Dreaming of my spring garden ......

Every year, I add a new flower bed or two, thus greatly enhancing the beauty of my yard and greatly decreasing the amount of lawn left to be mowed.

This year, however, I am adding a dedicated vegetable bed. I usually just tuck my veggies into the flower beds, producing crops of eggplants and peppers that I share with friends, or drop things like tomatoes into pots, where I'm eager to harvest a measley eight or nine tomatoes each season.

I learned the first problem with my tomato plants: I was buying determinate plants, which are bushy and have only one crop, as opposed to indeterminates, which are viney and produce for many weeks.

That learned, I have gone crazy this year with all the types of tomatoes I want to try! I have found seeds for giant heirlooms, tiny cherries and grapes, mid-sized romas! I have found tomatoes that promise to come in all colors: not the just the same old red we all see, but pinks and yellows and blacks and striped! Oh I can't wait to see what I actually grow ...

And peppers! Who knew there were so many varieties of peppers?!? I usually buy one pitiful plant, or maybe two, and add them to my beds. Plain old bells. Whatever is available.

But not this year! I am going to attempt some bells again, but I am adding anchos and jalepenos and bananas to my collection. Oh I hope I get to harvest a few ... I so love peppers of any and every kind!

What else? What else? Okra and beans and squash, oh my!

Now if the warmer weather would only arrive so I can start my planting ............

Holiday Happenings

Well, it's still Holiday Season here. It's Carnival, which won't last long since Mardi Gras is February 5, 2008, quite early this year. But oh the King Cakes I can try till then ....



The holidays started with a backpacking trip in the Sipsey Wilderness in northern Alabama. A group of friends & I headed up from south Louisiana, enjoying the chilly weather but escaping before the freezing rains set in on Saturday night. Check out the pretty moss & fungus covered log I found at lunch one day.



My birthday was the next weekend, along with the SEC championship game. What a wild weekend! LSU won, and a bunch of other teams lost, leaving us with a spot in the BCS title game! What a great birthday present! :) Of course, we played the title game last Monday and won, making my favorite Tigers the BCS National Champs. They were voted champs in all the polls, too. Quite an exciting football year!


After that, of course, was Christmas and all that goes along with it. Family & feasts, and then more family & more feasts. Culminating with my mom's surprise 70th birthday party on December 30th, 2007. With a New Year's Eve bash to follow. (Who could forget the fireball & subsequent power outage during the party?!?)


All in all, a safe & merry time. Just a few weeks of King Cake temptation left before beginning the Lenten period. Maybe this year I'll try a Zulu ... or a praline & cream cheese ... or ... or ... or ... hmmmmm, I just love King Cake.