T Stands for Tuesday & This & That

  Happy T Everyone. This link up is held over at Bleubeard and Elizabeth's blog. All are welcome just share a drink related photo in your blog-link in my sidebar.

   A very up and down weather week for sure. Very cold, 3 inches of snow, wind, and now a serious warm up begins here at the Lake in the Ozarks in Missouri.

  I am writing this post on early Sunday morning-first day of the time change-ugh I really wish they would all choose a time for the entire year-and not have these fall and spring time changes. I am writing this post a little earlier than usual just because. haha  

   We hired a company to clean all of our heating vents. My allergies have been worse since we moved here to this lake home. The previous owner of this home had several cats and she was not clean, we noticed that right away. One of the rooms we had to tear up the carpet and replace with new, and I am thinking the vents must be filled with cat hair and dander. I have never had this done before so don't know what to expect, they come on Tuesday.

  Those of us that enjoy a bit or allot of gardening I am sure are anxious to get outdoors and start working up the soil.  I probably did this a bit early as I don't have the ground ready yet-but I have 30 roots coming in this week to plant. They are medicinal-bloodroot-which I use for dye, goldenseal, and wild geranium these are found in woodsy areas as they love the shade-I have a perfect spot for them. I will also be starting my perennial wildflower, and herb seeds this week too. I have all the bottle greenhouses cut and read to go. I wanted to start this much earlier but the evening temperatures were below freezing most nights.

Here are photos I found online for the roots.

  wild geranium

goldenseal-I had this in the woods at our home there

bloodroot-this is a medicinal plant that our friend Lilburn used allot, this was in our woods too If I am going to use ground covers in areas instead of grass I want the plants to have a purpose-these will all spread too and they will be pretty.

   I have decided to stop my Cast Iron Saturdays weekly posts for now. My last one is full of St Patrick's Day recipes including vegan. Perhaps next fall and winter I may post again.  I have enjoyed searching for and sharing recipes using cast iron-but after a year there is still very low interest. When I post I do it because I enjoy it too, but these posts take allot of time to search out and with low interest I don't need to continue. I want to thank all of my regulars that have visited these cast iron recipe posts, which has made this event more fun for me to share with all of you.

  I have recently started Food Wednesdays, which is a link up to share Food with friends. I have set up no rules except to be kind to one another and the topic can be anything food related. I am hoping more will join us. I have really enjoyed this event allot so far, and have already learned new things. Many thanks to all of you that have joined in so far and have shared this link up foods event

 When I was cold last week-we had gotten down to 9 degrees f one evening, I fancied up my French Pressed decaf. coffee with my homemade Kahlua and whipped cream-perfect for a cold morning

We are really enjoying this visitor (red headed woodpecker) who especially loves it when I put out the bird mix with nuts and dried fruit. We discovered there are two of them most likely a pair that is stashing some of this food in the trees

    A book I am reading now-if you enjoy the Outlander and the Men in Kilts shows on Starz this is a very fun read, these two personalities come through in the writing and I have learned allot about Scotland. 

     These two had also written the book Men in Kilts and presented it to Starz for a possible show, which did turn into a series. I have that book too and was glad I read it before the show as it was much better.  They just filmed the second Men in Kilts which comes out sometime this year. 

    I have a red wine in the handmade porcelain cup along with a couple of my dipped apricots and dried strawberries.

This is a close up of the card you see in the background in above photo. I have soooo enjoyed my slow mail friends very much over the last year. My handful of friends have gotten me through this rough winter with surprises in my mailbox. I just received this hand painted postcard from Deb. I love it!!  thank you thank you

Will close with one of our morning bright sunrises. This changed just a bit by the time I found my camera. Just before this view-there was a total reflection of the round sun on the lake-had not seen that before-you can still see a little of that.

Happy T and new week everyone