Sanctuary Gardener Update ~ 12/1/15

Wow! I can’t believe it’s December already! This year has flown by. I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I dearly missed my family this year, but I did get to spend the day with my son and my beau. After a marathon cooking session, it was a buffet dinner (when my son got home from work – don’t get me started on retail stores being open on Thanksgiving!) and a movie palooza. A nice relaxing day, for sure. In today’s post, I’ll share a piece of our day, some pictures around the homestead, and give you a wonderful coupon code for my shop.

THANKSGIVING EATS

I started cooking Wednesday evening after work and finished Thursday afternoon. It was a lot of work, but I didn’t have to cook again all weekend. 🙂

The main event:

A beautiful roasted Shady Brook Farm turkey

I love this cranberry chutney so much, I am going to make another batch this weekend. I even eat it at breakfast.

Orange-Walnut Cranberry Chutney cooking

I didn’t have time to roast and puree any of this year’s pumpkins, but I still had some puree in the freezer from last year’s pumpkins. The pies tasted wonderful!

Pumpkin pies baking

I make this recipe for Thanksgiving, as well as Jewish holidays. It’s quick and easy and perfect for any holiday (or daily) meal. Click here for the recipe!

Sweet Potato Tzimmes, fresh out of the oven

AROUND THE HOMESTEAD

To make room for the holiday meal, I had to move several of my winter squash. I have Black Futsu squash and Seminole pumpkins that I need to roast, puree, and freeze. (Please note: NEVER store winter squash touching each other like this. They need air circulation around them to not rot.)

Winter squash & pumpkins ready to process

My orchids are blooming again. The miniature orchid bloomed a week or two ago (I shared it with you then), and it’s still looking great.

Miniature orchids

The first bud on one of my large orchids bloomed this week.

Large orchids blooming

My neighbor’s maple trees are finally starting to turn color. Yes, here in the South, we’re lucky if we get ANY color on our trees before the leaves fall off. I’ll take what I can get!

Neighbor’s maple trees turning color

A couple weeks ago, I bought a very small bird bath at an auction I attended. It’s cast iron and only about two feet tall. It’s absolutely perfect for bees, butterflies, and humming birds. All I have to do is put it on a stand and add some marbles (and water, of course).

Small bird bath for bees and butterflies

VINTAGE SHOP

Speaking of auctions, I’ve been procuring some pretty cool treasures for my vintage shop! Let me share a couple with you here. (I have items from all time periods and in all price ranges.) Please visit my shop at Anchor Line Vintage and use coupon code GardenBuddy20 to get 20% off any order of $15.00 or more through December 31, 2015. It’s my way of thanking you, my Garden Buddies, for traveling this homesteading/gardening road with me.

One of the coolest treasures I’ve come across is this bowl made of uranium (Vaseline) glass, which glows under a black light. (The listing contains the history of the item – as all my listings do.)

Click here to view the listing/purchase

This was an awesome find. I had no idea what a collector’s item this is. Imagine my surprise when I found out that a set of four of these cups (in navy rather than ruby red) were auctioned by the famous Christie’s! This is a rare find from a German ocean liner.