The Mountain Thymes

"Everything you need is already within you." It's rainy, dark, dank, and raw with a freeze warning of 26 tonight.  This dreary high hit 50 degrees today which called me to the kitchen to brew up a wonderfully warm Butternut Squash Soup (easy and comforting) which we're having this evening with chicken and an Irish potato recipe, Kale Colcannon Potatoes.                                                        Squash Soup   I'm still collecting recipes.  What started with one 3-ring binder of new recipes four years ago, has expanded to 4 binders.  This winter when I'm stuck in the house, I'll weed out the recipes that don't thrill our taste buds anymore and replace them with improved recipes.  ...

Perfect temperature and humidity this time of year.  Mornings range between 35 and 40 degrees.  By the time we headed into town to do errands around 10:30, capris and short sleeve t-shirts are most comfortable ( for me, not Cliff).  Today reached 77 with sunny skies. In town it's a good 4-5 degrees warmer than the mountain.  Lots of leaf-peepers traveling through Murphy but color is not good so far this year.  This afternoon Cliff installed a pegboard in my shed for soaker-hose storage and for other fall storage items.  October has been so mild that I planted more winter greens seeds this afternoon.  The kale, mustard, and collards are up and I planted a few more seeds of each.  They will be hay-covered as soon as  the consistent cold settles in and we should have greens for most of the winter.  The Farmers Almanac mentions "snow" quite a few time for us this winter but we won't knows how much until it happens.   So this afternoon,...

Update on Cliff................... After an immune booster injection, 2 tbs of AFC rapid immune recovery three times a day (which looks like the fish emulsion I apply to the vegetable garden), an antibiotic, cough medicine with codeine, tea and honey, and whatever else he's taking, he finally slept last night and is feeling so-o-o much better today.  He's back to driving "Miss Daisy" around and has resumed his kitchen chores.  Thank goodness!  He cleans up after my cooking.  I love to cook but dislike the cleaning and returning things to where they should be stacked and placed.  This morning he noted that I didn't need to stagger the glasses when emptying the D/W because they fit nicely the way he places them.  chuckle!  Nice to have him upright and back in the kitchen with me again.  I told him he needs to stay healthy because I still have many more years to bake and make soups and I don't want to do this alone.  For now we feel we have t...

The women in our yoga class delight in Cliff's presence on his mat.  About three years ago his beginning yoga attendances found him at the back of the room with concern about judgements.  He sat on his mat once a week when Susan taught on Mondays.  She's also our hair stylist.  Well, my stylist.  Cliff just wants a cut and "let me out of the chair."  Susan lives her yoga in her life and was a wonderful instructor for Cliff to start under.  At that time I attended Susan's classes on Mondays and Marie's classes on Wednesdays and Fridays.  The first time I spent seventy-five minutes with Marie, I thought I was going to need CPR before the class was finished. Marie is only a year younger than me  but I found her class so challenging and invigorating that I continued with her.  Before Cliff started attending her classes, he would always ask me what her Wednesday routine was when I arrived home because it gave him plenty of time to decide if h...

It's been a delightfully warm fall......so far.  Today the National Weather Service in Morristown, TN issued a wind advisory so this afternoon we placed lawn chairs and loose objects back in the shed to prepare for Hurricane Nate's wild wind and rain forecast.  Seventy-three years ago this week Cliff was born during a hurricane in Fort Meyers, Florida.  He said the hurricane wasn't named because there was no alphabet back in those days.  His  hospital was evacuated and the mothers placed in the psychiatric ward because it was the most secure building on the base.  That's his story and he's sticking to it. This morning we went to the 43rd John Campbell Folk School Fall Festival in Brasstown.  We prefer being there early and getting to view all the booths before the throngs of visitors clog the paths.  There were more than 250 fine craft exhibitors and more than 30 artisans demonstrating traditional and contemporary crafts.   On various stage...

Ahhhh........ the gentle sounds of autumn in the mountains.  The few trees with yellow leaves have begun giving them up to the breezes.  We've added walking to our routine now that the humidly uncomfortable summer weather is dwindling.  Our feet scuffed leaves along the path in Konehete Park this morning bringing to mind childhood memories of Hudson and Clinton.  One day on my walk home from high school, I removed my shoes on River Street and finished the rest of the way barefoot.  Fall leaves are meant to be raked into mountainous piles and lunged in.  Fall leaves are to be throw high in the air and enjoyed as they float back to earth.   Fall leaves are for pressing and saving between heavy book pages for later memories.  On the back porch this afternoon, a few leaves float by me as the last three or four hummingbirds hit the feeders.  A few acorns ping the roof as a reminder that soon more will follow. This morning I discovered another hu...

We are so thankful we don't reside or have a house on the market in Florida now.   At the gym two people told me that they just closed on their Florida properties in the past couple of weeks.  There's increased Floridian traffic on our roads and in the Ingles supermarket and Walmart parking lots.  Just like after Katrina demolished homes and displaced families,  many families from Texas and Florida are being forced to relocate.  After having been through Charlie, Francis, and Jeanne back in 2004, we found ourselves watching updates on Irma and empathizing with residents as they boarded up their homes and prepared for the worst.  Our forecast called for two days of rain with 25 mph winds and gusts up to 50 in the higher elevations.  Cliff stacked the lawn chairs in the shed so they wouldn't end up in the creek.  I removed the wind chimes from the porch and tucked potted plants safely against the house out of the wind.  There are reports...