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home, garden, life

Category Archives: WordPress

there is no place like home…

22 Tuesday Dec 2020

Posted by home, garden, life in artisan products, Christmas, farmer's market, Holiday, home, Lifestyle, March, The New Normal, WordPress

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

2020, blogging, Charlottesville City Market, farmer's market, Pandemic

Since March of this year, all life as before changed. Home became more of a sanctuary than ever before.

Typically, I sparsely listen national news, and I continued my usual routine sans mask or gloves. Then, as I prepared for another year of our farmer’s market, I quickly noticed that store shelves were bare…supplies were naught. Flour was no where to be found. WHAT??

By April, the drama unfolded as our market morphed into an online pre-order, pre-pay, drive through venue. I froze and let two weeks of market commence before I snapped to and opened the required accounts to participate.

Then the bizarre happened. Small production turned into huge…the community discovered my products and ordered in mass. I nearly had a stroke the first week, as orders poured in. I must produce and keep up! I must scramble for common supplies! Yes, MOI. Little old MOI!! A One-Woman operation since 2000! Click, Click, Click…people love shopping online.

Apparently, my foods/flowers became a source of comfort for hundreds. Revenue doubled. When I was able to find canning jars, I produced numerous batches of jams and chutneys. What became a rage in the fall was my Hot Fudge Sauce…women reported that they were simply opening the jar and eating straight away with a spoon. Forget warming it. At least stress eating is healthier at the farmer’s market.

One would not think that buttermilk biscuits, pimento cheese, and blueberry scones would be in high demand week after week. Nor would seasonal jams and preserves vanish immediately upon offer. Pestos sold through the seasons, as did the peonies during May. I could go on, but alas, this is a short blog this first day of winter.

There was a grand hunger.

Families loaded the kids and dogs (and one cat) into their automobiles and through the Saturday market they drove, trunks open, ready to receive local wares. I quickly surmised that this was an excuse for a family outing from the safety of their cars. Everyone was on their best behavior.

I entertained myself by counting the number of whisper-quiet Teslas that drove through. Affluent residents abound in this town, and we local producers are grateful. Oh, so grateful. This mutual support kept us all sane.

Then the summer wore on into fall.

Needless to say, I was so busy keeping up, I did not photograph any of these weekly happenings.

“Make hay while the sun shines” became my mantra. Normally I stop market the end of October, but this year sales revenue never slowed, so I rode the wave until December 19th.

As I blog today for the first time in months, I sit exhausted at the keyboard. Yesterday, I spent another five hours in the kitchen preparing the last orders before Christmas. I see that WordPress has changed its blogging format and I haven’t a clue how to insert photographs. So this will be an image-less blog, except for my descriptions.

And it may be my last blog if I cannot figure out the madness of WordPress’ engineers. Don’t fix things if they are not broken! Guess they have too much time on their hands. Meanwhile…

The best thoughts I can muster now are:

“There is a fine line between order and chaos”
and
all life is temporary.

I choose to think this too shall pass and we will emerge as the butterfly, more beautiful than the caterpillar and able to fly.

So readers, how have you spent the last few months of 2020?
Do share in the comments section.

Copyright 2020 by Diane LaSauce All Rights Reserved

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mid summer delight ~ peach rosemary jam

07 Wednesday Aug 2013

Posted by home, garden, life in a note to my readers, artisan products, environment, harvest, Lifestyle, preserving, summer, sustainable lifestyle, WordPress

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

artisan jams and chutneys, Blue Chair Jam Cookbook, harvest, harvest season, herb, jam, peaches, preserves, soulful experience, summer, yellow peaches

Mid Summer Yellow Peaches

mid summer yellow peaches beg to be blanched and preserved

the peeling process after a quick blanch

the peeling process after a quick blanch

Squeeze lovely juice from peels

squeeze lovely juice from peels

Six pounds of prepared peaches ready for preserving

six pounds of prepared peaches ready for preserving

Simmer, simmer, boil and bubble

simmer, simmer, boil and bubble

Resting peaches with foam that is skimmed off then mash pulp and simmer again to set point or 220 F, adding six sprigs of fresh rosemary

resting peaches present foam that is skimmed off then remaining pulp is mashed and simmered again to set point or 220 F, adding six sprigs of fresh rosemary during the last five minutes

Completed Peach Rosemary jam

rosemary removed, jars filled and ready for lids and time in the oven to seal. This jam is pure heaven on just about anything!

This harvest season I give a nod to the Blue Chair Jam Cookbook for shifting my preserve process.
Most recipes are fruit, sugar, lemon, and time allowing simple ingredients to marry.
Rosemary was my addition here, as this herb kisses this fruit with a goodness we remember.

Have you tried your hand at preserves?
I promise it is a rewarding, soulful experience.
Currently on the prowl for figs—my concord grapes will soon ripen and they too will be transformed.

Update on fig prowl: My fruit prince surprised me with 15# of brown turkeys Saturday—he has connections.  So last Sunday I prepared the most elegant fig jam with fennel/gin infusion. Need I say more? Yes, for lunch today I had French Roquefort with fresh figs! She is dead and in heaven….

Copyright © 2013 by Diane LaSauce All Rights Reserved

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a glitch at wordpress

27 Wednesday Feb 2013

Posted by home, garden, life in a note to my readers, WordPress

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

blogging, followers, glitch at WordPress, notifications

Are you  there?

Are you there?

Dear Followers of my blog,

I wondered why I rarely hear back from my many of you and finally inquired at WordPress—this is their response this morning:

I checked your account, and it had gotten flagged automatically (which prevents it from showing up in the Reader, to help protect our other users), but now that I’ve reviewed the site, I can see that this was a false positive. I’ve set your blog so that it won’t be accidentally flagged again. Your posts will now show up in the Reader!

