Chocolate Box Cottage, Volume 2
Week 44: November 5, 2022

A batch of blowsy days ushered in winter weather – but still no frost! Homegrown strawberry mint tea is the perfect way to warm up and relax in the afternoons and evenings. It tastes amazingly like fresh strawberries and is pleasant plain or with honey. If you can find this variety, I warmly recommend it – grown in a pot unless you are prepared to hand over your backyard to a mint plantation!

Go ahead, fix yourself a cup of strawberry mint tea, if you have it, or whatever flavor you have on hand, then sit back and read this post.

Blowsy days are perfect for puttering. But before we get to that, let’s take a quick tour of the 2022 Victory Garden at Chocolate Box Cottage.

Garden

Those small tasks in the house and in the garden that have been waiting for an opportune moment – it is now! I move from one task to the next without hurrying and it feels good to take care of them, tie up those loose ends and put things in order.

The garden teepee is fading – it is November after all. The morning glories were attacked by an insect, not frozen, and I still need to determine what it was. The gourds have been harvested, but the vines themselves are still alive, miraculously! And on the fence, a lacy cup-and-saucer vine that got a late start wends its way up the boards.

Green tomatoes are hanging in there. I harvested the sizable tomatoes and left these just to see what will or won’t happen. Cardinal basil is the showiest basil in our garden. It puts on a display of fluffy brilliant purple bracts that rival the zinnias and happen to be great companions for them! I am hoping for seeds to save from these beautiful plants.

Greenhouse

Step inside the greenhouse with me! It may be windy and cold outside, but inside it’s a comfortable 52F (11c) degrees.

The Clementine orange on the left displays a small crop of fruit and behind it is a porch pot with orange mint. To the right are two oversize porch pots overflowing with Josephine Norwegian geraniums. There is an interesting story behind these geraniums that I will share one day.

Here I will introduce you to two more greenhouse residents. A Meyer lemon tree seedling, one of a dozen, that suffered from heat and wind in the summer is putting on a fresh batch of leaves. Learn how to plant lemon seeds to grow citrus trees.

My summer blooming amaryllis with strappy leaves has multiplied to become 3 plants in one pot.

The pawpaw seeds are biding their time, waiting for favorable germination conditions. Growing trees from seeds is very rewarding! All the details are contained in my garden journal. It’s just a school composition notebook, housed in a used Ziploc bag with a pencil. Keeping garden records doesn’t need to be fancy or exhaustive. Any notes taken are better than none.

It’s wood stove weather and it’s smart to harness the heat for cooking, but first: a soak in cool water. Soaking the Italian clay bean pot fills all then pores with water, which in turn allow for gentle, even cooking of food.

I soaked a pound of cannellini beans in water overnight with a good amount of salt. 

In the morning I rinsed the beans and placed them in the bean pot with fresh water. 

I reached into my scrap bag in the freezer for a couple of ends from a couple of onions, and took a bay leaf from my spice drawer. 

I brought the pot to a boil on my kitchen stove, then moved the pot to the wood stove, where it continues to simmer gently. In a few hours, we will have slow-cooked beans to add to Taco Soup, with extra to freeze for a future meal. 

I consider beans a building block to cooking and keep 3-5 kinds cooked and ready to use in my freezer, along with bone broth, and freezer bread dough. 

Having these basics on hand makes it that much easier to put a healthy meal on the table without making a trip to the store. (We don’t live near a store, anyway, but for those of you who do, it’s something to consider!)

Learn to use your wood stove to cook.

Tea at Mom’s

Weekly tea and lunch and Mom’s consisted of Taco Soup and homemade banana bread made from the overripe bananas I abducted from Mom’s fruit bowl last week. Mom’s best friend, Joy, and Miriam joined us, too! Joy brought a wonderful salad with a cilantro lime dressing to complement the soup, plus bevy of delicious toppings. Tea this week was Orange Jasmine, a surprisingly nice pairing with lunch.

