The Mountain Thymes

Zero per cent chance of rain today.  You know how that goes.  As it turned out, today was a zero rain day.  Being the Memorial Day weekend, we headed to town earlier than usual, but not early enough.  Our spot was reserved for us but all the sturdy white tents had been set up for the very early vendors.  We had to set up an older flimsy green one but with no impending rain or winds, it worked out ok today.  Murphy's busy this holiday weekend so we were hoping it would be a profitable market day.                                                                      my tent set-up           ...

My bucket hats have gone international!  Anne, our English pastry lady, bought two hats a few weeks ago and sent them to her grandchild in the UK.  A week ago when we looked at the long-range forecast for our market day, it showed sunny and pleasant.  As the week went on, the forecast became gloomier.  We decided to set up anyway and take a chance that maybe the day would tun out to be mostly drizzly. One of my best days was a drizzle day.  Rain or shine there are the regulars who drop by for the farmers' fresh produce, grass-fed beef, eggs, locally grown flowers, herbs, Donna's goat cheese, and the Pie Guy's quiches.  Cliff brought up the weather app on his iphone around 11 and we started packing up as the radar showed a large mass of green and yellow heading toward us.  It rained all afternoon, all night, and is still raining now at 8am.  I need to get down to the garden and thin out the bok choy, radishes, and beets.  Spinach and lettuce...

 This morning while standing at the kitchen window sipping my coffee and waiting for the male hummingbird to hit the feeder, I caught sight of a deer emerging from the woods across the road heading toward our yard.  She walked straight to the front flower garden nibbling and tasting the wet new greens.  Following her lead were three more deer.   Delicious pansies.  She ate all but one yellow flower.  Maybe yellow has a bitter taste.  Other deer nibbled on the fresh rose leaves. These iris didn't appeal to them because they smelled the flowers and walked away.  Walking right down the driveway. We stood in the kitchen and watched them for about 15 minutes.  It always leaves us with such a peaceful calm feeling. Last weekend I put an order in to Joann Fabrics online for team fabrics to start a new line of aprons for the Farmers Market.  M...

Yesterday for Mother's Day we headed to the Longhorn Steakhouse in Ellijay, GA.  It opened at 11 am.  We arrived at 11:20 knowing that we'd never get in for an early afternoon seating.  At 11:20 we were handed a pager and told it would be about a 20 minute wait.  There must have been a line waiting for the doors to open because all tables and booths were filled.  We ordered our favorite Flo's Filet with a salad and a sweet potato.  Eating that early poses a problem because by 5 Cliff is hungry again and I don't feel like eating or cooking.  He suggested we hit the Sweet Tooth in Murphy and have an ice-cream.  He ordered the largest vanilla soft-serve dipped in chocolate and I had a small chocolate soft-serve dipped in cherry, not really what I felt like.  Eating chocolate and sugar that time of evening throws my system off and I don't sleep well.  That's exactly what it did and as tired as I was by 10pm, I couldn't fall asleep.  I t...

A r-e-a-l long time ago, I was just a little girl when I hurt myself playing in the backyard and blood  gushed out from the pinhole-size puncture and I became hysterical and stood screaming and flailing on the lawn bringing my poor mother running out the kitchen door expecting to see sheer catastrophe.  Her reaction seemed cold as she wiped the dot of blood from my finger and told me to go play.  I doubted that she loved me as I watched her return to the kitchen.  When I was a teenager, I thought she was the most out of touch person on earth.  I wasn't allowed to go out on a school night and on the weekends I had to be home by 11 pm.  How unfair.  The grey hairs I must have given her. Then as I grew up, she became smarter.  I remember her reading "By the shores of Gitche Gumee, by the shining Big Sea water.............." from The Song of Hiawatha, to us children as we sat around the table.  I can still smell the fresh-baked bread in the kit...

According to the radar map, the weather didn't look all that promising for today's Market.  The local hourly showed rain off and on, a mix of sun and clouds, with imbedded thunderstorms, but we packed the Kia and headed downtown anyway.  Other years when I was just a customer, on the rainy days the vendors were set up inside the L&N Depot building.  This morning when we arrived around 8:30, all the tents were set up outside and vendors were setting up their crafts and foods.  The farmers were totally set up with lines of customers buying freshly picked chard, spinach, lettuces, radishes, kohlrabi, sprouts, and more. Cliff strung up the straps for my apron display, set up the folding table for hats, yoga mat bags, and other crafts.   He then headed straight to the English pastry lady to socialize and get his chocolate chip cookie fix. Bought Swiss chard, spinach, purple radishes, big head of butter crunch lettuce from my favorite farmers. The Pie Gu...

So.............this morning I went to Dr. Nuelle's office in Blairsville, GA to see why my shoulder is causing such pain 24/7.  I toss and thrash all night waking every couple of hours.  Both knees yell at me.  My wrists burn and arm muscles are tight and achy.  The only joints that don't hurt are ankle and toes.  Dr. Nuelle very recently moved his office from the Riverstone Clinic in Blue Ridge, GA to the Blairsville Hospital and is still in the process of getting his rooms and equipment in place.  While Cliff and I were in the waiting room, this overweight disheveled custodial looking male asked the receptionists at the front desk if anyone had seen his keys.  They were in his pocket and now they're gone.  How does that happen?  For about 10 minutes he walked up and down the hall, finally borrowed the office staff keys and got into closets and rooms he needed to access.  I looked at Cliff and whispered that I hoped he wasn't the doctor...

Mark and Jen flew in from Kansas City, Mo on Thursday to spend a long weekend with us.  After we ate supper, Cliff threw some logs in the fire pit and we spent the cool evening wrapped in quilts relaxed around the fire with our wine. Friday morning Jen and I hit the gym for an hour of Pilates followed by a yoga class.  I needed to stretch my aching muscles and Jen got the kinks out from the travel day before.  Cliff and Mark read and snoozed at home then we all met at the Downtown Bakery for sandwiches. They have delicious homemade breads and pastries.  Jen wanted to walk around and see the downtown so we showed them Laundry Hill which Cliff and I used to walk until our doc told us it was verboten  at our age, terrible for our hips and knees.  Later that day we visited the Cherokee Wine Cellars and Fine Art Gallery for a wine tasting.  Spent the rest of the time sitting on the patio outback under the trees with our wines relaxing and talking. ...