Category: Low Country Living

My goodness!

I’ve been busy, busy these last few days. So, no blog posts.

Alex, my lawn guy, came Wednesday and put out fertilizer on the Centipede grass. He told me to be sure to water heavily three times–but to water at dusk as it has been about 80 degrees here over the past few days and the grass does not need to be fried by watering it in the full sun.

Everyone’s sodded grass is the promised apple green color now, but it now needs help to grow and spread. Here’s a view from the back of my house.

I have hoses on either side of the house–and went to Lowe’s to get two smaller sprinklers–the big one is harder to control in the back and part of the front so that the water does not go on to neighbors’ lawns. My back door neighbor, for instance, installed an underground system, so her grass does not need MORE water. And water here is not cheap–so I don’t need to be watering anything but my own grass.

The smaller sprinklers that will go in a circle are very tricky. I got totally soaked–TOTALLY–trying to get them to do what I wanted in the mostly narrow lawn spaces I have. Even I had to laugh, though, drenched as I was. And the grass did get watered, though I need some short hose extensions for both hoses–about 10-15 feet I think. And I will say, while laughing again, that I was, also, quite cool, which was welcome.

The master bedroom shower has had a leak under its doors–as the tiles on the ledge did not have the proper angle to make the water drain to the inside of the shower. In the end, the doors had to be removed, the tile redone, and the doors put back after the grout in the tiles dried. The doors went back on Thursday. And the shower no longer leaks! I had a lovely shower yesterday (Saturday).

The gutters were installed on Thursday as well, and now water does not drip off the roof on to my front walk right at the recessed door. And…I watered the grass.

On Friday I was a whirling dervish of energy. I went to Lowe’s to get a drain tube so the gutter drain near the roses did not put its water all on the end rose. A hydrangea hopped into my cart. Then I visited Carolina Lantern and Lights to start the process to get the 3 lights I need over the kitchen bar. Next, I visited a local quilt shop, Wild and Wooly, which is small but very sweet. On the way home I checked out Abide-A-While nursery and came home with plants: a Viburnum and herbs for the little herb garden I want to start.

I took a chance with the grass as we were clearly getting a BIG storm in the night which would provide me with adequate rain for the grass. And, the temps dropped into the 60s. So Saturday saw me outside early morning, between storms, digging holes, adding amendments, and planting the new plants. My soil here is all clay–it is like digging in cement when it is dry.

On the left, in the middle, is the viburnum. It will not get huge and dwarf the windows and will bloom in the spring. On the right is the Limelight hydrangea–a variety that will get about 8 feet tall, bloom white with blooms that turn red in the fall. It will be so pretty against that wall. And I can control it with trimming. The herbs are on the right.

From the upper left, clockwise: sage, chive, lavender, two kinds of lemon thyme, and oregano. The mint went in over by the roses–near the faucet, so it can be controlled better. I am wishing now that I had brought my grandmother’s mint from Maine as I’ve had it for over 50 years–but I thought that I’d likely never garden again. Who knew?

Anyway, I love cooking with fresh herbs, and now I’ll have some.

I had two lovely meals on Saturday. For lunch–I was so hungry after all that digging–I made scrambled eggs (local eggs that are soy and corn free from Local Jo’s Natural Foods ) with raw butter, fresh rosemary from the pot on the porch and fresh dill I bought, and some mozzarella cheese. It was quick, rich and delicious, and perfect.

Having been refueled, I made a quick trip to Loews for extensions to the two hoses. Three little pots of the little mondo grass, a groundcover plant, hopped into my cart as well. When I got home, I made an espresso and went upstairs to sew a little.

For supper I defrosted some cooked rice and made a rice salad, using the last of the roasted chicken, herbs, lots of fresh veggies, and I put it all on lettuce. The Organic Roots olive oil is so delicious in a salad like this one. (I have enough leftover for one more meal.)

I had also defrosted frozen blueberries and peaches, to which I added half of a Honey Crisp apple and a little maple syrup. So, dessert. And after I watched tv while I sewed down binding on the quilt I finished on the longarm.

It’s been a really good string of days.

And I’m grateful.

I LOVE Collards!

I do.

And, really, they are so easy to cook when you know how.

Here’s my go-to method.

First, give them a rinse in your sink–this time I broke each large leaf into two parts with my hands–so they will fit into my pot of simmering water.

Put the leaves into the pot. You don’t want to cook them to death–like folks did when I was growing up. You just want to blanch them until they are limp. Don’t cook them longer than 5 minutes–and usually I simmer them less than 5 minutes.

Pour them into the sink and spray them with cold water to stop the cooking process and to keep them nice and green.