Church Christmas Bazaar

There is nothing like the Christmas bazaar to get you into the Christmas spirit early. I have taken Miriam, and Cameo when she was home, to the church Christmas Bazaar every year since she was in a stroller, 20 months old. The girls were so excited they used to hardly be able to sleep the night before! I let them wear their Christmas dresses with tights to the bazaar and we have always made a day of it with Mom/Grandma.

Mom prefers to stay home, finding crowds a bit overwhelming these days and Cameo lives up north, but Miriam and I still enjoy our very special annual tradition.

We have lunch at the pop-up cafe in the church gym and take our time visiting each and every booth – twice! That’s right, we go through the entire bazaar twice. We go home with a big bag of kettle korn and relax with tea and a Christmas movie and chat about Christmas plans.

Samuel’s list

Sam’s list this weekend included an array of small projects:

1. Replace the accelerator pedal in the truck

2. Put away hoses and insulate outdoor faucets

3. Sharpen kitchen knives

4. Add straw to henhouse and bunny quarters

5. Put away lighting/cords used to deter bears (We think they’re gone for good now)

6. Toilet repairs

He also hoped to mow the grass one last time, but the we weather prevented him.

Puttering

MY THREE BAKING FRIENDS: SOURDOUGH STARTERS
I would like to introduce you to my clan of natural baking leaveners! I depend on them to raise bread, make mouthwatering hotcakes, quick piklets for breakfast, and more. So much more.

MERLIN is my most-used, all-purpose sourdough starter. I call him a mutt because he is happy to gobble up whatever flour I am baking with, whether it’s all-purpose, whole wheat, rye, spelt, and even small bits of non-gluten flours like corn and millet. 
***What Merlin makes best: quintessential sourdough boules, hotcakes, crackers, popovers, and crumpets.

SOPHIA is a star in her own right. Sophia is a lievito madre, an Italian sweet starter as opposed to sour. She currently dines on whole wheat flour, but also likes bread flour. 
***What Sophia makes bests: the BEST pizza ever with crust a complex wine-line flavor and the perfect balance of airy bubbles and chewiness, and , and enriched breads like Pan de Coco (coconut bread), chocolate, lemon, etc.

DAKOTA PIONEER EVERLASTING YEAST is the leavener of my German grandmother, Emma, and her mother before her, Katerina. Everlasting Yeast eats a steady diet of all-purpose flour, boiled potato, and a little sugar and salt. 
***What Everlasting Yeast makes best: sandwich loaves baked in a pan and kuchen, a fruit-topped German coffee cake.

I will share my bakes over the autumn and winter months and thought it would be nice to introduce you to the starters first! Do you bake with sourdough or other types of natural leaveners? 

I mixed up numerous batches of Homemade Hot Cocoa Mix – recipe here.

Some for us and some for Christmas gifts. Now we are set for hot cocoa all winter! 

Sam and I enjoy curling up together on the couch on Sunday afternoons with a cup of cocoa. It’s so easy – just as easy as a store-bought mix, but tastes SO much better! (And for a real splurge, add a dollop of whipped cream!)

Instead of throwing lemons away after juicing, I zest them first. The zest dries in a couple of days at room temperature on a plate and then is used to refill my Lemon Zest spice jar in my spice drawer. I love, love, love these mini apothecary-style spice jars!

Cameo Joy Four o’Clocks are named after my daughter. The seeds have had ample time to dry. Now it’s time to transfer them to a labeled seed packet. The manilla packets were purchased at a thrift shop a year or two ago. I include the original source of the seeds and year they were acquired on the packet.

I saved another batch of Japanese Plum tomato seeds from another batch of tomatoes; I am calling these B grade. Japanese Plum tomato seeds are no longer available commercially and I felt I needed to save more seeds, even if they weren’t from the best fruit. Grade A and Grade B seeds are in separate packets. Several friends who are accomplished gardeners have volunteered to help me keep this variety going by planting it in their gardens next year.

Our fennel forest didn’t prosper this year; it was severely beaten back by low twenties weather in the spring, so the harvest is small but very much appreciated. The spice jar was refilled and the rest went into a backup jar.

