the things you find..

she's gone country

she's gone country, look at them boots,

i love all things country.. 'specially, if it involves cowboys (or indians..), the wide open land, and/or boots. lest, i have a pair of boots for every occasion.. and a few that i've yet to find the occasion to dust off and slip on :)

so, when my pup at the time decided she wanted to use one as a teething ring, and eat! the toes off of my favorite pair of cowGirl boots, i just couldn't find it in me to throw them away. and as cool as they were, i still couldn't wear them looking like a hobo.

(*fyi-hobo stands for 'homeward bound' and yep, its a new fav word)

aside from loving all things country, i love all things that remind me of my dad. and when my diddy took me to buy my first pair of cowGirl boots, it was quite the ordeal. i was in second grade and had become quite accustomed to riding (horses) with my cousin every week/end, so of course, i had to have a pair. and a nice pair, like all the other girls at the stables.

she's gone country, back to her roots,

not to mention, my father, kid you not! owned a closest full of cowBoy boots. and, i must get this honest too, because he had every kind of snake, reptile, animal (whatever) and each one a different color. (we still do not know what to do with all of the boots..)

so we drove to raleigh, to the boot store, and i tried on just about every pair of boots they had in my size. boots way too expensive for us to be buying at the time, and even i knew that..
but, i remember picking out a very simple brown pair of tony lamas(!), and looking to my dad for approval. he nodded his head but not before he got out, "now if i buy you these, you have to wear them more than just at the stables.. you need to wear these to school also", and my heart sank.. although i loved my boots, i wasnt quite prepared to show them off to the whole elementary school, every. day. (because he would have made me wear them every day.) so im pretty sure that day i calmly packed those boots back into their box and walked out of the store, quickly wiping any tears from my face so my dad would not see. and like a lot of things, he did go back and get those prized cowGirl boots i wanted. and i even wore them to school.

she's gone country, a new kind of suit,

and in highschool when it was finally cool to wear boots and time for another pair, the 'hip heather' :) settled for a vintage pair, slightly worn in and embroidered with red thread. i. loved. them. and i wore them into the ground until lettie ate them. and when she ate them, i turned lemons into lemonade and i made a potter! (they set as decoration in the old garden *below, with a few of dad's memoribilia :) for a few months, first..)

i simply took a screw (or nail and hammer) and punctured holes in the bottom and edges of the boot for drainage. filled the bottom portion with my potting mix (ive come up with mixtures for the ground and pots thats seemed to work well this year, and am going to try to make a post for it soon!) and transplanted some tomato plants from the old garden into the boot. top with dirt, water, and voila! a boot planter.

*you can do this with a variety of objects and fun stuff. just make sure there's good drainage and its large enough to support your seedlings up to full grown. next post will be about more container ideas, but this one deserved its own individual shout out :)
i've already picked a few yellow pears from this plant. its a little late so i doubt i'll get much, but once this one dies, i'll replace it with some flowers, or maybe i'll try some chard or kale?!?

                        ...i'll keep you posted ;)

so, moral of the story. wear cowBoy/Girl boots. and when they get  too funky, recycle them into something fun and useful. and hey, cherish those wonderful memories we have with loved ones.

she's gone country, here she comes!

*corner of the boot next to my transplanted asparagus container patch, we'll see but it's still going strong.. post to come soon!


tribute: alan jackson, for she's gone country, and of course, my country lovin' family, 'specially magums and pagums, for my diddy, and taking me to my first (of many!) alan jackson concert, where im sure i rocked my new cowGirl boots :)



lettuce be.

for those who know me (and the ones that dont, yay!!!) you'll come to know that i love to make lists, most of which fail to ever get completed.. but, lists...

lists for everything i need to do, i need NOT to do, to buy, to cook, to make, and now...lists of things i want to blog about! this list certainly has started to accumulate, and (THANKS to your support!) i simply cannot wait to share them all with you..

and according to a close friend, music-guru, and fellow blogger (evan at http://decibelity.wordpress.com/), its a good thing i make lists, because i tend to be all over the place. hopefully my blog posts will prove to be a little more concise as my lists become more fine tuned.