Cut out the central stem with a sharp knife. Or if you want to use the big leaves as a wrap, like a tortilla, leave the stems alone. They are chewy, but that’s doable. Some leaves are big enough for each side to be a wrap. Or you can overlap two sides to make a bigger wrap. You could leave the wrapped package whole or cut it into slices.

Discard the stems. In Maine they would have gone into my compost. Here I don’t compost as I will not have gardens big enough to use compost–and soon we will have a discussion on that ever fascinating creature the roach–and the terrifying South Carolina variant, the Palmetto Bug (which is a roach form).

Roughly chop the leaves. I leave mine in bigger chunks–not chopped fine. These are going to be sautéed in butter later tonight–for a dinner with grilled lamb chops, sprouted brown rice, and a sliced apple.

Collards have a sweet taste. Or so I think.

Anyway, they are chock full of nutrients.

You can just tear up rinsed leaves and add them to a soup, too. How easy is that?

Or very little anyway…

Here’s one big reason why: fabric towels and bowl covers.

DIL Corinne gave me this roll of little fabric towels–they are just rolled around each other. There is a cardboard inner tube, so you can put the roll onto your current paper towel dispenser if you like. The material is so soft–and it is so easy to just throw a dirty towel into the wash. AND, there are different colors and patterns available.

The bowl tops pull tight so easily with the attached cords and come in three different sizes. The largest covers a pretty big bowl. The insides of the bowl covers just wipe off easily–it is a kind of silicon I think. It is definitely not plastic as this company is trying to eliminate the use of plastic. The covers can also be pulled taught to form a kind of little pouch. And the covers can be used over things like cut melons.

There is an online store if you are interested:

https://www.oneworld-zerowaste.com

Here’s a pic from the web site of the bowl covers:

And here’s a pic of my roses all planted now. So far, they seem to be happy.

Now, back to Innova and the quilt she is guarding upstairs until I return to do more quilting.

Big thanks to Corinne.

I’ve been thinking for some time now about what to plant in the two beds in the back–one is along the back porch and the other along the back side of the house on the other side of the back screen door.

Along the way I noticed that landscape roses do really well here. I’ve been seeing them planted in the islands in the middle of roads–and they were blooming their heads off. Most of those plantings were the red ones. I had started adding landscape roses to my Maine gardens.

I wanted orange roses, as I’m partial to orange, but there weren’t many of the orange ones at Lowes, and what was there didn’t look very healthy. The red ones, however, looked healthy and strong. So home 6 of them came home with me, along with fertilizer for the centipede grass, fertilizer for the roses, and another nozzle and a shut-off for one of the hoses..

I started digging left to right, and at first it was fairly easy. There was a nice mixture of good dirt with sand and some clay. About 4 roses in, I hit really bad clay veins and went to the garage to get some potting soil to augment the clay. Plants do not like being in a clay bathtub that keeps their feet wet, and there was no sand.

The really interesting piece of this hard digging was that much of the clay was a bright, clear blue. I’ve never seen anything like it–and part of me wonders if it was some sort of augmentation the builders did in the process of creating the foundation. A passing neighbor said she ran into the blue clay too. ????

So, here are the six red landscape roses–in no time they will fill in the spaces between each other. They won’t get higher than 4 feet–which is about to the white wood on the screens.

The leaves are so pretty:

But wait, I need three more to wrap around the porch.

I picked them up this morning and will pop them into their prepared holes this afternoon.

Here’s a view from the inside of the porch. If they thrive, they will be so pretty from early spring to a fall frost. They will be light and airy and will not block my open view.

And, some of them can come inside to smile at me.

Now to figure out what to plant on the other side of the back porch door. It is deeply shady in the morning and has really strong sun in the afternoon. I’m not sure how hydrangeas will manage. But now I’ll go to a good local nursery and get some advice.

The longarm comes tomorrow!!!

Here’s the last of the trail explorations SIL Maryann and I made during her recent visit.

Fort Palmetto played a big role during the Civil War (1861-1865).

I took a picture of a local map I have and marked where the fort’s ruins are located. Look at the black arrow just below number 5 on the map. This area is also called “Oyster Creek.”

If any of you have ever read Gone With the Wind, you will remember that during the Civil War Rhett Butler was a blockade runner along the Charleston coast and used these inner waterways, inlets, and rivers to get imported goods through the Federal blockade of Charleston.

Dewee Island lies to the north of Isle of Palms, and there is a fairly big body of water behind the barrier islands in this area.

Here’s some explanatory text copied from a Mount Pleasant Magazine online article on Fort Palmetto:

“Located between Isle of Palms and Dewees Island, Dewees Inlet had, by virtue of its depth, been identified as a possible access point for federal ships coming in from the Atlantic that could be vulnerable to attack during the Siege of Charleston. Fort Palmetto was strategically placed to prevent any Union ships from using the inland waterways to land troops near Mount Pleasant and advance on Charleston. A company of the 20th South Carolina Volunteer Infantry garrisoned Fort Palmetto for much of the war.” 