Your viewers will need to visit their Blogs I Follow page and make sure to set their alerts for your blog to their preferences; they can choose to not receive any notifications, or to receive daily, weekly, or however else they would like.

Therefore, my dear followers, you may need to re-visit my site to catch up on all the missed posts!

Best to you all,

Diane LaSauce

Author of home, garden, life

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weekly photo challenge or the love of my life times two

25 Friday Jan 2013

Posted by home, garden, life in Daily Prompt, photography, The Daily Post, WordPress

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Tags

animals, consolation, nature, postaday, true love

Miss Kitty during robust years! I miss you baby girl!

Foothills at Free Union

My steady consolation, these foothills.

Copyright © 2013 by Diane LaSauce All Rights Reserved

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full circle ~ what’s to like about blogging

06 Thursday Sep 2012

Posted by home, garden, life in Lifestyle, sustainable lifestyle, WordPress

≈ 19 Comments

Tags

blogging, community platform, full circle, kind comments, two wishes, what is a blog, WordPress

home, garden, life was born on WordPress one year ago this month. Ninety-four heart-felt posts reside here and one-hundred followers kindly subscribe, come what may. More than seven-thousand folks dropped by, from all corners of this planet. Wow! A lot of clicks and kind comments from kindred bloggers. Full circle—I am honored, humbled, and encouraged by this technology.

My cousin asked me, “what is a blog and why do people blog?” I replied, “blogging is a world-wide community platform where individuals create, share, educate, and inspire.” Blogging is a snapshot into the world’s eye of humanity. Every emotion is displayed and support often comes in the form of comments from fellow bloggers who get the message. Blogging is a place where one’s passions live on.

If I had two wishes for blogging, they would be for readers to take a moment to comment and to explore the entire site, rather than merely read the current post. This blogger has come full circle in the past year, and will pause while this season comes to an end.

Many thanks to WordPress, my followers, and for the opportunity to make a small difference from my home, garden, life.

Copyright © 2012 by Diane LaSauce All Rights Reserved

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the thing about DSL

15 Thursday Sep 2011

Posted by home, garden, life in CenturyLink, home, renewal, WordPress

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

CenturyLink, DSL, home, humor at home, WordPress

I am liberated! For the past eleven years I used dial-up in my rural hamlet and finally got so fed up with pokey publishing, that I took the plunge today, expecting the transition to be stressful. Indeed the contractor was late, very late. I expected him at 9AM and he appeared at 2:30PM.

Therefore, I completed much paperwork and data entry while the day progressed and nudged on a happy face when the fellow showed.

Mother Nature delivered nearly 9o degrees today, slathered again with damned Virginia summer humidity, and the contractor arrived hot and tired. Additionally, CenturyLink failed to tell him that he was also slated for inside hookup. We both coped—he with a tall glass of ice water—and I with the happy face, and this chore became surprisingly pleasant. When he departed I still needed to set up my new email account.

Tech support impressed me with prompt service from a real nice guy in Austin. We glitched at the last step, so Maddon handed me off to Microsoft, who nabbed my PC and fixed the glitch in seconds. Nice guys both and my overall experience memorable.

With my new-found speed, I have been here for hours adding my photos to my WordPress blogs, that easily slid from my abandoned Blogger site, due to irreconcilable differences with Google. I am learning to love DSL and WordPress. Hope you love my blogs. Please comment. Thanks.

Post Script

Bliss is often short-lived. My initial DSL experience was tainted when the statement arrived. None of the negotiated pricing was found and many extra charges applied, which required immediate action on my part. The first agent found no notes in my file, therefore I insisted on climbing the management ladder. Finally a day supervisor reversed incorrect charges and lowered the monthly fee, yet I was informed that “these advertised prices” are in effect for merely twelve months. Therefore, in one short year, I will declare open season on DSL. Why must customers endure such games?

Currently Centurylink holds customers like me hostage over the monopoly barrel. There is no other DSL service in my area. While I continue to enjoy the digital antenna on my roof, which provides free and excellent service, DSL is another issue. As technology improves, I hope that new options arrive to save those of us from this unfair marketing roulette. I am relentless in my quest, while many retailers attempt to take unfair advantage.

Are any readers of this blog fed up with marketing games? How can we as a collective humanity change this for the betterment of all?

Copyright © by Diane LaSauce 2011 All Rights Reserved

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Check out HGTV where two of my garden designs are featured…

I was featured on HGTVGardens.com!

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Essay Titles

  • Keto almond crackers
  • If you are climbing the walls…
  • Three hours of sun
  • “this too shall pass”
  • there is no place like home…
  • the perfect Tiny House
  • Miracles everywhere
  • And so it goes…
  • Transform, transition, resilience
  • An Artist’s Way
  • Sunday’s monster project
  • Meanwhile
  • how fragile we are
  • what I learned about Keto
  • small steps
  • do no harm…
  • will this convince you?
  • Plastics…a soapbox tale
  • Let’s clean up our act
  • 2020…are we ready?
  • All I want for Christmas
  • Thanksgiving…remembering love
  • At last
  • Keto “potatoes”
  • When critters call
  • Keto bread revisited
  • My report on Keto
  • for the love of rock, II
  • give a gardener a cool summer day…
  • Oh July, July
  • Kale, the ultimate chip
  • gone Keto
  • she’s baaaack!
  • Perhaps missed
  • for the love of rock
  • the anatomy of a popover
  • the garden visitor
  • what blooms this week
  • porch envy
  • Summer in Virginia
  • timing is everything
  • pies and peonies
  • words cross centuries
  • zen and now
  • April brings flowers and…chores!
  • Kudos, followers
  • this week’s reading challenge…
  • February dreaming…
  • kitty love
  • the dormant season

Seasonal Topics by Month

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