Chocolate Box Cottage hollyhocks were literally dropped from heaven (or a bird) into the Apothecary Garden. The variety is everything we want in a hollyhock: it is tall, it blooms for months, and the flowers are a deep, deep burgundy. I noticed an infestation of tiny weevils in the seeds, so I put the entire baggie in the freezer for a week to kill them. Hopefully we still have some viable seeds here to plant.

A final autumn harvest of Zloty Lan chamomile was air-dried on the china hutch / seed saving station. Enough to fill a pint jar, which was added to my kitchen Tea Station, along with the Wild Chamomile I picked and dried earlier in the summer.

Bookshelf

QUICK-FIX HEALTHY MIX COOKBOOK
Make your own homemade mixes! They’re delicious, nutritious, and affordable.

It’s hard to argue with the convenience of grocery store mixes. They’re quick, easy, and usually require less clean-up than cooking from scratch.

Unfortunately, they’re also filled with high levels of sodium, hydrogenated fat, high-fructose corn syrup, msg, artificial flavoring and colors, and a slew of unpronounceable ingredients.

Can you have convenience and have it healthy, too? As a matter of a fact, YES!!

Quick-Fix Healthy Mix authors Casey Kellar and Nicole Kellar-Munoz share a generous helping of recipes:
Soup mixes
Bean mixes
Rice and pasta mixes
Salad dressing mixes
Spice packet mixes
Baking mixes
Beverage mixes
and SO much more, all made from simple, healthier ingredients.

Search for Quick-Fix Healthy Mix at my favorite online seller of used books using my sharebooklove link. Click the highlighted words and then type the book title in the search bar. It’s a popular book, so if it is not currently in stock you can create a wish list and they will email you as soon as it is available. Using my sharebooklove link allows you and me to both earn points towards free books, thank you! This post contains other links to products and businesses I use and appreciate; some are affiliate, some are not.

I went long this week! You have certainly finished your cup of tea by now. I do pray you have a good week.

Blessings,

Michele

Chocolate Box Cottage Diary, Volume 2
Week 43: October 29, 2022

This week brought a huge blessing in the shape of a quilt, made especially for me by my Mom’s best friend, Joy. I already refer to it as the hymn quilt because the floral-framed blocks contain lines from old hymns ad songs we sang in church when I was growing up. I can hear my Dad’s voice in my mind singing Amazing Grace and I cannot describe what a comfort this is. He has been gone nearly 20 years and I will miss him so!

The hymn quilt is large enough for both Sam and me to cuddle under on the couch and already feels like it “belongs.”

I am a quilt maker and I appreciate all the love and effort that goes into the making of a quilt. The fact that Joy would make one for ME is amazing. And in the picture below, you can see she made TWO hymn quilts! One for me and one for her, which makes it even more special.

“This is my story. This is my song. Praising my Savior, all the day long!” This lovely quilt provides so many reminders that I know will bring me comfort in the years ahead.

Joy brought lunch to “my” weekly tea at Mom’s. I say “my” because I am the one who brings lunch! It was nice to have a a break from preparing the food and just enjoy the company. The fact that she gave me a quilt was the icing on the cake. This week Mom was especially delighted when four granddaughters joined us: Alyssa, Savannah, Miriam, and Amelia.

Sam’s projects

Garden gems

My hard-working man wheel-barrowing firewood from wood shed to house.

The garden is quietly winding down for the season. Winter squash have been harvested along with the last of the tomatoes, tomatillos, peppers, zucchini, and cucumbers. Cheerful little Red Gem marigolds are still blooming, plus a few others.

The teepee was a surprise star in the garden this year. Mayo bule gourds, cover the bulk of the willow pole frame and if you look closely you might be able to see a few large gourds peeping between the leaves, including one resting on a chair. There are also Heavenly Blue and Candy Pink morning glories and cinnamon vine growing vertically, with nasturtiums and herbs clustering around the “skirt.”

Mayo Bule gourds in all their green glory. Ranging from 8.5-11 inches (22-28 cm) high with belly measurements (circumference) of 23-28 inches (59-71 cm) these beauties are smaller than those I harvested from the garden of our previous home, but are still quite respectable. Gourds will cure to tan or gold.

