We went up to Helen, GA first. I forget how close that place is to us. We do not go as often as we should. It was the first day of Oktoberfest and the crowds were rolling in. We got there early enough the traffic and parking was not bad at all. They were also having a local artist arts and craft show where we bought a nice clay pot from one of the vendors. There was some pretty interesting stuff there. Went into a Danish store there that had a lot of Danish grocery items and we purchased this bread, thought it might be interesting with some Haloumi cheese we bought at the Athen’s Farmers Market a while back:

We left Helen and drove over to Young Harris, GA to Crane Creek Vineyards where they were holding their Fall Harvest Festival.

They gave tastings of all their current wines and served us a nice lunch of bratwurst, beans, slaw, and apple cobbler. Some of the wines were nice and we got to keep the glass. There was a Bluegrass band and a grape stomping contest. It was just nice to sit in the sun a soak up the surroundings. Here are some pics from the event:

After that, we moved over the Georgia border into North Carolina and headed back east towards Cherokee, NC. The leaves were much nicer on the North Carolina side. Overall the leaf watching was just fair. Some places were still green, others had lost all their leaves and everything was bare, and still others were strange muddled colors. I think the drought is playing havoc on the color changing. We were in the harsh midday light most all the time we were in leaf watching country, so Cindy was not happy at all with her photo taking opportunities. Its all about the light, you know. Some look like those little trees you used to use to decorate the landscape of your train set. Here are a few more pics:

About 20 miles from Cherokee I saw a sign pointing towards Asheville. Definitely somewhere I had rather go that Cherokee, so we turned around and headed to Asheville for supper. Cindy found a cool restaurant online called the “Tupelo Honey Cafe”. I guess everyone else in Asheville thinks it is cool too, as there was a wait of over two hours. Given the drive home that faced us, we moved up the street to a place called “Mayfel’s”. They had a twenty minute wait. We got seated about forty-five minutes later. It was a New Orleans themed place with appetizers, sandwiches, and blue plates. We got a bowl of tomato bisque to share and warm up on. It was good, not great. Cindy got a B.L.F.G.T. sandwich. That would be a bacon, lettuce, and fried green tomato. Very good. I had a crab cake burger, which was also good. We then drove home to the Jefferson farm.

Sunday I cooked some black-eyed peas and butter peas using this recipe from Randy Evans: http://www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/Randy-Evans-Southern-Peas The plan was for a nice meal of peas with homemade tomato ketchup (It is relish, but we do not call it that in the South. I gotta post that recipe. Used it to make a pizza the other day, amazing.), Mexican cornbread (gotta post that recipe, too), polish sausage and rice. But then Cindy made us a cheese tray “snack”:

It was wonderful. We had Parmigiano-Reggiano, Pecorino Romano, some fancy blue from the Farmer’s Market, salami, crackers, sun-dried tomatoes, olives, green apple, mini sweet peppers, mango chutney, tapenade………and the Haloumi. Oh, yeah. The Haloumi. We bought it at the Farmer’s Market wanting to fry it like you see on TV. Never done it before. Well, it did not go as it does on TV. At least not with this cheese. Maybe the same ingredients, but not the same cheese. It is not supposed to melt. This did. We tried to make the best of it. It was not bad. Just melted cheese.

We ate the Danish bread with the cheese tray. It was OK. Very dense. The little brick was probably 5x3x3 and weighed 17 oz. A whole loaf of bread is 20 oz. It had a taste that reminded me and Ian of raisins, but there are none in the ingredients. Sort of had the taste and texture of a rum cake or something. Not really my thing.

Needless to say we did not need any supper after this. So, the Sunday meal got completed and devoured on Monday. Man was it good.

Any leaf watching going on around your area? Been anywhere to see the leaves change? Reply below with your fall experiences.

Cheers,

David J.

They had flats of 18 for $8, too!  Got some true red, true blue, fire, and dark purples for the sidewalk beds.

These will add some great color until spring when the bulbs popup again!   If you are in the Metro Atlanta area, check out the Grower’s Outlet in Loganville (link below right under “Sites We Dig”) for some good deals on these.  You can see their availability online.  No matter where you are, check out their site.  They do a great job documenting their plants.  Good info in the “Plant Info” section, but if you checkout the “Availability” page, you can click on the botanical name for each plant to get a nice .pdf with detailed info and care instructions.  Very cool.

Cheers,
David J.

One thing we did have this year was a lot of hummingbirds.  They are mostly gone now, heading down further south to stay warm.  There were always five to seven flying around at any given time.  We had ruby throats, rufouses, and some we could not identify.  Someone said for every one you see, there are five more.  Not sure if that is right or not, but we had a bunch of them.  If you do not have any in your yard, it is well worth a few bucks to buy a feeder and draw some in to watch (No need to buy the red-dyed nectar at the store, just mix one part white sugar to four parts water and boil to dissolve, they love it).  They are fascinating.  Their chirps and sounds are very unique and once you recognize it, you will always know they are around just by the sounds.  They are very curious and will come surprisingly close to you.  When you get several of them around they play (or fight, we like to think they are playing) constantly chasing each other.  I say they look like jet fighters in a dog fight with the way they cut and dive and swerve when flying.  Cindy likes taking pictures of them, and there is a gallery I put together of some of the pics from this summer.  Click here to view the gallery.

You will notice on top of some of the feeders I installed inverted spray paint caps.  They make great ant moats that you do not have to refill with water constantly like some of the shallow built-in ones on some feeders.  Just drill a hole, pass through the hanging wire, and seal up around the wire with some silicone.  Let it dry, fill with water and bam! Ants are no longer a problem.  Did you know in the South you should leave a feeder out all the time?  Hummingbirds migrate on timing and temperature, not food supply, so you are not interfering with their migration, and you may get a visitor or two.  Don’t take my word for it, read here what the DNR has to say about it.

The rest of the weekend was spent with family cooking, working, and otherwise hanging out.  We did some idea shopping for the annual Halloween movie party we have in the Firefly Theater.  That was fun.  Cooked a nice southern meal for my parents Friday night consisting of pan seared Cajun shrimp, Red Mule pimento cheese grits (Get the recipe here, amazing. The grits are actually ground by a red mule about 30 miles from the Gardens.  We buy them at the Athens Farmers Market), pan-fried (in bacon grease) green beans, black-eyed peas with homemade tomato ketchup (my first run at making this family favorite, details to come), buttermilk cornbread, and apple pie for dessert.  Good times and good eats.

C.C., our chocolate lab got hit by a car earlier in the week.

She took off after something in the dark when I let them out to feed them and must have followed it across the road.  She is OK, just beaten and bruised.  Nothing broke according to the vet.  They patched her up and we are nursing her back around to good health.

Cheers,
David J.

We had to share shots of the sidewalk flowers that came up this spring.  When Cindy was diagnosed, we took part of a day and shoved some bulbs and pansies in the new beds along the sidewalk, knowing that we would not get to do much gardening for a while.  We thought the pansies would stay through the fall and part of the winter, and then the daffodils would come up in the spring and then they would go, and then the tulips would come up, giving us some color to look at for the fall, winter, and spring.  To our surprise, the pansies lived all winter and into spring, the dusty miller stayed alive, and the icelandic poppies we planted at the end of summer came back, too.  Then, all the bulbs came up at once, making for the most spectacular spring display with almost zero work.

Please take time to review the full album by clicking here.  We hope it brings as much sunshine in your day as it does for us.

Cheers,
David J.

Here’s a shot of a nice mix of radishes picked the other day…and the first fall cucumber.

Cheers,
David J.

Cheers,
David J.