Good morning! I hope everyone had a lovely weekend.
Mine was nice and quiet. Friday night was Duck Season Eve, which is quite the holiday round these parts. Wheat spent the night down at Lake Seminole with friends, which is an annual tradition. I spent the night in making quesadillas, pinning, and drinking a margarita (my recreation of Taco Lu’s marg is coming soon!). It was fab.
Saturday morning I went for a run, then went on a coffee run to The Bean, then made 4 pie crusts for Thanksgiving using this buttermilk & lard pie crust recipe and popped them in the freezer for later this week. When Wheat got home, we ate Zaxby’s for lunch. This food loving little family eats a lot of Zaxby’s. No shame!
It was rainy and pretty gross here Saturday, so we just piddled all afternoon, then ate supper at Bonnie Blue’s and came home and built a fire. Wheat’s parents and our friend Hehle came over to watch the Georgia game (I didn’t really watch – this Gator fan is over football for the year) and we enjoyed the cooler weather outside. Sunday was gorgeous and sunny and cold! And we skipped Church to have an epic day of yard work. We raked the ENTIRE yard first, which was a full body workout. I’m still a little sore! We used the straw we raked up (along with 3 truckloads from a neighbor’s pile) to spruce up the flower beds. We also planted some kale and pansies and generally just did everything we could physically get done out there before it was time to go to Wheat’s aunt and uncles’ house for the first of many family gatherings.
Our lettuce is either out of control or really sad. Not sure which. Some are starting to bolt (flower and go to seed).
Our collards are doing much better now that they are out from under the okra.
We also planted two types of kale Sunday.
And also planted garlic! I realize it’s not the ideal time to plant it, but we’ll see what happens. We already planted some elsewhere in the yard and it’s growing well, so when this entire head of garlic started sprouting, we figured, “What the hay?”
We raked and raked and raked, and then “stole” some more straw, and spruced up all the flower beds all over the house, and cut back the lantana, mandevilla, turq’s cap hibiscus, cardinal guard, and coral bean and covered those with straw, too.
We put straw around the oak leaf hydrangeas, too. Their leaves are so pretty in the fall/winter.
I grabbed a 4-pack of pansies at Home Depot while we were there to purchase another rake, and filled in the pots where the basil lived all summer.
I also weeded the herb garden around the patio and put straw around the herbs that were in there. I’m hoping to get it to where the herbs in the beds are there year-round (oregano, mint, rosemary) and the pots I’ll plant basil in the spring for the summer. I also have a DIY project in mind for the shepherd’s hooks. The tall one holds a hummingbird feeder during part of the year and the shorter ones hold citronella candles, but they are all currently empty. I’ll report back when/if I cross that DIY off my list!
We put straw around the Whitman ferns that we planted in between the oak leaf hydrangeas, and then I dug up a few to plant in the beds in front of our shed. The beds have been a problem spot for a while, and an eye sore for quite some time, too. We tried rosemary there, but it doesn’t drain well and they both died. I planted wildflowers in these beds in the spring, but they’ve been full of weeds for a while now.
The Whitman ferns we have came from the ferns at my parents’ house, which way back when came from my dad’s family in Beaufort, South Carolina. We also have some hanging from the front porch and by the front door, of course. You can tell a Whitman fern by the way the leaves split off at the ends and get all lacy-like. They’re really beautiful plants.
We planted a handful in each bed on either side of the shed door. I’m hoping they will grow in really thick and the pine straw won’t be necessary down the road, but for now, it will hopefully keep the weeds at bay.
I also snuck in some project time… this is a sneak preview of some future DIY projects! I have been gold leafing oyster shells that I collected last winter and cleaned, and then lacquering them. They’re gorgeous, IMHO.
Other than that, it was a full and busy but quiet weekend. The first Thanksgiving family dinner was great, and I’m currently thankful for this short work week!
Stay warm out there, y’all! Wallace stayed warm this weekend by laying in sunny spots. :)
