Giving Thanks

Today I am thankful for my parents. I am thankful they are on their way home again from a 5 day visit. Visits are always hard for me, and I often lose my temper more than I should. I am thankful for their visit too though, it was nice to spend time with them. They put together a fabulous Turkey dinner with all the trimmings for us and Alain's whole family. Their methods are a little unconventional, but everything turned out alright. Our dogs were well behaved angels and the children (our nephews) were okay too.

My parents have a knack at turning leftovers into something great - like squash risotto or turkey fried rice. I pretty much would have pulled out the bowl of cold turkey bits and called that dinner. I could learn a lot from them.

This week I am thinking about our garden and how to make it great. I am thinking about fruit and veggies to grow next year too. I hope to get some garlic planted this week, maybe even a few raspberry bushes. I also just ordered a bunch of fall bulbs to plant.

We spent a good part of the weekend watching The Edible Garden, which was aired on BBC2 in the Spring. It's about growing food to eat alongside flowers. It is something I have been considering for a while and plan to start implementing soon. We have fairly generous flowerbed around the front of the house and it seems a shame to let all that full-sun go to waste. I also like the idea of having everything where I can see it, where I will walk past it every day and where I will be forced to pay attention to it. There are definitely worse things than being forced to pay attention to the raspberry bush, or a cherry tomato plant. I can think of a lot worse things!

I highly recommend watching the Edible Garden if you can find it and and if are interested in that sort of thing.  The host Alys is a little kooky, but I found the whole series very inspirational (it made me wish for spring all over again!).