Over the last 10 years my life has completely changed! 10 years ago I worked in finance and had a certain 'idea' of what my life would be. Thankfully for me, that all changed! It hasn't been an easy road, but I couldn't be more delighted to be where I am now. The last 5 years have been building something wonderful, of which I feel incredibly fortunate to have every single day. Keith works crazy hours to build our security and I stay at home making sure our lives are somewhat organized and balanced! I love to cook, garden, craft, read and work on my photography & photo processing. I also like to make sure I see my niece & nephew, Keith's nephews, the rest of our families and friends on a very regular basis.
I am creating this blog as a place for me to document what goes on in our lives! The gardens, what we cook from the gardens and around the year plus whatever else comes in our path. Paper crafting is on another blog: ashleynewbert.typepad.com.
I have spent the past 4 years restoring gardens that were here, adding my own tastes and building a huge vegetable garden. That is really the driving force behind the blog. I would like a place to keep track of the changing seasons, and the challenges and victories of those seasons. If there is one thing I've learned it's that the garden isn't quite as simple as putting a plant in the ground and watching it grow! I've learned quite a lot about the elements, nature, soil and anything else that can affect my garden. I still have quite a lot to learn. I would like to share some of what I've learned in hopes that others can build on the knowledge and hopefully I inspire!
My main inspiration has been my mother, Lillian. Growing up our yards were always beautiful - full of my Mom's creative touch. Gardens of vibrant colors that were in constant bloom from spring thru fall that made you want to be a part of what she created. I never understood it nor thought I'd be interested in it! I took it all for granted, never appreciating how much she worked at them. But once I was bitten by the bug, a container garden in Newport, RI, it's pretty much spiraled out of control! Now I've created my own little peace of heaven that is several acres of land with perennial gardens, annual gardens, a vegetable garden (that I fear is outgrowing it's 1000 sq foot space!), shrubs and my new fruit trees.
Mom is also the inspiration for how I cook. The vegetable garden didn't start with my Mom, her father had probably the biggest home vegetable garden I've ever seen. This is how I was taught to cook - with whatever is fresh. And also basically everything is made from scratch. I have never really known a pantry that was full of canned foods - even down to spaghetti sauce. Salad dressing has always been homemade, she makes her dough (I'm slowly learning that!). There were times as a child that I resented these things, wanting american cheese and white bread, but now I appreciate it. This blog is also going to be a place that my Mom and I can compile our recipes as we try new things & develop existing recipes
I hope that this becomes a place that you like to see what is going on, my adventures in this newest season of the garden, and the recipes that we develop and share. On a personal level, Keith & I are embarking on a whole new journey of trying to expand our family. We've decided that adoption is our path so we're working with Adoption RI to hopefully help a child from our state that needs a loving home. We're currently in the throes of endless paperwork and inspections that will hopefully be done in the next few weeks. From there we'll see how it goes! We're very very excited.
A picture of the vegetable garden September 2011:
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