A triple-header month with snow storm and potluck thrown in for good measure. Camille went to the zoo, we made new friends and shared them with our Sparkroot homies, and we participated in Trail Crawl, the funnest event of the year.
DAY TRIPPING
Camille and Judy took a day to play and drove over to the NC Zoo in Asheboro. They saw bears but didn’t make it all the way to the lions and tigers. They’re saving that fun for another trip. See what all they did see at North Carolina Zoo.
CARROT LOAF
We kept hearing our friend Susi Oak brag on her carrot loaf recipe so baked up a modified version and now we’re bragging. Here’s what we did:
CARROT LOAF RECIPE
Carrots – 2 cups, grated
Onion – 1 medium, grated
Parsley – 1 Tbs chopped (Susi’s recipe called for 2-3 Tbs)
Cashew Cheez – 1 cup (cottage cheese)
Parmesan Cheez – ¼ cup (cheddar)
Bread crumbs – 1 cup, toasted
Olive Oil – 2 Tbs
Eggs – 2 (courtesy Shelley’s chickens)
Salt – 1/2 tsp
Poultry Seasoning – 1 tsp
Optional – celery and nutsCombine ingredients. Top with panko
Pack mixture well in a greased loaf pan
Bake at 350 degrees uncovered 45 minutes or until well set
Serve with gravy or sauce
ZARA AND ADAM
Friends are better shared, so we took our new friends Zara and Adam through the woods to meet our neighbors. More photos here: Sparkroot Farm
JAPANESE ART
Lyle is a metal artist and Tami loves to paint. We walked past their place, dubbed “Japan” in honor of their terraced gardens, admiring evidence of their handiwork in this door. We were also taken with a carpet of cattail fluff underneath a welded chair.
LAST SNOW OF THE YEAR
Thick furious flakes transformed our landscape and were gone by noon on March 12th.
SNOW BUDS
When the sun came out, we grabbed the camera, knowing we didn’t have much time to capture the magic.
PANSIES
Tangerine pansy with an audacious smile. Cornflower blue pansy with ear bent beneath a snow cap.
FARM TO TABLE
Bob showed a group of North Carolina State University Agroecology students around The Plant March 15th and everyone came away with tender lettuce grown on the premises. Green salad hopped onto the menu for dinner that evening.
POTLUCK PALS FOR SPOT
The next day we hosted potluck. A few new faces showed up, among them Lexie and Jay. Although Spot’s social skills were a bit rusty (he hadn’t had met this many new friends since Hoppin’ John January 1st) he absolutely enjoyed the attention and managed not to offend anyone.
NEW NEIGHBORS
We were sad to see our old neighbors go, but glad for Kabui and Stuart. Stuart, standing directly behind Spot’s shocking mane, introduced us to his friends, Callie and Nathan.
ALSO OF THE ‘HOOD
Mia, Richard, and Brooksie are planning one day to build at The Bend, and Jack lives just down the lane from his boon companion, Noah.
HEART AND SOUL OF ORGANIZATION
Multiple notebooks are what Camille credits for keeping her life organized and compartmentalized. From the top, the blue challenge journal is no. 5 in a series of bedtime impressions begun by kerosene lamplight in Belize twenty years ago. The flanking journals; Tami’s gift of zebras and ‘fearlessness’ from Shelley have yet to be assigned their absolute purpose. The Ghana Schools notebook houses phone call notes regarding family issues. The dark brown journal contains genealogy notes. The leather bound Da Vinci horse journal, a gift from Hannah, is dedicated to The Plant. And the 2017 calendar in handsome blue binding from Linda is where Camille tracks her success with this year’s resolutions.
The last two times Eden has come over to cook, she heads straight to the desk and makes a little ghost from two tissues, exactly as Bob taught her. After a kitchen date with Eden on Thursday, March 23rd, Camille sat down at her desk and felt as if she were being watched. There, perched on her glasses case was an apparition with Eden’s earnest smile, a fun reminder of an afternoon spent baking chocolate chip cookies.
NUMBER SEVENTEEN
What Tami started seventeen years ago, came around on the calendar again. Our favorite day of the year involves eating, drinking, walking, and talking with neighbors on both sides of Stinking Creek.
Check out the photos at: Trail Crawl 2017
THE LITTLE GUY
We pinched these photos from Em and Tyler’s facebook timelines where they generously share Nolan’s progression from mite to mighty.
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THIS MONTH’S QUOTES:
“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” – H.L. Mencken 1880-1956
“History doesn’t repeat itself but it often rhymes.” – attributed to Mark Twain 1835-1910
“There seems to be intelligence in nature, but there is certainly stupidity in culture. All kinds of poor decisions are made by human beings. An intelligent species does not eat itself out of house and home. It does not pollute its own home. We are a young species whose capacity to store knowledge in culture and language turbo-charged our capacity to dominate other species. It’s like an adolescent being promoted to President of the United States. What’s on the menu for us is to become mature. We’ve got to learn fast.” – anthropologist Jeremy Narby
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