the last one

These are the seeds of things I hope to grow in the coming year -- yarn seeds, cloth seeds, and garden seeds. There's more, but this basket can only hold so much. 

                                                                                                                 seeds

While I'm looking ahead, at the same time I'm reviewing the past. Today is a good day to focus on food from the garden, what was used and what wasn't.

           

Both gratefully and wistfully, I plopped the last package of frozen lamb's quarters into an Imbolc soup last weekend. Each time something is used up, I think to myself this is the last of it -- the last stinging nettles, the last bit of grape juice, the last tomato sauce, the last green beans, and on and on.

                                                                                                 the last lamb's quarters

And that reminded me of Joan Dye Gussow's This Organic Life where she wrote about eating the last tomatoes. When I flipped through the book searching for that chapter, I realized that this book is due for a re-read right now while I'm in this dreamy, seed-sowing mood. After 10 years, I'd forgotten how many recipes are in this book, including a section on using up the last carrots. Well, carrots are one thing we still have a big bag of . . . and pesto, too -- guess I went overboard last summer. Oh, and frozen plums. But it's OK to go big on fruit in Colorado because that's one crop you just can't count on every year.

As far as dried culinary herbs -- well, let's just say someone should've done better. We will run out of dried basil, oregano, and dill before long so we'll have to eat bland food for a month or so! Or someone can just use up the pesto!

As far as other dried herbs besides my mainstays of rose petals, lavender and lemon verbena, the stores are actually pretty meager. On the other hand, there are two full quarts of rose-infused honey that were intended to be Yule gifts, but someone forgot.

As I was putting up herbal medicinal preparations and other concoctions last summer and fall, I was very pleased at myself for keeping a running inventory of what, when and how much was made -- but I only listed the herbs. I sure wish someone would've kept track of the rest of it, as well.

It is snowing here . . . again. This stone goddess figure spends summers in the garden but went out today where she will stay to oversee the return of Spring next month.

                                                                                                                                                    stone snow goddess