Checking In...

Source: google.com via Angela on Pinterest

Things have been busy lately, and I've had a hard time keeping up with garden and SSFC posts. Last weekend we went to San Francisco for the wedding of one of my best friends from college. It was great to see so many of my friends all in one place! We all live in different parts of the country, and even though some of our group were missing,  it was so nice to be around people I've known for a long time and who know me well. As much as I like meeting new people, there's something comforting about being around people who know your history already.

Source: mealmakeovermoms.com via Aneiko on Pinterest

Of course, being in California, I got to eat some fantastic locally-sourced food. At my friend's wedding, they served slices of avocado and mango in pieces of endive. I kept flagging the waitresses down so they'd bring the tray of these over (that's what I mean about being around people you're comfortable with).  I have to recreate this for myself, although I know mango and avocado are not going to be locally-sourced here in VA. One of the best parts about being out in northern CA--the wine. While in Napa we went to several wineries and you know the grapes are being grown right in their backyards. Can't get more local than that.

I saw so many cactus and succulent gardens, and so many interesting plants and shrubs that I wish I could grow in my own garden. I have some research to do on that.

Coming up this week--I'm still sorting through wedding pictures to send out to my friends. And we're finally getting new windows for the house! We've needed new windows since we moved in a few years ago, and we're finally getting them installed this week. At some point i hope to find time to update on my gardens and ongoing attempts to eat locally sourced food, but right now a lot of my online time is spent researching jobs and companies. Job hunting is a full-time job, oy!

So for now, off to refill my cup of coffee and get back on the search...

Back From the Wild West

{wild flowers in the Badlands, SD}

How did it become September 15 already??!? I haven't had much Internet fun-time lately. Between busy days at work, trying to get some home remodeling projects contracted, and a quick trip out West, I haven't had time to spend visiting my favorite garden blogs.

In between work my husband and I took a little vacation. We've been on an American travel kick in the last year or so, trying to see as much as this country as we can while we're young and child-less. We were up in Maine and New England earlier in August for a wedding, and that was a beautiful part of the country. Lots of mountains, forests, and so close to the ocean that you get lots of fresh seafood. I've been up and down the Eastern seaboard and all over the South, but I haven't seen much of the Midwest or Southwest, so we decided to take our annual vacation in what used to be part of the Wild West. We mainly stayed in South Dakota, but we rented a car and drove into Montana, Wyoming, Nebraska, and North Dakota. 

It was a great trip, it's so beautiful out there and not as flat as I imagined. The cattle industry is huge, and we saw many, many cattle ranches as we were driving around. We also visited several national monuments and national parks, including Devil's Tower (the first designated U.S. National Monument), Mount Rushmore, the Crazy Horse Memorial, and drove through Theodore Roosevelt National Park, the Badlands National Park, and the Black Hills National Forest.  We stayed in Keystone, SD, and Deadwood, which was such a typical Wild West town (but with computerized slot machines now), and learned a little about some old-time cowboys and outlaws.

{prairie dogs}

I saw bison, coyotes, wild horses, wild turkeys, and lots and lots of prairie dogs. They were so cute! Although, they did remind me a little of the squirrels that have been terrorizing my garden. We ate some good food--lots of beef around, as you might imagine--and I had sarsaparilla (which is really just root beer) and drank beer in a few saloons, and talked with a lot of nice locals.

Sadly, you can really see the effects of the drought in this part of the country. Everything is DRY and there are warnings in all the campgrounds, national parks, and practically every gas station indicating that the risk of wild fire is high, so don't flick your cigarette butts anywhere. There was a huge wildfire that had just raged through northwest Nebraska/southwest South Dakota. Locals told us it had been started by a lightning strike in a field. People told us storm clouds have been rolling in all summer, but there wouldn't be any actual rain, so when the lightning stuck, with conditions as dry as they have been, all that grass and hay just ignited and it burned for days. Firefighters from as far as Arizona and California came in to help them fight it. Funny how we haven't heard about that here in DC. There was so much blackened, scorched earth, and when all the grass and hay are burned up, there's nothing for farmers to feed their horses or cattle. You can imagine what this is doing to their local economy. Despite this, everyone we met was so nice, and it was nice to see this rugged part of the country and get away from the crowds of city life. It was the perfect end to our summer.

I'm still working through photos and trying to get my house and garden back in order after some neglectful days. I hope to have more updates soon and see what everyone else's gardens are up to now that we're officially approaching Autumn!

Have you seen the Wild West? Where have you vacationed this summer?

