The Last Word for 2014

So the Last Word is actually the name of a cocktail that our friends Sarah and Ben turned us onto last summer and we are thinking of mixing up a batch for the festivities tonight.  The recipe is as follows:

3/4 oz Gin

3/4 oz Green chartruese

3/4 oz lime juice

3/4 oz maraschino liqueur

Shake with ice and strain

garnish with a twist and/or a cherry

But truth be told, I felt compelled to put a few words on this page at years end.  I've been horribly negligent on this blog with the last post in July!  It really was a very busy fall, it really was.

I enjoyed a first half of 2014 year in review, reading through my previous posts.  It's funny as I see the same things over and over.  In fact I spent several long days at the start of my winter break reorganizing my office and cleaning up, much as I did last year at this time.

The 240 onions that I planted back in March are starting to sprout in the closet and so it's time to make big vats of french onion soup again.  I think I went overboard for sure, next year I'll only plant 180.

The last handful of those red pontiac potatoes we dug back in June are sending out pubescent white and pink shoots, one more batch of mashers and they'll be gone, then it will be on to the bumper crop of sweet potatoes.

We are still eating those greens I froze in June and also enjoying fresh greens and salads from the garden.  Thriving thanks to floating row cover that keeps the frost away on cold nights.  I continue to harvest a big bowl of lettuce and other mixed greens each week, we have baby bok choy, cabbages, broccoli, kale, spinach and carrots all still perking along out there, ready for picking when we are ready for eating, such a luxury.

Tomato sauce, ratatouille, chopped multi-colored peppers, black-eyed peas and blueberries still fill the freezer to get us through the next few months of cold weather cooking.  Lots of firewood to burn to keep us warm.  We are rich indeed.

Since my last post back in July I've been to:

 

 American Community Gardening Association meeting in Chicago in August

• A week at Topsail in September
• Organized 5 GROW workshops for NC Community Garden Partners and traveled to Laurinburg, Hickory, New Bern and Asheville in October
• In November I was back to the coast for a GROW workshop in Wilmington and a long birthday weekend at Wrightsville with some of my gal pals.
• Finally in December I went up to the Franklinton Center at Bricks in the tiny town of Whitakers, NC for the fifth and final GROW workshop.

So there really was a lot of travel and running around and getting ready for the travel and running around in between.  In addition, I continued to manage the Carrboro Family Community Garden and work with multiple new and existing clients for my new business, Playful Nature Consulting.

I hope you'll forgive my absence in this space, I was overwhelmed with too many responsibilities and something had to go.  It's my hope to get back in the swing of regular writing and attempt to reign in the workload a smidgen in 2015.

I leave Friday for a few days of reflection and writing at the Weymouth Center, a wonderful way to start the new year.  Here's wishing a fabulous, healthy and prosperous 2015 to any of the faithful readers I may have left at this site. Thanks for continuing to check in from time to time to read the latest from MKH at MCC.