Going Home

I've had a wonderful couple of weeks spent at the folk's farm.  We had spent quite a bit of time planning the trip.  Coordinating schedules, pouring over dates and train schedules, and frankly, the logistics of getting siblings, nieces and nephews, and in-laws and out-laws on the same page and in the same location required the skills of a master magician!  We had a family sit-down Thanksgiving dinner.  My sister did a picture perfect wine basted turkey (a picture to be inserted later) and everyone contributed with other complementary dishes and I managed to get a couple of jars of the Feijoa Chutney, surviving the train, to the farm, but they were left on the kitchen counter in the mad dash to get out the door and down the road into the woods.  Was the first time I had been to my sister's new home and it is in a beautiful hilly wooded area and all I can say is I am glad I don't have to drive it in the winter; however, it is to kill for in the spring, summer and fall.  I am so spoiled here with my, if I am lucky 6-inches of annual snowfall and the schools close if it accumulates half an inch.  Oh my!

Mother had closed her little greenhouse and put her gardens to bed, and since I had managed to kill off my Eyelash Begonia, I have gotten several starts going from some new cuttings she gave me.  I had done some leaf vein cuttings a couple of years ago and was successful, but I'm doing the African Violet method with some of the leaves and stem cuttings.  Right now they are all in glasses of water until I can get some pots brought in from the potting shed.   She also gave me starts from Grandma Dean's kitchen window "cactus".  I really have to look for an ID.  She has managed to keep her plant going for 50 years.

We had some good mother/daughter bonding and memory making time.