Eating Local in Maine and Vermont

My husband and I were in Maine last weekend for a wedding. We'd been to Maine only once before and really like it. We stayed outside of Bangor in a very remote cabin.This part of Maine is pretty rugged, and I'm not outdoorsy at all, but it was so nice to get away from things and disconnect for a few days.

I wasn't really thinking about the eating local challenge, but I realize that I did get lots of local food while we were away.  First there was all the great, fresh seafood. I'm not crazy about shellfish, but my husband had a Maine lobster, and on the way home, we stopped at a road side stand and picked up 2 quarts of Maine blueberries. They're a little smaller than the ones you see at the store and VERY sweet! The best part about these was that there was no one manning the stand. It was in front of someone's house and asked that you leave payment in a little box, totally on the honor system. Actually there were lots of road side stands, with blueberries, of course, but also squash and sweet corn. Who knew that sweet corn grew so well that far north? And several stands weren't manned either, they were just in front of people's houses with boxes for you to deposit your money or make change if you needed. I was so impressed and surprised that people would have that much trust in other people.  I think I need to get out of my cynical part of the country more often!

So it was a 15-hour drive from DC to Maine (painful!) and on the way back home, we decided to break up the drive into two days. We stayed overnight in Burlington. This was my first time in Vermont, despite the fact that I used to live in Boston, and I loved it! It was so pretty, with Lake Champlain right there and a view of the mountains beyond it. We ate a place called Leunig's in the center of town, and there were lots of local wines and cheeses on the menu. We ordered a bottle of Louise Swenson from East Shore Vineyards, located just outside of Burlington. It was similar to a Sauvignon Blanc and went perfectly with the cheese. The cheese was called Chin Clip and the waiter described it as tasting like havarti. It came from a cheesery (?) near Stowe Mountain. Loved it!

I've decided I'm in love with Vermont and want to retire there. They've got wine, cheese, and the Ben & Jerry's factory, which of course we toured. I think it may be heaven.

I'm now finishing off some blueberry pancakes and procrastinating going out to clean up the garden...

I hope you're having a lovely weekend!

Thomas Jefferson's Garden and a Vineyard Visit

My husband and I took an overnight trip to Charlottesville, VA, over Memorial Day weekend. The last couple of months had been pretty stressful for both of us, and a quick getaway was perfect to recharge. We chose Charlottesville because I'd heard there were a lot of good vineyards and wineries to tour, and we've also been on an American history kick, so I wanted to visit Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's home.

I might have mentioned a couple of weeks ago that we've been on this self-directed American history tour.  Last November, we toured Mt. Vernon, George Washington's home, and during a weekend trip to Philadelphia last fall, we saw the Liberty Bell and toured Independence Hall. We live within a short drive of many historical spots, we figured we should take advantage. It was also nice to avoid the beach crowds and beach traffic on the holiday weekend.

I had toured Monticello as a child as part of field trip for school, but I don't remember the gardens at all. I'm not even sure if they were fully developed then? I remember bits of the house itself, which seemed bigger to me as a kid. Now that I garden, I was also very curious to see TJ's garden and learn more about his agricultural interests and experiments.

The Monticello gardens are huge and include flowers, vegetables, an orchard, and other trees. Many vegetables and flowers that he grew were native to Virginia, but TJ also liked to experiment with plants from around the U.S. and the world. His garden included trees that were brought back to him by Lewis and Clark's expeditions...

...and tropical plants like yucca. The "TJ" on the label indicates that the plant was grown by Jefferson.

The Foundation grows other vegetables and flowers to complement what's in there now (like the zucchini above). There's a harvest event in the fall, and the volunteers said that sometimes the extra harvests are donated to shelters nearby or given to them (but with so many volunteers, they sometimes only go home with one cabbage). They mentioned that they they grow tulips in the spring to provide dramatic effect when walking up to the house, but tulips in TJ's day were probably not grown because they were very small then and prohibitively expensive.

I would love to grow onions like this.

I'd love to have just 1/10 of this space! I liked the layout of his garden, the neat tidy rows and structures, and how he interspersed flowers and ornamental plants between the vegetables. I know people do this today, but if you're like me and can only garden in pots, it's a big deal to walk through a garden like this. I got a lot of inspiration for the type of garden I'd like to have some day.

We also toured Montpelier, James Madison's home. Montpelier recently underwent an extensive renovation, and there's not as much to see as at Monticello, but I enjoyed seeing his home and learning more about this lesser-known president. Lesser known to me, anyway.

Now the good stuff--the wine!

