My Georgia grandmother once told me that the Brown Thrasher was her favorite bird. We were sitting in the back yard, which was all covered in pine straw, and each of us occupied a chair in the permanent ring of chairs where family and visitors often sat–especially mid-morning when it was maybe time for a cold coca-cola drunk from the little bottles that held that liquid back in the day.
I think now that my grandmother’s favorite color was brown, and that her eyes were such a lovely dark brown. And, I think that the Brown Thrasher is a big brown bird with an amazing vocabulary of sounds.
I saw TWO of them today as I walked–widely separated by distance. Each flew into the underbrush as soon as I came near, which is how they are described in the first link below, which also has sounds.
My Georgia grandmother had several big camellia shrubs in her garden–one was a gorgeous red. Camellias bloom in the fall and over the winter here in South Carolina. I remember times when my Air Force dad needed to fly to keep his flight hours current, and he’d fly to Warner Robbins AF Base, which is near my mother’s Georgia home place. He’d come home with boxes into which my grandparents had placed local food treasures (like lovely smoked bacon) and, if blooming, an array of the red camellias would be nestled into the top of the box. When we were in Omaha, Nebraska, in the middle of winter, the sight of these beautiful flowers was a sight to behold.
I remember, too, once in Shreveport, Louisiana, at Barksdale AF Base, my mother putting one of these red camellias into her curly hair just before they left for a formal party.
The camellia Bryan and Corinne gifted me with is a fragrant camellia (kind of rare) that will get tall and wide and is called “High Fragrance.” She’s going to go to the shade side of the house that gets morning sun.
I planted Shi Shi at the front corner of the house, and it will fill this space over time. (I first moved the white azalea that was here to the other side of the house, where it joined the ones that were moved from the front bed.) Shi Shi is small now, but it will…grow. Here it will get morning sun and afternoon filtered sun and shade.
Here’s the Canna Lily–which is a really unusual color. Most Cannas are yellow or a bright orange or red. It, too, will fill this spot over time.
The blossoms are unusual–smaller and more tropical looking. I fell in love with it, and it jumped into my flower cart.
So, there you have the new plants.
And, I can’t leave without showing you, again, the roses, the roses, which are real show stoppers.
Bryan and Corinne gifted me with a camellia for my birthday this year, and yesterday Corinne and two granddaughters took me to buy it at a local nursery not far from me: Hidden Ponds Nursery in Awendaw.
We found a beautiful red camellia, and another one (pink) jumped into my cart, along with a pink canna lily.
There ARE hidden ponds on this property. And I so enjoyed seeing the koi begging for food.
There is also a large collection of other animals–a beautiful black duck roaming free, hens in a very cute coop, rabbits, goats, a BIG rooster in a separate pen, and…DONKEYS.
At the donkey pen, a very kind woman had come to visit with the two donkeys (a mother about 8 years old and her daughter)–which is something this very kind person said she does frequently–and she passed us carrots, apple slices, and peppermint treats made for horses–all of which the donkeys happily took from our hands.
This woman also had a beautiful dog–half Springer Spaniel and half poodle–who was enjoying chasing a ball people threw for him. But, sadly, I didn’t get a picture.
Anyway, in a few minutes I’m putting on old clothes and going out to plant the canna lily. Bryan will come sometime in coming days to help me with the camellias as they are large for me to plant.
Hmmm…
Maybe I will move an azalea that is not thriving to where the rest of those azaleas were moved–and I will put the pink camellia in that spot. It gets morning sun and afternoon shade. Perfect!
I mailed these 2 quilts mid-week. They will arrive today if all goes as promised.
“Sprinkles” is the perfect quilt for baby Jack.
Remember the cute backing? The gender of this baby was a closely held secret, but I thought while making it that “Sprinkles” would be great for a girl or a boy baby. It is all Cotton+Steel/Ruby Star Society fabrics–except for the sashing pieces. And it dates back to the ongoing project of 5 or so years that started when I cut up all this hoarded fabrics and started making quilts–which went out in droves to family members over the years. “Sprinkles” is the last one.
“16 Pinwheels” also went along for the ride as I thought the parents would like something sturdy to warm their laps when holding baby Jack. Or, just in general. They live in a cool climate with long winters.
These fabrics are from the 1920-1930 feed sack reproduction fabrics I had on hand for about 20 years and started using last winter. This quilt is the 3rd in this series. The 4th and last of the series is almost done and is on the design wall. I finished the last block yesterday and put leftover fabrics into the stash according to their colors.
Both of these scrappy quilts are meant to be used and loved and washed as they will provide lots and lots of quilty hugs for this family.
DIL Tami highly recommended the movie “The Taste of Things.”
I watched it that same night.
And, loved it.
It’s about cooking in France around the turn of the century, and it was so fun to watch two chefs, with beautiful ingredients and the help of one other person, produce the most gorgeous dishes. In what we could say was a primitive kitchen today.
The movie is beautifully filmed, and the love story so sweet.
Here’s a review by Roger Ebert. There were others praising the film as well, and you can google those if you like.
Former Virginia neighbor Gina sent me an interesting opinion article “defending” daytime reading–as it is apparently often seen today as being lazy or unproductive since it distracts from “more important” activities. Thus, daytime reading is seen to be a forbidden treat. Or, I suppose, an act of rebellion.
Turns out there are now “silent reading” parties where one can go to read while listening to especially chosen music. And there are Zoom reading parties online. There are small charges for these events of course. And…many of these seem, LOL, to be at night.
I read. Every day. In the daylight. My mother used to say that I would read the back of the cereal boxes at breakfast if I didn’t have anything else to read at hand. Not that she would have allowed me to read at the breakfast table –or any other meal table–anyway.
