The Mountain Thymes

Lightening fast fiddle playing, banjo pickin', keeping time on the doghouse bass, mandolin, and guitar strumming was the first concert of the season in the open barn at the John Campbell Folk School last night.  We enjoyed Bluegrass music performed by four very talented locals from neighboring Culberson and Shoal Creek, NC, and Cherrylog and Dahlonega GA.  Cliff helped me set up at the famers market this morning then rode his motorcycle out to a friend's house to play with towers, co-axes, and tangled wires.  Across from my tent was this sign made by a nine-year old boy who's at the market weekly with his mother.  Sometimes he's a cartoonist.  Other times he's selling painted rocks.  Today this was his schtick. He told me he talked to some pretty strange people.  "Kids says the darndest things." Unusual day today.  A large per cent of us have lived in Florida at some point so at the market one often hears vendors and visitors asking what part of Fl

I've sat down to blog for the last 5-6 days trying catch up on my blog but haven't completed one yet because the computer has been running so slowly that I get up, walk away before I  take a hammer to it.  Then my brain gets all scattered.  I loose focus and tackle another project, like go to the garden and pull weeds, do a fish emulsion fertilizing, pick more spinach, lettuce, and now Swiss chard, stand and plan where I can squeeze in some more seeds, and sometimes stand and just admire the towering sunflowers and yarrow.  Love these cool mountain mornings.   Chilly enough to run the heat when we first get up until the sun warms the house.  The past several mornings have been around 36 degrees with temperatures topping off around 70 by late afternoon.   I didn't set up at the market Saturday because winds gust of 20-30 mph were predicted and my aprons would have become colorful kites.  Latest harvest from my morning walk to the garden. Lettuce Merlot, Russian Red ka

Making plans for a vacation, even just a little get-away, is enjoyable.  The vacation releases me from  the dilemma of preparing the next meal and Cliff, the clean-up of my messy cooking.  While on vacation, our biggest problem was which of the hundreds of restaurants in the Mount Pleasant/Charleston area should we hit.  When visiting the ocean, I want fresh seafood for lunch and dinner and weather permitting, to sit on a patio overlooking the water.   On the patio overlooking the inter-coastal on our first evening.  Temperature was beginning to cool down.                                                     Shem Creek Bar & Grill.  Great seafood. While walking around historic downtown Charleston we stopped at the Noisy Oyster for a fresh seafood lunch, walked again and stopped for ice-cream and rich creamy Italian gelato.  Another night we ate at Sticky Fingers BBQ which was across the street from our hotel.  Easy to get to for tired tourists. Cliff sitting with his ne

We didn't set up at the farmers market Saturday as planned.  With thunderstorms lurking in the forecast, weary bodies that didn't move as quickly as needed to be set up by 9 AM, it was an easy decision to forgo the market. We arrived home from our week in Charleston late Friday afternoon to find there had been no rain all week and the garden in dire need of watering.  Despite the absence of rain, the weeds flourished.  Yellow tree pollen blanketed the porch and the outside furniture.  Saturday we did some garden chores, cleaned off the layers of pollen so more pollen could take its place. We added more compost to the potatoes in the 4x4 and added more boards for height. Fifteen more potatoes.  Wayne's Feed was out of the straw I needed to mulch around the hills so will pick some up when his delivery arrives this week. The dreaded dastardly Colorado potato beetle.  The vile creature that took over my potatoes last June when we drove to Florida for Richard and Sarah&