A closer look, so you can appreciate their peanut-like warts and the way the light glistens on their skin.

I have made quite a fuss over Sadie and her ducklings; here is a picture of dad Sylvester with the little dumplings. They are sprouting tail feathers now!

You’ve met Lavender, my garden hen before. Her leg was broken in a stampede of small chickens and I separated her to give her a chance to heal. I wasn’t sure she would ever be able to walk, but within a 4 weeks she was attempting to put a little weight on that leg and by 10 weeks she was walking fairly well. After a few rain showers, I decided it was time for Lavender to rejoin the flock for the winter. It would be selfish of me to keep her separate.

I set Lavender in the henhouse early one morning while it was still dark to give her the best chance of integrating without being picked on. She stayed in all day, sitting by the food and water. Good – this gave her a chance to imprint with the henhouse and recognize it as “home.”

The next morning she filed out of the henhouse along with the rest of the chickens and I was glad for her. Success was unfortunately short-lived. Soon a commotion was heard in the henyard and when I went to check, Lavender was gone. I tramped all over the hen yard and pasture, even the swampy areas, in my muck boots, to no avail. I could see no sign of her.

And then, I saw this: a clump of lavender-gray feathers. My heart sank, because I knew what it meant.

Preserving

Still working on the second box of Paragon pears. I used a vintage apple slicer to core and slice a mountain pears. What I especially like about this handheld slicer is that the coring circle is very narrow, wasting little fruit. It also cuts fruit in 12 slices rather than 8, which is a better fit for the space between trays of my Excalibur dehydrator.

Cores from several batches of Vanilla Laced Pear Jam were used to start a new jar of fruit vinegar. The last of the elderberries went into another jar for elderberry vinegar. I stir both jars daily twice and am looking forward to tasting these gourmet fruit vinegars.

Bookshelf

Olwes Miaken’s Creatures is my new favorite sourdough book. Diana Brüggemann, who happens to be a friend of mine in Germany, corralled her menagerie of “creatures” (sourdough starters) into a book! Covering 20 distinct sourdough creatures, some of which aren’t even sour, you will enjoy getting to know each one of them and seeing what they can do. 

The book is nicely organized and well formatted, making it easy to read. It is full of great recipes for bread and other baked goodies. Diana even shows you how to swap one type of starter for another and offers tasty ideas for ways to use “discard,” a useless term since she doesn’t advocate throwing anything away. No, no – you’ll start your own Monster Mash jar as soon as you get this book, trust me!

Note this post contains links to products and shops I use and appreciate. Some are affiliates, some are not. Thank you for supporting my writing and these businesses!

Blessings,
Michele

Chocolate Box Cottage Diary, Volume 2
Week 39: October 1, 2022

Sadie was delighted to hatch 2 ducklings at last! They peep adorably, reminding us of squeaky toys or tiny yellow dumplings.

By the second day, mother Sadie had introduced her ducklings to the wide outdoors.

They are so incredibly soft and fun to hold! The parents, Sadie and Sylvester, were a gift from a dear friend, Sarah Fullerton. I love her (and them) so much!

The calendar page has flipped to October and the antique hutch serves as a seed saving station.

Seed saving and preserving continue in earnest and so does the sunny weather, which means more of the same ahead this week, even though pumpkin spice and sweater weather messaging are strong!

New video

Soft Scrub Cleanser “Goop” + Scouring Powder | 2 Homemade Cleaning Products

You don’t have to spend a lot of money to keep a clean house! You can make your own cleaning products from grocery store ingredients. They are simple to make – and they are effective. Let’s start building your DIY cleaning tote today. Follow along and make 2 products in about 5 minutes that will save you time and money, not to mention all the extra packaging that won’t be going in the trash.

Do the next thing

It was a week of connecting with reality. We are still adjusting to the loss of little Charla (our sweet little dog loved and shared by Miriam and me.) Trips to the garden without Charla at my heels feel strange and…solemn. But to the garden I must go, there is still (thankfully) much food to be harvested.

