i recently visited middleton plantation near charleston, sc. there, under ancient live oaks, was a simple sharecroppers cabin, furnished as it was when lived in after the civil war. once again, i am intrigued by the simplicity of living with less. do we really need all the stuff we have? what do you really need to live? a bed, a table, a dresser, a chair,some beautiful light and a bowl for apples. well, if only life could be so simple….
i am always amazed…and inspired by how much food can be grown on a small plot of land. recently i visited my friends maggie an lacy out at their farm that they appropriately call tiny farm. they have 2 garden sized plots of land where they grow food for their 11 person CSA and local restaurants. every tuesday volunteers come out to help and be involved with the growing of their food. take a peek at what i saw!
visit thier blog here for farm news and recipes and be sure to check out the weekly comic by member eleanor davis.
we returned from a trip to the beach to find everything well watered, but overgrown. vines had climbed inside the idea shack, and morning glories were twining their way around everything. we can’t really get excited about whipping it back into shape in this heat. besides,it’s a great habitat for butterflies!
this past weekend we headed over to hickory hill in thomson, georgia. they were having a watermelon festival and i thought it would be a fun thing to do.
the festival was at the estate of the late thomas watson which will be another inspiring story sometime soon.
here are some details of our fun day at the festival.
there were a bunch of fun games for the kids!
they have a watermelon growing contest. each year people save the seeds from their melon and plant them the next year. the biggest melon wins!
each family got to take an heirloom watermelon home
this one didn’t make it to the car
well the garden finally put out enough stuff for us to cook a whole dinner – just in time for mr. green jeans’ birthday. we had fried okra, creamed corn, sliced tomatoes, pole beans, and biscuits with country ham. yum!
thanks again to design*sponge for including us on friday.
here are some more images from the supper. hugh’s recipe for shrimp rolls follows…
enjoy!
rebecca standing in the door of her idea shack:
the light inside is insanely beautiful- dim, but glowing.
meanwhile, outside…
we all loved looking at the reisling gelee’, or as we called it that night, “Fancy jello shots”…
my dreams of flower abundance are finally coming true, so now it’s time to get drawing! mainly, it’s a lot of looking and studying and making mental notes about each kind of flower; how are the petals shaped? what kind of veins do the leaves have? how do the leaves come off the stem? lots of studying, and then some drawing. flower portraits on paper, then watercolors, then plates… from studying beauty comes creating beauty – everyday.
i love to go on spontaneous country adventures. it is so fun to grab my camera, co-pilots, gazetteer, and choose a direction. the south has not let me down yet- i always run into something beautiful. this past weekend we headed towards braselton and hoschton. i love the moments when you see something and hit the breaks. when we saw this old wheat mill in braselton, we hit the breaks, turned around, and enjoyed its beauty.
well, suddenly, everything’s blooming. vines and flowers all entwined, reaching for the sky. the morning glory tower is a solid cone of green. here’s some views…
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