Thanksgiving Review

My Sassy daughter (like I only have one of those :) put up some fun pics from our Thanksgiving day get together, so I thought I'd add a few more.

One of the highlights of the day was H's Famous Fruit Salad, complete with decorative flag.

E started a new tradition; since he finished eating first, he crawled under the table (hopefully not looking for fallen crumbs).

T is ready for dessert; pumpkin and razzleberry pie, and although not shown, some wonderful homemade cream puffs and a pumpkin cheesecake. Yummy.
What was the best part of your Thanksgiving holiday?

Green Thumb Sunday -Favorites

I enjoyed Jodi's entry at bloomingwriter ( at http://bloomingwriter.blogspot.com/2007/11/great-performers-some-top-perennials-in.html, for some reason my link insert is not working for me today)about her favorite perennials,and thought I'd share a few of my favorites. Really, there are very few flowers I don't like. I enjoy the shapes, colors, scent, and variety of the many plants we have on the earth, of which I only know a few. Today I'll just mention two of my favorites. The first is lilacs, because they hold so many memories for me. I love the smell! They always bloom for my birthday in May, and as a child, I enjoyed two giant lilac bushes at my grandmother's home, one the old-fashioned lavendar color, the other white. My mother took starts from these plants and started bushes in our yard as I was growing up. When I married and moved away, I did the same. My 'heritage' lilac that I have planted in Utah has been planted for about 4 years, and I am still waiting for it to bloom. I think it has needed some time to adapt to the dry, hot conditions of Utah after being an Ohio lilac for so long. Maybe this spring it will bloom.

Another fave of mine are Irises. Last winter I spent far too much time on line, looking thru all the catalogs (Schreiner's, Cooley's, BlueJIris) at the variety of bearded iris. I really love them, and keep adding to my collection in the yard.

What are your favorites?

Ok, so who can I tag? 8 things meme

1- Like Gail at Sweet Home and Garden Chicago , who tagged me, I am a middle child too, and the bossiest of the three of us, and got into the most trouble as a small child, just ask my little sis!

2-I am a leftie, and have 3 of my 5 children who are also lefties. And my sis. And my uncle, but no one else in the family is a leftie.

3-I love to sew, and I’ve sewn for myself through high school and my married life. I was in 4-H as a child, and really do enjoy the creativity of sewing. The sad thing is, I’m not that good at it, for the amount of experience that I have.

4-Because I love gardening, I took the master gardener class last year. I learned a lot, mostly about what I don’t know, and how much more I have to learn.

5-I love genealogy and old pictures. Here is a wonderful picture of the Horner family, the father(James McGordon Horner)is a Civil War veteran. My great-grandmother is the young woman on the far left.



6-I collect recipes – in a pile. I have some unreasonable hope that I will use them all, or organize them or something. Hard to let go of this particular pile o’clutter.


7-I didn’t go to kindergarten. Our family lived on a farm, and our school district charge for kindergarten, so my older brother nor I went.

8-I am the founding member of a defunct rock band called ‘the Renegade Moms of Funk’ –actually, we’ve never had a rehearsal..
This is how ‘the band’ came about – I was tired of listening to the loud music my son had on the car radio, so I decided to tease him about the music, and a group called the Renegade Band (I think) of Funk were yelling away at the time, so I told him I was starting my own group. He is a good sport, and is our manager, still today.

A nod to Gail at Sweet Home and Garden Chicago, who tagged me!
I am tagging
Edge at Mothering on the Edge
Sassy at The Sassy Lime
Chigiy at Gardener's Anonymous Zoey at
Perennial Passion
Sara at Farming Friends
Kim at A Study in Contrasts
When tagged, you must list the person who tagged you, post the rules and list 8 or so people at the end of the post.

Green Thumb Sunday - Carrot Harvest

I am harvesting my carrots as we need them. You can see from the photo that I should have done a better job of thinning in the spring! I planted two varieties, one was a red variety (I don't seem to have written down the variety in my gardening notebook). The red ones seem to have done better than the regular carrots in spite of being crowded. Oddly enough, the red color is only on the surface of the carrots, and can be scrubbed off if you clean too vigorously. The taste is the same. The only thing I noticed is that when I cooked the red carrots, they turned the water a bit pink.

What year do you belong ? Yeah, I'm old!

You Belong in 1951

You're fun loving, romantic, and more than a little innocent. See you at the drive in!

What Year Do You Belong In?

GARDEN BLOGGERS BLOOM DAY, part 2

Well, this was a fun surprise that I forgot to put on my bloom list, some of the spring violets decided this long, mild fall = time to bloom. A fun little bonus.

GARDEN BLOGGERS BLOOM DAY - November 2007

Not much is left in the yard, just a few odds and ends:

This monch Aster has bloomed all summer and is hanging in there 'til the bitter end.

This little snapdragon was a volunteer that I didn't even notice until the end of October.

I couldn't get a good picture of my Anemone Hupehensis ( Prinz Heinrich),

so I found this photo on line. I just bought it and threw it in my 'spring garden' late in September.
Not technically a flower, but I do love our ubiquitous cotoneaster.

This is one of several roses that are still putting out a bloom or two.

What's blooming in your yard today? Happy Bloom Day!

GREEN THUMB SUNDAY I'm feelin' the love!

One of my favorite plants is (are?) irises. My DH knows this, and also knows how much I like spring bulbs.

And we both loove a good bargain.

So I was not totally surprised when he brought home some half price bulbs (the box is full, don't'cha know)

However, he outdid himself when he called from work on Friday to say he'd seen an offer for free Iris on Craig's List.

I thought he'd bring me home four or five tubers, but, no! He filled his car's trunk with these freebies, two colors, light purple and dark purple, and now they are all mine.
I'm a lucky woman, I think. I'll probably pot most of these up (until I run out of pots, that is).

Happy GTS!

Leaf 'print' project finished

I finally got this project done and ready to hang, before fall is over. I am pleased with my project, just wish I got things done faster (having started this before Halloween). What do you think?

this and that

I finally got my dining room chairs re-covered. My DH had helped me cover them a few years ago, and we Scotch-guarded the fabric, thinking they would be easier to clean. That was a futile effort. They didn't clean up well at all, and were a solid color. Things were pretty ugly, and efforts to clean them just resulted in bigger, splotchier looking stains.
I put this lovely fruit-and-floral fabric on last week, again, with help from DH. Didn't bother with the protective Scotch -guarding. I have hopes this will look better, longer.

I was wandering around in blog-o-space, and found a fun website; A Time for Everything.

This blogger has a great web-site, and recommended going to Wal-mart's website with free samples -

http://walmart.triaddigital.com/Free-Samples.aspx .

So maybe you've already seen this, but...

I don't spend much time on Craig's list, and 'best of' is funny, but often too profane for my taste. However, my DH showed me this post about M&M's and it is one of the funniest things I've read in a while:

http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/tpa/409930561.html

At any rate, that was a good 'best of craig's list for me.

I am especially pleased that the dark chocolate M&M's (Peanut!) are available, they are a step up from the original brand, to say the least. ('cause heaven knows, I need to be eating more chocolate!)

At any rate, hope it is a day brightener for you, as it was for me!

GREEN THUMB SUNDAY more fall beauty

My dogwood has looked a little shabby all year, but I was out in the morning as the sun came over the mountains.
It is looking its best in the morning light, don't you think?

Garden Blogger's Muse Day - November

November Night

by Adelaide Crapsey

Listen. .
With faint dry sound,
Like steps of passing ghosts,
The leaves, frost-crisp'd,
break from the trees
And fall.