Blessings for you and your family for this year!
Did you make any resolutions? I don’t really make personal goals in January, but I do start planning the garden and flower beds. Seed catalogs start showing up in the mail in December and then I have to hold myself back from ordering until the hustle and bustle of Christmas is over.
For Christmas, we went to Lynchburg, VA to visit my husband’s family and ordered Marsh Root's Seafood: Faroe Island shrimp and tasty tile fish. For our gift, we took with us local cheeses and crackers bought from Lindsday at People’s Provision.
My oldest brother makes wooden cheese boards, so this became the base of the gift.
We added Clover Creek Cheese Cellar “Brushedda”, Valley Milkhouse “Marigold”, Valley Milkhouse “Lady Slipper” and North Mountain Farms cheeses, bought from People's Provisions in Elliottsburg, PA.
My other brother and his wife own Rock Hollow Dairy which supplies the milk to North Mountain Farms for these raw cheeses. My husband works with the family producing these dairy products.
I guess you could say my resolution for this year is to continue to support local farmers and artisans around Central PA.
To let you know how serious we are about growing flowers, we have put up a hoophouse, which could also be called a greenhouse. We do not have heat in there other than the sun's heat coming through the top plastic. Having this hoophouse will allow for us to grow earlier in the spring-such as one of my favorites-the Ranunculus.
Ranunculus are in the Ranunculaceae family and you actually are already familiar with the wildflower yellow buttercup that grows in the fields. Actually, I have wild buttercups in the hoophouse, previously in the soil, which I have mistaken for ranunculus. They spread easily, so I am getting diligent about not keeping buttercups in there. Buttercups do press nice in flower presses…
Ranunculus flowers look almost too perfect to be real. They have paper thin petals that resemble the rose, but with no smell. They come in colors that range from cream and pale yellow to apricot, pink, orange, red and burgundy.
The best part is that once cut, ranunculus could last up to two weeks in a vase. Whoo hooo!!! See you soon ranunculus!
Who can’t wait for spring?!
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