About a year and half ago I moved from Atlanta to a little town in a historic district located northeast of Atlanta.
The house had recently been restored; complete with a fenced in backyard, security lights, and a large vacant lot between my house and a neighbor’s. The lot has a white picket fence with an arched entrance. At the back edge are blueberry and Muscatine vines growing over the arches. The entire lot is completely filled with azaleas, now in full bloom. The white and pink azaleas are a remarkable sight when I look out my window every morning. They remind me of the Beatrice Potter stories.
After a lengthy drought here in Georgia, the April showers came in full force. Now the weather is warming so I take 3-year-old Prince William (my grandson) outside to play. A couple of days ago, while sitting on the patio, two bumblebees playfully chased each other around our heads. Watching them play, I wondered if any one had ever figured out why they fly.
I think it was Robert Burns who wrote the poem, To a Louse, in which he said, “oh what good ere would do us to see ourselves as others see us.”
It was a statement prompted by a time he was sitting in church behind a local high society woman, decked out in her jewels, finery, and furs. A woman with a reputation for being so above the fray with reference to her high and mighty attitude toward others. What he noticed was that there were lice crawling around in the furs draped around her neck, which motivated him to write the poem.
After writing the blog “The French Connection,” I sent copies to several friends for feedback before entering the blogosphere. The thrust of my article was to bring attention to longevity by mentioning the wine compound resveratrol . One friend bought a bottle of wine and e-mailed me about the difficulty she had removing the cork. Another wrote about unpleasant experiences while visiting France.
I moved from Atlanta to a little North Georgia town 18 months ago and realized yesterday I’m spending almost twice the amount I usually spend on groceries.
I cook meals from scratch most every day and am quite nutritionally minded. I decided I needed to rethink my cooking habits. Therefore, last night I soaked a dollar pack of pinto beans, which are a good source of vegetable protein.
Today I cooked the bag of pintos and after soaking, they made quite a large pot of beans. I added onions, carrots, celery and chilies, spiced with a little chili powder, added a pinch of sage, salt and pepper, and cooked slowly for about two hours.
I also bought a head of cabbage, which also has a lot of nutritional value. It cost $2.59. It seemed to me I had been buying cabbage for years for no more than 49 cents a pound, which usually costs around a dollar.
A few days ago, I took a trip up toward the mountains in Northeast Georgia.
The scenery was magnificent as we entered White County. The rolling hills and pastures were green and the cattle roamed and grazed on a beautiful spring day. I went back to the old granary in Helen, Georgia, for more stone ground corn meal, porridge, and grits.
In the areas of Gillsville, Lula, Mossy Creek and Cleveland live a number of pottery makers…a craft handed down as a sort of family tradition. Some are quite famous, like the Meaders family, who at one time were the only pottery makers in Georgia with pieces on display at the Smithsonian Institute. I recall back in the seventies going to Washington DC and visiting the Smithsonian Institute.
This is a preview of
Mountain Healing & Pottery Making (Issue 34)
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