Good morning, darlings.
Spent the last week or so in Bonnie Scotland. 🏴 It’s been lovely getting to know her.
Gm, Nostr. #coffeechain
Good morning, Nostr. I hope your coffee is as good as mine this morning. #coffeechain #goodmorning #coffeeroaster
Yes I still have her. This was from when we moved the flock into the garden at the end of the season to do clean up duty. She’s an old girl now, probably about 4?
Always feel free to hijack my notes with images of floppy eared bunnies. 👌👏👏👏
Canon 70-200 2.8L. I admittedly refer to it as “the precious”
This is, to date, one of my favorite photos I’ve ever taken. #photography
I actually love paying people to do jobs I can’t do. Being able to support others to be able to use the skills they have feels good. BUT….i also have a toxic dose of DIY running through my veins. Frequently I have to talk myself off the ledge, reminding myself that supporting someone else to do a job 10 times more efficiently and with more skill than me is better, freeing my time up to do the things I am good at.
Occasionally though, the DIY makes sense. Occasionally I do have the tools, if not the skill, and though I may have to bumble through, it’s a bumbling worth doing.
I’m currently adding “food photographer” to my list of jobs. I don’t particularly care for this work. I much prefer telling stories through my photos. However, I’m saving a lot of money photographing my cookbook myself and I do like the fact that it makes it more personal.
Anyway, here’s to learning new skills, and for knowing when not to.
This is what seasonal eating looks like in South Carolina summer. I look forward to this charred okra and pea salad all year.
Ingredients
For the dressing
½ cup olive oil
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
Juice of 2 lemons
2 teaspoons lemon zest
2 tablespoons chopped fresh herbs (parsley, thyme, oregano or a mix)
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon black pepper
For the salad
4 cups fresh or frozen field peas (or cowpeas/black-eyed peas)
1 pound okra, halved lengthwise
1 pint cherry tomatoes, halved
2 tablespoons oil (for charring)
Salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
Whisk together dressing ingredients in a bowl: olive oil, mustard, lemon juice and zest, herbs, salt, and pepper. Set aside.
In a saucepan, bring water to a boil. Add 2 tablespoons salt and the peas. Reduce heat and simmer for about 8 minutes, until tender-crisp. Drain and cool.
Heat a cast iron or heavy skillet over medium-high heat. Add coconut oil until it just smokes.
Place okra cut-side down in the pan in batches. Let it char undisturbed for about 2 minutes, flip, and cook another minute. Remove and repeat with remaining okra.
In the same pan, add tomatoes cut-side down and cook 2 minutes, flip for 1 more minute. Remove.
In a large bowl, toss the peas with the dressing. Gently fold in the okra and tomatoes. Taste and add more salt if needed.
Salt and pepper to taste. Garnish with extra fresh herbs and serve.
Grocery shopping in the yard. You can just grow food. #grownostr #growfood
Saturday morning in the August garden. #grownostr #growfood
Artists, these chickens. They’re artists! #colorfuleggs #farmtotablebreakfast #growfood
Just a block of feta in a cast iron pan, drizzle of olive oil, finely minced garlic, red pepper flakes. Put it in a hot oven or on a hot grill. Maybe 15-20 minutes until it’s browning. Take it out and dump a bunch of finely chopped fresh herbs on top (soft ones like basil and parsley). The eat on bread, or potatoes or chicken or stand over the pan burning your mouth just eating it with a spoon.
Pepper rich. #grownostr
I think people are just picked for their willingness to conform. Consider the sororities and fraternities so many of them come from as one single example of a system that demands sameness to succeed.
Had someone tell me recently that Bitcoin was the mark of the beast 🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️
The deceived don’t know they’re deceived, and fiat is a great deception.
Gm, Nostr. #coffeechain #coffeestr
Quick snap from the Provst dungeon under the Old Exchange in Charleston. This space was primarily a cellar but during the period of the revolutionary war, while the British held Charleston, an estimated 6k people were held (not all at once) in medieval conditions in this space. Men, women, and children, shackled and kept on stale bread and sickly water. With rats in the straw which was their only bed and riddled by mosquitos that came in through the small barred windows. Countless people died here, but few records were kept. They were imprisoned for their treason to the crown.
Additionally, as there isn’t much natural stone in coastal Charleston, the majority of the city is built with bricks which were, of course, hand packed by enslaved people of the surrounding plantations. If you look closely in places like the dungeon, which have been protected from the erosion of rain, you can find thumbprints in a lot of the bricks.
All of this took place 200-300 years ago. All of this is recent history.
I’m currently homeschooling my sons (ages 13,12, & 10) and in teaching them history, I’m also teaching them to keep their eyes open to current events that will still be studied and talked about 300 years from now. Can you imagine what will be written and told about the time we’ve lived in, and the insanity people just accept as normal? I expect it will be just as hard to wrap our heads around as these things, which many people accepted as normal back then.
You can freeze the hide and cure it later but it isn’t terribly difficult.
Church and Union in Charleston, SC.
Brought my boys down to Charleston for a little homeschool history trip. I could wander the historic district all day just taking in the gardens. 😍
I raise my coffee cup to the Jersey cow. #growfood #rawmilk
Happy birthday Lois ♥️♥️♥️
Good morning darlings. The garden is dwindling and I’m realizing how much I love August. For years, I lamented the end of summer but these recent years, it’s come like blessed relief. Tearing out the tomato plants and turning under the patch where the potatoes grew feels like permission to rest.
I love the season of the garden where the roots grow, where the evenings are chilly and there is so war to be waged on pests. I do miss the dahlias though, so now I’ll just appreciate every offering they make as if it might be their last. #grownostr #gardenstr
