This Week's On Fire Featured Artisan

 Hey there! My name is Cari, and I have a love for crochet (creating and teaching). One of my goals is to show that anyone can create useful and beautiful items they believe are beyond their wildest dreams. My jewelry design, Braidlets®, is a prime example


To begin my story I want to… share some personal info. I’m a native Southern California girl, married toJohn (retired Atty. and Veteran Combat Corpsman with Fox 2/7 1968) who supports my passion 110%. 

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It's Tomato Time Again!

I just love this time of year! We are coming in to that time in the summer where our counter-top is always loaded with produce and the grocery bill shrinks to just the necessities of paper products, personal needs and a small amount of meats. Oh and maybe some nice wines!

The tomato on the far right is called Mr. Stripey and it weighed in at 2 lbs. 3.3 ounces! Mr. Stripey tops my list of all time favorites for versatility, flavor, looks and texture. It is a sweet meaty tomato variety that is good for just about anything you can think of - especially salsa! The sliced tomato in the back left is a variety known as Cherokee purple that we had just gotten 3 tomato and cucumber sandwiches out of and the two tomatoes in the front are Beef Masters. All together I think we probably have about 7 different varieties and we also grew some tomatillos for salsa verde this year. We had a late start on these because a chipmunk got into our greenhouse in late spring and ate all our plant roots. They are just starting to form fruit, so it will be fun to experiment with all the different regional recipes!

The herb garden is overflowing with basil and the tomatoes plants are loaded and all we need for a great meal is a little olive oil, garlic and pasta. Of course, if I really want to kick it up a notch, I make some fresh pesto to go on that pasta. I make my pesto with basil, olive oil, the juice of a fresh squeezed lemon, roasted walnuts, garlic, grey salt and freshly grated Parmesan cheese.

Next up will be all the different pepper varieties we are growing this year. The jalapenos are already producing really well and I will probably be forced to make some poppers this weekend. Stay tuned!

It's Been a While...

...but something seems to be under foot here!

All links to my blog, which is several years old, now go to some other person's blog! What on earth? And they don't even have a Blogspot Blog it is a Wordpress Blog!

So, as not to belabor the point/issue, I have renamed my blog to better reflect the nature of the content. I don't normally blog too much about crafts, I blog about life on our small farm and well, just life in general, so this is probably a better fit.

Lately, life in general has been a chore! On June 29, a new type of storm, well new to me, called a Derecho swept across 10 states and devastated much of our little slice of heaven. A Derecho is also known as a land hurricane, which is also new to me, and this nasty but fast moving storm left us without power for 11 days of what was the worst heat wave we have had in Central VA since 1936. Yes, we broke all the records.

The only good news here, is that we were on vacation in the Outer Banks the week before, and if this storm had come through a week earlier, we would have had to come home because our farm sitter could never have dealt with the fallout and we would have missed out on our wonderful vacation!

This is the view looking west from Kitty Hawk Kites in Nags Head. Those dunes are part of Jockey's Ridge State Park - spectacular!

What's in Bloom Wednesday

It has been such a wonderful spring! The weather has been close to perfect and because we haven't had any of our normal early hot spells, our spring flowering perennials have been stunning!

Today's posts is simply a walk around the farm to share a few of my spring favorites.

The peonies lasted longer than ever this year. We have been on our farm for 8 years now and we planted all of our different peony varieties the first summer we moved in. This is one is called Pink Hawaiian.

We also have several varieties of clematis. This is an early bloomer named Josephine.

Beautiful dianthus, "Bath's Pink". You can smell this variety from 50 feet away!

Fiddleheads in spring! I don't think this variety would be very good to eat, but you never know!

  Ah the beautiful Bearded Iris! These smell so lovely! When I was little my friend's mother had a huge Iris garden and they were often referred to as "flags". The funny thing about this planting is that each year they are a different color! They are either bright yellow or the blackest purple and you never know until they pop up what they will be. This picture makes them look a lot lighter than they really are. I can't figure out why but it is probably due to digital cameras!

My college photography courses taught me to look at things from many perspectives and this Japanese Maple just begged to be photographed from the inside out! I gave this particular specimen to my husband 15 years ago for Easter and I can't recall the name, but it is very special and I have never seen the variety again! It was so tiny it fit in a little pot that sat on our dining room table and it has moved with us to FL and back!

