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Spring is in the Air

March 19th, 2019

When I was at the United Farmer’s Market in Belfast on Saturday, I spotted some lovely tulips at the Willow Moon Florist booth. I don’t have any tulips in the garden and the ground is still deep in frost, nothing will be blooming any time soon. Since I needed some new spring photos for The Jojoba Company, I decided a bouquet of orange tulips would be perfect!



The tulips definitely brightened up our facebook page! Tulips are a favorite spring flower of mine, I definitely need to add some this fall.

What’s your favorite spring bulb?

Wanna Help?

March 7th, 2019

For my day job, I manage a non-profit. We work in Colombia, South America, doing various types of benevolent and religious work. We partner with a school and have a sponsor a child program, which pays for tuition to the school. Most recently, we have been building a camp facility for use by various groups: Boy Scouts, the school, church groups, and other groups as well. Last summer we built a pool at the camp, which is pretty much a necessity on the equator where daily temps can easily get up to 100 or higher. After opening the pool, we noticed that many of the people that attend functions cannot afford to purchase swimsuits (it’s around 30% of attendees that do not have suits).

Because of this, we decided to start collected new and gently used suits in all sizes (male, female, adult, child). We will start a swimsuit closet from which people can borrow a suit, they will be returned, laundered, and put back in the closet.  When there are enough suits, they will be given to those that need them to take home.



If you have a local group/club that wants to collect suits for us, I’d love to have you join us in this program. (and how cute are my nieces above, this was them a while ago, they’re both teens now, but still cute).

On The Cover

March 6th, 2019

I’ve been writing articles for magazines for years now, also selling photos to them as well. Every now and again I’m taken by surprise when they decide to use one of mine on the cover. The most recent issue of Northern Gardener, contains an article I wrote about growing flowers for cutting. Imagine my excitement when they decided to use one of my images on the cover.

These tulips were from the mass planting I did way back in 2011 in my Ohio garden. That fall I planted over 1000 tulip bulbs, the following spring was a riot of beauty in the garden. The tulips did very well in the dry sandy soil. They certainly are a sight for winter sore gardeners eyes. I haven’t planted any tulips in the garden here in Maine, the deer would no doubt eat most of them. Though I did discover that in Ohio the deer wouldn’t eat the black and dark purple tulips. This fall I may need to place an order and add a few hundred bulbs to the garden, spring is just so much better with tulips!

What flowers are you most looking forward to come spring?

Next Day Popcorn

February 26th, 2019

We all have a few weird things we like, things other people think we’re crazy for preferring. One of my weird like is next day popcorn. We always make a bit extra so I can eat it the next day for lunch or a snack.

I’m not sure exactly what I like about it, perhaps it’s the slight staleness. Oddly enough, I have another friend who also prefers next day popcorn to freshly made, I guess I’m not that weird after all.

Do you have any likes/preferences other people see as a bit odd?

Holiday Gifts

December 26th, 2018

As promised, I’ll be sharing a few of the gifts I made to give out this Christmas. One of my favorites was this lovely quilt. I didn’t make the top, I got it in a fabric grab bag. It’s definitely old, the entire top was hand sewn together, with tiny seam allowances, which mean I had to do a lot of repairs before adding the batting and backing and quilting. The yellow striped binding is a lovely fabric from my stash, it is linen and should wear well and soften nicely with use.




I quilted it by hand, since I enjoy hand stitching a lot. It’s a wonderful way to spend evenings during the winter. I think the receipient loved the quilt, no doubt she’ll be using it to keep warm for years to come. It’s nice to give another life to a quilt like this. If only I knew the story of who made it and where it came from, at least it will have a future story and be enjoyed.

Do you have any vintage quilts?

About

This is a daily journal of my efforts to cultivate a more simple life, through local eating, gardening and so many other things. We used to live in a small suburban neighborhood Ohio but moved to 153 acres in Liberty, Maine in 2012.

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