Milk Worth Crying Over

On a recent trip to the Nashville Farmer's Market, there was a vendor with a small refrigerator truck backed into his space.

He was selling fresh milk.

Oh my goodness!  Yes, we are milk-a-holics!

Of course we bought a bottle.

Oh it was the GOOD stuff.  

The type you have to shake before you drink.  The type that smells and tastes like milk is supposed.  The type that makes me sigh with happiness.

The type WORTH crying over if you spill it!

And better yet!   <{((((<

18 minutes after the first photo was taken... we called it our lunch.

  And our next trip down we will have a cooler with us!

The Summer's Challenge: "Putting By"

Almost two years ago in the fall I took a couple classes on home canning.  I had full intentions of doing a lot of canning in '14.

Didn't work out...

(Photo from 2013)

But this year is looking a whole lot better!

I'm going to concentrate on pickles and jellies/jams because I'm really not much for canned vegetables.  We prefer fresh or frozen.

Anyway, I've been saving canning recipes on Pinterest and have picked up some books on the subject.  I bought most of the needed supplies so that is taken care of.

Let the canning begin!

http://www.earnesthomeco.com/curiosity-ambition-and-a-life-of-learning-a-challenge/

The Color Purple

Needing a small bulletin board, I found inspiration in a challenge to use my favorite color to craft something.  

I had an extra long clipboard in my stash and all it needed was to be covered in this pretty fabric to become something special.  I used homemade 'mod podge' to adhere the fabric to the clipboard.  I chose to leave the clip in its original rusty shabby glory.

My wee cork boards are two gold frames from Old Time Pottery.  Tho they don't show in the photo, what looks like white lines all through the fabric around the flowers are actually gold lines.  So when I spray painted the larger frame I did only one coat so the gold still came through.  The smaller frame has a heavier coat of paint, though you can still see just a bit of gold.

I've glued the frames to the clipboard with heavy duty glue.

Perfect for the corner next to my computer desk!

http://www.punkprojects.com/p/craft-challenge.html

http://www.punkprojects.com/2015/06/make-things-week-2-challenge-favorite.html

http://thatcraftplaceblog.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/new-challenge-anything-goes.html

Hurray for the Red, White, and Blue!

Time to change out the front door decor!  Summer is the patriotic season around here.  I usually have things changed out by Memorial Day but this year I made it in time for Flag Day.  I love the flowers I found this year.  Besides my white apple blossoms, there are blue Forget-Me-Nots and red Poppies.

Quite appropriate, wouldn't you agree?

The Gardens at The Sticks

We've finally gotten all the plants for our gardens into the ground.  What a wonderful feeling!  LOL  We have made several areas into 'culinary' planting beds.

The herb bed in front of the house is doing well.  That grey mess in front is the ground cloth for a gravel walkway we are putting in... as soon as our yard dude gets some free time to bring his bucket tractor over to move the gravel in place here and several other areas.

All three of the rosemary (far right) made it through the cold winter and I added another.  We use a lot of rosemary.  Next over is the chives, garlic, and on the back onions.  After those is my oregano.  The beast is trying to take over!  Laying low to the right of the oregano are my sprawling thyme plants.  Only one survived the winter so I added those two freebies.  The other beast of the herb bed is the sage which is getting cut back hard next week.   Next is my French tarragon.  One made it through winter and I have put in five more.  They have such a hard time with the hot TN summers.  

And finally at the end of the bed I have my basil.  It was at the beginning of the bed but we've put in something in that area (you'll see soon) so they went down to where the tomatoes used to be.

Or maybe I should say... where the tomato IS!  That little volunteer came up and we are letting it grow.  I look forward to seeing what we get from it.

The rhubarb is doing great!

I've planted 18 of those free parsley plants all around the rhubarb bed.  (I still have 15 parsley left!  I plan on giving them away to my Sunday School class.)

The rhubarb is starting to color!

Next up is our vegetable garden...

This area used to be our rose garden... but the Japanese beetles drove Himself buggy so the roses moved up to my Mom's garden where the beetles aren't.

(Man!  I'm seeing a half dozen or more projects I need to work on in this photo!)

Another view of the veggies.  We hadn't planned on the fence (Thank you Geri for the chicken wire!)

This is why we have fence!  Those ungrateful deer chewed up two tomatoes and my two poblano peppers.  Thankfully they will survive their maiming.

Looking down from the deck.  The eggplant are doing well (top of photo).  And the bright green leaves at the bottom of the photo are on my sweet bay tree.

I need to start tying up the tomatoes.

Oh... here are the varieties I planted.

Cucumbers are doing well too.  They are loving the rain we have gotten (two inches on Monday!).

On the left side of the garden we planted five freebie spearmint plants.  The area is very rough and I hope they completely take over and fill the area.

Finally are our two (bargain clearance) blueberry plants.  They are going to be a focal point in an upcoming project.

First harvest!  LOL

We are looking forward to much larger harvests!

This is the start of our gardening.  I plan to add at least one new culinary bed each year.

Thank You Lunch for Our First Reponders

The other day I got an email from my friend 'Mama Nick' (who is the missions director at our church) that the county association was having a luncheon at  for the 'first responders' (police, fire department, EMS, and 911 center) of our city.  They needed people who would drive packed lunches out to the stations for those who could not come in for the meal.

We quickly had an assembly line going.  In the green shirt is a friend from our Sunday School class putting grilled chicken into the containers, Himself on the far right put the lids on, and on the left is Bugman writing the number of pieces then he would carry them down to the bundle they belonged to.

Mama Nick organized the bundles and made sure there was dessert enough for the group.

Humming along.

B is also a member of our church and is a sweetheart.

That chicken smelled SO good!

One of many boxes packed for the day.

Our delivery was to the 911 Call Center.  It was quite a privilege to be able to thank this group of people.  Most folks don't know how stressful this job can be...

... actually how stressful ALL of these jobs are.  

Thank you First Responders for all you do!

Nashville Farmer's Market in Late May

After our earlier mentioned visit to Gardens of Babylon, we then walked over to the pavilion that houses the actual marketplace.  It's still early in the season but there were several unique vendors there.

In a few weeks it will be packed in here.

One of the first stands we visited with was the family owned cheesery out of Russellville, Ky.

They produce some very nice Gouda cheeses... a mild slightly aged plain, a stronger aged, then two flavored one; jalapeno and chipolte.

A package of the chipolte came home with us! 

A little bit about them.

We do try to buy from local farmers when we can.

Sure makes me hungry for some grilled squash!

Here's another unique vendor we found.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Whispering-Creek-Mushrooms/298273773587960

Fresh mushrooms!

Oyster mushrooms - some of the prettiest I've seen.

Shiitakes

And Lion's Mane.  I don't even know what to do with these but I'd love to find out!

They had some pretty lettuces.

But this was my favorite booth.

http://bloomsburyfarms.com/ 

They had the most incredible greens. 

I am SO going back and loading up on some greens.  Their prices were way better than the local grocery stores, and the produce looked beautiful.

I'm looking forward to adding fresh produce back into our meals.  It's the best thing about summer!