...9.12...Friday Update...from Mom's...

...we were up before daylight and packed and on the road in time to catch this rosy fingered dawn going up the interstate...

...because we intended to leave the interstate for a little side trip...

...just as the mountains came into view...

...and headed up a little country two lane road...

...it was pretty rural...

...and got even more so...

...until we came around a curve and saw the sign for our destination...The Poinsett Bridge...the oldest bridge in South Carolina...

...so we headed up that curvy mountain road...

...until we reached the bridge...

...it's got an interesting history...we heard about it on a PBS show...

...the Man headed across the bridge...

...interesting stonework...

...I wonder if the rough stones at the bottom were actually part of the foundation and were originally under the ground...

...the exterior of the bridge is beautiful though...

...I wonder why they don't build beautiful bridges like this anymore...just bigger...

...a little bit harder to get a good view of the downstream side of the bridge...

...but we headed back to the car for the breakfast that I'd packed...(tofu, vegan cheese and vegan bacon on toast)...we thought there would be tables for a little picnic...but there weren't...

...and then in no time we were almost 'home'...Mom's house is way closer to the bridge than ours...haha...only about 40 minutes away...

...we crossed the French Broad close to my alma mater...

...and the cornfields...most of the corn grown here during my youth was made into silage...click the link if you're unfamiliar with this stinky concoction...haha...

...but this corn with the mountains in the background is dry and almost ready for harvest as grain...

...and we drove past the Church where we were married...I love that it sits up on the hill and I can drive by it anytime we're visiting for a little bit of nostalgic remembrance...

...and in no time we were driving past Nanny's house...

...and on to the homeplace...obligatory back porch photo of the view from my childhood home...

...the first thing we did was give Mom her birthday cards and presents...

...she loved the dishcloth and scrubbie...

...and the photo of us in the North Dakota wheat field...

...and her main present was this replacement for her proably 70 year old food grinder thing-y...we suctioned it to the table...and left it for a couple of hours to make sure it was going to stay stuck...haha...her main problem with her old one was that it wouldn't stay stuck so you kind of had to hold it in place as you chopped...

...and then she turned right around and gave me this little gift...two really old bakelite handled crochet hooks...I have a couple of other antique bakelite crochet hooks but the entire hook is made of bakelite and they're not very easy to work with...I think these metal ones will be easier...

...then it was time for some lunch and Mom had saved some green tomatoes to make me some fried green tomatoes after we were chatting on the phone earlier in the week and I mentioned that our tomatoes are pretty much done for the year...

...so we fried them up...

...and had a tofu bbq sammie with them...it was delicious...

...and for an afternoon snack I tried one of the new apples from Mom's little baby apple tree...it's a replacement for the one from my childhood that came from a root cutting that Daddy had take from his grandma's old homeplace...I loved that apple...it was just an old-timey cooking apple...but it was so good...this new one is different but also good...Mom said it reminds her of the the tree at Grandma's house when she was growing up...

...and then for dinner we got sub sandwiches...my favorite veggie sub...

...and then we settled in to watch some old home videos...and this is the very first video of me ever...so much fun...I'm three...and I really don't remember this at all...

...but I did remember a lot of the video and it was so much fun seeing the people that are no longer with us...just as they were and just as I remember them...

...I snapped a screenshot of this photo of my sweet sissie and sent it to her because we couldn't remember who the other little girl was...

~Have a lovely day!

...9.11...Happy Birthday Daddy...

Rest in Peace...

...9.10...W.I.P. Wednesday...trip prep...

...we were planning a little early birthday trip up to Mom's to celebrate her birthday...

...and I wanted to make her a little kitchen scrubbie and I'd been saving my onion bags...

...vidalia onions come in yellow bags here...

...and regular yellow onions come in red ones...

...so I cut them into strips and wound them onto toilet rolls to make them easier to use...the little edges tend to want to stick together...

...and started crocheting a little flower scrubby...when I run out of "thread"...I just cut up another bag...

...and then I made her flower dishcloth to go with it...

...I used Doni Spiegel's cute and easy pattern...

...and I popped a cute photo of the Man and me in a wheat field in North Dakota that I thought she would like into a frame...

...wrapped everything up...

...and gathered up all of my sewing equipment because a dear old friend has asked me to do an alteration for her while we're visiting...

