Happy Thanksgiving Betsy and Jim.... two of my favorite people.... And so very many events with you have created wonderful Thanksgiving memories for every day of the year... I'm still smiling thinking about that blonde blue eyed Mary in your nativity set...
Awww, thank you, Barry! The memory-fest goes both ways for us, with you and Judy centered in many of ours. And I'm glad you appreciate the humor in the nativity set: When my parents "upgraded," I was eager to claim this one, made in Italy and with all the cultural blinders of the era it grew out of. At least the three wise men have some melanin! Ha! Happy Thanksgiving, my friends.
2) Glad you are blessed with a hubs that will clean up minor disasters. Teamwork makes the dream work
3) curry recipe makes this post officially VALUE ADDED
4) there are always the sweetest little bits in your work that are so "show as opposed to tell", they always make me smile. This one you had me with "The evergreens became a fire hazard".
5) thank you for setting the holiday mood with squashy pumpkiny goodness.
I used to pick up a favorite frozen pizza for not-so-many pretty pennies at our local Safeway. The store was closed years ago now, and I still miss that easy dinner resource. Not that I can't find them elsewhere. Wait, was someone talking recently about being set in our ways? Heh.
I am, I'm convinced, one of the luckiest people alive to have chanced upon the man I married. He's good material. If you make the curry, I'd love a report back. I can play fast and loose with a dish like that, so it's hard, sometimes, to get the ingredients to behave properly for a recipe.
Enjoy the holiday in whatever way you choose to spend it, Eileen. I look forward to connecting again soon.
Here in Australia, we have lots of Queensland Blue pumpkins - large, blue, very hard, much more pumpkin than seeds than your blue squash - that keep for months, and Kent pumpkins - green with yellow speckles - that also keep well. Our main orangey ones are butternuts - sweet and oddly shaped. This year there were lots of Kent pumpkins with a butternut shape and I was so disappointed that they lacked the staying power of their squash relatives. They showed grey spots and signs of deterioration so rapidly! An experiment that unfortunately failed.
Enjoy your festive season. We don’t have Thanksgiving so my neighbours put up their Christmas display straight after Halloween! The whole street has ended up decorating early thanks to their enthusiasm. A joyful (but oh so busy) time. (Thanks. Hugs from afar.)
Actually, Beth, according google, that variety looks very similar to the one I was so smitten with, and clearly it kept for months! I think the deal with the longevity of winter squashes has to do with temperatures and moisture while they were growing. So, it might have been very much out of your control. I'm glad your neighborhood is on board with the Christmas enthusiasm. In the absence of Thanksgiving, I might be less grumpy about it. LOL! Happy all the things, Beth, and thanks for your comment.
I always lose track of the courgettes (zucchini) and end up with at least four huge marrows that somehow come out of nowhere. And well-intentioned greens regularly go yellow and inedible in the fridge drawer. My husband insists on buying oranges, but by the time he gets round to eating one it's invariably green and dusty on the side you can't see....
Wait, are you living in my house, June? All of those produce hiccups sound verrrry familiar. One of the reasons I'm so glad to have a compost set-up is that it assuages my guilt when something gets away from me. 🫠
Enjoy the season, and thanks for making me feel better about the veggies I kill. Ha!
Happy Thanksgiving to you, Elizabeth. May your pumpkins stay fresh and your pies be sweet and may external pressures stay outside your fences and give all a reprieve. XXXX
When in Colorado I had a giant organic garden where many things escaped under fences or got lost at the ends of the vines, but I think my most memorable items were those that simply reseeded themselves, a random surprise and miracle of Mother Nature as she has always done. In the forefront; the Arugula bed went to seed my very first spring and came up everywhere, everywhere, for the next decade, impossible to eradicate and bitter on the tongue in such a dry climate, but with joyful blooms so they were forgiven even on the weedstop-covered footpaths.
Holidays are about finding surprise joy, not the obvious ones, I think. J
Oh, glory! I wasn't even thinking of the things that get away from me *outside*! That brings in a whole new set of possibilities. 😅 It's interesting you mention the reseeding arugula. I've also had a series of volunteers from one long-ago planting, and the plant itself is a little different from the arugula I see most often. This one has smaller, more prominently lobed leaves, survives summer, gets stems that are quite woody and has yellow rather than white flowers. I think it must be the original "rocket," rather than the type bred for bigger leaves.
