Tis the Season

 Hello dear friends!  You know in all those Regency novels they speak of the "season"?  A time when all the garden parties, soirees and balls begin?  Well, we have our "season" here, also, the end of spring until Labor day when all the church rummage sales, garage sales and estate sales begin.  The Grand Finale is the Blue Water garage sale trail that runs along the shoreline of Lake Huron in the Thumb area of Michigan. Ran and I look forward to it every year.  We carry a list of things we hope to find and usually do.  This year our list included garden twine, sandpaper, art supplies, and winter reading material.  Of course we make allowances for a few pretties to make our home more homier.  This year we spent less than what it would cost for the two of us to go out to a nice dinner and that included our gas money.  We pack a lunch because there are no fast food joints along that stretch of road and only a handful of diners (and we don't like to waste our valuable hunting time being waited upon and served.)  Besides we ate our meal along the shoreline and watched a bald eagle fishing in the lake.  How's that for tableside entertainment?   Sales are getting sparser and sparser each passing year, unfortunately.  Perhaps because of the economy people are holding onto their treasures?  Or maybe it is the older generation is getting too old and the younger generation cannot be bothered?  But still, we had a wonderful time and everyone was so friendly and even the weather was agreeable.  

The End of an Era

Sadly, one of my favorite sellers told me this would be her last year.  I've been stopping by her place for the past twenty years.  She used to be and antique dealer in the 1970s and when I first started buying from her the things I found!  Almost all my English pink lusterware has come from her shop and quite a few pieces of pearlware circa 1820s and earlier.  I've picked over the pieces I really admired over the years, but couldn't resist buying a few last pieces of some chinoiserie for old times sake.  I do love a bit of chinoiserie, but only if it comes from England. Ha!  But what I really come to see is her home.  I've informed Ran that if that house ever comes up for sale, I'm selling everything I own and buying it.  It's not the house so much, it's a pleasant enough little white cottage, but the location.  It's at the end of a country lane on a cliff overlooking the lake with a white picket fence with rambling roses.  Oh my!  Be still my beating heart! Anyway, I see in the picture that the front cup has a small chip in it, so I won't be using it for my morning coffee.  Oh well, it's still pretty and she only charged me fifty cents.  I have quite a collection of teacups and Ran brings me coffee every morning in a different one.  One of life's little luxuries.  I would love to have a huge Welsh cupboard to display it all, but our tiny house doesn't have enough wall space for such a thing.  One of the few drawbacks to living in a tiny cottage. 

Another Seasonal Event

Another seasonal event in Port Austin is the annual cleaning out of the summer homes.  Every summer  the summertime residents clean out their homes and, having enjoyed them during the warm months, put them up for sale during the cold months.  So they drag their possessions out to the curb and put a "free" sign on the piles, hoping everything will be gone before the garbage man cometh. Hunting through the piles is one of Jamie's favorite sports.  He's found some pretty good treasures too; like the colonial punched tin chandelier that hangs in our back room, a 100% wool oriental carpet, a Victorian birdcage and some really nice old baskets.  There's always some nice furniture too, but we haven't room for any. I always say that a person could furnish a home quite nicely on what people toss away here.  This year he found this lovely art pottery vase and a picture frame.

The flowers come from our "meadow".  Ran tilled up a piece of ground and we throw all of our seedpods from the garden back there and the birds do their part also.  There's also a lot of what some people call weeds (we call them medicinal plants) like chicory, plaintain, mullein, etc. in that plot.  It's really amazing what is right under our noses if we care to look, isn't it?

Speaking of Free Stuff

It's been a boon for summer squashes and zucchinis this year.  In one week we ate a casserole of summer squash, another casserole comprised of zucchinis, Italian sausage, onions, peppers and spaghetti sauce topped with mozzarella cheese, zucchini crab cakes, and I baked a zucchini-caramel poke cake for our weekly dessert.  That's a lot of zucchini for one week!  But we are firm believers in eating and being grateful for what the good Lord provides.  We also gave a way several  pounds to the neighbors and, although I swore I'd never do it, I shredded up a couple quart bagfuls and froze it.  Then we set a few dozen out on the street with a free sign on it, but no one took them. Evidently times might be hard but not that hard.  I was never so glad when the vines stopped setting fruit and we could pull them from the garden.  

The pagan religions have a celebration towards the end of summer when you they start harvest their gardens and pulling out there spent plants and start preparing the soil for its winter rest.  I can certainly relate to this,   the happiest days for a gardener are the first plantings and the last harvest.  It's a nice time to reflect on what you have been provided with and to express gratitude.  