this same day i was embarking on another adventure to the beach to mark some more "to do's"off the list: relax and blog. high-strung heather was fully capable of hangin' like chilled out carolina beach local...

i awoke early saturday morning, excited about the sign for the farmer's market i saw on the way in late the night before. i hoped on my bike, and beach-clad in sundress and flip flops- i, of course, forgot my phone. and boy was i disappointed i did when i got there.

the lake of this tiny little beach town was surrounded with booths of all sorts.. there were watermelons galore, tons of tomatoes, rum! cakes (that my dad loved!) and pies o' plenty, jewelry and art for the house and yard alike. it truly was a wonderful surprise to be able to participate in some local efforts while beachin' it.

so as i snacked on cherry tomatoes on the beach and made more lists of things to do, i realized that, although i didnt do yoga on the beach as planned (except for a few failed headstands), or can my curried pickled tom's; i was able to relax and in a self-sustaining way. and i did draft a few (hopefully, more concise) blog posts :)



so here's to a quick post on one of the ways i'm trying to relax and self-sustain..

*asparagus patch

i moved a few months ago from my house on the hill, and into the tree-house, as we've called it for years. unfortunetly, a downside to making the move meant giving up land to garden and the garden i'd kept up the past two years (with an asparagus and strawberry patch, herb spiral garden, wild berries, composting area, and two 10x15 plots).. the tree house has plenty of wild berries, but the garden space was non-existent. and for someone who relied on gardening for stress release, ive had quite the experience re-adjusting.. (*fyi-the girls who moved into my old house have graciously! allowed me to keep what i had in the garden and continue up there until the seasons over and everything dies out, and alot ive transplanted. AND i'm super excited to say, ive even noticed they've started composting! in the old bin!)

*sunflowers from the old house
 













*container tomatoes

so the 'unflappable heather' (she rarely comes out, unless its really important) found a way to turn our two porches and walkway into a pretty sweet little porch/container garden spot. and i must say, this time i've done better than just lettuce and tomatoes...

 *friendly spider on the raspberries (moved to large container)

*figs! i lost all the early fruit to the summer hail storm

*beets in a container!

*fig, tomatoes, herbs, transplanted asparagus patch

(we'll see....)

*basil, parsley, raspberries, beets, oregano, thyme







 
 *another view, look for the boot in an upcoming post!

*soon to be pesto!

*habaneros, cayenne, tomatoes, chives, arugula, herbs

so although i have had to adapt a little to the new surroundings, i have embraced this change slightly better than most ive been faced with over the past months, and only hope that it will bring the same peace (and bounty!) as it did before. may some of you find this same peace, by digging your hands in the dirt,  picking the fruits of your labor, or putting up some of that to enjoy during the colder winter months we will soon face. whatever it may be, peace to all of you, in whatever way it comes..

and please check out another great friend's blog (kim at http://beherenowyoga.blogspot.com/) for some extra special relaxtion, yoga!

bear with me

this technologically challenged girl still has some editing kinks to figure out ;)

Finally!

     

It's been a long time coming, this here blog. I've been talking about sharing my ideas in a multitude of ways for years now, and here's hopefully to the start of it all.

This weekend, I spent Saturday with one of my favorite bloggers (and so much more!) the extraordinary, Ashley English (check out her blog @small measures), who was kind enough to host about ten of us for a canning class in her own home. As many of you know, I have become quite obsessed with canning and homesteading over the past couple of years; however, I just had to jump on the oppurtunity to meet Ashley and visit 'chez english' as she calls it..

Their home is a dream come true, and I'm sure most of the girls that were along with me on Saturday would agree.. A long dirt road winds up to their cute house on a hill, fully equipt with gardens, acres of land, bee hives, a chicken coop (or, more like, chicken sedan), and so so much more. Why I didn't take a single picture, beets me! ;)

It surely was an inspiration for anyone wanting to carry out their own homesteading dreams. So, we watched and listened to Ashley eloquently describe the ins and outs of the canning process as she poached, diced, spiced, and cooked up an amazing peach jam with ease. We sipped on homemade lemonade and cucumber water, and noshed on yummy salad, garden pesto pasta, a variety of pickled goodness, bread from farm and sparrow bakery, and last, but surely not least, peach cobbler with lemon verbena! fresh whipped cream and candied verbena! It was all to die for, and I sure left with a lot of wonderful ideas to add to my own list of homesteading dreams (this such accumulating list is slowly turning into a small novel..)