I love your sentiment about surprise joy being intrinsic to the holidays, Janice. That's just wonderful. Happy Thanksgiving, and thanks for chiming in. <3
Always something discover… I honestly had no idea there were blue pumpkins. Loved this story - and am wholeheartedly in favor of the grace of frozen pizza. But I appreciate your farm to table sensibilities… from afar. Beautiful sentiment: “A humble squash hardly seems a worthy candidate for so much care-giving, but I don’t believe memories require merit. The stories we keep are a place to put the experiences that transform us.”
Thank you for being part of my Thanksgiving. I hope you all have a beautiful day.
It might be more accurate to call it a squash...in which case a blue-gray skin might seem slightly less surprising. All pumpkins are squash but not all squash are pumpkins... 😆
I'm delighted you're part of my Thanksgiving and beyond, Amy!
Wonderful, wonderful words - I laughed, I empathised, I wrinkled up my nose and a little later in the post of course my mouth was watering!
Just lovely, Elizabeth.
Still laughing at this line: "Within a week, the orange one gave up, tilting over, a clear sign of bottom failure." 🤣
(I remember sticking my thumb through the skin of a melon in the fruit bowl when I was trying to reach for something else - at which point the thing - the melon, not my thumb - exploded in pulpy mess of disgustingness. The house stank for DAYS afterwards. Whatever had been happening beneath the unblemished skin of the melon had happened entirely under the radar... but the thing was just liquid slime by the time my thumb got involved. YUCK.)
One of the wildest things about my squishy squashes is that there was never ANY SMELL. None. Nothing to tip me off to the lurking danger. How is that possible?
Thanks for laughing with me, and sharing your own horror story. I feel so much less alone now. 😅
Happy Thanksgiving Betsy and Jim.... two of my favorite people.... And so very many events with you have created wonderful Thanksgiving memories for every day of the year... I'm still smiling thinking about that blonde blue eyed Mary in your nativity set...
Awww, thank you, Barry! The memory-fest goes both ways for us, with you and Judy centered in many of ours. And I'm glad you appreciate the humor in the nativity set: When my parents "upgraded," I was eager to claim this one, made in Italy and with all the cultural blinders of the era it grew out of. At least the three wise men have some melanin! Ha! Happy Thanksgiving, my friends.
I’m in the mood for Thanksgiving and Christmas now, Elizabeth. Thank you.
High praise, Mr. Switter! That recipe is vegan, by the way. 😅 Enjoy, and thanks for being here.
See how it’s possible to be a vegan and not obnoxious?
Thank you, Elizabeth. Happy Thanksgiving.
1) Frozen pizza is my JAM.
2) Glad you are blessed with a hubs that will clean up minor disasters. Teamwork makes the dream work
3) curry recipe makes this post officially VALUE ADDED
4) there are always the sweetest little bits in your work that are so "show as opposed to tell", they always make me smile. This one you had me with "The evergreens became a fire hazard".
5) thank you for setting the holiday mood with squashy pumpkiny goodness.
I used to pick up a favorite frozen pizza for not-so-many pretty pennies at our local Safeway. The store was closed years ago now, and I still miss that easy dinner resource. Not that I can't find them elsewhere. Wait, was someone talking recently about being set in our ways? Heh.
I am, I'm convinced, one of the luckiest people alive to have chanced upon the man I married. He's good material. If you make the curry, I'd love a report back. I can play fast and loose with a dish like that, so it's hard, sometimes, to get the ingredients to behave properly for a recipe.
Enjoy the holiday in whatever way you choose to spend it, Eileen. I look forward to connecting again soon.
Here in Australia, we have lots of Queensland Blue pumpkins - large, blue, very hard, much more pumpkin than seeds than your blue squash - that keep for months, and Kent pumpkins - green with yellow speckles - that also keep well. Our main orangey ones are butternuts - sweet and oddly shaped. This year there were lots of Kent pumpkins with a butternut shape and I was so disappointed that they lacked the staying power of their squash relatives. They showed grey spots and signs of deterioration so rapidly! An experiment that unfortunately failed.
Enjoy your festive season. We don’t have Thanksgiving so my neighbours put up their Christmas display straight after Halloween! The whole street has ended up decorating early thanks to their enthusiasm. A joyful (but oh so busy) time. (Thanks. Hugs from afar.)
