Gifts and a Request

A long time friend, but sadly, one we see far too infrequently, has done an amazing thing for Keychains for a Cause. She had some left over ribbon from craft projects that she offered to send me. I was thrilled. I received the package today and was just overwhelmed by her kindness, for not only was there the bag of random lengths of ribbon,


but laying on top of that bag were oodles and oodles of full spools of ribbon.
Some designs I've been drooling over for ages and just never have bought. I especially love both the brown and black cow patterns for she and I share a certain affinity for that lovely beast.

What makes everything infinitely more wonderful was in the bag of ribbon was the dark, dark blue ribbon I had been needing to complete the Auburn keychain order I got in this weekend.

Something told me not to go out to buy that ribbon! Thank you, Suzanna. You've done a wonderful thing and we'll most certainly put the ribbon to fantastic use. I'll try to get some of it on the website as soon as possible, knowing that it will never all fit on there. It's that fantastic.

Now for the favor.....the boy has started a blog. This is a labor of love, and I stress 'labor' for in learning how to type I had to assure 'Duck' that there was indeed a 'p' on the keyboard. Duck has grown up watching me blog and doesn't particularly like my blog name, so in a response fitting my gender I said, "When you get your own blog, you can name it whatever you want," which prompted the response, "Well...can I have a blog?"

It's my hope that blogging will aid him with his communication skills, written expression and spelling, for blogging can be a fantastic teaching platform. He's typing it all by himself and may not catch his mistakes. He knows many of you, Granny and your puppies and magnificent harvests, EG and your films of Jude, Stefaneener and your sweet, sweet honey, Kate and Crew for your dancing chickens and Erin and your kids who are so much like him. and he'd just have a duck to hear you respond to him with words of encouragement. This may last five days or five months, but I'm happy with whatever he'll learn from it. So, check out the boy at The World, By Duck and fill out his poll to let him know what to write about tomorrow!

The morning comes early, and that's a sure thing since the boy's going to be chomping to get on the computer to write his next post. Sweet gardening and blogging dreams.

Harvest Monday - November 1, 2010

Amazingly enough, things are still growing out there in the garden. I gathered one more picking of beans this week, but I'm afraid this may be all there is for now since it's getting cooler by the minute.

The carrots are finally putting on weight which is very nice. I may forgo carrots in the spring to save space and stick them in the ground in August again. This seemed to work nicely!

The garlic is sporatically showing its shoots which is great

The season is finally and certainly changing. It's been down right plesant here the last few days.

Hop on over to Daphne's Dandelions, our fearless hostess, to see what everyone else is harvesting!

Keychains for a Cause has been doing a lot of work this week in custom school colors. This order for two University of Georgia and three Alabama keychain wristlets came in this weekend.

EG, don't dispair, the order did come with one Auburn wristlet as well, but my blue makes the orange look too much like FLA instead of Auburn, so that's got to be figured out before I ship this out tomorrow.

The morning comes early. Sweet fall gardening dreams.

Halloween, Haircuts and Heresy

Things are gearing up for Halloween here, and all of the festivities will thankfully wind down soon. Yesterday at school, the kids had 'Book Character Day' so the boy wore his Luke Skywalker costume and the girl went as Snow White. They were just adorable.

The night before, this is how the girl was planning to go to school in the morning. She was emphatic, if nothing else, but I prevailed. Thank goodness for everyone involved.

When we got home we went straight to our neighbor's house and had a grand time carving pumpkins. The boy wanted his to have bolts like Frankenstein and the girl put a beaded pipe cleaner on the top of hers to dress it up. Both pumpkins exhibit the fact that I am not a master pumpkin carver, but they both have holes and light up when lit, so I call that a success.

Halloween this year is a bit of a mess since it falls on a Sunday. I don't know about y'all, but here in GA, people have ducks when Halloween falls on Sunday because it's sacrilegious and try to mandate that everyone go out trick-or-treating on Saturday, but what winds up happening is that some go on one day and some on the other and it turns into a big mess. What people need to understand around here is that when you hold children's Halloween parties right in the middle of the Georgia-Florida football game, THAT'S sacrilege.

No, this isn't a Halloween costume, but the Man actually did it! We've been talking about getting his head shaved for years and he came home yesterday with it finally done. I think it looks great!

Lastly, our Family and Consumer Sciences teacher ordered several keychains from Keychains for a Cause in custom colors to represent her friends' schools.

The fob in her right hand was free for ordering 5 or more. Thank you for supporting our Relay for Life Team, Ms. Miller!

The morning comes early. Have a safe and happy Halloween.

Good Things are Coming Up!

