Tag: Sparky’s Honey

Turkey Tracks: Tuesday Food Gathering and Early Fall Update

Turkey Tracks:  September 20, 2018

Tuesday Food Gathering and Early Fall Update

I wrote this post last week, but am just getting around to posting it today.

Tuesday is Hope’s Edge CSA pick-up day.

And this past Tuesday I picked up my year’s supply of local raw honey:  Sparky’s Honey.  The back of the car was filled with local goodies.  You can see a description of the kind of food I get from Hope’s Edge in an earlier post.

AC Slater continues to be a honey lamb.  Here he is on his “perch.”  The rock wall houses numerous chipmunks, and AC is “on the job” with regard to anything that moves or makes noise on my property.

 

I am loving how this strip by the path is looking–so cheerful with the zinnias that replaced earlier daffodils.  That Blue Hubbard squash vine has not produced a single fruit this year.  It’s been a kind of strange squash year in my area.

I like this zinnia variety.

I let the early pansies stay too long in the barrels–just could not part with them.  When I finally overprinted, the plants took off.  I am especially liking the purple salvia (?) and the small asters that are just starting to bloom.

 

I am breaking down spent pots and starting to put summer things away.  The hammock has been stored.  And the porch pillows.  I can’t let go of the hanging baskets or the wind chimes yet.  Soon enough…

Not much sewing happening what with AC Slater, but he is settling really well now, so I’ll have more time.  I am excited about winter sewing projects.

 

 

Turkey Tracks: Saturday Breakfast

Turkey Tracks:  June 4, 2016

Saturday Breakfast

We are (again) being promised rain for later tonight and tomorrow.

So far, my rain dances have not worked.  Maybe this time.

Anyway, I mowed last Friday, so I knew I had to mow before we got soaking rain that might take several days.  Often, that means a third day for my grass to dry out enough to mow.

So…

Yep.  I needed to mow TODAY.

At first we had overcast cool, then, suddenly, in the way weather happens in Maine, the skies cleared and the sun came out and it started getting warm enough to dry up the morning dew.

First though, I fixed myself a “Saturday Breakfast.”  Normally I don’t get hungry until nearly noon.  But today I needed to be mowing around noon, AND I am having dinner early evening with friends at Chez Michel’s in Lincolnville, Maine–just up the road from Camden and across from Lincolnville beach.  Somehow, I’ve never been to this restaurant, so when friends discovered I had not, an outing was organized.  (I have great friends.)  

Over a cup of tea, I pondered what to eat for breakfast.

My tea:  I get the most extraordinary Irish tea from our local coops.  It’s from a Vermont company and comes in little grains.  It makes a “bold” cup of tea.

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I heat the water in my copper kettle, and say what you will, water heated in that kettle tastes gorgeous–very unlike water heated in another pot.  I’ve had it for 25 or so years now and love it to pieces.

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I pour hot water over the loose tea through a basket thingy

that fits over my cup.

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This tea can take a second pour over too, which I usually do sometime during the day.

Of course I add LOCAL raw WHOLE milk from Jersey cows (Milkhouse milk) and about a tablespoon of raw, UNHEATED local honey–which I get in big jars once a year from my local beekeeper, Sparky’s Honey.  I take him the jars, and he fills them.

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On the refill, I don’t add the honey.

OK, chives are in full bloom, so I snipped some and brought in one of the lavender chive blooms to crumble into my eggs.

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Over the years, the chives have spread in my garden.  And look at the stand of tarragon to the right of the big clump of chives.  Along this path I have several types of sage, several types of thyme, my grandmother’s mint (which I’ve had for over 40 years), some garlic chive (blooms in August), lavender, and some rosemary.  I LOVE it when I have herbs in the garden.

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I recently learned that one can trim the chives back to to or three inches in mid-summer, and they will grow back up and, often, bloom again.

I put a big pat of local raw butter in the pan and heated it until it sizzled.  Threw in the chives and dropped in two eggs.  While they set a bit, I hit them with local sea salt and some black pepper.

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I just take a fork and run it through eggs to scramble them.  If I were to add cheese, it would be just as they are broken but still runny.

I had some gluten-free bread from HootinTootin bakery out of, I think, Belfast.  I get it at the Belfast Coop.   AND some homemade blackberry jam.  (This year will be a blackberry year.  Last year the patch had to be cut down to allow it to regenerate without so many weeds.)

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Delicious!  And the mowing seemed really easy after this good start.

Turkey Tracks: Fall Hydrangeas

Turkey Tracks:  October 27, 2013

Fall Hydrangeas

Before the first freeze I cut as many of the hydrangeas in my yard as I deem necessary for the house.  Once the winter weather hits them, the blooms are ruined.

I strip the leaves off the canes and just stick them into a dry vase.  Most of them dry just fine.  Some will shrivel up almost right away, and that’s just the breaks of this endeavor.  (This year none of the lime green Annabelles dried for me.)

For the ones who dry nicely, the brilliant colors stay true for months and months.  Often, I stick blooms into the fir Christmas Wreath I hang at the front door–and they are gorgeous there.

Here’s a lot I put into the kitchen.  The pinkish lavender blooms came from a plant that JoAnn O’Callaghan Gladbach gave me on one of her visits before John died.  It survived the winter beautifully–and one transplant this spring–and bloomed all summer.

October hydrangeas 2013

I’ve often thought I’d love a house where the rooms were painted the shades in one of these fall hydrangeas:  lime green, deep blues, aquas, deep purples, magenta pinks.  Such a color scheme would not go with a thing in my house though.

JoAnn carried hydrangeas in her wedding bouquet–as did Tamara Kelly Enright.  Tami’s blooms came from my Virginia garden.  I made JoAnn and John a wedding quilt using hydrangea fabrics, called “Delectable Mountains” after the traditional block name and because JoAnn and John live in Denver, Colorado.  Here it is being held by my sister-in-law Maryann Enright and me before I mailed it to Joann and John.

Delectable Mountains 2

Local quilter Joan Herrick quilted this quilt using the Celtic New Grange symbol that JoAnn used in her wedding invitations.  New Grange in Ireland is the site of one of the oldest and most amazing solstice sites.

Delectable Mountains detail 2

Here’s another block:

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And a close-up of a corner:

Delectable Mountains detail

I love life circles like this one.  I mean the giving and receiving of items that signal you love someone.

Here’s a picture of the counter about three weeks later.  You can see the pink hydrangeas did not dry well, but the others are going strong.  One never knows.

Melody's Pumpkin

Melody Pendleton brought me this gorgeous pumpkin from her garden–and a Butternut squash which I cooked that night for dinner–on the day she finished painting the stairwell.  Melody is a meticulous painter and a delightful person.

I have a jar of Sparky’s Honey (wild, unheated, local) for her.

And that’s how these things roll…