I've been busy canning potatoes this week.  It was a very good year for them.  I'd say we dug more than 150 pounds out of our small plot. (No, I don't can all of them. Only the little peanut-sized ones and those that are pierced by the potato fork.)  So don't let anyone lead you to believe you need acres and acres of land to be self-sustainable.  We also harvested about 30 pounds of onions.  These won't last that long because use a lot of onions and I hate that we are already dipping into the baskets.  Our freezer is packed with broccoli and cauliflowers.  Little by little we are restocking the pantry.  Tomatoes are coming in by dribs and drabs, but we are getting enough to can the things we wanted to; catsup, salsa, and spaghettia sauce.  Temperatures are dipping into the 50s at night, so I'm not sure if we'll get enough to can plain tomatoes, but it doesn't matter, we'll manage with what we already have.  That is why it is so important to preserve more than what you think you'll need. You never know when you'll have a bad year.  Thanks to Ran and Jamie rescuing the peach and pear tree by covering them with a tarp during an exceptionally late hard frost, we are one of the few people in our area  that has peaches.  But the are just starting to ripen.  Usually by now they would have been harvested weeks ago.  

Let's see.  We harvested all of our cabbages because slugs were starting to get to them and I started the process of making sauerkraut.  A stinky proposition if there ever was one.  We'll dig the beets this week.  One of my least favorite canning duties, stains everything.  We are trying to beat the racoons to get a few meals of corn on the cob.  How do you know when the corn is ready to eat?  When the racoons get into it. And I'll make another batch of our favorite tomato-apple catsup this week.

Tomato-Apple Catsup

8# tomatoes

2 green sweet peppers

2 red sweet peppers

4 onions

3 C. apple cider vinegar (5% solution)

3 C. sugar

3 Tbs. canning salt

3 tsp. dry mustard

1/2 tsp. ground red pepper

1/2 tsp. ground allspice

1 1/2 tsp. ground cloves

1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

2 C. applesauce (I use my home canned, but store-bought works too)

Quarter tomatoes. Add peppers and onions.  Emulsify with an immersion blender or use a food processor.

Add the rest of the ingredients except the applesauce.  Cook down to one-half the volume. Add the applesauce Heat   and can in water-bath for 15 minutes.  Leave a 1/2 inch headspace in the jars.

Other Outdoor Activities

Ran has been repairing and repainting the birdhouses. And he's been installing solar lights into various lanterns and antique porch lights we've picked up over the years.

Gives a bit of fairyland atmosphere to the old place. I used to be able to find old porch lights like this everywhere way back in the day.  Made  some money selling them to people renovating old houses.  One of the ways I managed to be a stay-at-home mom and put our children through college.  I rarely find any like this any longer, sadly.

Wardrobe

A few of you dear lovelies asked to see some of my wardrobe.  I'm afraid it's not very exciting this time of the year.  In summer,  I'm just happy to find something that keeps me cool enough to keep my eyes from melting out of their sockets.  Did I mention that I'm not a fan of hot weather?  Oh yeah.  About a billion times.  Anywho, my summer wardrobe consists of something like this:

A 100% cotton skirt (me-made) and a cream or ivory blouse made from the thinnest cotton I can find.  I find that  a very full skirt allows air to flow up, thus keeping me cool.  And although I'm covered from my collarbone to almost my ankles, I'm often the only one not suffering when I'm with others that are wearing more traditional summertime fare. The skirt is homemade from the thrifted fabric and blouse comes from a garage sale for $1, so I don't have too much invested in this outfit. So when it gets stained up, as all my summer clothes do, it is not such a hardship to toss them in the trash at the end of August.

Crafting

While my summer wardrobe is expendible, my cold weather clothes are another story.  I often spend months knitting just one sweater or weeks on a pair of fairl isle gloves for it.  Just finished the ginormous intarsia  knit shawl.

I don't really enjoy knitting intarsia knitting or knitting with circular needles, but I wanted a giant shawl with a fern on it and no one was going to knit one for me.  The pattern is from Tiny Owl Knits. I would have preferred a dark brown background, but I'm trying to knit down my yarn stash.  Fortunately I had a lot of fern green yarn for some odd reason.  But you know what guys?  As soon as I finished it, I found some beautiful baby alpaca yarn and a couple of skeins of linen/silk yarn at the garage sales, so much for knitting down my stash!

Lest you think all I do is knit, I managed to sew a few aprons.

This one was inspired by the aprons Mrs. Hall wears in All Creatures Great and Small.  I made it from a duvet cover that I purchased at a thrift store.  Still have yards of fabric left over.  King-sized sheets give you lots of fabric to play with.  Anyhow, I discovered that this style of apron is more suitable for more straight  up and down figures and doesn't do a curvy figure any favors  Oh well!  It is only an apron.

Then when I was cleaning out the attic I happened upon a generous cut of plaid fabric. So another apron was in order.  This time an Edwardian one with princess seams.  Much better fitting.