...and then I made Mom's birthday cake...

...I zested and juiced an orange...

...and then just used that as the liquid in a yellow cake mix...

...and baked it in my fluted cake pan...

...and packed it in the Tupperware cake carrier for the trip...

...and we were ready to go...

...what's in your workbasket this week?...

~Have a lovely day!

...9.9...Tuesdays with Julia...the FINAL COUNTDOWN...#7...

...we made the Vegan Daube de Boeuf à la Provençale...using Nori for the anchovies...

...we served it with rice and green beans from the garden...

...it was surprisingly good as I didn't think fish and seitan went together...

...and we tried the leftovers cold with french bread and a salad as Julia suggested and I liked it like that as well...

...all of the particulars are over at The Vegan Version...

~Have a lovely day!

...9.8...Over the Weekend...

...we just had coffee and a quick bowl of cereal...

...because we had packed up someone's birthday pressies and we needed to get to the post office before they closed at noon...and the lines are usually pretty long on Saturday morning...

...but we did the weekly shopping...nothing of note...but there's a new soda... pomegranate and orange...

...and the Man got all the fixings for Chow Mein...it'll be like when we were kids and Mom got the canned LaChoy...it was such a treat...

...the harvest continues...another couple of handfuls of cowpeas...

...a few more rattlesnake beans...and a few that I missed...it's ok though...I'll keep them for seeds for next year...

...another day...a few more of each bean/pea...

...another day's worth of green beans...and the second planting of bush beans will be ready soon too...

...and our very first okra of the year...for some reason...the okra did not do well...I'm thinking that the cowpeas were stealing all the nutrients as they were planted in the same row along the fence...

...I'm just storing all of the cow peas in this tote...we'll 'process' them all at once after we pull up the plants...some of the peas need to dry out a bit more anyway...

...then it was time to start the BIG job for the weekend...

...another 40 foot section of edging...

...but this section is much more manageable as it winds around the flower beds...each piece is cut and bent to fit around the beds...

...oddly...the inside of this roll of edging is white...you can see it in this photo...and it's really annoying because this is the most conspicuous place it could be...and I didn't even notice it until I was taking the photos...arghhhh...

...oh well...it looks nice otherwise...and I'm happy to have another section done...I'll just have to go back at some point and paint the inside black...

...and then I got drenched during my bike ride...as it started pouring rain...

...and I do mean pouring...we got about 5 inches of rain in about 2 hours...it was crazy for a little while...

...I think the only food prep I did was a double batch of Toby's tofu dip...

...after church on Sunday we headed over to the education building and helped fill up a flood bucket donation...

...it was really well organized...you just pick up a bucket when you come in...

...and proceed around the room adding the required items to your bucket...there were signs on the wall telling you how many of each item to add...

...it was a fun and quick project that will help flood victims in need of cleaning supplies...

...and then we carried the completed buckets out to the trailer for delivery...

...on the way home from Church we stopped at Burger King to get an Impossible Whopper...I asked for mine to be vegan...which means no mayo and they microwave the burger instead of sending it through the grill with the meat...and while I was filling up my Dr. Pepper...the manager came out to tell me that their microwave was broken and he could either send it through the grill or put it into the oven...which would take 10 minutes...of course I chose the oven option...it does still need to be vegan...haha...and I'm not sure what they're going to do all day without a microwave...as it seems like a pretty important piece of equipment...

...and when we got home I just added some Vegan mayo...and it was delicious...hearty and very filling...I told the Man that I probably didn't really need any more calories all day...haha...

...and then on to the very last project of the weekend...

...y'all know we had the house painted last year...and we had purchased a special DTM (direct-to-metal) paint for any metal areas...unfortunately we're finding that the painter did not paint the metal on our screened porch with it...but used regular house paint which is now peeling off...

...so we sanded the flaking paint off and repainted...

~Wishing you a lovely start to your week!

...9.6...Dinner and a Movie...

...vegan tofu steak dinner...with baked potato and salad for dinner...a classic combination...

...and the movie was another British comedy...Death at a Funeral...like last week's movie this one is classed as a black comedy...kind of making light of death...and some other things too...it was good...not laugh out loud funny...but it was humorous...

...what have you been watching lately?...

~Have a lovely weekend!...