Originally we were going to tour the Jefferson Vineyards, but many locals recommended Veritas Vineyards,so went there instead. Once I learned that Jefferson didn't actually make wine (he tried but couldn't get grapes to survive the bugs) I realized that it wasn't actually TJ's vineyard, so I didn't really care which one we chose. Veritas was a great recommendation. Wine tastings were only $5 for 8 wines, and they were so good we came home with 4 bottles. The people were very nice and the grounds were beautiful. They said they host a lot of weddings there, and I can see why.



Are there vineyards near where you live? Which gardens inspire you?

Iceland

So I'm one of the five people back in the office this week. It's actually pretty nice to be there when no one else is, and between you and me, it means I don't have to worry about what my hair looks like.

We took a pre-Christmas mini-break to Reykjavik, Iceland. Because we are crazy enough to go to a remote island so close to the Arctic Circle in the middle of December. Actually there were quite a few travelers there--we met tourists from the U.S., Europe, Australia, and Asia, but it certainly wasn't hectic and crowded, which made it a very nice, relaxing vacation before we came back to the Christmas madness.  I'm still going through my disc, but I thought I'd share a few pictures taken during daylight hours.

{corner cafe in Reykjavik, and nice clear sidewalks}

The weather was actually pretty mild. Temps were in the 30s (Fahrenheit) both day and night, and we weren't too uncomfortable while walking around the city, except for the last day when it was so windy that we had to stop into many cafes and restaurants for snacks and drinks and stuff.  At this time of year there are maybe five hours of daylight, but the Christmas lights and decorations in everyone's homes and office buildings made everything look festive and cheerful and certainly helped me get over the fact that it was pitch black at 9:30 in the morning.

{top to bottom: a re-created Viking lodge that was near a church; the first Icelandic parliament house (I will double check my notes); and a tree decorated for Christmas just outside a church}

And yes, there was tons of snow! When we left Reykjavik and went touring around the countryside, everything was blanketed in white. It was beautiful and so peaceful-looking. Since we had a brown Christmas here in the DC-area (temperatures around 50F on Christmas Day!?!), it was very nice to be somewhere that was a true winter wonderland, especially because I didn't have to shovel it, fight traffic in it, or wait for public transportation in it. The only vegetation I saw was in the form of Christmas trees and other evergreens, but it suited me just fine.

As I mentioned yesterday, Icelandic food was good. Fish and lamb were common, and they tasted so fresh and natural because the fish are caught right off the coast and the sheep are grass-fed and not pumped full of hormones and antibiotics. Before I left, people told me that all I'd get was herring, but I ate a lot of salmon, haddock, and cod. Vegetables were a bit more limited, but that was to be expected. They have greenhouses where they grow tomatoes and cucumbers, but they didn't look or taste as good as what we can get in warmer climates. I'm certainly not complaining, though, it was nice to see the effort. During one meal, my husband's fish and chips came with a delicious mango (!!) salad (imported I'm sure), so it wasn't like everything was completely brown. Oh--can we talk about the butter? The brand I tried (Smjor) was sooo good and creamy, and guess what? They sell it here at Whole Foods! I have already gone out and bought a stick to smother on all my bread.

I wish I could be a professional traveler. I would love to go back someday when everything is green. I'm signing off with a picture of me dressed as an Icelandic Viking. 

A Tropical Anniversary

My husband and I recently celebrated our one year anniversary with a trip to Grenada, which was a beautiful tropical island paradise. It's extremely hard to come back to reality, and the cold, rainy weather that greeted us when we returned hasn't helped me adjust to the daily grind. I've been away from the internet for a while, and I thought I'd get back into things by posting a few of the floral pics I took from our trip:

pink ginger lily 

Red ginger lilies (Alpinia purpurata) were everywhere, and I saw many pink colored ones as well. 

Heliconia abounded in Grenada. I believe this is Heliconia pendula.

{top to bottom: passion fruit, papaya tree, coconut, conch shell, and cactus}

Bougainvillea was all over the island and in many home gardens. I don't think I took any pictures of bougainvillea, but I haven't finished going through all the photos yet, so there may be some. The tropical flowers all over the island were absolutely gorgeous, and so  many homes had such beautiful gardens. I was envious of the cactus and other tropical fruit they were able to grow, especially the papaya, and I think it would be so fun to have a coconut tree in my yard!

Does anyone know what this plant is? I think it's a Ti plant (Cordyline fruticosa), also known as Hawaiian Good Luck plant. We have one in our house, but it sort of died off. It's coming back to life though, and I'm wondering if it will look like this when it re-blooms?