The Mountain Thymes

Yesterday, the youngest of the four children, turned forty.  Mark shared a birth date with his grandfather, who would have been ninety-eight. in his new Toyota Tacoma No, it's not a gift from us........................ HAPPY 40TH BIRTHDAY, MARK!

Picked the last of the snow peas and pulled up the vines yesterday.  Worked the clay to loosen again and looking through my seed to see what to plant in that spot.  Summer squash and cucumbers are up.  This year I'm trying a more vertical approach to grow the squash which should allow more room for me to overplant other vegetables.  My first grapes!!!  After watching reruns of I Love Lucy, I know how to stomp grapes for my wine this fall.   View of the woods from the south window in my studio.  I added a bird feeder with squirrel guard, which has worked so far, and cleared a rough path that leads down to the creek.  View from the garage porch looking toward the garden.  From the garage door toward the house. Just had to share this latest photo from Lauria's Facebook.  Jim is sound asleep napping on the couch while  Benjamin climbs all over him trying to fit goggles on his face.  That's one tired daddy. Newest photo of Christopher watching tv

Our much anticipated Saturday morning Cedar Valley Farmer's Market began the first weekend in April.  Along with the arrival of the hummingbirds, this was another exciting sign of spring.  Each year the tailgate markets brings more vendors.  This year I was able to purchase heritage seeds, compost tea, and black dirt from a new local farmer.  The Unaka Soap Lady crafts her own soaps with ingredients like coconut, olive, and almond oils; pure mountain water; shea and cocoa butters; Moroccan argan oil and tea tree oil.  This one is her Facetime soap and my favorite, so far.  Next week I'll try the sample of a soap that smells like cherry chocolates.  Another new vendor I visit weekly sells the most decedent breakfast energy squares made from fruits or vegetables and ancient grains like spelt, amaranth, or karmut.  My favorite vendor still is The Candy Mountain Farm. We  buy peasant bread and 10-grain from their youngest son, Eric, who is 19 now and has been baking breads and sel

Late birthday post........      Child number three turned forty-four years old!! last Tuesday, May 14.  I'm late posting but did get John's card mailed out on time. On that date in 1969, the last Chevy Corvair was built.  Aquarius/Let the Sun shine In was a hit song.  Gas was $0.35 a gallon, a dozen eggs cost $0.62, your first-class letter could be mailed for $0.06, the average cost of a new home was $27,900, and your income was $8,389.00.      John was a happy-go-lucky, good-natured baby, always smiling and pleasant.  Once he could dress himself, he had Izod-golf-polo-shirts and Adidas-sneakers taste, but we had a  K-mart budget.  At 15, he got himself hired at the Deltona Country Club picking up golf balls and schmoozing with doctors and rich old retired men who generously tipped this energetic and ambitious teenager.  With his earnings, he purchased an old 50cc motorcycle (legal at 15 on a learner's permit) which he drove wide open at 45 mph down Elkcam Blvd leaving a

My goodness..................time flies when you're having fun.  Cliff has been very busy in his new ham shack drilling holes and putting wires and coax cables in places and stacking radios, soldering stuff, researching and repairing, and watching Hunt for Red October for the 487th time on his laptop.  I've been sewing washable cotton shopping bags to sell in a friend's shop.  I still need to finish painting my room and get the ladder out.  Still love my windows and the view of the forest.  From the west window is the huge newly piled clump of felled trees, with huge exposed roots, from the garage clearing.............very unsightly. I had considered purchasing a chipper/mulcher so we could begin chipping the branches and use the wood chips in the flower beds and to stop erosion, but after speaking to a neighbor who owned one, decided to nix that idea.  Instead, she suggested we cut the branches and make piles that will slowly rot and animals and birds will use the piles

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY Retta, Mother Father, me, and Chip I remember one time my mother took my sister and me on a picnic.   I don't think she planned to picnic because we were just out for leisurely drive when she stopped at an A&P, bought a loaf of white bread, a small jar of mayo, and sliced bologna.  My mother loved stone walls and woods, covered bridges, wild flowers that decorated the sides of the road, and the serenity that nature brought her.  At times solitude was her companion. Other times when she craved a connection with nature, she took us to Walden Pond in Concord.  But this day was an impromptu picnic along the side of a wooded road.  She found a spot where we could sit on a rock wall and set out the bread, mayo, and bologna.  Discovering that we didn't have any way to spread the mayo, she picked up a small stick and brushed off the loose bark, dipped it in the mayo jar, made herself a sandwich, and handed us the "knife" to do the same.

Standing at our kitchen window at 6:20 am, we spotted a wild bunny doing a quick-step down the sloping driveway toward the west woods.  Cliff laughed and told me it was probably heading straight for the lettuce patch in the garden.  With coffee cup in hand, I went outside, stood at the back of the porch and watched through the trees to see what its destination was.  When the bunny arrived at the lettuce, I figured it was all over but the munching, but it zigzagged up and down the garden and disappeared into the tangle of old tree roots.  Four years ago when we had trees removed for the garden area, one huge clump of uprooted tangle remained at the edge of the garden and there was no way to remove or cut it.  Over the years the root ball has sprouted wild iris, moss, and tiny blue flowers.  Carolina wrens, cardinals, other low nesting birds, and bunnies have made homes in the nooks and crannies safe from coyotes and other predators.  Since this unsightly clump has become a habitat for a

55 degree mornings (is there a degree symbol hidden somewhere in computers?) At 6:25 AM, right on schedule, the hummingbird buzzed by my coffee cup and drank from the little tube feeder at the geranium window box.  Wild turkeys gobbled in the distance.  We don't see them passing through our woods as often, but they do parade their little "gobblets" across the road on lower Boulder Creek.  A few minutes later while putting on my face and doing my hair, I spotted two deer out the bathroom window nibbling fresh green leaves.                                                                                 female A male and female rose-breasted grosbeak appeared at our feeders a few days ago during the rain.  We've never seen them before so it was quite a thrill to see some new birds. The female doesn't play well with others as she chases other birds off the feeder.                                                                                  male grosbeak