My own garden and canning ventures started at a young age when I spent afternoons and summers in my grandmother's yard across the street from the house I grew up in. If I wasn't high up in the magnolia tree, picking flowers or rearranging the canned goods in her cabinets, I was digging in the dirt searching for worms, or picking warm tomatoes off the vine (still my fav past time). Pretty much everyone in my family has a knack for living off the land, and a joy in it too. I guess, like most of my inherited traits, I get it honest...

 

My grandmother (far right) continues to grow the largest tomato plants I have ever seen (they reach over the roof!), my family shucks corn and puts up peas all summer for the winter, and still owns the family meat business that my grandfather's family started in Durham.
My uncle has land with a pond, barns, and farm that could fulfill my homesteading dream (to the likes of 'chez english'). Matter of fact, when I went home a few weekends ago, we picked up about thirty pounds of tomatoes (and bags full of other veggies) that I quickly turned into my favorite sauce (animal vegetable miracle's tomato sauce) and canned for the winter. This many tomatoes is a days harvest for them.. oh, i can only hope for this one day!

I've been lucky enough to also have my own garden the past four years in the variety of locations I've lived within Asheville. The first year garden was mainly experimental and the summer was spent trying to figure out what to do with the surplus of peppers, tomatoes, and zuchinni that were all taking over the small plot it started out as. It was so much fun and I learned a lot just by trial and error. There was a 'nature area' for composting that soon gave rise to volunteer blackberries and tomatoes. There was a rhubard patch hiding behind some trees a neighbor told us about, and blackberries in another neighbors yard. Flowers were (some successful, some not) transplanted from my parents house in Durham to various spots in the yard and garden. Needless to say, there were many firsts (and many fails!) that year.

 

The following year I lived in an apartment and got quite accustomed to container gardening, as I was limited to two porches. This sparked my interest in being in the kitchen, and I spent hours cooking, baking, and making to replace the hours I'd previously spent in the garden. The only thing I successfully grew and harvested that year were tomatoes, herbs, and lettuce. But I did live within walking distance to the downtown farmers market where I became a regular and my love for local food took off. I got crazy ideas (then, not so much now, because these ideas have also taken off in the community..) that I wanted to make and sell cupcakes, or popsicles, or crafts, or better yet, start a farm and sell produce. (And if you know me well, these are things I still continue to talk about wanting to do..)

 

Just a few weeks ago we visited a friend in Salisbury's peach farm where I picked up peaches for jam and preserves, okra for pickling, and the best homemade peach ice cream I've ever tasted.

And at the Durham the farmer's market I picked up the cutest little peppers and yellow cucs to pickle. (The okra was from my uncle, and turned into more pickled curry okra since the first batch was a hit!)

And I'm just waiting a few weeks to head to my secret spot to pick pears for preserves.. these are last years pics, and I'm down to my last two jars.. Also hiding in there is miracle's chutney, my favorite curried pickled green tomatoes (long gone, and this year's don't seem to match up..), and hott hottt hotttt sawce (also long gone...)

The last two years I've been super lucky to be able to have a pretty steady garden at my old house (to be featured heavily in upcoming posts!) And I think this was the beginning of me starting to take myself seriously about wanting to be a part of this amazing movement going on. A movement that has deep roots in history and our community, and luckily, my family. I was able to appreciate it for so much more than just having access to local, tasty, healthy food year round (which I also LOVE..), but the chance to continue a family tradition I am deeply passionate about and hope to carry into the way I live my life. And maybe I can influence a few of you along the way to join the bandwagon, too!



 I feel so lucky to have successfully grown my own food and started practicing a more sustainable lifestyle, and I hope to share some of this with all of you. I also feel incredibly lucky to know so many amazing people with access to such amazing local resources.

Thanks to you all for your wonderful support over the years!


lettuce turnip the beet, y'all.

                                                                                                                                   hmg