Actually, Beth, according google, that variety looks very similar to the one I was so smitten with, and clearly it kept for months! I think the deal with the longevity of winter squashes has to do with temperatures and moisture while they were growing. So, it might have been very much out of your control. I'm glad your neighborhood is on board with the Christmas enthusiasm. In the absence of Thanksgiving, I might be less grumpy about it. LOL! Happy all the things, Beth, and thanks for your comment.
I always lose track of the courgettes (zucchini) and end up with at least four huge marrows that somehow come out of nowhere. And well-intentioned greens regularly go yellow and inedible in the fridge drawer. My husband insists on buying oranges, but by the time he gets round to eating one it's invariably green and dusty on the side you can't see....
Wait, are you living in my house, June? All of those produce hiccups sound verrrry familiar. One of the reasons I'm so glad to have a compost set-up is that it assuages my guilt when something gets away from me. 🫠
Enjoy the season, and thanks for making me feel better about the veggies I kill. Ha!
Happy Thanksgiving to you, Elizabeth. May your pumpkins stay fresh and your pies be sweet and may external pressures stay outside your fences and give all a reprieve. XXXX
That is a wise blessing, Prue. Many thanks!
When in Colorado I had a giant organic garden where many things escaped under fences or got lost at the ends of the vines, but I think my most memorable items were those that simply reseeded themselves, a random surprise and miracle of Mother Nature as she has always done. In the forefront; the Arugula bed went to seed my very first spring and came up everywhere, everywhere, for the next decade, impossible to eradicate and bitter on the tongue in such a dry climate, but with joyful blooms so they were forgiven even on the weedstop-covered footpaths.
Holidays are about finding surprise joy, not the obvious ones, I think. J
Oh, glory! I wasn't even thinking of the things that get away from me *outside*! That brings in a whole new set of possibilities. 😅 It's interesting you mention the reseeding arugula. I've also had a series of volunteers from one long-ago planting, and the plant itself is a little different from the arugula I see most often. This one has smaller, more prominently lobed leaves, survives summer, gets stems that are quite woody and has yellow rather than white flowers. I think it must be the original "rocket," rather than the type bred for bigger leaves.
I love your sentiment about surprise joy being intrinsic to the holidays, Janice. That's just wonderful. Happy Thanksgiving, and thanks for chiming in. <3
Yes!! That is definitely what those resilient creatures were! Perfectly described.
And thank you; we are so non-traditional that it's a different celebration altogether, but no less symbolic. Hope yours was wonderful!
Different is a-okay!
Always something discover… I honestly had no idea there were blue pumpkins. Loved this story - and am wholeheartedly in favor of the grace of frozen pizza. But I appreciate your farm to table sensibilities… from afar. Beautiful sentiment: “A humble squash hardly seems a worthy candidate for so much care-giving, but I don’t believe memories require merit. The stories we keep are a place to put the experiences that transform us.”
Thank you for being part of my Thanksgiving. I hope you all have a beautiful day.
It might be more accurate to call it a squash...in which case a blue-gray skin might seem slightly less surprising. All pumpkins are squash but not all squash are pumpkins... 😆
I'm delighted you're part of my Thanksgiving and beyond, Amy!
I’m thinking a blue vegetable, by and large, would be a surprise. Hah! Purple potatoes for the win. And eggplant, of course.
Wonderful, wonderful words - I laughed, I empathised, I wrinkled up my nose and a little later in the post of course my mouth was watering!
Just lovely, Elizabeth.
Still laughing at this line: "Within a week, the orange one gave up, tilting over, a clear sign of bottom failure." 🤣
(I remember sticking my thumb through the skin of a melon in the fruit bowl when I was trying to reach for something else - at which point the thing - the melon, not my thumb - exploded in pulpy mess of disgustingness. The house stank for DAYS afterwards. Whatever had been happening beneath the unblemished skin of the melon had happened entirely under the radar... but the thing was just liquid slime by the time my thumb got involved. YUCK.)
One of the wildest things about my squishy squashes is that there was never ANY SMELL. None. Nothing to tip me off to the lurking danger. How is that possible?
Thanks for laughing with me, and sharing your own horror story. I feel so much less alone now. 😅
It’s so weird, isn’t it? The fact that they can hide in plain olfactory ‘sight’ like that! 🤣