“Its formidable defenses were armed with one nine-inch Dahlgren gun and two 32-pound rifled and banded guns, the latter of which boasted a range of more than four miles, reaching all the way to Dewees Inlet. While it suffered damage and erosion over time, remnants of the three gun positions and the powder magazines are still clearly visible, accessible via a side path.”

Here’s the beginning of the trail to the fort site, which now runs behind houses.

As an aside, the Wisteria is blooming everywhere in the woods. This very aggressive vine can be seen running across the upper reaches of trees (and elsewhere) this time of year. People do plant it as well, but most are aware of its aggressive nature and keep it severely trimmed–either into a kind of bush or VERY controlled draping over…something.

It is fun to see all the beautiful houses and run-off creeks and retention ponds in this area too. There were farms in this area back in the day.

But the swamp and low land tidal areas are also everywhere.

Here’s the observation tower at the end of the trail. Tidal lowland water and channels lie beyond this higher-land point.

And open water lies beyond the tidal flats. That’s Isle of Palms across the water.

The pines love this terrain.

And there are different pine varieties, both low and high.

I will definitely walk this trail again.

Part of a big move to a new region involves finding a whole new set of folks to provide medical help: a family practice person, an ob/gyn, an opthalmologist or optometrist, and a dentist.

I went to the new dentist who accepted me as a patient earlier this week–on Tuesday. Apparently my mouth is a MESS: old teeth about to break, old worn-out crowns, and, yes, some cavities, one of which is under the old crown. Some of this mess is the result of the lack of care in the covid years, but some is just a factor of having old teeth.

Going to the dentist is and always has been a real stress producer for me. Add in the Histamine Intolerance issue, and let’s just say there is…high stress.

Anyway, I went Thursday for the replacement of the first two crowns–near each other on the bottom right. I didn’t sleep much the night before…

This dentist is a woman–and I have had men for 20 years now. And both were good dentists. But can I just say I have fallen into dental nirvana with this new dentist and her assistant. I have never before been so carefully and helpfully treated–and I came home with temporary crowns, no pain, and feeling I was in really good hands–literally.

On Tuesday, to prepare, I made a bone broth from the chicken bones and organs I had frozen in recent weeks–with added onion, carrots, celery, and garlic. I think now that bay leaf might also have been involved. If an onion is free of any mold, I add the peels as well as the skins add lovely color. On Wednesday, I made a soup so I would have soft, nourishing food on Thursday after the morning appointment.

Now, I know I’ve posted the making of soup many times on this blog, but this soup is one with a southern flare.

Here’s the base–onions, garlic, carrots, orange bell pepper, a few COLLARD leaves chopped up, some little round potatoes quartered, dried herbs, sea salt, and two packages of boneless chicken thighs with the skin on as the best nutrients and fats are just under the skin. I sautéed the veggies in duck fat–only adding the fresh garlic after the veggies were started so it does not burn as it would if you just dump it into hot fat. I cooked the veggies, turning them often, until they started to color/caramelize, and then added the chicken to cool down the mixture so it didn’t burn. You can see the caramelization in the bottom of the pan–don’t let things burn at the point before you add your raw meat. *Note that it is this caramelization step that makes a soup have rich robust flavor and a beautiful color.

Next, I added the bone broth. Look at its rich, dark color and the lovely fat now in the soup. Good fats DO NOT MAKE YOU FAT! They give one sturdy, long, even energy for hours and hours. Too many grain-based carbs and fruits are what make you fat.

When I chopped veggies for my soup, I also made my lunch salad–using the leftover steak I grilled on Tuesday. See the fresh dill here and there? The salad only needs to be drizzled with the lovely olive oil from Organic Roots now. Look! I’ll be eating a rainbow.

Next, I added the frozen veggies: corn, peas, and OKRA! And more dried herbs.

And here’s my soup after bringing it to a simmer and cooking about 20 minutes–just long enough to soften the carrots and potatoes. I often just turn off the pot at this point and let the soup sit quietly as the veggies will soften in the cooling heat. And I did that this time–coming back later to freeze about half of this soup in two batches and to transfer the rest to a big bowl to be placed in the refrigerator so I would have soup all ready on Thursday.

I had my salad lunch on the screened porch, while I worried about going to the new dentist and all that is wrong in my mouth, and read for a bit to hide out from my brain.

And writing this tale of a new dentist and soup this morning is making me profoundly grateful for the gifts the universe/life has bestowed on me during these past months.

The mouth will be fixed, and I will be fine. And I have soup waiting for the next dental visit.