And so I harvest more seeds, cut up precious windfall apples for apple butter, watch roots form on my kitchen window basil cuttings, and continue my herbal medicine making. Doing the next thing is good medicine.

It’s a beautiful thing to turn imperfect fruit into something perfect, like apple butter. When the wooden spoon stands up in the crock, it’s done.

I wash dishes, clean messes, and mop floors. Keeping a Crock Pot or a broth pot going is a comfort.

I gather greens for the bunnies, chase ducklings, let the chickens out in the mornings and close them up at night, even as I stumble over large, irrefutable evidence of a bear in our yard.

We first grew Musquee de Provence pumpkins in 2005 and were immediately smitten. The voluptuous fruit, weighing 10 – 25 pounds (4.5 – 11 kg) are born generously on rambling vines with lush heart-shaped leaves. They start out deep forest green and ripen after curing to a gorgeous bronzy chestnut color. Cut pumpkins exude a sweet melon aroma!

Boiling water in the bottom chamber of the steam juicer causes the berries to release their juices. Elderberry juice, fresh from the spigot, quart after quart.

Half a gallon of raw a2/a2 milk becomes clabber for baking and sour cream, with fresh milk for drinking and cream for my morning cup of tea. A loaf of bread thaws in preparation for apple butter.

Garden teepee

Join me for tea? Would you guess the tea service is mix-and-match from the thrift shop?

In a year when the garden struggled due to weather, the teepee was a very pleasant surprise. It grew and it throve and it was a delight to watch.

Comfort food

And I make soup. Ahhh soup.

We finished the week with a pot of Mexican Chicken Tortilla Soup made with garden veggies and herbs and home-canned tomatoes.

And through it all, Sam is wonderful. Sam goes to work, comes home, does chores. Daily offering to help and finding ways to do so. Life is good.

Thank you for reading! You are part of the goodness in my life.

Bookshelf

One last thing. I can’t leave you without sharing book recommendations with you! These two are excellent for seed savers.

Beginner book: Seed to Seed by Suzanne Ashworth. This is the book I started with and relied on for over 20 years.
Advanced book: The Seed Garden by Lee Alan Buttala and Shanyn Siegel.

Check my favorite online seller of used books using my sharebooklove link. Click the highlighted link in the previous sentence and then type the title of the book into the search bar when you get there. If they don’t have it in stock, create a wish list and add this book to it. Using my link earns us both points towards free books! Thank you for supporting my business, I appreciate it.

Blessings to you, friends.
Michele and Samuel

* This post contains links to products and vendors I use and appreciate for their quality and usefulness. Some are affiliate, some are not. I may earn a commission from qualifying purchases when you use the links I provide; this does not change your price.

Chocolate Box Cottage Diary, Volume 2
Week 38: September 24, 2022

Where preserving season is the culmination of a summer’s work, a freshly baked pie is the reward of an afternoon’s effort. Start with Butter Pie Crust for a delicious pie!

If you have ever gardened or baked a pie from scratch, you know exactly what I mean.

Pantry shelved don’t fill themselves, and a slice of pie with a cup of tea or coffee doesn’t magically make itself!

Preserving

Herbs, fruit, seeds, and vinegar from small harvests.

Sweet Raisin tomato bore a good crop of small Roma-type grape tomatoes, despite unusual summer weather. I picked several quarts into a pretty McCoy pottery bowl and sat in the garden teepee to sort them for seed saving, keeping only the best. I am so glad I saved seeds as the variety has been discontinued. The others were halved and went into the Excalibur dehydrator to dry for the pantry.

Another small batch of crushed tomatoes with herbs. Notice the jewel-like colors! From left to right: Japanese Black Trifele tomato (purple/black), Japanese Plum tomato (bright pink), and Dad’s Sunset tomato (yellow). Home-canned crushed tomatoes are one of the BEST and most convenient meal starters to have in the pantry.

See how small they are? I mistakenly bought a packet of miniature butternut squash seed, a variety called Brûlée.

