Ed Icionsub

The best thing about January is that the Winters Solstice is behind us and every day is getting slightly longer. This is when the seed catalogues start showing up in the mailbox and I can get started planning my backyard gardens for the Spring.

We got started with some serious overhauling of the landscaping last summer and I think if the weather allows, I can get an early start on planting both a vegetable garden and relocating the shrubbery in the front of the house. I want to put in some raised beds and add some windowboxes across the front of the house. I have two windows in the living room, one window in the dining room and one window in the front bedroom that I use for my home office.

The one window in my home office is not suitable for window box planters because it is centered on the wall along my front porch. But the other three windows along the front would be great if I planted flowers that do well on an east facing wall.

I have imagined a row of three window flower boxes with lots of bright green foliage and perhaps some bright red geraniums. I know geraniums come in several different colors and shades of red. I want to get something bright, that shows up well against the red brick of the house and the fireplace.

Tags: backyard, garden, house, planting, seeds

Pumpkin pie has been a part of my Christmas and Thanksgiving memories forever. My mother loved to make pumpkin pies and she never baked just one. She would bake four at a time and give away two of them to neighbors or my dad’s coworkers. She loved to bake, but raising up all us kids took a lot of her time and energy so she didn’t bake as often as she would have liked.

One of the things about pumpkin pie is the smell of pumpkin spices that fill the house while the pie is baking. When you first walk in the door and get a big whiff of that wonderful aroma, you mouth starts salivating and your tummy starts grumbling and it is very hard to wait for dinner and then, finally, dessert.

Notice the car up on cinderblocks. The only thing missing is the pitbull chained in the yard.

This weekend is when everyone goes to the grocery store and buys everything they need for their big Thanksgiving dinner.Even people who normally do not shop weekly for groceries will be in the stores shopping for the holiday. You will not catch me in the grocery today – I will wait until Tuesday to go buy my turkey and fixings.

It will be a big run on fresh and frozen turkeys, but also a run on prime rib, standing rib roasts, and Honeybaked hams. Not everyone likes turkey and depending upon where you live and what your family traditions might be, you could be serving a totally non turkey based meal this Thursday.

When I lived in San Francisco, the Thanksgiving focus was on Dungeness Crab and fresh oysters. November is the start of Dungeness Crab season and everyone grabs up the first catches of the year. Dungeness Crab season always begins mid-November and runs until June. But, the reality is that 80 percent of the Dungeness Crab is brought in by the end of December. So, there is always this Thanksgiving rush to get the biggest, sweetest, freshest crabs. Makes my mouth water just thinking about those.

I love chocolate as much as my wife does, so it is a very easy gift to buy her for all those special occasions. I always know that she will ove a box of chcolates and I’m a lucky guy who gets to share them with her!

We used to have big discussions about which chocolates were the best tasting. I have to admit that I grew up thinking that Hersheys chocolate bars were the best treat at the grocery store. Also, we used to get a big Whitman’s Sampler box at Christmas – that was one of our family holiday traditions.

Now I have discovered Godiva chocolates and that is the kind that my wife loves the best. I have tried to entice her with Ghiradelli chocolates, but she won’t budge off the Godiva. Thankfully, there is a Godiva shop inside the Opryland Hotel, so it is always close by.