inspirational gardens- non veggie!

While visiting my folks, I found two fantastic and inspirational spaces.

I found a pollinator garden in Pittsboro, created by a bee-keeper. It has really good combinations of colors like purple and yellow or yellow and orange. It has wispy grasses and tall bushes. It has flowers en masse. This June she’s teaching a workshop about creating a pollinator garden that will help me with garden design at work. Save the bees!

I also wandered through a Hemlock Nature Preserve which has beaucoup evidence of children creating fun stuff. There is a children’s garden with colorful toadstools and handmade stepping stones. And a “Recycled Garden” with garden boots filled with plants and a spoon wind chime. Tons of creative uses repurposing old and tired things into something useful and beautiful. Kids have all the fun.

happy gardening – kimandscott

 

easter sights

Easter weekend in Walhalla SC with Scott’s folks Judy and Ned.

They have this fantastic old church that is used as a community center. It is part of Walhalla’s quilt trail- a community/family quilt design is hung on participating buildings.

Out in the country near Mountain Rest.

A visit to Tallulah Falls Gorge in nearby Georgia. 

    

A peek of Scott contemplating his fishing pole. It was the beginning of trout fishing season at the Chauga River. But none came home with us.

happy April!

-kimandscott

community through food

March has been fantastically busy with good friends, family and food. My sister-in-law Jo from England passed through Charlotte and spent a weekend with us. We are comrades in jogging and jogged a trail and a greenway while she was here. My dad came to see Jo and spent the weekend with us – we celebrated with Scott’s dad Johnny by going on a windy picnic to Lake Norman. We grilled some lovely steak, potatoes and sweet corn.

It was tremendously windy and the windsurfers were taking advantage.

Last weekend we had a large gathering of friends around the table to eat some mightly fine shrimp and grits, chicken curry and rabbit pot pie! I love these gatherings as many of our friends are foodies and we like to support local foods- local wines, local ingredients and sometimes things we’ve grown and canned. There is tremendous community when gathered around a table of good food and drinks. We try and do a few of these gatherings a year. One of our friends from this gathering gave me a book entitled Creating Community through Food that I thought was so right on for what we hope to achieve with these meals.

And of course we are chomping at the bit to put out our tomato plants that Scott grew from seed. We probably have a few weeks to go yet.

Happy spring from kimandscott!

friends

We spent time with one beautiful family Sunday afternoon - our good friends Cat & Nate, 3 year old Will and their new baby girl Elizabeth Stuart.  They’ve been so supportive of us during our adoption wait.

look at that face!!

look at that face!

and again- the face!

 

Holding little E- pure heaven! -kimandscott

a shout out to the library

I have to give big kudos to our local library. It’s a small, cozy library. I’ve been going there over the years to check out gardening & painting books and new fiction, books on running and yoga, buddhism, babies and adoption. The librarians are super nice and helpful- it’s a real community gathering spot. I think it gives me the warm fuzzzies cause I have fond memories of my library growing up. It had cubbies with bean bag chairs where only kids could crawl through and be alone with their books.

I can’t wait to bring our future young tyke to our local library! There are so many good kids books out there- beautiful illustrations and hysterical stories. The classics like Goodnight Moon, The Giving Tree, Where the Wild Things Are, The Secret Garden but newer books that I didn’t grow up with, books about bears, monkeys, and caterpillars.  The library also has really cool gatherings for kids. American Girl Party, Dr Seuss’ Birthday Party, and storytelling in the garden as well as scavenger hunts. They have this fantastic woodland garden with paths and bridges, and beautifully tended garden beds. You can see the garden from the inside while reading in front of the big windows. If not conducive to reading, this spot is definitely conducive to drifting off and staring out at the garden, imagining some fairytale happening right there and then.

spring planting and snow

Scott and I were determined to plant our spring veg on the correct planting days per the Farmer’s Almanac. Scott swears by it- better yields he says. We had just started up the sprinkler after planting our rows when thunder clapped. Then snow- for hours. Big fluffy snow.

Henry & Goche were giddy. We took a walk the next day on a nearby trail to observe the white glory.

Thanks for reading!
kimandscott

waterfalls, a bike and generations

My brother in law, Michele, sent photos from our Christmas adventure in Walhalla this past year. There was a family hike to a waterfall, a bike ride around a parking lot with my niece Esme riding in the back, and a sumptous Christmas Eve feast, with a great multi-generation shot.