Buy a Dram, Save a Farm
On November 21, I wrote about the Buy a Dram Save a Farm program to help save the Crosby Mint Farm and encouraged you all to buy some mint oil from them to help save the farm. I ordered some peppermint and spearmint oil and I just received it. I must say it smells fantastic.
I read through the brochure they sent along with that describes the medicinal uses for mint oils and I’ll be using these for sure! Last week I e-mailed them to ask a questions about my order and they said that they have been swamped with orders and are so thankful for everyone putting out the word. So if you’re still looking for a few Christmas gifts, maybe a dram or two of mint oil would be great for stockings, spa gifts, baking baskets, or with an aromatherapy kit. They also sell mint teas and mint soil rejuvenator. If you would like to order go to Get Mint and help save a farm.
Garden use:
Their brochure says to get rid of moles: douse a cotton ball with mint oil and place it in a mole hole. I’ll be trying this in the spring, I have moles that moved into one of my raised beds – ugh.
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Putting up Christmas
I’m a big fan of all the decorations that come with Christmas. We love to see other people’s houses all decorated up with lights and garland (although I’m not a huge fan of those blow up things). We usually take one evening during the season to drive around to look at all the Christmas lights.
We’re a bit old school, we love the big white Christmas lights (I know they use tons of electricity), I tried buying the LED ones but they just weren’t the same. So we put up 3 strands of the big C7 lights across the front of our house. To help save electric we bought at outdoor timer, so they’re only on for 4 1/2 hours each evening.
We always use real greens, this year I was able to find mixed white pine and cedar. Usually I can only find white pine and I add different kinds of greens to add texture. I also like to use things like pine cones and grapevine stars, I’m kind of a natural kind of decorator. Every year I decorate a little differently. This year I used grapevine stars mixed in with the garland.
Yesterday was the perfect day for hanging the greens. I was sunny and warm (until about 2, then the clouds rolled in and it got windy and cold). I was able to get all the Christmas decorations put up and a few other outdoor tasks finished up! I had some help from our new little friend, he sure was enjoying the warm weather as well.
He’s making his case to stay. He followed me around all day everywhere I went. He’s even been snooping around the garage (hopefully he’ll catch a few mice in there!). It was so warm I even took off my gloves, and he stole them to play with.
So what kind of Christmas decorating do you do outside?
By the way, there’s a new poll about when you decorate for Christmas.
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Christmas in Zoar
Mr Chiot’s and I are huge fans of little local festivals. We really prefer the ones of historic origin like the Algonquin Mill Festival. Each year we kick off our Christmas season with a day at Christmas in Zoar. It’s such a fun event.
Start your holiday season with a visit to Zoar Village during Christmas in Zoar December 6, and 7, 2008. The historic village recreates many of the Christmas customs of the German Separatists who settled in Zoar in 1817, and includes the Krist Kind, who will distribute candy and sweets to good boys and girls.
The aroma of ginger cookies will waft from the Zoar Bakery, where cider will be served along with the cookies, and German Stollen and Bread will be available to take home, all made from Zoar recipes.
Saturday at 5 p.m. a Christmas Concert will be presented in the Zoar United Church of Christ, followed by a candlelight procession to the Zoar Garden and the Lighting of the Christ Tree.
Hours are Saturday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Sunday from noon to 5 p.m. Admission, good for both days of the festival, is $6 for adults and children under the age of 12 are free. All proceeds from this event are used to preserve historic Zoar Village. www.zca.org.
So if any of my local readers are looking for a great way to kick off their holiday season head down to Zoar for the festival. My only piece of advice is to skip the tree lighting (trust me it’s not what you think!).
Anyone else have any great local Christmas festivals of activities you like to take part in?
Update: here’s my post about our trip this year: Christmas in Zoar Holiday Decor
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New Addition?
We may have a new addition to the Chiots Run family. Last Saturday evening a little gray & white cat showed up on our doorstep. He was super friendly and hungry, so we fed him some cat food. I don’t think he’s very old because he’s pretty small (at least compared to our cats). If he sticks around I’ll take him to the vet for shots and they should be able to tell me how old they think he is.
Later that night he was still hanging out on our porch, since it was in the teens outside and really windy we put one of our cat beds outside for him. He’s still hanging around, he sleeps in the bed at night and we give him some breakfast in the morning. He goes out into the woods during the day and shows up again at night for some food and a warm bed. I suppose he noticed our big fat cats in the window and decided that we were cat people and that this would be a great place to live.
We’ve been thinking about getting an outdoor cat to help with our chipmunk & mole population, but we hadn’t decided to get one yet. If he sticks around we may end up with one whether we want one or not (unless we can find a good home for him). He must have known we have a soft spot for cats here at Chiot’s Run, especially gray & white ones! This is what our old cat Jeffrey looked like (I found him in a dumpster in high school), we had to have him put to sleep 4 years ago (he was 13 yrs old).
These are our currents cats, Sofie (the gray one) and Samson (the orange one). They were rescues from a feral cat rescue group in Cincinnati, OH 4 years ago.
I’ve never had an outdoor cat so I don’t now much about what to do with them. Anyone out there have any suggestions? Or is anyone local looking for a new cute little cat to add to the family? He’s super friendly and very vocal!
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Harvest Time
This is a photo of a few of the pumpkins & squashes that I harvested out of the garden earlier this fall. I thought it was interesting how the sunlight was hitting them one evening.
For some reason all these squashes were fairly small. The ones I harvested a few weeks later were huge (of course they were growing out of my compost pile).
Can’t wait to eat these, hmm what will it be? Butternut squash soup, roasted butternuts, pumpkin pie or bread? Any suggestions or great recipes out there?
