Labor Day Wishes

Hello, friends.  Last week, I was delighted to see a monarch in the garden.  It alighted on a cucumber plant, and kept me company for a few moments.  From the garden, I harvested a few tomatoes, some eggplant, peppers, yard long beans, yellow squash, a tromboncino, hazelnuts, pawpaws, purslane and apples.  I harvested and dried lambs quarter and two chanterelle mushrooms.  Since the rain midweek, I saw two more tromboncinos beginning.  We planted collards, broccoli, cabbage and lettuce seedlings that J purchased. It's just been that kind of year.  I shared yellow squash, beans, peppers, and a couple of pawpaws.  For my birthday, my spirit daughter sent me these beautiful flowers.  (We prefer spirit daughter to step-daughter).  

I grew up using a sponge to wash dishes, and still prefer it to a dish cloth.  Though it's not the most frugal choice, I've started a new habit that makes a little more use of it.  When it's time to replace the old one, I use it for wiping several dirty jobs, such as the trash can, baseboards, and dirty places on the doorframes and wall corners where the dogs rub (do other dogs do that??), before throwing it away.  I do keep some older ones to use in the bathroom, and one to scrub the occasional egg, but the dirty jobs idea is a new one that's uses them up a bit more.  Warm up and dehumidifier water were used for flushing and to water plants.  The bamboo cutting board was scrubbed with baking soda and homemade thieves vinegar, to cut down on the onion and garlic residue.

After delivering soap to a gallery, I went by Hallmark, and received a free card, while buying other greeting cards.  At Harris Teeter, I got a 3L tin of EVOO for $19.99.  This time I made sure I got the sale price before leaving, and also got the 5% senior discount on my total.  J made a hay spike to move the large round bales he recently bought.  We're planning on turning the road garden into a hay field, once we enlarge it some.  That was the field we tried wheat and peanuts in in past years, but the deer ate our crops, so hay seems like a better use of that spot.  The garden is a good ways from our house, and they're braver there.  M has been getting videos of the deer over there on his webcam regularly.  After making soup for lunch, using homemade broth, I froze the remainder.  A dish was made, using our potatoes, peppers, onions and garlic.  

consolation scene

On Friday evening, we picked up our GD just after she got off the school bus, headed to pick up dinner, and then to the Paperhand Puppet event.  We were the second group that arrived, so we had our pick of seats, and enjoyed a leisurely dinner there.  It took place in a lovely venue, an 100+ year old stone amphitheater in the woods.  The pre-show was a local  kora player.  Though I was the only one of our trio, I greatly enjoyed it.  Things went south from there.  Right about when the show was to have started, there was a local power outage, which wasn't expected to be resolved for several hours.  After several minutes, they did a short scene as a consolation, and cancelled the show.  We plan to try again in a few weeks.  J and our GD planted lettuce seeds, while she was here.  After dropping her home, we met dear friends at a winery, and had a most enjoyable afternoon catching up.  Wishing you a lovely Labor Day.