Hoping for enough Amarylla tomatillos and peppers to make another batch of Roasted Tomatillo Salsa Verde.

Wintergreen grows as a low ground cover in the corners of the garden teepee. The bright pink berries are deliciously minty!

Having grown both Lemon and Tangerine Gem marigolds in the past, I suspected I would like Red Gem. The blooms are bright and edible, with a citrusy flavor. Zloty Lan chamomile is another favorite I mention frequently. The larger-than-usual size flowers mean more cups of chamomile tea! Nestled in the island of chamomile is a young pawpaw tree grown from seed, the only one to survive nibbling of the millions of big-eared field mice that share our homestead.

Someday I will study smartweed and learn all the wonderful uses it has beyond just being a cute pink volunteer flower in my garden beds, but until then I will enjoy seeing it as it pops up!

Persian basil plants and small abundance: sage, basil, hollyhock seeds, and a big jar of Persian basil.

Nearly a week old, this jar of homemade Persian basil vinegar is fermenting nicely in the warm early autumn weather.

Sadie is nesting again. How many eggs are in the nest and how many do you think will hatch? Leave your guess in the comments!

Saving seeds always reminds me of God’s abundance. One volunteer hollyhock produced thousands of seeds. (Which is a good thing because weevils often help themselves to most of them.)

Everything being late, I was pleased to get a second cutting from yarrow. The glowing yellow blooms of Kelway Golden chamomile are like eye candy! This variety is grown for dye rather than tea.

Tea at Mom’s

Weekly tea at Mom’s. Mom’s best friend Joy Longiotti brought rustic fruit cookies finished with a thin glaze and a fruit salad to enjoyed with Zuppa Toscana, or Olive Garden Soup as my kids call it. I used local Italian sausage along with kale, potatoes, garlic, and fennel seeds from the garden. Homemade broth distilled from leftover chicken bones adds deep nutrition and flavor. Joy also brought a newly finished quilt to show!

Unexpected goodbye

Utterly sweet and adorable Charla, on a walk at Mill Creek Falls on Sept 13. She was perky and energetic and we had no idea we were about to lose her. Charla died suddenly and unexpectedly 10 days later, despite massive emergency vet intervention. She was the shared love of Miriam and I, and we are both bereft. Please give your pet an extra dose of love and attention today. And tomorrow. And every day.

Bookshelf

Two fun books:
The Plant Sitter by Gene Zion is a charmingly illustrated children’s story of responsibility.
Nature Printing with Herbs, Fruit, and Flowers brims with simple ways to get creative with nature.

I can’t say we are ready for winter yet, but we’re getting there.

Somehow I didn’t end up with pictures of Sam and his projects this week. He spends evenings after work doing small chores to make our place winter-proof and spent many hours over the weekend working to locate the source of a small antifreeze leak in his 2004 Ford truck. To his frustration, he still has not found it.

Have a pleasant week, friends.
Michele and Samuel

Note: From time to time I recommend products and business that I use and/or patronize. Some are affiliate links, some are not. All are ones that I use and have confidence in. Qualifying purchases may earn me a small commission at no cost to you, so thank you for using my links!

Chocolate Box Cottage Diary, Volume 2
Week 35: September 3, 2022

After a day’s picking, I used a cup of fresh huckleberries to bake a sourdough batard with fresh lemon verbena leaves from the garden.

We are filling pots, colanders, and buckets – berry picking days are here! We dashed up the mountain for a second day of huckleberry picking. Blackberries are ready and requiring every-other-day picking. Sweet Amarylla tomatillos are ripening to a sunny yellow; they taste so good! And we are relieved that the tomatoes are turning color at last.

To make berry picking less painful, Samuel thoughtfully pruned the tangle of wild and tame blackberries back that grow on the fence between the vegetable garden and the sheep pasture.

We are relieved the tomatoes are ripening at last. The two tomatoes pictured above are at the top of our list of favorites: Japanese Black Trifele (believed to be from Russia) is a burgundy/black tomato and Japanese Plum, a raspberry pink fruited variety. Both are good for canning/drying.

