Inspiration and a Busy Weekend
On Friday afternoon the FedEx man delivered a large box containing 450 bare rooted shrubs. You can imagine what my weekend entailed. I was filming most of the day Sat, but was able to plant 10 shrubs in the morning. Yesterday I planted another 50 more. Looks like I’ll be digging a lot of holes this coming week! I’ll tell you a little more about this hedge when I can get some more photos (this is only half of the plants that arrived).
Last week I posted about inspiration at the Your Day blog. Head on over there and let me know what inspires you.
Did you get any gardening time in this weekend? What did you do?
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Quote of the Day: Diane Ackerman
Just cultivate delight.
Enjoy the sensory pleasures of the garden.
That’s number one.
Gardening really does delight all the senses. The smell of a rose, the dripping of rain, the taste of fresh lettuce, the feel of soft earth, the sight of a flower in bloom, the warmth of the sun, the prick of a thorn. I try to make sure I notice these things while I’m out and about.
What senses do use most when you’re working in the garden?
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True Heirloom Plants
I talk about heirloom vegetables all the time. Most of the plants in my edible garden are heirlooms, passed down throughout the generations, but not in my immediate family. I do have a few plants that are heirlooms in my family. Plants that have been passed down from my grandma to my mom and then on to me.
This Lily of the Valley (Convallaria majalis) comes from my mom’s garden. I got a start of it a few years ago. She got her start from her mom’s garden many years ago. I also have a peony that came from the house my mom’s parents bought when she was a little girl. It was already growing in the garden when they purchased the house over 50 years ago. My mom got starts from it when she had a garden of her own, and she’s given me starts of it as well.
I also have two snowball viburnums (Viburnum macrocephalem) that are starts from a bush my dad’s mom planted down at the family cabin and it’s been blooming beside the shed for as long as I can remember. I was able to get two starts from it last year. My grandma was always happy when it was blooming, she called it the snowball bush. It’s nice to know when I see these plants that my grandmothers grew and enjoyed them in their gardens as well, true heirloom plants!
Do you have any plants that are heirlooms in your family?
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Friday Favorite: Homemade Ice Cream
I have fond memories from my childhood of Saturdays at the family cabin with my grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. All of us kids would spend our days running around the acres of woods, collecting rocks, feathers, bones, and all kinds of things children find fascinating. We built dams in the little creek, caught crawdads and gathered berries along the edges of the woods.
The best part of the day was evening when the old fashioned ice cream makers would come out. My grandma would make custard and we’d all have a turn cranking until it got too hard for us kids. Then we’d wait by with bowls in hand for the finished ice cream.
We still make homemade ice cream on special occasions. This past Sunday we celebrated my dad’s birthday and a belated Easter since he just arrived home from Colombia. We enjoyed a delicious meal of ham and other side and had to finish it off with homemade raw milk ice cream.
The kids wanted to help of course, but quickly tired of turning the crank. They played happily nearby while asking “is it done yet?” every couple minutes.
After 20 minutes or so it was done and we dished it up. We all enjoyed a bowl of fresh homemade ice cream with a piece of my mom’s famous pound cake. It was the perfect ending to a family meal.
My ice cream recipe is fairly simple, warm some whole milk with vanilla beans, let steep for 30 minutes. Mix a few egg yolks with some sugar and a dash of salt. Slowly pour in hot milk while whisking. Add some cream and chill for a few hours. Freeze in an ice cream maker, old fashioned or electric. I don’t have specific measurements, I taste and add and taste again and the amount varied depending on which ice cream maker we’re using. Sometimes I add more egg yolks if we can more custardy ice cream, sometimes I add fewer for a lighter ice cream. I also make mine slightly less sweet and with a little less cream than most recipes. This is a great recipe, you can swap the milk/cream to make it less creamy if you want.
It’s nice to know that we’re passing along the love of homemade ice cream to the next generation. I’m sure our nieces and nephew will have fond memories of making old fashioned ice cream just like my brother, sister and I do!
Do you ever make homemade ice cream? What’s your favorite flavor of ice cream?
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So Long Winter – Hello Spring
Yesterday I washed up all of our hats, mittens and scarfs to put them away for the year. They’ll be replaced in the organizer by the back door by gardening and work gloves. We’ll still have some cold weather here in NE Ohio, so I saved one pair of thin gloves and a hat for each of us, but all the heavy woolen items were stowed away in the cedar chest.
We have one of those shoe organizers on the back of the door in our laundry room, which is the main door we use for coming and going. In the winter it’s stocked with woolen and fleece mittens, hats and scarves. During spring/summer/fall it’s stocked with work gloves, gardening gloves, and a few garden tools that I don’t want to store in the garage (like my nice pruners).
It always makes me happy to do this. Kind of a final goodbye to winter and the official start of spring/summer and the gardening season. I’m always happy to replace my woolen mittens with a pair of Ethel gloves!
Do you have seasonal items that you swap in your coat closet?
