Friday Favorite: Making Do
There’s nothing I love more than finding a new use for an old item. When we were in Ohio last week, I harvested the remaining sage from my giant sage bush. I wanted to hang it above the wood stove so the warm dry heat would dry it quickly.
Just as I was about to head up the garage to find my hammer and a few nails to put in the beam above the stove, I noticed the old deer racks hanging there. These were left for us by the previous owners, admittedly they need a good dusting, which I hope to do this weekend.
They worked quite nicely to hang my herbs from. Instead of hanging lower from the beam, they’re now hanging up out of the way above the stove. In this climate they’ll dry quickly and be ready for seasoning delicious winter soups and stews! Lucky for me the lodge look is in, next thing you know they’ll be selling antler herb drying racks at Pottery Barn!
Have you found any great new uses for old items recently?
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Moving a Hedge
If you were reading the blog last year, you might remember that I finally realized a garden dream when I added a 60 ft boxwood hedge to my garden. I must admit, I was a bit sad to leave my hedge behind, but figured I’d simply start anew next spring.
Much to my delight, the new owners of our home in Ohio aren’t gardeners and told us to take whichever plants we wanted. So the hedge came with me. It’s a bit late to be moving these beauties, but I figured I had nothing to lose but a few hours of time.
I dug each shrub carefully with a large root ball and planted them in the big upper edible garden. They’ll be mulched heavily with some leaves and I’ll pile lots of pine boughs around them for added protection this winter. Each of these shrubs would have cost me about $70 to replace so I figured it was worth a an hour or two of my time to try to save them.
If these beauties survive the winter, they’ll most likely become a hedge around the small potager behind the house. It will be nice to have a few of my favorite plants from Ohio here in Maine!
What’s your favorite hedge plant?
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Sweet Rest
Our lives are balanced by our experiences. So often though, we want the good ones and not the bad ones. The problem is, without the bad, we wouldn’t know what was truly good. After a while, you learn to welcome the bad and the difficult experiences because you know it makes the good times sweeter.
Work and rest are the same. If we didn’t work hard, our rest wouldn’t be as sweet. Luckily, Mr Chiots and I both love hard work. Yesterday we worked well into the night unloading the truck. We have a few more big items to unload today, like my stove. Rest will not come today, or even tomorrow. However, by this weekend, we should be enjoying much needed sweet rest!
What’s your favorite hard job around the garden?
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Traveling Fools
Mr Chiots and I are travelers, we’ve spent many hours driving across the country and have visited many states. Driving is our preferred method of travel because there are so many interesting things to see. There are so many interesting things to see while you’re on the road, gardens, houses, businesses, cars and people.
Yesterday, we traveled in a big truck and got to see a whole different view. The world looks completely different when you’re up that high. I saw things on our trip to Maine that I’ve never seen before because they’re behind embankments and trees.
Of particular interest to me while traveling, is the beauty of the natural landscape. Nature really does do it best, it’s amazing that we spend hours planning, planting and tending our gardens and they pale in comparison to the beauty of a wild garden. We can learn a lot about gardening by taking note of wild areas.
What do you notice most while traveling?
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The episode that never will be…
Mr. Chiots here filling in for Susy. As I write this it is midnight, in six hours we are climbing in moving truck #2 and heading back to Maine. This past week has been intense. We celebrated two Thanksgivings and one Christmas. I harvested 3 deer which yielded around 130 lbs of meat. Susy picked up 50 chickens and a turkey for the freezer. We visited with friends and family. I picked up the worst cold I have had in years. To top it all off, we signed our end of the closing papers and had to have the place cleaned out as we will not be back in Ohio until long after the buyers give us the check (or someone gives us a check).
Today as we loaded the last piece of our lives on the big yellow truck, we had full intentions of recording a podcast from our empty house, sharing memories that had been made there over the past 10 years. It never happened, and therefore will never happen. Time was too tight and we were WAY too tired.
But Susy and I took a few minutes and walked around. We shared memories of each room. Of ding and dents. Of projects past. Of changing careers, and doing it again. Of building a successful business in the office. Memories of friends that dined with us and family that visited regularly around our table. Of the gardens and the transformation of them. As the memories folded over me I began to weep. Susy hugged me and asked “Are you sad?”. I shook my head but could not speak. After wiping my tears and catching my breath I replied, “I am not sad. I am happy we have these memories and I realize this house is not these memories nor are the things on that truck. Our memories are us.” I hugged her again and we both told each other, “I love you.”
One other thing that happened in the last ten years is this blog and all of you coming and reading about our simple life. So thank you. Thank you for sharing in our lives as we share them with you. You don’t know how much we appreciate the encouragement that you give. We are excited to continue this journey with you.
Here’s to the next memory!
Next week we will return to our previously scheduled program.