Morning coffee and tea in the garden teepee, with Toby the Magnificent. We love our new Gabrielle K Pottery mugs!

Before the main push of harvest in the garden, Samuel whisked me away to Crescent City, California for a welcome few days vacation to celebrate my birthday.

Foggy Days

In 1969 President Nixon dedicated this grove to former First Lady, Lady Bird Johnson, in honor of her conservation and environmental work. The dedication plaque for Lady Bird Johnson Grove can be seen about half a mile down the trail. Only 5% of the world’s old-growth redwood forest remain – and nearly half of that (40,000 acres) is in Redwood National and State Parks. (Thank you Johnnie Kyzer for this info!)

We encountered thick fog at the Redwood National Forest and at first I felt disappointed. I really wanted sunshine and blue skies for our trip!

Then I felt God impress on my heart that fog is from Him. It is His protection at times.

We don’t need to see the future, He holds the future and He holds us.

I love to plan. I make lists and love to check them off and meet my goals.

But right now He is not showing me very far ahead on the path. Instead, He is bringing me along one day at a time, fibromyalgia brain fog and all.

I hope I am learning to trust Him more fully during the foggy days, whether the fog is in the sky or in my brain.

This massive Redwood tree is scarred by fire, yet lives.

Incredible botanical riches including 7 varieties of ferns growing up sheer canyon walls await sightseers at Fern Canyon. Plank paths through water, and matchless picnic spots make navigating the twisty, dusty road to get there worthwhile. Not handicap accessible.

Little things and big things that stood out near the motel we stayed in: child-like fun of making our own waffles for breakfast, sand-covered sidewalks edged in a profusion of roses, and an incredible variety of seafood at Crescent Seafood Co, a local favorite and well kept secret. Dine in their comfortable dining room, take food back to your room, and/or purchase fresh seafood to take home. The food is amazing!!  Fishing boat was raised out of water for maintenance and repairs.

A visit to Rumiano Cheese Store was in order. You can watch the cheesemakers at work and stock up on gourmet organic cheese! The Cheese Store offers fresh, locally made sourdough bread, 1 pound loaf for $11. This makes me appreciate my homemade bread! (And truly wonder what a loaf of my Huckleberry Lemon Verbena Sourdough bread [pictured in the huckleberry picking collage photo] might be worth!)

Peek over the fence at a 20-bed school garden at Crescent City Elementary. 

Sylvia’s Attic is a true gem in Crescent City, California.  Sylvia and her late husband owned a prosperous commercial interior design company in San Francisco for 25 years. Now she sells used books, tea cups, baskets, and unique furniture.

On the way home we “had” to stop at Taylor’s Sausage Country Store for a bowl of their iconic Sweet Italian Sausage Soup and sweet potato fires. Mmmm!

Sam and I do know one thing: we are blessed. The budget might be tight and getting tighter, but we have each other and we have plenty of experience economizing. Sam wishes he could take me on a big vacation to a luxury destination, like Hawaii, or that we could drive or fly to the Midwest to visit family.

I am grateful we were able to take 3 days off and visit the Redwoods and walk barefoot together on the beach! Having a hand to hold is a priceless treasure. We have many friends who are alone, due to death or divorce, and we choose to savor the time together, even if, or especially, during the so-called mundane stuff of life: meals, daily chores, homestead projects, all of it. Every day is a gift.

Thinking of all our single friends today and sending you love.

Michele and Samuel

Chocolate Box Cottage Diary, Volume 2
Week 32: August 13, 2022

The screen door is open most evenings, a small holiday in itself. The yellow Adirondack chairs are pressed into service, the front porch is abloom with pink and red geraniums. It is too warm for supper there, but the garden teepee is becoming a favorite comfortable spot again as greenery wends its way up.

Could anything be more fitting than zucchini, in some form, for dinner in the teepee? That’s how Sam and I celebrated our First Date Anniversary, with grilled burgers served on zucchini slice “buns.”

Sam and I met through mutual friends, TJ and Charity Weber, who thought we were perfect for each other and decided to play matchmaker! I worked with Charity at the local Grange Co-op, Sam and TJ worked 2 jobs together at the time.

