Kind of a yarn along...

On my last post, I mentioned that I was preparing my T-shirt "yarn" for the rag rug I had been putting off for my youngest's room.  (see over here for how I cut the strips).  Last night, I had big plans to get a good chunk of it done, but due to "circumstances", let's say, this is how far I got.  5 t-shirts gives me about 6 1/2" (it's 30" wide) which means what I thought was a HUGE pile of old t-shirts will not go very far at all.  I will have to make sure my husband goes through his old t-shirts too, to donate to the project.

I just finished reading "We Took To The Woods" by Louise Dickinson Rich after seeing it on so many other blogs.  It had to be ordered from the University of Windsor's library and took it's time getting here, but I enjoyed it thoroughly, and if I ever come across a copy, I will be buying it.  I particularly like the parts where she explains what they make sure to have on hand for the parts of the year they are nearly housebound and can't get, as she calls it "Outside".

Also, I don't know if I have mentioned lately how much I LOVE doing my groceries in the back yard.  We were gone for the weekend, so Monday for dinner, I toured the backyard and almost the entire dinner was pulled from there.  We had green beans and cucumbers and potato latkes (and eggs and bread which I can't grow myself).  Last night...

...

...a tour of the garden yielded the ingredients for 3 salads to go with our farm market sausages.

My sister taught me the green tomato salad.  Apparently, a friend of theirs says it is Portuguese "peasant food" but the one we had at her place was delicious.  She chunked up the green tomatoes (I sliced them up a little thinner for N) and added 1/2 a red onion (I used white because that's what I had, but the red was definitely better) added some white wine vinegar (or whatever vinegar you like), a little olive oil (or whatever oil you like), salt and pepper.  I thought I made mine the same as hers, but hers was much much better.  

Not to mention it is just prettier too with the red onion instead of white.

The other salad was a mix of baby greens growing - the boys loved that one, and I think it is because we have been giving "greens" salad a rest for about a month, and the third was a zucchini coleslaw.  Grate the zucchini and let it sit for about 30 minutes and strain as much liquid out as possible, and then use that instead of cabbage in your coleslaw.  I added a few market carrots, some dressing, and there you have it.  It is much more mild than cabbage slaw...in fact, that bowl of salad was the only one empty at the end of dinner.

Linking up with Yarn Along at small things.  I haven't been for a while.