I noticed today that some of the garlic is coming up! I took the lazy gardener's way out again this year and just planted the cloves as is. I was geared up to plant them the way Daphne does, but I couldn't find a moment to look it up, write it down and then perform the operation, so when the three minutes came my way when the sun was still mostly out, I took it and ran, for

I had until the girl realized she fell asleep at the dinner table to dash out there and stick the garlic in the ground.

So, the garlic went in, not as planned, but it still worked this way last year. The cloves may have been a bit on the smaller size last year and not as many may sprout this year, but they're planted. I wanted to get a picture of the sprouts, but it's been just yucky out there.

Another good thing is that today, alone, we had orders placed for 13 keychains! I was very excited. These five (and one free for ordering 4 or more) is going to Louisiana in the morning.

The morning comes early. It sure does, but try to make it to your bed if you can.

Beans! Beans! They're Good for Your Heart!

Guess what I harvested this weekend and again today?

More BEANS! Actually, there was even another gallon zip bag full that I brought to school to give to my team teacher. What was in the picture above was enough to fill an entire large colander which just made me crazy-giddy.
I know I've belabored it enough, but this late summer planted green bean experiment has done so well because it's been cool at night, warm in the day and generally dry, so the beans did wonderfully. The bean beetles are getting to them now and the pole beans have just about quit, so there may only be one more harvest or two, but it was soooo worth the gamble. Hopefully next year will be as dry and we can try it again. I'm honestly almost considering not wasting the space in April to plant them for the summer and just waiting until the fall next year.

You know....I was in the middle of an explanation of the background to The Canterbury Tales today in class when a student shouted out, Mrs. _____ (the foods teacher) said you had a pretty awesome garden. I paused and replied, "I'm attracted to shiny things," which was about just as random as I could get in response to his equally random comment. Then, the buzz started moving around the room...."She's got a garden?" "Mrs. ____ gardens?" "She's nurturing enough to make plants grow?" and the comments continued until one student, the eloquent one, said, "You'll have to pardon us, Mrs. _____. You just don't seem like the gardening sort." I paused and absorbed the comment. Gardening is a relatively new hobby for me; it's only been three years since I started, and I'll admit, my mother once told me I shouldn't have children because I couldn't keep a house plant alive. However, there's a freedom, sovereignty and down right confidence that comes with growing your own food, so I paused and instead of chastising the class, said, "Yeah, but what I really want are chickens." Everyone jumped at listing who they knew who had chickens I could buy. One kid then said, "Hey you could name one Chaucer!" for which everyone else groaned because it got me back on track. Oh well. Such is the life.

On a teaching note segwaying very awkwardly into another Keychains for a Cause update, this beaded wristlet keychain went to a teacher who is a collector of antique jewelry. Her style is magnificently elegant yet understated and the keychain compliments her style and colors perfectly. She's a classic beauty.

We've got about three new designs that I'm going to put up later this week or this weekend. We've had a request, also, for black and gold keychains to match a local school's colors, so I'll have that up as well.

The morning comes early. Try not to overdose on green beans with me.

Support That Makes Me Giggle!!

Yesterday was a big, big day all around. For the first time in several years of trying, I harvested sugar snap peas! Not only were the peas good, but I had carrots also!! I made this little veggie dish to take to a baby shower yesterday and I was just giddy with excitement!
The peas were pretty difficult to find being that they had almost toppled over on themselves. I had to think of something quick since they're still flowering like crazy. I took some knitting yarn and wound it around and around the trellis, propping the pea vines up as I went until it looked like an odd loom, but it worked.

Well, see how long it lasts, but for now they have the support they need.

Keychains for a Cause has also been receiving a lot of support recently and it makes me so happy to know that what started out as a lark has been so well received. We've now not only got the original on-line store, but we've added one to the Facebook page, also. (Psst....go "like" the Keychains for a Cause page on Facebook and get a 10% discount when you order through our new Facebook store.)

This week we've filled several orders including this one for a set of soccer key fobs to be given to the players on a 5 yr old's soccer team to put on their book bags' zippers. What a cute idea!

Another customer had the same thought and bought this key fob to give to her girlfriend who is having a girl after a string of boys. She's set on using the same 'boy' diaper bag, so her friend thought a sparkle princess key fob to use as a pull tab on the zipper was just the thing the new baby needed.

When you do your holiday shopping, don't forget us! These wristlets and key fobs will make excellent gifts and stocking stuffers. All proceeds go to support The American Cancer Society's Relay for Life.

The morning comes early. Sweet pea gardening dreams.

The Pesto

I ate some more of the pesto today

with a spoon,

on the couch.

There's got to be a twelve step program for this.