Sam came to meet me for the first time at work and asked me out to dinner. Our first date was to take place Sunday July 13, 2003. Tragically, my Dad died unexpectedly the night before our first date.

We didn’t go out until more than a year later, August 14, 2004, after a chance meeting at the Post Office. Coincidence is God’s signature and we quickly fell in love.

We celebrate all the special days: First Date Anniversary, Proposal Day, and our Wedding Anniversary. And we celebrate many other small things!

We have invented a basketful of small holidays and sprinkled them through the calendar:

First Day of Summer – with homemade ice cream

First Zucchini – with fried Zucchini Moons

First Tomato – we share it

Wisteria in Bloom – with pictures

Locust Tree Flower Flurry – grilled supper under the falling petals

Final Load of Firewood – a nap and a movie

This is just a sampling of small holidays of summer. We also celebrate clean floors, internet outages, and new baby animals of all kinds.

We are ready to mark any occasion, especially the small ones, with a special dessert, a picture, a picnic, a walk, or whatever suits.

How about you? Do you celebrate any private or “made-up” holidays? Do tell!

First sunflower… another small holiday? Chocolate Cherry Sunflower is a show-stopper.

Thornless blackberries mingle with wild ones along our garden fence. First ripe berries means blackberry cobbler or pie!

Gorgeously flavored Amarylla tomatillos are best when fully ripe, so sweet! This Polish variety was bred to thrive in the cooler summer conditions of inland eastern Europe. I didn’t used to consider tomatillos desirable as an out-of-hand snack, but these have changed my mind.

Our little dog, Squirrel loves to spend time in the garden with me, nose in the dirt. On this day, she uncovered a treasure: skin shed by a snake!

Small Chamomile harvest to be dried for tea. The variety is called Zloty Lan and I appreciate the extra-large size flowers. Larger flowers equal more tea. They have a fruity floral scent that is calming to the tummy and the disposition. I left plenty of flowers to self-sow. 

Another variety of chamomile, Kelway Golden, used for dyeing, is just coming into flower against a backdrop of Persian basil.

Goldenrod – a gift from a friend, Michael Villareal. In search of a cup of red wigglers (worms) for a new worm bin.

New video

A garden tool basket is almost like having an extra set of hands in the garden! No more lost time hunting for missing pruners or gloves; you will know right where they are. All those small items, too, like a tape measure for measuring off planting spaces, pencil for making notes in your garden journal, and more. You can bring your water bottle along, effortlessly, so you stay hydrated in the heat!

Zucchini Slice is a dish that Australian friend Amanda Roberts has been prodding me to make for a while. I finally made it and it was an instant hit. Sam makes waffles for breakfast.

Mix up a big batch of bread dough once a month with my Whole Wheat Freezer Bread Dough recipe, either by hand or using an Ankarsrum mixer. You can thaw and bake a loaf each week to keep fresh bread in the house and if a piece of dough hangs around too long in the freezer, it’s still great for pizza night!

Recipe for pizza sauce made from a can of tomato sauce or from tomatoes you’ve dried from your garden (pictured) is included in the pizza recipe! Make pizza just the way you like it.

A delicious summer meal of tabouli salad made with spelt grain, spiralized curly fries cooked in a cast iron skillet, and grilled steaks. Feeling blessed.

We said goodbye to our beloved Pastor Dennis Mortimore and his wife Joy as they retired to Grants Pass. Tom and Sheryl O’Neal, Pastors of a neighboring church, gave a beautiful tribute to Dennis. 

We make Tea and lunch at Mom and Rolly’s a small holiday. This week included a bunch of grandkids, so fun! Sisters Savannah Hulce, and Gigi and Alyssa Hill, Miriam and Mom’s BFF Joy Longiotti joined in the fun. Joy brought a newly finished quilt top to show and lunch was open-face egg salad sandwiches, fruit salad, sliced garden cucumbers, and iced tea.

Thanks for stopping by, see you next week!
Blessings,
Michele