Said I’d talk about my hanging plants… Well when we went to Chanticleer earlier this summer, they had the most wonderful hanging planters full of eatable things. So I thought I’d try some on a smaller scale. Off our deck I hung two wire baskets with that fiber stuff garden supply places sell to place in hanging wire baskets. We filled it with dirt and planted an assortment of herbs in them. The ones at Chanticleer were much larger and I think had holes in the sides of the fiber stuff with plants growing out the sides – they also had lettuce etc but I started after lettuce has gone by the way here in the mid Atlantic area! But still it was a terrific thing to be able to just go out on my deck and pick a bit of this and that as I needed it while cooking.

School has started so I’m busy with students. I’m working with my sophomores on lettering with a broad tipped pen. That’s where the oak ink I mentioned comes in. I took a lot of Oak husks from the English oak tree in my back yard and have been soaking them for a long time. They became pretty disgusting with mold etc but that has died down. I put them with water in an old large mayo jar my grandmother got from some place or other and in which I have stored hand spun yarn (another story). Then I read that I am supposed to use oak husks in the fall after they get all black and gooky – but the squirrels never let any last that long so… I’ll see what happens – perhaps this weekend but then Kevan and Erin and Cooper and Fletcher and Max are coming to visit and perhaps go down the shore with us – if its nice and watch the Ohio game on our little TV which they would rather be a larger TV… So it might be next weekend. Perhaps it will be very neat ink and perhaps it will be a big ol’ mess.