titmouse flying at the peak of our windows on the south side of the house.  It then flew around to the north side and continued the effort of what seemed to me like trying to get into the house.  The bird effortlessly worked at locating an entrance.  When it tired itself out, it rested on the window ledge, then resumed the effort.  I assumed it thought the nest was somewhere in the house.  Another theory was its GPS was outdated and the bird needed to pay the update fee and connect to all the satellites for better coordinates.  Anyway, I was heartbroken watching the little guy continuously thrust himself into the window while making distressed calls and cries.  I consulted my Cornell Ornithology site but couldn't find any answers.  Then called my other source of scientific information, my partner in crime and a very knowledge science teacher in ...