Thursday, November 18, 2010

Habersmashery




Walks, southwest Virgina, evening light and early morning light and lots of time in the kitchen at my new baking table. November in Virginia allows autumn to linger so much longer and I appreciate that so deeply!

We finally got out and planted a pound of garlic (Thanks, Steph!) on Saturday. In the meantime, I want to do what Leni is doing with garlic these days.

I still hope to plant spring-blooming bulbs and one small tree (perhaps a red bud?) before Thanksgiving. And sprinkle some seeds down for greens in the cold frame. Wish me luck. I did get to clean out the vegetable garden and, really, after you add compost to any garden bed, the weeding just gets easier and easier. I plan to add more compost and shredded leaves this winter to one troubled bed and then we should be good to go down there (Ha!).

I also added a fourth lavender plant last month to my growing collection ("Goodwin Creek Grey") - I'm hoping to use the lavender for sachets, eye pillows and natural laundry/dryer bags in the coming years. I want to breeze through my house and have it smell like the south of France.

I have been obsessed with The Tightwad Gazette and took it out of the library last week ('cause that is thrifty in-and-of-itself!) - inspired by the comments section in this post. So many ideas - a few that I am going to try over the next month include a soup night, a pasta night and a bean night each week; making my own laundry detergent; bringing in lunch almost every day; sewing fabric food bags to replace ziplocs and knitting up dishtowels with my cotton yarn stash.

Thanksgiving is at my house again this year, but for a bigger crew. Last year, we smoked the bird. This year? The Judy Bird. Along with stuffing, Ina Garten's Sagaponack corn pudding, French string beans with caramelized shallots and some sort of sweet potato dish. And maybe these little puff pastry ideas for starters?

Loving this website and the photos of urban ruins.

One of my photos made it into our Crozet Gazette's calender. I'm Miss October (tenth photo in the slideshow - my cosmos and mountain photo is also included).

3 comments:

Southern Lady said...

Wow, you have been busy. I didn't know that garlic could still be planted. I think I'll have to plant me some. I love the idea of a house that smells like lavender. I wonder if it will grow in NC?? Carla

Mama Gone Green said...

Fabric snack/lunch bags have been on my to-do list for ages! Hopefully after the holidays I will have a little time to make stuff for myself!

Anonymous said...

Congrats - your October photo is beautiful! I'm so in love with our gorgeous little corner of the world. : )