And last but not least for today's stroll, any photographer worth his salt always has to do a study in looking up! These tulips lasted for almost 3 weeks and although they were white, they were tall and stunning!

Happy Wednesday everyone!

This Week's On Fire for Handmade Featured Artisan!

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This week's Featured Artisan is Teresa Anderson Rusk - T.Rusk4u. Teresa has some beautiful creations

that are a perfect addition to anyone's wardrobe! You can find T.Rusk4u on:

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Today is Earth Day

According to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia; "Earth Day is a day in early April each year on which events are held worldwide to increase awareness and appreciation of the Earth's natural environment." The first Earth Day came about in 1970 after U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson, witnessed the ravages of the 1969 massive oil spill in Santa Barbara, California.

I honestly don't know how far we have all come since then, but I know my family and I do our part in how we live. We tend the earth, we grow and preserve much of our own food and we are always conscious of our surroundings and the effects we have on them. My husband and I both grew up on farms so we didn't really need an official Earth Day to influence the way we interact with the world around us. It was simply the way we were taught to live by those who came before us.

My concern is with all the trash we produce and the fact that most of that is plastics. Everything we purchase comes is disposable containers! I am so disappointed that most of what I purchase from Whole Foods comes in plastic boxes. How does that even make sense? Even my organic, vegan, gluten free cookies have a plastic tray inside that pretty paper box they come in. Why isn't anyone making a stink about that? In Virginia, you are still allowed to burn your trash in many localities and that just blows my mind! Even in the dead of winter you can't see a soul from our property, but if the wind is blowing right, you can smell the acrid, toxic odor of burning trash or I guess it is burning plastics. 

Our farm is accessed from a small gravel, rural road and on a daily basis someone throws their trash out into the road. Recently, that even included a mattress! We were nonplussed! What would motivate someone to drive out our way and dump a mattress on the side of the road! We have lived out here for 8 years and we have tended our section of the road and maintained the grasses and embankments and ditches and it seems that the nicer we make it, the more the trash gets dumped. It is as if we put up a sign that says, dump your trash here because these nice people will clean it up for you!

So what is my point, you ask? It is great that we can do our feel good part and buy everything "Green" - don't get me started about the whole "green", Eco-friendly movement - and it is great that one day out of 365 days a year, we celebrate Earth Day, but when are we going to start doing something about affecting real change. I was born in the 50's and I can tell you that in 1970, almost nothing you purchased in the grocery store came in plastic. It was paper or glass, and you had to recycle your glass. How have we allowed corporate profits to get us so far off track that virtually all consumables now come in plastic? Oh, and what is the number one ingredient in all that plastic? You guessed it, crude oil! Plastics are made from oil. Oil is a carbon-rich raw material, and plastics are large carbon-containing compounds. 

Now that I got that off my chest - well not really, I choose to celebrate Earth Day 365 days a year in how I live and what I consume and what I put back in the earth. I live on a beautiful plot of land and try to be conscious of how what we do on our small farm affects the Chesapeake Bay Watershed, which in turn affects all of us. What are you doing every day for earth day?

 

'Earth Day Tones' by TheBeasKnees

Watercolor Painting Art... BarbaraRosenzw... $29.00	Terracotta Beach Pendan... AgapiSeaGlass $29.00	Dragonfly Bracelet with... Phoebedreams $12.00	Raku star chunky earrin... ElephantBeads $22.50
1898 Vintage BUTTERFLY ... BlastsFromTheP... $11.25	Brown, Swarovski, Lucit... jewelrybyNaLa $21.50	Mustard Yellow poppy f... seragun $5.00	Pendant of Natural Elem... JudithGayleDes... $49.00
Earthy Beaded Scissor F... TJBdesigns $18.00	Handmade Micro macrame ... EgyptianInspir... $31.00	Earth Tone Vintage 9 Bo... jaysworld $50.00	Red Fox Fluff Knit Scar... MadeforMebyOak... $23.00
Bird Tags - Italian Pos... TheNestinSLT $6.00	Dragonfly, Cattails and... JimAndGina $28.00	Small rustic earrings, ... JudysDesigns $18.00	Fabric Wallet - Tan Pai... BonniesSewCraz... $12.00

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This Week's On Fire for Handmade Featured Artisan!

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This weeks' Featured Artisan is Georgia Groves... georgiamarbles. A taste of the past with her delicious aprons and darling dolls! You can find georgiamarbles on:

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