Posted by Suzanne McMinn @ 6:00 am | Permalink
Boonies, In the Country Garden, In the Garden
Drying herbs is such a pretty job. And I feel very farmerish in the process. Yes, farmerish is a word. I made it up. If you use it a few times, it sounds right.
I use twist-ties to bunch herbs, then clip them to a clothesline with laundry pins. All you need is a cool, dry, dark spot. Which this is not. It’s a sun-splattered cellar porch. But, wait! I can solve this problem by clipping paper bags over the bunches to block light. Also, as gorgeous as herbs look while they’re drying, the paper bag covers will keep dust from accumulating. Once they’re dried (which should take a couple of weeks), I’ll crumble the herbs into small baggies, label them, then place all the baggies inside a larger freezer bag for longterm storage. If the kids don’t mess around with them (”Why are these WEEDS hanging in here???”) and if my feline sidekicks don’t leap at them from nearby perches as if I have strung up new toys just for their pleasure and if I don’t forget about them.
Super Farmhouse Girl can’t solve everything. 
My “Jack O’Lantern” variety pumpkins are close to ready! Fall is my favorite decorating color scheme– the deep reds, rusted oranges, muted golds and rich greens…. I could live with those colors year- round. And yet, there is always that slight sense of impending doom this time of year. The BIG holidays are coming– Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas. The holidays that make me cringe at the prospect of all the work they entail to “properly” pull off–the ridiculous frenzy of attempting to stage a major production (often, alone). Then I have to remind myself that I quit that. I rescripted my “fantasy” holiday experience within the past few years into something manageable, something small, something that doesn’t leave me too exhausted to eat or snapping at my kids. You ever notice how men don’t go nuts at holiday-time? Just women. We think we are the keepers of the idealized Norman Rockwell holiday experience, and of course we think we’re responsible for everyone else’s happiness, and let’s not forget that urge for perfection.
This year, as for several of the past years, I’m promising myself that I will be present in the moment with the ones I love, that I will pick and choose the traditions we spend our time practicing, that I’ll plan ahead, and that I’ll ask for help. You?