I probably should have ironed it.  Anyway, it's a cute red and green plaid.  Years ago I started making little presents for the house for Christmas, like potholders, samplers, napkins, table runners and aprons.  I often find new candles and fancy soaps, tea towels, etc at garage sales and especially at estate sales.  I guess people are given these things and put them away for  a special occasion and never use them.  Anyway, I tuck away all my treasures like this apron and some time in December bring them out to make the holiday special. It really is like Christmas morning because half the time I forget what I've squirreled away.  

Books

Anything else? Oh yes. Books! Thank you all for your book suggestions.  Right now, I'm reading zilch.  Just too tired at the end of the day.  And I think I'm wasting too much time on Pintrest looking up recipes for garden produce.  Amazing site, that Pintrest, but you really can fall down a rabbit hole with it.  

So, if you've stuck with me thus far, I thank you kindly.  If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to do so.  Hope you all have a restful Labor Day.  Can you believe summer is coming to an end?  Hopefully, we'll meet again soon!  Bless you all!

Hugs

Jane

Please Bear With Me

 Hello dear friends!  Long time, no see!  Ran asked me to download some pictures of our garden, as this blog acts as a sort of journal of our life, so please bear with me.

This summer has been very good for the garden, although Spring was almost completely non-existant.  We were still wearing our winter coats into the first week of June.  Seeds were slow to germinate and had to be replanted several times.  (That's why it's important to save your seeds from season to season.) Anyway, after a cold start, the weather cooperated and we've had the perfect amount of rain and warmth to make a lush vegetable plot.  Even that dreadful heat wave that plagued many only lasted a few days here. 

The birds have completely transformed my flower gardens.  It is so strange, plants appear in different spots than where they were originally planted.  Some fade away and others appear.   

  

Notice the milk weed on the right hand corner?  For years I have been trying to get some to reseed itself in my yard to no avail, but this year it showed up on its own.  The Monarch butterflies are loving it.

Where I've Been

Liberosis:The desire to care less about things, to let things go. Having a sense of liberating indifference to other people's opinions. A longing for playfulness and lightness in life.

A few years back I started thinking about my life.  Not to sound morbid, but realistically I only have about a decade or so of it left.  And time flies so quickly!   I just want to enjoy what ever time I have left.  One day Ran and I were driving down the road and I noticed that the sky was so blue.  When was the last time I really looked at the sky?  So the past year, I've been really "looking" at everything.  The wonder of it all!

While I'm taking in all the experiences I can, I've also been letting go of a lot of things.  Not only downsizing and clearing physical clutter, but a lot of baggage that comes from growing up in an abusive home.  One day I was having a conversation with Ran and I told him, "I can't figure out if (a certain friend) is being passive-aggressive or just thoughtless."  and he said something so simple, yet so insightful that I feel as if it has changed my life forever.  He said, "Does it really matter? "  No it doesn't, hurtful is still hurtful, isn't it?  So out went the people that bring drama or negativity into my life.  My circle is very small, just my immediate family and a few neighbors that I chat with over the fence and some folks I deal with on a weekly basis, like my little Amish friend at the scratch-and-dent store and the gentleman that regularily checks us out at the Mennonite store.  And you know what?  I have never had such contentment in my entire almost seventy years of life.

Right now, the garden dictates my life.  The weeding, the watering, the picking and the  preserving take hours out of each day.  Someone, rather snarkily, I might add, told me that they wish they had such a quiet life and could lie about all day in their pajamas and read all day.  Ouch!  Did I have flashbacks to the days as a stay-at-home mother when people used to say that old, tired phrase "I wish I could stay at home and lie on the couch eating bon-bons all day."!  For the record, I don't think I've ever eaten a bon-bon in my life. Ha!

In between garden chores, I snatch a few hours to do something creative.  At the moment, I'm knitting a rather complicated intarsia patterned shawl and doing some Jacobean crewel-work (a kit I picked up at a church rummage sale for a quarter).  I've narrowed down what I read to books that are  either informative or are in my wheelhouse (set in the period between the mid-1600s to the early 1800s in the country with lot of country folklore and customs). Anyone have any suggestions?  I'm also trying very hard to keep to a consistent exercise regime (and hating every minute of it). Ha!  Well, at least it is keeping me from becoming a complete marshmallow during the winter's slower months, so there's that.

As for this blog, I really don't know what its future holds.  Ran does like to come on here and see how our little home has changed throughout the years, so I suppose I will post from time to time.  I think I've said all that I can say about being thrifty.  I've learned that you can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink.  Experience and necessity are really the only two ways anyone will ever learn to be truly thrifty.  I realize most of my advice goes in one ear and right out the other.  So what is left to write about? The weather?  Even I would be bored with that and I am easily amused. Ha! Well anyway, I'm just rambling here, so if you have stuck with me thus far, I thank you kindly.  Have a blessed August!

Hugs

Jane