In the mornings now I read online those whom I follow to keep abreast of what’s going on in the culture. So, that may seem more like work–but it is also a deep passion for me as my background is Cultural Studies.
At my noon “dinner,” and after I’ve done whatever chores or errands I need to do, I read from whatever book of fiction I have on hand. My nearby library has a kiosk that is always filled with books one can buy for $1–books chosen around changing and timely themes. I like to get a few of those at a time–ones that look interesting for one reason or another–as then I don’t have to worry about returning them by a “times up” deadline. I usually “play them forward” or return them to the library, and I’ve found some authors I like this way and often go on to read or listen to (audio books) other books by those authors. I especially like to read a bit longer while I enjoy my dessert fruit and espresso. Having my dinner on the porch just combines all of these pleasures.
When I get well into a book, I will often take time on the couch later in the day to read further or finish a book. That is a joy. I don’t feel guilty. But I am retired–I do realize that fact. Nevertheless, I have aways read a lot–every day.
I picked up a book by Jan Karon from the library kiosk a bit ago and very much enjoyed it–an Episcopalian minister’s life in a small East Coast mountain town who goes to a coastal parish for a 6-month interim appointment before retirement (with wife and pets). This book, A New Song, turned out to be a kind of “quiet” book and is midway in a series of about 14 books. I enjoyed the humor, the values on display, and the plot. So I got hold of the first book in the series, which I have just started. I’ll see…what develops.
Gina wrote in her note that her book club is now reading The Last Castle (Denise Kieran) which is a history of the Biltmore estate in Asheville, NC. Next up in this book club is The Women (Kristin Hannah). Book clubs are great for reading good books–for the most part.
Today is VERY stormy with gale winds off and on and flash flood warnings from the national weather system. So, I will stay put, and I’m sure there will be fiction reading. And, sewing later in the day.
Members of the Charleston Modern Quilt Guild had a “red and white” challenge. And many of their quilts were shown at the last meeting (March).
Oh my! The quilts are varied and every one is stunning! Here’s a little panoramic video I took on the fly. There is a blog, however, and if you want better pictures you could go there. The link is below.
First of all, yesterday I cooked the Anson Mills organic heritage grains low-country grits I ordered. Oh my!
I had ordered the coarser version–not realizing there was a finer version–but it wouldn’t have really made much difference in cooking time I don’t think. I soaked a cup of the grits in raw whole milk overnight first.
The cooking, using the Anson Mills recipes, is long and slow and “fiddly,” with needed extra water added from time to time. There was nothing difficult at all–it just required time and patience.
But OH MY HEAVENS!! I have never tasted anything so good. I could have eaten the whole pot. I stored the leftovers in the refrigerator and took some out, heated them in the microwave that I use but don’t like, and paired the grits with some scrambled egg for my supper. (I remember both my mother and her sister making grits for breakfast as a treat. And grits would also get paired with fried ham for a supper meal.)
I can’t wait for my noon dinner today: a roasted spatchcocked whole chicken, fresh green beans roasted with other veggies, and MORE GRITS, with some fresh fruit and my espresso for dessert.
The Anson Mills web site has lots of heritage recipes for these special grains: https://www.ansonmills.com. Next up for me, cooking some of the heritage rice I also ordered.
But back to the original topic at hand. I LOVE having refrigerator assets in place, and I use them to create meals each day. Or, I cook up more assets. I usually assemble both dinner and supper at the same time as I like to come down from sewing to a meal all ready to eat. On this day, there was a roasted chicken and many veggies. I made a bowl of food to be warmed for dinner, and a salad for supper.
Here’s a close-up.
I love to drizzle a bit of maple syrup over raspberries mixed with blackberries and blueberries for a special dessert. But organic raspberries are in short supply right now in my area. So I bought some of these big and very sour strawberries. I got so spoiled in Maine with my own strawberries, picked when ripe, or bought locally when ripe. These big and highly colored commercial strawberries arrive green, really. I spread them out and put them in some diffused sun and then left them on the counter overnight. They were better, but tend to mold if not refrigerated and never really ripen well.
It makes me so sad to know that most people have no idea what a ripe strawberry tastes and smells like. Their perfume alone can make one’s kitchen sing, never mind one’s mouth. The sweetness is almost overwhelming.
A few days back when walking with a neighbor, we saw that there was a large gathering of black birds along the sidewalk–about 20-25 I’d say. At first I thought the birds were cormorants as some were holding out their wings like cormorants do to dry their wings. But as we got closer, we could see that they were black buzzards, which are very, very common here, and I knew there must be a carcass down the side of the hill.
Yes, there was a dead deer–a young male with its horns trying to emerge. It was probably hit by a car and got as far as the edge of the woods below the road.
But why were some of the birds spreading their wings? Turns out it is a strategy to regulate their body heat–though sometimes it can also be to dry wet wings.
Some of the birds flew as we got closer. I blew up this pic so you could see better.
The birds were still there the next day when I walked–and were much less nervous about people walking by them.
Most, but not all, of them did fly as I got closer.
On the way back, the birds didn’t really retreat from me very much. This one let me get quite close. These are big birds with a big wing span. Underneath the wings the feathers are ash grey or white. And note the white feet.
These birds were actually doing a good job of cleaning up this poor dead animal. In another day or two, there will be nothing but bones.
And that is how nature works.
But it was interesting to think about the deer and the buzzards a bit on Easter weekend, if you know what I mean. The dead deer was providing life for a LOT of buzzards (25 or so). The deer was, in essence, a bonanza for the buzzards.
Now some days later, someone from the town or county pulled the carcass into the woods, and there is nothing left to see but bones.
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